I mentioned previously the fact that Fort Hood was a wild place in 1971. One of the things fueling that was the voracious demand for drugs by young soldiers who were recently returned from Vietnam and the rush to fill that "need" by the local folks. Fort Hood wasn't unique in that respect, I think drugs were prevalent wherever young people were gathering in large numbers. I resent the image of the returned Vietnam vet being a drug crazed, disfunctional, dangerous loony on the edge of a shooting spree. 1970s TV and movies had more to do with that stereotype than any returning vet. But that is not to say that drugs weren't a problem in the military; just like almost every college campus, even most high schools. Young people found themselves on that endless merry-go-round of seeking, using, crashing, seeking, using....and it required a lot of money to sustain the habits at the levels a lot of those young soldiers were at. So when a soldier runs out of dope, out of money, and out of friends he can tap, the next alternative is to steal something that can be transformed into the drug of choice. So this resulted in the requiring of armed guards on the PXs, snack bars, gas stations and banks on post...places that had never required guards before.
The Army has always had a problem with barracks thievery. You live in close quarters, you get complacent, you go to the shower and leave your locker unlocked and someone "gets you". A more determined thief doesn't need to find a locker unlocked, he can always find a way to get it opened. The old expression was that a lock..."just keeps an honest man honest...it won't stop a thief". But what keeps an honest man honest more than a lock is the fact that soldiers in general view a barracks thief as the lowest form of life. Getting caught stealing from a "buddy" creates a rep worse than the Scarlet Letter. The offender often "falls down the stairs" on the way to being turned in. "Blanket Parties" (the unsuspecting thief has a blanket thrown over him so he can't fight back and several others pound the crap out of him while he is under the blanket) were common for barracks thieves. The Army even went so far as to punish soldiers who left their personal gear unsecured...punish the victim, sometimes before he even was a victim.
You needed to know all that before you could see the depth of the problem in 1971. In previous times, you would at least have a suspicion of who was responsible (many young soldiers were treated to a blanket party on nothing more than a hunch). At Hood, there was so much thievery in the barracks and parking lots that it was impossible to tell who the offenders were. Now, those of you who are familiar with barracks life are thinking at this point, "What about the First Sergeant's safe?" Soldiers who live in the barracks who own exceptionally valuable items have the option of locking them up in the First Sergeant's safe, with all the proper receipts and so on. Twice in the year I was at Hood thieves rushed the Orderly Room, beat the CQ (the Charge of Quarters, the guy who is tasked to stay up all night and keep order in the unit's buildings), and stole the safe.
I think that during that year, most if not all of my soldiers had been ripped off in one way or another...with one notable exception. A lad from the mid-west somewhere who was a little strange around the edges. For the life of me I cannot remember his name, I wish I could because he deserves credit. Every time we went to the field, either for an exercise or just a day mission or whatever, this soldier would capture a Tarantula. You've heard, no doubt, that everything is bigger in Texas? I don't know about everything, but the Tarantulas are some of the biggest I have ever seen. This guy had about six of them and he let them run loose in his locker. When he first started doing it, you would sometimes hear a girlish scream from the barracks during the day, or late at night, but once the reputation was established, no one tried it anymore. They didn't bother him, at all. He would allow the spiders to walk all over him, he fed them what ever bugs he could, and they acted like pets...to him...when a stranger approached they would rear up and wave their front legs menacingly.
Come to think of it, I don't remember any of the company leadership inspecting his locker, either...