Many of you old timers will remember when the company orderly room actually had an orderly – I do! In the days before Sat Phones, Cell Phones, hand held radios and the land lines strung by the Signals people that were often cut or down due to artillery fire (enemy and friendly) or weather, an orderly or runner was necessary. Additionally in days gone by when military units still had switch boards with an actual human being working that switch board and people could listen in on telephone conversations and you wanted to communicate a confidential message – you sent the orderly with a hand written or typed message with that communication. In those days the switch board operator drank for free at the EM Club or NCO Club as everyone bought him drinks for vital information such as troop movements or Promotion Board dates etc.

The Orderly also ran back and fourth between the mess hall and the orderly room with coffee, sandwiches, doughnuts etc or cleaned the orderly room windows, swept and buffed the floors etc.

In most units the 1SG maintained a duty roster for Orderlies and like CQ, everyone in the unit got the duty occasionally. In some units the Orderly was assigned on a semi permanent or permanent basis and this individual may even be asked to assist the company clerk(s) with filing, or typing etc. This was all back in the days when a First Sergeant could do what he wanted with the soldiers in his unit and no one dared interfere. If the 1SG said you were on latrine orderly duty for 60 days or on the KP Roster for 30 days straight – you were! There was no Article 15 or company punishment and your platoon sergeant could ask the 1SG to make that punishment for a shorter period of time, but the 1SG had the last word!

The Orderly Room in any unit was the hub, the brain and the heart of the company! For those younger folks reading this document and don’t know what a Morning Report is or was – it was generated from the Orderly Room and when it was completed it was usually hand carried by the Orderly or the Company Clerk to the next higher headquarters. The Morning Report was used by the military from 1912 until 1974 and prior to that time the information submitted in the Morning Report was included in the unit Daily Muster Report.

Morning reports and unit rosters were created by military organizations as part of their personnel and payroll functions. These records were used by the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) to verify events or assignments which may not be documented in an individual's Official Military Personnel File (OMPF). This is especially important when trying to reconstruct service information when the OMPF has been damaged or destroyed as in the 1973 fire. A brief explanation of this type of record is listed below.

MORNING REPORTS are created each morning, and as the name implies, they are an "exception based" system, only containing information on those individuals who are not "Present and accounted for". Among the reasons for being listed on a morning report are:

Promotion or demotion

Being killed, wounded or missing in action

Being assigned to a unit, or leaving a unit

Going to a hospital for treatment, or to another activity for training

On leave or TDY

In confinement

During the Revolutionary War, Monthly Musters were held and a hand written Muster or Roll Call was held for each unit. If there were any changes like when Surgeon Caleb Sweet returned from leave, an individual form was filled out and submitted to higher headquarters and a foot note added to the Roll Call. CPT Caleb Sweet was also had the additional duty as the Surgeon General of the Continental Army.

After the Revolutionary War, The Morning Report of the Captain (see form above) came into use and remained so until 1912. This was the form used by all the horse cavalry units in the Army at that time. The form shown here above was for a Volunteer Regiment but was basically the same for all units in the Army, especially in the Horse Cavalry.

The above is the Regular Army version of the Volunteers Morning Report as seen above which was also used in the Civil War and later on in the Horse Cavalry Line Regiments

In fact the morning report was a booklet of 24 pages and was designed for one month’s use. The First Sergeant was responsible for preparation of the morning report each day. In fact the company clerk would likely prepare the entries in the report, but the first sergeant did provide all of the relevant information. The Company Commander checked the report and initialed it each day, after which the company clerk took the report to Regimental HQ. At regiment, each company’s morning report was reviewed and summarized by a clerk in the Reports and Returns Subsection of the Personnel Section in the Regimental Adjutant’s office. The regimental clerk, after checking all of the morning reports for accuracy, prepared the consolidated daily strength report for the regiment. A copy was sent to division and another copy is kept and consolidated each month to compare with the strength report provided by the machine records unit.
These morning reports become a diary of the daily changes in each company’s manpower, and can contain information about the disposition of specific men assigned to the unit.

Keep in mind this was not a unit personnel roster, but a report indicating numbers of personnel absent or present and the various reasons why: on Furlough, AWOL, in confinement, detached service, hospital etc.

The Company Clerk usually filled in the numbers by hand and then the First Sergeant and the Commander dated and signed it before delivering it to higher headquarters.

Here we have Department of War Form 1 which was in use from 1912 until 1974

This was a small form but it had a lot of information and was usually type written but in combat was sometimes hand written.

Sometime in the late 1950’s/60’s WD (War Department) Form 1 was replaced by DA Form 1 (see above)
It provided the same information – just in a different format.

In 1974 the Army discontinued the use of morning reports and switched to PDC cards. PDC cards are also in the custody of the NPRC.) {National Personnel Records Center}

NOTE: Neither morning reports nor unit rosters contain historical information concerning battles or engagements (see unit operational files).

The Orderly Room also generated all sorts of Rosters which were usually kept on clip boards hung on the Orderly Room Wall. Here is a list of some of these rosters:

Company Rosters

KP Roster

Guard Roster

MP Duty Roster

Orderly or CQ Runner Roster

CQ Roster

Barracks Orderly Roster

Unit Personnel Roster

Alert Notification Roster (usually a list of all off post personnel w/ phone #’s and addresses)

Lock and Key Roster (who had the keys to what)

First Sergeants Extra Duty Detail Roster (commonly called the 1SG’s punishment roster)

Police Call Roster (in some units, the Plts. rotated or took turns at policing the unit area each morning)

POV Roster (a list of all POVs in the unit complete with post sticker and License Plate #’s)

Day Room Orderly Roster

Latrine Orderly Roster

Sick Call Roster (Updated and typed daily) {affectionately called the Sick, Lame and Lazy Roster}

Additional Duties Roster (this normally applied to the company officers who were assigned additional duties but could also include senior NCOs who were also assigned additional duties)

These rosters and in some units even more were updated and retyped every month. There is an old Army saying - "f""k them all but 9, six for pallbearers, two for road guards and one Co Clerk to type that f""ing morning report entry".

The Most Important Form Ever Issued by The Orderly Room – Class A Passes

As far as any soldier was concerned, the most important form issued by the Orderly Room was the Class “A” Pass and here are a few examples of it:

The Enlisted Mans Temporary Pass was the pass issued for a standard two or three day passes. If you were heading off base for a visit into town, you would have this on you. Often these were kept as souvenirs of a particularly good time!

The class "A" pass, given for "Exemplary Conduct, allows the holder to be absent from his organization when not on duty. Usually only the squared away, GI soldiers would have one.

Here are two Class “A” Passes issued to CPL Edward G. Milligan at Camp Drake, Japan in 1947, one signed by CPT Honig and the other signed by CPT Daniel. Ed is a member of our Association

The following is a photo history of past and present Orderly Rooms.

These are the original Ft Bliss adobe barracks where you might have found the old Provost Sergeants billeted with the HQS Troops and utilized their Orderly room

These are the new Ft Bliss Barracks built around 1913 which replaced the adobe barracks some of which remain standing at Fort Bliss to this day. Far right is the 7th Cav Hqs, center is the BOQ and the building o the left is the Hqs Troops barracks where the MP Platoon had their orderly room

545th MP Company Orderly Room at Camp Drake, Japan 1948

1SG Williams in his orderly room at Camp Drake, Japan

During the Korean War the situation was so fluid that the orderly room was usually in 1SG Brown or CPT Mehl’s jeep but for three days while the unit was still in North Korea and before the Chinese swarmed across the border, the 545th had its orderly room in this building in the suburbs of the Capitol of North Korea

This was the 545th MP Company CP and Orderly Room somewhere in North Korea during the return south 1950 CPT Mehl’s jeep in the foreground

Towards the end of the Korean War just prior to returning to Japan the 545th had an orderly room tent set up as seen here above with three Co Clerks standing in front of the tent with their laundry hanging in the background

Upon returning to Japan after the Korean War, the unit was stationed at Camp Crawford and here is a great shot of the orderly room at Camp Crawford in the winter of 1953

545th MP Co Orderly Room at Camp Custer Korea

Another shot of the 545th Orderly Room in the background with the unit Mess Hall in the foreground at Camp Custer, Korea

1SG Venezia with his Company clerks in the Orderly Room at Camp Custer 1963

The 545th MP Orderly Room in Panama was located in this building at Ft Gulick

This was the orderly room for the 11th MP Company until it became the orderly room for the 545th MP Company at Fort Benning, Georgia for a very short while in 1965 before we shipped out to
Vietnam

545th MP Co Orderly Room, An Khe, Vietnam 1965

545th MP Company Orderly Room at Phouc Vinh, Vietnam 1969

545th MP Company Clerks at Phouc Vinh, Vietnam 1969
Note the abundance of typewriters, clip boards and 3 ring binders as we did not have computers in those days. Everything and I mean EVERYTHING in those days had to be typed in at least triplicate and there were no copy machines. If you wanted large numbers of copies you had to resort to a mimeograph machine which was a mess to work with.

1SG Bill Sykes, a great 1SG of the 545th MP Company and a combat veteran of the Korean War in his office at Phouc Vinh, Vietnam 1969
Bill is a member of our Association

Until now, the Cavalry MPs had either constructed their own barracks or commandeered captured enemy buildings. This began with the Provost Sergeants on the Western Plains with the line Cavalry Regiments. Most Cavalry units in the old horse Cavalry constructed their own facilities under the direction of the Regimental Engineer Officer. Both Camp Drake and Camp Custer, Japan had been Japanese barracks, the few buildings the unit utilized in both North and South Korea during the Korean War had also been captured enemy buildings and Camp Custer Korea had buildings constructed by the 545th MPs themselves to include the Mess Hall. Some of the buildings at Phouc Vinh, RVN had been old French Legionnaire Barracks but most of the buildings utilized by the 545th at this location were constructed by our own 545th MPs and that includes the PMO Shop. At this point in the unit history we return to CONUS to Fort Hood, Texas where we finally have US Army constructed barracks of the WW II Style.

These were the barracks assigned to the 545th MP Company at Fort Hood, Texas upon return from Vietnam in 1970 and the orderly room was in this group of barracks in the early 1970’s.

PFC Tom Harris in front of the 545th Orderly Room at Ft Hood in 1976

545th Orderly Room at Ft Chaffee AR 1980

545th Barracks and Orderly Room at Fort Drum, New York 1982
2nd Plt Ldr Bill Strite (a member of our association) stands next to his jeep

545th Orderly Room at Ft Hood, Texas Early 1983/84

PFC Dave Garcias (on the right) in the 545th MP Co Orderly Room at Ft Hood, TX 1983
Dave is a member of our Association

545th MP Co Orderly Room at Ft Hood, Texas 1987

CPT Richard Swengros, CMDR and SFC Charles McGee acting First Sergeant of the 545th MP Company at Fort Hood, Texas in front of the Orderly Room in 1988
COL Swengros is a member of our Association

545th MP Co Orderly Room complex in Iraq during Desert Storm and CPT Harris, CMDR 545th MP Co – photo right 1991

545th Orderly room in Kuwait 1992

545th Orderly Room in Afghanistan 2002

CPT Matt Mularoni and 1SG Jody George in front of the 545th Orderly Room in Baghdad, Iraq 2004
MAJ Mularoni and SGM George are both members of our Association.
This sign was brought back to the States from Iraq and the Association arranged for it to be shipped to the MP Museum where it remains as a Historical Artifact of our unit.

545th MP Co Orderly Room at Ft Hood, Texas 2005
Photo taken the week before deactivation of the unit at Ft Hood

The old 545th MP Co Barracks at Ft Richardson, Alaska where the Orderly Room was on the first floor, just inside and to the right in the building. 1SG Dementer holding formation 2009

Entrance to the 545th MP Co Orderly Room at Joint Base Balad in Iraq 2010

The Orderly Room is GONE! This is the new 793rd MP BN Company Office Facility where all companies within the BN have a Company Office – the 545th included, 2010
Many of our old timers will never get used to the idea of calling the Orderly Room Complex the Company Office Facility (COF)

A inside look of the 545th MP Company Office Facility (COF)

545th MP Co, COF Photo 1

545th MP Co, COF Photo 2

545th MP Co, COF Photo 3

545th MP Co, COF Photo 4

545th MP Co, COF Photo 5

This photo history prepared by CPT Sam Reinert, Founder of the 545th MP Co Assn. Any additions or changes please contact him at

Sam Reinert
CPT MP USAR (Ret)
Founder
545th Military Police Company Association
626 1/2 South 9th Street
Richmond, Indiana 47374 USA
(765) 962 4627 phone & FAX
http://545thmpassn.com/