THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, May 24, 1995 TAG: 9505240054
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Profile
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 96 lines
THE OLD MAN had a gnarled and weathered look like the splayed limbs of live oaks shadowing the yards of homes facing Little Bay in the Ocean View section of Norfolk.
Rodolph Price Jr. lives in that neighborhood. And he can remember when many of the trees were just seedlings. Or not there at all. He will be 100 years old on Friday.
When I arrived at his home, I found Price in bed. He gave me a startled look of recognition, raised his legs above the mattress, turned his hips, and, allowed his leg weight to propel him upright. Planting a pair of blue socks on the floor, he shook my hand.
``I didn't ask for this, you did,'' he said. ``I don't recollect things well.''
He's a flinty soul. He led me to his living room with thumps on his cane, then settled ever-so-slowly into an easy chair. He's a man of medium height, lean with sinewy forearms. His face is even-featured, marked by a high forehead and a pair of keen eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
Price has lived in his bayfront house for 67 years. ``I bought it and the lot next door for $4,000,'' he said.
More remarkable than the purchase price, or his excellent digestion - ``I cook about 95 percent of the food I eat and I can eat most anything'' - is his record of military service.
He was a wagoner in the First World War. Wagoner? Try finding that in a listing of military job descriptions today.
Born and raised in Norfolk, he was only 22, with a pregnant wife when he enlisted in the National Guard in 1917.
At that time there was the fear that German espionage agents would blow nearly everything in Norfolk to smithereens.
His unit walked security patrols at the coal piers, the water works, the electrical plants and bridges. They patrolled with Springfield rifles on their tunic shoulders.
The local Guardsmen were later transferred to Camp McClelland in Alabama where they helped build barracks and other buildings. It was while there that his National Guard unit was activated. Price, who had been an infantryman,
was suddenly a wagoner with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He was assigned to the 104th Engineers Train.
``A wagoner was responsible for a wagon,'' he explained. ``I had a helper in my charge. And was also responsible for the two mules or horses that pulled the wagon.''
The wagons were from 8 to 10 feet long and 5 feet wide, a lot like the broad-wheeled Conestoga wagons used by pioneers crossing the prairies. ``About the only difference was that the covering for our wagons was khaki-colored,'' Price said.
He had problems with the first mules assigned to him. ``It was typical Army,'' he grumbled. ``The damn mules had come from Spain and didn't understand a word of English! You'd tell one to `whoa' and he couldn't care less. I didn't know anything about mules. My father had horses.''
``We had to treat the mules like race horses,'' he said. ``They had to have their hooves cleaned of rocks. And we'd curry and brush them until they looked like show animals.''
The Army gave him new mules when he arrived in France by troopship. They had to be broken in, taught to obey the wagoner. ``A mule was more important than a soldier,'' he said. ``He could go places, pull a load where a truck couldn't go.''
During the Meuse-Argonne campaign of 1918 he saw plenty of combat. He would drive the mules up to the front lines loaded with barbed wire, pickaxes, saws and shovels.
With horses shying and rearing during near misses by artillery, it was dangerous work. About one man in three in his company died during the campaign. He suffered wounds from attacks of mustard gas.
``It was worse for gas at night. You couldn't see what color the gas was and didn't know whether it was phosgene or mustard gas after dark. So our side would ring a gong to let you know which gas was coming.''
The treatment for the mustard gas, which peeled flesh from his arms and legs was nitric acid, liberally applied. ``Just burned like hell,'' he said.
When the war ended he returned to Norfolk and put in 32 years with the Norfolk Fire Department and 10 more as a civilian employee at the Norfolk Naval Base.
``War isn't a pretty thing, let me tell you,'' he said. His two sons served as chief petty officers in the Navy in World War II. Both are dead. His wife died nearly two decades ago. He has many grand-children.
Price was honored with an early birthday party last week by the Rodolph Price 29th Division Association which had earlier recognized his service to country by adopting his name.
Before leaving the old vet, I asked him what Army task had given him the most difficulty during the war.
He had no trouble answering.
``They issued us gas masks for the mules,'' he said, looking me dead in the eyes. ``You ever try to put a gas mask on a mule? Get it onto his mouth and over his eyes? I'll tell you the $%$&%(CT)$(CT)%$&(CT)%! mule wanted no part of it. It was one helluva job.''
Bet it was, too. by CNB