[This is an excerpt from a transcript of interviews between Emmilou Collins Edmonds Adams and her father, Carlos C. Collins, recorded February 14, 1982. Passages in italics are his actual words, although portions may have been omitted for brevity. Portions in brackets [] were added for clarification.]
Emmilou Edmonds –
I would like for you to tell me again about that New Years’ Eve escapade that kept you from going to Officer Candidate School.
Carlos Collins --
OK, let’s see. I was a sergeant in Headquarters Company, 142nd Infantry, located at Camp Bowie. I had gotten an appointment to go to Officers’ Training School sometime about the first of January 1918. I was on leave at home in Abilene. I got a call from my captain of my company notifying me that I had been selected and that I should come back. Came back and got there December 31st.
That night I was with 2 or 3 other sergeants in the Headquarters tent there and when midnight came sounded like all the whistles, etc. in Fort Worth were popping off. There were 2 or 3 guns in the orderly tent there with blank cartridges. We stepped outside and counted off one, two, three, and emptied guns in the air celebrating and the officer of the day was right there just caught us cold turkey. Got our names.
A day or two after that I got a call from the Colonel of the Regiment to come over. I went over, stood at attention, saluted him. He said, “Your name was turned in by the Officer of the Day as participating in something an officer shouldn’t be doing.” I told him exactly how it happened. He chewed me out pretty good. He said as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t going to affect my standing in the school. He said, “You’ve been selected to go out there but it was kind of poor recommendation for someone going to Officers’ School to take part in kid stuff.”
I waited around about a week; they sent me out there (another place in Fort Worth). As far as I knew, everything was going all right. I thought I was getting along fine, and in fact I was. I knew what I was doing. I had been to Texas A&M.
About a month or 6 weeks later (school was to last 3 months) I got a call from my captain to come back over to headquarters. He wanted to see me one night. He told me that the Colonel of the Regiment had gotten a call from the commanding general of the Camp wanting to know what action had been taken on the incident of that night. He told me I would have to see the Colonel and that he was going to ask me whether I wanted a Court Marshal or disciplinary action. He said I should ask for Disciplinary action because if you get Court Marshal on your record it won’t be very good.
So I went over there and went in a formal way, saluted him, and stood at attention and he said the commanding General has asked from me what action was taken on the incidents that happened concerning you and others on the night of January 1 (December 31) and he said you will have to take such disciplinary action as the commanding officer of the Regiment sees fit or go through a Court Marshal. I told him that whatever disciplinary action the Colonel was going to give that’s what I would take.
He said, “You are reduced to the rank of private.” I was a sergeant with a pretty good record. He said as far as he was concerned it wasn’t going to affect me at school. I went back to school and stayed the rest of the three months. I felt like there was something over my head all the time. But I thought I had studied three months and I was going to make it. They were kicking out people all the time that they weren’t going to commission. It was understood that for those they were going to commission there would be two weeks of paperwork, necessary correspondence, etc. Well, I had that and the last day of that, the commanding officer of the school came over and said that I had to report to the commanding General that they weren’t going to commission me because of that incident and that I could go back to my company.
It was kind of funny that I left the company as a sergeant and got back to it a private in the rear rank. My company commander said there was another school going to open up and he would recommend me to go there. I had had a belly full of that school and I told him I didn’t want to go to another school. If I had worked that hard and that’s what they’d do to me I didn’t want any more of it. He said, “Well, I’m going to recommend that your grade of sergeant be restored.”
It wasn’t very long after that I was expecting to go overseas with an advanced detachment. I think that what happened was that commanding officer of the regiment was in pretty bad races with the rest of the big army and he was afraid not to do something drastic there. The reason I think that is that it wasn’t too long after that that he was reduced to the rank of brigadier general (from major general) and was transferred somewhere.
Emmilou Edmonds –
Was this before or after you got married?
Carlos Collins –
That was afterwards – no, it was before.
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