John W. Morris
A ..
The younger students were not. Among the graduate students, we did have some veterans. Some
of our professors had been involved in the military, not necessarily the war, but the Army students
were a cohesive unit. There was no other group like our group. There may have been individuals
and there certainly were some very fine people, but we became very competitive within ourselves.
They only gave us three A's per course. Our group was graded on a curve, and if you got a you
had to get an A if you wanted a B average. That happened to me in fluid mechanics. It was a
summer make-up course. Well, then I felt that I had to get an A. I had to compete with these smart
guys, like Van Allen and Jennings and Lee, to get my A. Well, I managed-I got a couple.
Q .. Pretty stiff competition.
A .. Very stiff, but it was a challenge and brought out the best. Also a lot of fun.
Q .. So you finished up your studies there in July, the summer of 1948, at Iowa?
A
Yes, June, and from there we were sent directly to the Engineer Officers Advanced Course at Fort
Belvoir.
As a captain I couldn't get quarters at Fort Belvoir when I reported to the advanced course. Gerry
and I could not find a place to rent because the post-World War II housing situation was still very
critical. Finally, as did most of our group, we bought a house in Alexandria, off of Route
It was a real shoe box, about 900 square feet, and we paid ,500 for it. I borrowed 0 from
my father for the down payment. The thing had no heating system. Whoever had lived in there
had sold the heating system; the house was a mess. Looking back on it, I'm a bit ashamed of
putting my family in it, but we had many friends who would come over on weekends and help
fix up this house. I had an uncle who was in the heating and plumbing business, so he put in the
heating system for me. I sold it in April 1949 once our overseas orders were announced and made
a little money on it.
There were several students in our area so we had car pools, and the girls could get together and
work out their transportation problems. The house we had has been torn down and replaced by
a 7-Eleven.
The advanced course was a required course to prepare captains to become company commanders.
I'd already been a company commander, as had almost everybody else in the class that I know
of. Having just come from graduate school, our study habits were good, so we really had a very
easy and interesting year because it was a different subject.
The most interesting event that particular year was the blizzard of 1949, which created "Operation
Snowbound." Major General Lewis A. Pick was the Missouri River Division engineer in Omaha,
and President [Harry] Truman asked him if he could help relieve the suffering of both people and
livestock.
General Pick agreed, and I was one of 10 or
officers pulled out of the advanced course in
Belvoir and sent to Omaha, Nebraska, to assist in relieving the blizzard problems. We arrived at
General Pick's office about 3 o'clock in the morning. He
half asleep I think, but very
sure of what he was going to do. He sat us all down around the table, and in front of each of us
was a purchase order book, a set of car keys, and a map.
He said, "Now, the map tells you where you're going, the car keys will get you there, and that
little coupon book allows you to buy whatever you need to do your job. So, as soon as this
meeting's over, I want you all to take off, and I don't want to hear any more from you unless
you've got a serious problem that you just can't handle. I don't think any of you are going to have
any problems like that"-or words to that effect.
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