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G.I. Joe Determined to Get KindOf World He Wants, Averill SaysBy Nadine Subotnik.,1WITH a record behind him that would have been a travel agent’s Utopia in pre-war days, Major Beryl K. Averill is back in Cedar Rapids convinced that his country and his city are the greatest places on the globe.He has been in Ireland, England, Scotland, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Sicily and Italy. He’s shuttled back and forth between these points. Altogether he’s run up some 25,000 miles.He has worked with American men, been on duty with the French and British. He fought in the African campaign for six months. He was a town mayor in Africa for a short time.'v X-***• s/v „ •• v#.:* nM.Vv +*miHe’s Got Opinions.Major Averill can’t tell what he did most of those 30 months that he was overseas. He has always been in the adjutant general’s department, though, and much of his work has been in the field of personnel.From his extended treks about the theaters of war and his extensive contact with the people of other nations and with our own men, the major has drawn a lot of opinions and conclusions that he gives you if properly urged, First of all, he tells you that ‘‘everybody loves Americans, everybody thinks America’s a wonderful place and everybody, no matter how rich or poor, wants to come here.”“When you see these other places, especially when you see how much differently we have come through the war than they have, you don’t blame those people feeling that way either,” Major Averill says. “The more a man sees the more a man appreciates the United States.”Arab to offer him for his armyjacket and he got the Arab up to 6,000 francs ($120). Only difficulty was Major Averill had only one, which he wouldn’t part with.“You never realize how valueless money is till you get to these countries. Money doesn’t mean a thing. Goods are what the people are interested in. And one of the top exchange mediums among all the Yanks is American whisky.”—Gazette photo.MAJOR AVERILL.Arab boys become mascots, and a mascot is a vital part of any company. For proof of that, Major Averill tells you about the mascot dogs.“No matter how many times you instruct the men about leaving dogs behind when you go from one country to another, no matter how you search, when you arrive at the new country the same dogs the men had at the old place are with you, he says. “Who was I to try to outsmart a thousand G.I.’s?”OwHlt;OWlt;good WednchomeThom?candidThe 106-de plans and 1 moon'perspirallylavishWit]DewejafterstorekhungfromconveiPeo]on thWhy NOT Buy War Bonds?Following that line of reasoning, he comes directly to the thing that’s puzzling him now “Why does anyone have to be asked, to be urged to buy war bonds?” “Everywhere I’ve ever been, even at the front, American soldiers buy bonds and more bonds Every time there’s a drive back in this country the men overseas are sharing in it too,” he says.It is true that the men overseas have slightly novel ways of putting a war bond campaign across, the major explains with a grin. They make their quotas, though (One “novel” way, it develops, is patterned after the Algerian lottery—the prize, a $1,000 bond) That saving-investing attribute of the modern American soldier is a good indication of the difference such a soldier has from the lektime brand, according to Major Averill. Every soldier today is a 'thinking soldier, he says—a man who has definite ideas of the world as it is today and of the way he wants it for the future.Our Men Can Think.“The army encourages our soldiers to think. Wherever you go there are newspapers and they don’t pull any punches—I imagine the Stars and Stripes (an army newspaper) has as big a circulation as any paper in history. There are broadcasts, there are forums, there are trips to points of interest—always something to make the men think.”What is this going to mean exactly in the postwar world? “It means that the soldier is making plans and that he’s going to get the kind of world he wants or go into politics himself.”Whether any of the present veterans’ organizations will be the one that will represent the soldier in the postwar world will depend on the soldier’s enlarged outlook when the war is over, Major Averill believes.French Slow Eaters.never feels cheated. He knows he’s! The TvSl0*1 *nthe best-equipped the best-1 derful fighters, according to Ma-trained, the best-looked-after sol- l°r Averill, as are the British. The lone time you cant hurry theFrench, though, is at mess.Knows Family Safe. “They never serve less than 10One other factor brightens the courses to a meal. You just can’t outlook for the fighting American eat with them unless you’ve got a of course—he always has the satis- couple of hours. I’ve never seen an faction of knowing his family is American who lasted past the safe. Major Averill compares him fifth course. A convenient habit with the French or British soldier, they hatfe is announcing the whole who always has his family to meal before you begin. That way worry about. Just the same it’s the you can pick out what you want home front in any country—in- to concentrate on in advance.” eluding America — that he feels The contrast of coming from has the real war heroes. Africa to Italy was a revelation,* « « according to the major, for inGetting down from the Ameri-1 Italy the people weren’t h^Sgingcan soldier en masse to the career Uorm°nef» ye ^ ?^rT£°of Major Beryl Averill, it becomes I *°°d- Africa »wa^u:l0 ftaiv B evident that a postwar historian Lp ”or geographer will do well to get 3 smallhis hands on the Averill photo- pa;£“fs el 4Uin{, ahnntgraphs (some 500 of them are still ^he surprising thing a~°utin censor’s hands pending the °kttrhpnarmi«tilt;uO tnal items—glassware, kitchen-^ • a * n * -a ware, etc. On the whole, though, Major Averill is a Cedar Rapids L^e people were harder to donational guardsman, with service business with, didn’t seem to havein the guard now totaling up to sense of humor that the peo-23 years. National guardsmen pje jn 0mer countries had. agree this is their longest encamp- Major Averill was in the vi-ment. cinity when Vesuvius erupted—aWith First Unit in Ireland. [foot and a half of dust went over-r. i a ^ everything. He was also fascinatedPromoted to captain just beforepawmoji* -“the serviceman’sMen Well Cared For,This opportunity and encouragement to think is one reason the morale of today’s army is high, the major contends, and he advances a couple of other reasons —the medical department of the army and the Red Cross.“The soldier knows that the ’medical department is outstanding. He knows that if he is wounded or sick, he’s going to have the best care and the best chance of recovering,“Also, the soldier has a great friend in the Red Cross. I can’t say enough for it. I’ve never met a Red Cross worker who didn’t have a charming personality—and they go right up to the front with the men. I’ve never gone to the Red Cross with a problem or sent a man to them that the workers didn't give assistance.”“Put all this together and it means the American fighting manhe was called to active duty inL? M pJanuary, 1941, he left Cedar Rap- twinids for Camp Claiborne with an People Friendly.advance section of the guard. He Every place the friendliness of was stationed at Camp Claiborne the people impressed him. All of until he went overseas a year them have picked up American later, landing in Ireland with the slang (when Americans get to a first contingent of Yanks. country they ruin the language forIn Ireland he became adjutant the natives, he says and American general of American forces sta- movies taught the natives slang tioned in the British Isles, a po- even the Yanks didn’t know).sition that started him traveling They greet every soldier with athrough England and Scotland. “Hello, Joa-Ask an Englishman or a French-I ve been the luckiest guy in man how to get some place and,the ^ world about all that travel- nQ ma^er how busy he is, he’lling, he says. stop to take you there, even in-From June to October of 1942 troduce you to the manager of the he was exchange officer, which shop or what-have-you, accord-meant operating “one heck of a ing to Major Averill. big exchange business, distribut- Like the rest of the American ing everything from soup to nuts soldiers, Major Averill carried a to American forces from the dictionary around with him and army’s warehouses.” didn’t have too much trouble mak-In Tunis?™ c*imtvnrrn in himself understood. Mixing inIn Tunisian campaign. English, French, American slang,When American troops went to he usually got his point over, he Africa the major was with them says, although sometimes he had and he was in on the battle of to take a roundabout way to airstrips and passes” that the do it.Thirty-fourth division gave the “Funny part of it all, though,Germans. is that wherever I went I alwaysAfter the Tunisian campaign he into someone from eithergot into his special duty work, 9 or t Thirty-an assignment that saw him liv-l^^l1* ?Hpnnniv,^fpr wWp ing and working closely with the Sree^ng is Hello, solder, whereFrench and British and always /oni qnmpnnpTnm PrSnrout to be someone from cedar traveling. | Rapids »Those 25,000 miles were made by boat, by plane and mostly by peep, the latter a mode of transportation you get hardened to, Major Averill says.Africa is an amazing country as far as the major is concerned. It’s modern and it’s old-fashioned. It’s hot and it’s cold. It’s wet and it’s dry.“On the one hand there are its modern cities, its marvelous roads and utilities. On the other are its sheiks and such—just like in Biblical times ”“It reminds you of home more than any other country because it’s so largely agricultural. They grow everything there. I used to try to think of things to ask them about, things that we grow here. Theiranswer was always ‘we grow it too’.”Barter Experts.The native Arabs attach no value to money, according to Major Averill—they won’t sell you an egg for $10 but they’ll give you two for a package of cigarets.One day the major decided to see how much he could get anCARNEY'SIHeld Reunions.Four of the men from the old Thirty-fourth — Major Averill, Major John Parke, Capt. Leo Severa and Capt. Donald G. Winger t—always kept in contact with each other. They managed to keep track of where the other three were. Every three or four months they had a real reunion.Major Parke, Capt. Severa and Capt. Wingert are still in the Mediterranean theater — the only national guard officers from Cedar Rapids still there as far as Major Averill knows.Averill himself is at home at 2011 Park avenue SE on 20-day leave. He will report back to Fort Worth, Texas. After that he doesn’t know his assignment but whatever it is he’s ready, he says —one thing a soldier never does is tamper with fate.Major Averill’s father, F. R. Averill, lives at 832 A avenue NE. His mother died while he was overseas. He also has two brothers in service, Lt. Paul Averill, who’s been in the navy 22 years and iswith the medical corps somewhere in the Pacific, and Staff Sgt. Eugene Averill, who left Cedar Rapids with the national guard too and is now in California.
Newspaper Details
Cedar Rapids Gazette
Cedar Rapids, Iowa, US
Thu, Jun 29, 1944
Page 25
Full Page
Clipped by
Brittany B.
USA 18 Apr 2023
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