Capt. Ed O’Brien
Heritage Project Officer
Colorado Wing
Research: Lt. Col. Mark Hess, Georgia Wing
As told by: Bart Altschuh, former CAP cadet and Queens squadron drillmaster
Bart Altschuh was a New York Wing cadet and squadron drillmaster in 1962 in Queens. ’62 was Civil Rights and Kennedy. Russian missiles came and left Cuba; John Glenn orbited; Vietnam fired up -- a streak of events that produced the epochal decade. .. the ’60s.
This story is about a Civil Air Patrol drill team and one young man. But most of all it’s about life learned on an armory drill pad, one step at time.
The following are Bart’s words. I think it best to just listen while he talks. He tells it right because he lived it. His saga starts at the Fulton Armory in Queens.
At drill team meetings, we were of a purpose. We were volunteers of volunteers. We were of love. We took in and joined with any comers, and taught them our snappy ways.
Clumsy? Not a problem. “Smith, take Franz over there and show him how to do a facing movement.” Then Smith or whomever would work with Franz, for an hour or whatever it took, with love and patience until our newcomer was ready.
We practiced and perfected every single aspect of basic drill. In our hearts we knew that the Manhattan and Bronx teams looked down at us. Called us “farmers.”
I’d seen them, on occasion. There was something special to their style. It was extra-light-flavor precision. We were, by comparison, a little heavy-footed. We were tap. They were ballet. They floated, they drifted, but perfectly. We were as one. They were, apparently, truly one.
Us? We had the mix. We were not much demographically dominated by any one particular racial minority. This mix appeared in our team philosophy, not just ethnically. Variety was our strength.
Regulations stated that the teams were to be sized in placement. Other teams took this to mean “tall guys in front or tall guys in back.” Us? We put short guys in the middle. The effect was like looking at a set of Wurlitzer organ pipes.
In short, we were different. We were ... just us. All we wanted and loved was to march together.
Then one year, the year I was drillmaster, we did. In 1962, Queens beat everyone. We were the New York Wing champions. The precision of Bronx and Manhattan turned out to be fragile as thin glass.
First of all, we had a system, unlike Bronx and Manhattan where the drillmaster position was held out as an object of competition and was not awarded until the last moment. On our team, the drillmaster was selected early and practiced with the team as drillmaster throughout the year.
This did a couple of things for us. For one, as drillmaster I got used to working with the team and they got used to working with me. At first, when I felt like giving a command, I just let her rip. Some would respond, some would not ... our first parade was a disaster. The object, of course, was to perform as a team, not to trick people, even accidentally.
So I learned, like the previous drillmaster, to talk to the team first. “At the coming corner, we’ll do a column right ... everybody ready?” etc. It was the democratic way, not the hazing principle. It was love, teamwork, cooperation.
Let me say something about ethnicity. As indicated, we had a broad mix. There was no predominance of any one group or neighborhood or religion. For the most part, we did not know each other’s particulars. The fact is, we were all different as individuals, and we all absolutely and unequivocally loved each other.
We were, without knowing it, the real deal.
That trick we had of taking outliers aside and showing them the ropes? We carried it over into all we did. In the Flushing Armory, there is a balcony. We used to practice the basic routine, of course, but we’d take members and send them up to the balcony, one at a time, to watch as we performed the competition routine. In the middle of an oblique, I’d call a halt, and not only could we see who was out of line, but so could the person in the balcony. From the balcony, the big picture was all the more clear.
Obliques, the diagonal movement between left and right flank, wherein the entire team must shift -- not at a right angle, but a 45-degree angle -- are the bane of many a precision-marching endeavor. The left and right oblique are part of the required basic drill to be performed at every competition.
And so it went throughout the year. Squadron on Friday, drill team on Sunday. We marched from about noon to about five. There were parades sometimes. There was great fun always.
In the end, the state competition was held that year at the Whitestone Armory, not so much unlike the Flushing Armory. Complete with balcony.
Bronx picked their drillmaster at the last minute and we heard that the Manhattan team did not like theirs. At Queens, there was no question of liking or not liking me as drillmaster. To most team members, I was “Bart.” At squadron meetings, many team members outranked me. I was not even a cadet officer, which was a source of derision and bemusement to our elite inner-city brethren.
We shaved up, lowered ourselves into our starched competition uniforms, peeled away the stockings that protected the spit-shine luster on our shoes, attached the slingshots -- elastic with garter snaps running from shirt to sock tops, which held our shirt tails down — inside our pants.
Bronx and Manhattan performed beautifully. There was no denying the perfection of their movements. It was like ballet; they were true artists. You could detect a certain fatigue there, though. It was almost like they were saying, “Give us what we’ve earned so we can be out of here.”
But Queens? As drillmaster, it was my job to march out first, to salute the judges and say, “Sir, I have the honor to present the Queens Group Drill Team.” Our epaulette decoration was a squared blue letter “Q” with an eagle coming through, talons outstretched.
Our guidon (flag) bearer was Blackwell. Blackwell had the distinction of being guidon bearer because he wanted to. His posture was a thing to behold, if not emulate. He, like the rest of the team, was perfect ... due to aspiration and love.
I think Blackwell’s family was from the West Indies. I know that his skin was very dark, and I was shocked when he told me he wanted to become a photographer later in life. No one else I ever knew professed such an aspiration. To me, it was like saying, “I want to be a butterfly collector.” I mean ... what’s that?
When I went to his house once to visit, he chastised me because I’d been warned not to come over. His parents did not approve of me. I was not allowed in.
But at drill team meetings, Blackwell — like Elston, Lindholm, Boremski, Serbent, Cattenacio, Wolfe, Horowitz, Franz, Davis, Zeller, Moran, Hernandez, Mojica, on and on, even Altschuh — there we were, for those hours, one.
And on that June day in 1962, in the middle of the New York Wing Drill Team Competition, when we knew the obliques were coming up, I called out, “Right Oblique!” The team shifted, easily, precisely, perfectly, in our pipe organ whoopsy-daisy lineup. We marched, lightly, rightly, as if — and it was — heaven. No deviation waver or stutter. Absolutely perfect guide and cover. We did as we were supposed to do and as we loved.
The love, the love. You could hear — not a gasp, but a collective intake of breath from the crowds, the judges. And yes, the other teams, Manhattan and the Bronx, standing around as spectators.
In that moment, in that way, and forever ... we won.
My life turned. Almost immediately, I went into the Air Force, based on the AQE score I’d taken at age 13. Yes, from there, my life turned. In the near-final analysis, which this may be, it turned for the better.
I was very happy to be asked if I would like to join the Civil Air Patrol. There was nothing nicer, in my opinion, for the kids of New York, than CAP in the early ’60’s.
I learned true love there.
At 17 Bart took an Air Force hitch. He worked in a warehouse, shuffling parts and paperwork and, quite slowly, became clinically blind.
By 1967, a combination of macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa took his sight and sent his life in another direction.
Along the way Bart changed his name, became an author and now writes under the nom de plume “Jesse Miller.” He lives in West Virginia with his wife.
To function as a professional writer while blind is not unknown, but it is quite rare. To achieve Bart’s level of craftsmanship is exceptional. To be happy with life, no matter the troubles ... now we are talking incandescence.
In CAP we teach life skills that serve for as long as we live. Bart is perhaps the perfect example. Living life fully, no matter the calamity or obstacles, “that’s the drill.” Bart should know. After all, he’s the drillmaster!
Jesse Miller’s (Bart’s) stories can be sampled online.
