Free Generally Speaking by Claudia J. Kennedy

to his wife.
    “I just shot him,” the woman announced. “He's fooling around with another woman. He's been stealing meat from the mess hall and tires from the motor pool.”
    “Did you call the ambulance?” Benson asked.
    “He's out in the backyard. I called the police.”
    The cook lived and returned to duty. The wife was never charged.
    Some of the cooks were drunks and gamblers who insisted on taking their pay in cash rather than in direct bank deposit, so that their wives in town couldn't get their hands on it. First Sergeant Benson did her best to intervene and was often successful in making sure the women at least had some food money for their families. But every payday we could count on a minor crisis in the mess hall when some cooks went on a bender and were reported AWOL.
    If First Sergeant Benson couldn't locate them at the usual after-hours clubs or sleeping it off, she began calling the local hospitals and jails. The police were generally understanding about minor drunk and disorderly charges, since Fort McClellan was a major local industry. But the sheriff's deputies would not release my arrested soldiers to my control until I came back “with a man.” So I began taking my executive officer to escort the soldiers back to the post where they faced their Article 15 (company punishment), a step below court-martial. We never resorted to physical violence.
    But the male commander of another company was old school. As soon as he got his drunken soldiers out of jail, he would slam them up against the brick wall a few times. His first sergeant asked me, “Why do you mother your men, ma'am?” He believed illegal beating of soldiers was an effective control measure. I did not.
    He had his methods. First Sergeant Benson and I had ours. My plan was to reestablish Army standards in my company and lean hard enough on the marginal performers through legal means to modify their behavior.
    With the cooperation of the Military Police, I kept up steady pressure on the unruly men in the barracks. It was simply unacceptable that there could be a housing unit on a U.S. Army post in which the company commander and senior NCOs could not enter without fear. First Sergeant Benson and I were determined to resolve this situation. We staged the first of many unannounced inspections while still working on the supply problem.
    It was late at night and what I found was shocking. Normally the second-floor troop bay would have been divided by partitions into equally sized living quarters. But the dominant, most violent men had pushed the partitions back, usurping the space of the weaker soldiers. The barracks were filthy, with cigarette butts stubbed out on the floor, dirty latrines, and curtains hanging askew from the windows. Even though I had once chafed at the rigidity of barracks inspections in my early training, I realized the importance of establishing physical order as a precursor to more subtle but profound personal and professional order.
    The MPs moved ahead of me, enforcing the first sergeant's commands.
    “Stand up when the commander is in your area,” First Sergeant Benson ordered a soldier lounging on his bed.
    From the other end of the poorly lit barracks, we heard a woman's grumbling voice as she hastily departed. Someone moaned from that direction, “Give us a break. We're off duty.”
    “Yeah, First Sergeant,” the man on the bed echoed, “we've been working all day.”
    The big MP corporal glared at the soldier.
    “You won't stand up?” First Sergeant Benson asked.
    “On your feet,” the MP echoed.
    “Hey, man, I told her. I'm off duty.”
    I nodded to the MP. He dragged the soldier to his feet and handcuffed him. We had a paddy wagon waiting downstairs. Now the rest of the MP squad covered the doors and I searched the area. A short time later we had a pillowcase heavy with drugs and knives. First Sergeant Benson's notebook contained the names of over ten men to appear for Article 15 hearings or face