DESCRIPTION:
In mid-1944, then-Pvt. Willie Lee Duckworth Sr., detached from Camp Kilmer NJ to Ft. Slocum NY for Provisional Training, devised a marching cadence. It is known first as the Duckworth Chant, later as the Jody Call; it was also copyrighted as Sound Off and various pop recordings were made of it. Although he first devised it on post, Duckworth led it (as the introduction here recounts) marching back from bivouac in nearby Ardsley. After Duckworth returned to post, he was called in by the Commanding Officer, Col. Bernard Lentz. (He is shown in front of the tent.) During WWI Lentz had invented The Cadence System of Teaching Close-Order Drill, and was enthusiastic about Duckworth's cadence. In the time remaining before returning to Kilmer, Lentz detailed Duckworth to work on the cadence with instructors in the Provisional Training Center, including T/Sgt Henry "Jack" Felice, seen on the viewer's right in the group shot, and WO Edward "Eddie" Sadowski, then leader of the post band, the 378th Army Service Forces Band. Felice reads the introduction, then leads the standard version of the Duckworth Chant; together these formed the A side of a V-Disc recorded at Slocum in Raymond Hall in 1945 with inmates of what had then become the Rehabilitation Center. (That is Felice leading the Chant in the marching photo with the water tower in the background.) After the War, Lentz copyrighted the chant as Sound Off; he shared the royalties with Duckworth, and to this day they continue to come in to both the Duckworth and Lentz families. In 2009 a committee of local admirers led by Rosby Gordon placed this granite marker on the grounds of the courthouse in Washington Co, GA, T/4 Duckworth's home county; at the same time a portion of GA State Hwy 252, running in front of Duckworth's house, was named in his honor. Duckworth's chant, the Jody, remains a staple both of military life and of popular culture (from the soundtracks of military-themed films to jingles such as SpongeBob Squarepants).