Soldier-Scientists

Under Old Soldier George Washington's portrait and Old Soldier Napoleon Bonaparte's framed maxims ("There Is No Strength Without Justice"), a military court convened last week at the Army Chemical Center at Edgewood, Md. to judge ten young privates who never wanted to be old soldiers at all. The ten: drafted college-trained scientists stationed at the center to carry on Army chemical research. The charge: bringing discredit to the Army with bawdy songs and raucous conduct during an off-post beer party.

Grated Carrots. Behind the court-martial was a tender Army sore spot. Needled mercilessly for "wasting" the nation's young scientific brains in routine basic training, the Army high command had set up a policy of assigning draftees with some scientific education to special groups such as the Enlisted Scientific and Professional Personnel. Fresh from campuses and freer academic life, the ESPPs kicked hard against regimentation, cut sloppy military figures, took to hissing noncoms and arguing with officers.

Old Army types complained that the soldier-scientists were coddled with special barracks and mess halls, interviewed incessantly to make certain they were happy, chauffeured to their jobs instead of marched, allowed to lead an undisciplined 40-hour week consisting of 36 hours' laboratory work and four hours' Army duty.

The Old Army was most riled by an informal fraternity that soon sprang up at Chemical Corps, Ordnance Corps and Quartermaster Corps bases where the Army's 3,300 ESPPs were stationed. Its name: Phi Tau Alpha. Its Greek-letter symbol was scrawled on walls, carved on railings, sometimes written over salads in grated carrots. In reality, it had no meaning beyond a concise four-letter fate for the Army, easily understood when Greek letters were carried over to English equivalents (F.T.A.). But some old soldiers mistook Phi Tau Alpha for a cabal, possibly a spy organization. They put Army Criminal Investigation to work tracking down its prime movers, threatened to call in the FBI.

Grated Nerves. The Maryland Chemical Center resentment flared one night last September after 100 ESPPs hired a nearby boat club for a party. Togged in civilian clothes, they drank beer, played bridge, settled down to sing homemade songs.* Irked by the noise and obscenity, neighbors called the cops. State troopers, accompanied by an Army Criminal Investigation agent, swooped out of the bush, grabbed a handful of men while the majority filtered into the darkness. When the handful was ordered court-martialed, the trial became a celebrated case. ESPPs at the Chemical Center and other ESPP "campuses" chipped in $300 to a defense fund, hired flamboyant Baltimore Lawyer Hyman Pressman, a longtime expert at fighting for desperate causes.

Pressman's defense last week was flashy but futile. He challenged officers assigned to sit on the court until the court was left with only one major and two warrant officers. He argued that the cops had no evidence that the accused were noisemakers, produced neighbors who said that the party had been orderly. But his defense character witnesses were no help: they were fellow ESPPs, who bristled the court by admitting under cross-examination that they hated the Army. At trial's end the three-man court deliberated six hours, found the ten defendants guilty, fined them $25 each, restricted them to post for 25 days, demoted each one grade in rank. The Chemical Center's 400 ESPPs were incensed but silent; Old Armymen were openly delighted. Said one: "Maybe now these boys will get over the idea that this is a college campus."

*Printable sample: Take down your service flag, mother, Your son is an ESPP. He'll never get wounded in action, Extracting the square root of three.

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