In Service to America, Profile 18: Spec. 4 Robert Kerouac did his duty – then returned to Bob’s Pizza Shop

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Robert Kerouac graduated from Nashua High School in June 1965 and was at a crossroads – what to do next. His father, Robert Sr. managed a Nashua pizza shop which at the time was doing well – and not a bad trade to get involved in. Pizza was a popular dish, then and now.  Kerouac decided to go to work for his father and learned the pizza business.

Not long after, the pizza shop was sold to two brothers from Lowell. Kerouac says, “They were OK guys, but we weren’t going to work for them.” Father and son decided it was time to move on and opened their own pizza shop, still in Nashua, and only a few blocks from where they had been on Main Street. Their customers loved the way the Kerouacs prepared their pizzas and soon found the father/son team at their new location. 

Things went well and soon; father and son became victims of their own success when the new pizza shop proved to be too small for the burgeoning customer base. And, as will often happen when you have two or more business partners, each has a different way of doing things – not more right, not more wrong – just different. So, partly because of the business management differences, and because the facility was just too small, another pizza shop was started in a different area of Nashua. Both places had the same food, prepared the same way, creating the same high demand from loyal customers. The best part is, both men were free to manage their shops as they saw fit. This second pizza shop, run by Robert Jr., was opened in 1966.

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The second pizza shop had great success from the very beginning. The shop retained some loyal customers, it was in a great neighborhood and so found a raft of new customers. Things were really rolling. But Kerouac was coming to another crossroads. At the crossroad stood Uncle Sam with a signpost that said, “I Want You for the US Army.” Kerouac knew he was draft eligible – it was only a matter of time. And with the Vietnam War on, he was almost sure to do some military duty.

Also at the crossroads was his girlfriend, Joyce. They wanted to get married and with the pizza shop doing well, it seemed like the ideal time. They had planned to get married in April 1968. But with the prospect of being drafted, they thought getting married sooner rather than later might be a better option. They were married in February 1968 and honeymooned on a three-day weekend in New York City. Their premonitions about the Army were correct. Returning to Nashua, Kerouac found his draft notice. He had only a few days to report to Fort Dix for basic training. He closed his pizza shop although his father was able to pay the rent on the building until he returned. It was a great location with good visibility and high traffic count that he didn’t want to lose. With the lock on the door, Kerouac was off to basic training.

Kerouac tells about his next steps, “As we neared the end of basic training, they asked each one of us what we wanted to do in the Army. I said I wanted to be a cook. It was something I already knew and something I was good at. So, the Army being the Army, assigned me to be an infantryman.”

From there, things happened pretty quickly. Kerouac explains, “After basic training we had a few days leave and then told we were shipping out overseas. We didn’t know where we were going but it was suspected that Vietnam was our destination. The next thing we know, we’re landing in Germany. The following day, myself and about eight other guys were pulled out of ranks and taken to another room. I had no idea what was going on. I hadn’t been in Germany long enough to do anything wrong!”

For whatever reason they were chosen, the small band of new Privates were told the Army needed some MPs in Germany. It seemed all the existing MPs were shipping off to Vietnam because that theater needed some seasoned people.

Kerouac said, “The Sergeant explained it very clearly. He said we could stay in the infantry, eat three square meals a day, sleep in a cot with clean sheets every night with a roof over your head and have a hot shower every day. Or, you could get back on the bus and travel further east where we can sleep in a muddy fox hole, and eat Army rations for weeks at a time.  It wasn’t a hard choice.”

The next day the transport bus continued east, and Kerouac and his small band of Privates began a 45-day MP school. They became part of the 4^th Armored Division based at Warner Kaserne, also known as Warner Barracks near the ancient town of Bamberg, Germany. (Warner Barracks was decommissioned in 2014 due to budget cuts. The city of Bamberg has been around since Roman times and was one of the few German cities not heavily bombed by the Allies during WWII.) 

At that time, the base was home to about 2,000 people. Kerouac was fortunate in that he was able to bring his new bride over to Germany where they secured off-base housing. Kerouac describes the housing situation then, “We were near a small airport. We looked at an apartment that was across the street. There was a small bar at street level with tiny apartments above. Technology and everyday life were about 50 years behind times. We found a place that was a little more modern – but not much.”

Asked about the job of being an MP, Kerouac noted, “It was pretty mundane. We mostly patrolled the base. We only had two police-cruiser type cars so we were usually in a Jeep. When we patrolled in Bamberg, we partnered with the local police, one MP and one German cop per patrol car. We got along pretty good with the German cops, but they were tough. They didn’t take any crap from anyone. If an American service member got into trouble in town and were arrested by the Germans, they prayed that the German cops would turn them over the American MPs. The American brig was a lot nicer. And being incarcerated in a foreign country is not the place to be.”

The days and months ticked off and eventually Kerouac’s military commitment was coming to an end. Kerouac remembers, “They offered me a monetary bonus and a bump in rank to stay. I figured I had done my duty. And I had a pizza shop waiting to be reopened. It was time to move on.”

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Kerouac returned to Nashua, went to his pizza shop, unlocked the door, turned on the lights, fired up the pizza ovens, and his loyal customers began to immediately pile in. It was as if the past two years hadn’t even happened.

The US Army knew him as Private First Class Robert Kerouac. Most Nashuans know him as Bob or Snookie. Going back to the beginning of this story, when he left high school Bob joined his father, Bob Sr. at Espresso Pizza on Nashua’s Main St. When Espresso’s was sold, the pizza shop father and son opened up was the original Bob’s Pizza  at 57 Temple St. and the shop started by Bob Jr. was, of course, Bob’s Pizza at 115 East Hollis St. 

Pvt Robert Kerouac aka Snookie is now retired. Warner Barracks in Germany has long-since been decommissioned. But Bob’s Pizza is still around, owned now by Aaron Johnston. Same name, same place, same great pizza.

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