Fifty years ago today I joined the Navy. I remember taking the train up to Chicago and then walking to the Chicago and Northwestern station to take the train up to North Chicago and the Great Lakes Naval Training Center. I traveled with some other guys that I was in charge of. The next six weeks of my life would suck! Since there was a war going on they had cut boot camp down from twelve weeks to six weeks so there was that. I do remember how cold it was when I got there and how cold the next six weeks was what with the wind blowing off Lake Michigan.
When I got there we were met at the front gate by some recruits doing their Service Week. This was their big chance to order around other boots. “Line up! Nuts to butts! Make the guy in front of you smile. If he laughs, you’re too close.”
That was what passed for boot camp humor.
Since there were so many recruits and not enough space we got to spend the first night sleeping on mattresses on the floor of a drill hall. The next day, we were broken up into companies and assigned a barracks. Then, the fun began. For some strange reason, I guess it was because of my aptitude scores, I was made a petty officer and a squad leader. This entailed some additional responsibilities but got me out of some crap jobs. Plus, I got to wear white spats which looked cooler than the dirty beige spats the grunts wore. It also got me a cooler job during Service Week and more time off during that time to goof off with another squad leader.
Our company commander was a grizzled old E6 Machinist Mate who was also an alcoholic. His morning coffee always had a shot or two of whiskey in it.
Half a century ago. Where has the time gone?
Yeah! Tell me about it Denny – Where does the time go?
50 years ago we were 6 weeks away from the arrival of our youngest son (Our daughter would follow three years later) I had attempted joining the Air Force about 6 years earlier and afterwards, the Army 4 years earlier but was given a physical deferment due to an eye injury. I’ve always regretted never serving in the military and have the utmost respect for those who did.
Hmmm . . . fifty years ago today —
I was a mid-grade E-5 about finished with ET”B” school at T.I. in SFran. My younger daughter was turning 6 months old, and I was negotiating orders to Subic so I could be with my growing family.
Guh-REAT liberty in San Fran Freakshow in those days. I had a ’64 Impala SS, all black with red nauga interior, and a good friend of mine (FatJack) knew lots of stewardesses. We’d have picnics in Redwood Park and dinner at the Cliff House and watch football games all day Sunday with numerous quarts of Bacardi, buckets of chicken, and boxes of pizza.
Im-goddam-mortal. Good times, before SFran became a thorough wack-oville. Light traffic, and you could even drive down Lombard in those days. Easy ride over to Sparks for Keno or slots or blackjack, too.
Finally got arduous sea duty, which in those days brought with it promise of choosing your next assignment. So after a full year with only about 30 days in port on a flat-bottomed spy ship (USS Oxford), I made it to Crypto Repair Facility, Subic, where I got lucky enough to work my ass off, make several trips to GOT and in-country to work on systems, and earn myself a gold chinstrap.
DAMN, I’d like to go back and do all that again!!
Wow, this brought back some unpleasant memories. My DI was also an alcoholic. What an asshole he was.
I got lucky. My DI was a stand up guy, interested in teaching us what we needed to know so we wouldn’t get our asses shot off, at least not immediately. He was a black guy, too. One of the few I’d ever seen, given where I erupted from.
When I went in June 74, my company commander was a Navy seal who was returning from 3 tours on riverboats in Vietnam. The Navy in their infinite wisdom decided that to help him cool off it might be a good job for him to train some recruits. I was in Florida and at 96 degrees the black flag would raise meaning no more double time outside. The commander would take us inside, make us don rain gear and then work us out for awhile lol. We were his only recruits
Thanx to all of you gents for your service.
50 years ago I was in 3rd grade. However, 40 years ago I was in the USCG serving on N Lake Michigan. It was as cold as Hellary Clintoons heart in the winter months on the lake.
TRT doesn’t have a heart, dontcha know.
Guess the party
http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/28/politics/dennis-hastert-court-hearing/index.html
Actually Hastert is a Republican so it’s a surprise that his party was not mentioned in the first paragraph. He became Speaker after Gingrich was stabbed in the back and resigned.
Great Lakes – 14 Dec ’65 to February ’66. First liberty, 2 1/2 hours on train platform to Milwaukee. -32 degrees. A while back I thought maybe my memory was enhancing the temperature but I looked it up.
I got out of boot camp on Dec 14. I started ET school in January so I was there when you were. There was an entire week when the temperature did not get above 0 so one of those days was when you were on the platform waiting for the train.
45 years for me, when I entered the Army. Enlisted instead of getting drafted with my lottery number of 15!!! Went to Fort Lewis in February, got my hair chopped off, and damned near froze to death in the wintry blasts from Puget Sound. They tried to work me over too, but I resisted. Wanted to send me to OCS so I could be a shave-tail looey wandering about in a rice paddy. No thanks, I said! Flew in Chinook helicopters instead; 3000 feet instead of minus 2 feet in mud. Our tension release took the form of beating and torturing a fairy in our platoon. Those were the days, my friend.
I came through the gate at Camp Dewey in August of 1967.
We were able to do 12 weeks by then, not that it helped that much (at least for me).
Spent a few days there, then across the road to help form Company 429, with BM1 Nolter in charge. Needless to say, he was an upright dude. Never saw him without his white hat one (I think he may have been prematurely bald). “There’ll be an MBI first thing tomorrow and you better make gawd-damn sure that your lockers are squared away !”
I ended up as RPOC after a few weeks (I was 22 years old with three years of college behind me and graduated from Camden Military Academy in 1963, so I knew how to march/drill).
I survived, got orders to BE&E School (back at Great Lakes in ice-cold January), followed by RM “A” School at USNTC Bainbridge, MD. First real tour was SHORE DUTY in Key West, with an assignment to NAVCOMMSTA Philippines after that (where I met my bride on 45 years).
Needless to say, me and the Navy got along pretty good. Ended up doing 22 years and retired as RMC. Another old fat retired Chief, I guess.
Damn, Denny, if you did four years, I got out before you did. Drafted 10/25/67 and got out 10/17/69. Ft. Lewis for Basic, Ft. Jackson, SC for Infantry AIT and off to the jungle. Man, did you guys know that there were folks over there that were tryin’ to kill ya?
Spent a couple of weeks in the hospital at Vung Tau, a month or so at 106th Hospital in Yokohama and ended up doin’ the rest of my time on Okinawa. No slots for an 11Bravo so they stuck me in commo, runnin’ a switchboard (yeah, every new guy got suckered into holding the plug while we pulled the lever to send ringer current through it) and doin’ radio checks at guided missile sites.
As Rrddbb said, thanks to all who wore the uniform. Doesn’t matter if it was peace-time or not, whether you were Jarhead, Chair Force, Navy or even Coastie, all y’all took that one step forward and raised your right hand.
Rob J AlphaCo/4th/47th/9thInfDiv MRF
Spent some time in Viet Nam. I even had liberty in Vung Fucking Tau. Previously to me joining my first ship, USS Comstock LSD-19, a newspaper did a story on the Comstock. In it it referenced “the sparkling beaches of Vung Tau”. We got a big kick out of that. My one memory of Vung Fucking Tau was a huge pile of garbage right in the middle of the street.
I actually got out Oct 14. I tried to get a college cut but I was “too valuable”. I was the only ET on board who could fix anything. The other ET was an E5 who was worthless. They wouldn’t let me off the ship until they got two ETs on board to replace me. My competence was a double edged sword. It allowed me to get away with murder (at least one report chit on me was torn up by the XO) but it made me too valuable to get an early out. I never went up for E5 since I would have had to extend my active duty two months to accept the promotion. No way. The military and I did not get along very well. But, I did get a good conduct medal and an honorable discharge. Like I said, my competence kept me out of trouble.
Yeah, I remember about a year after I went to Okinawa, the Stars & Stripes ran a story about the fact that Vung Tau actually took three mortar rounds inside the base. I was laughin’ ’cause I’m sure all them folks at that R&R base were shittin’ bricks. Guess they finally found out why they was gettin’ Combat Pay, huh? Sure didn’t mind seein’ those round-eye nurses in the hospital, though.
I sucked as a radioman, but I was ony there doin’ that ’cause I was even worse at playin’ Infantry. Found out I suck at hand grenades. Only got the mandatory promotions and came out PFC. In fact, I was on suspended bust to E2 when they gave me my GCM and I guess the only thing that kept me from a stronger punishment was the fact that the REMFs were dazzled by my PH and CIB. Lots of ’em really wanted to go play in the jungle and didn’t get the chance to enjoy the daily mud baths and leeches the way us river rats did.
Since you got out on the 14th, you beat me by 3 days. I do know that October 16th of ’69 was the last time I shaved my chin. Had a beard ever since, and my wife ain’t seen me without facial hair.
Damnit Denny! Why you gotta go and remind me of both my age and my younger foolishness.
This time 52 years ago, I was just out of my tech school in Illinois, at my first duty station in Myrtle Beach South Carolina. That lasted a little more than a year and went downhill badly after that. Korea, Vietnam, Minot North Dakota, MINOT NORTH DAKOTA! Do you know how f’ing cold it gets there?
I’m still warming up now some 49 years after leaving that refrigerator of the north.
Thank You, Denny! My Dad went in the Army in 1945, his brother joined the Air Force in 1950. They both loved the service because they finally had real food to eat. They grew up living mostly on corn meal mush in a tarpaper shack in Moline, and suddenly they had clothes, shoes, and regular meals. My uncle stayed in 27 years.
Fifty years ago I had not yet understood what “draft” meant, as opposed to “volunteer.” I signed for four and stayed for six and the sea duty was mostly done ashore, that was the Navy of 1967-73. God help me, I can’t recall which company I was in at Great Lakes, but clearly recall the sight of a guy running all-out, out of the mess hall. He got two steps onto the grinder and blew lunch — and his false teeth — onto the grinder. Without even missing a step, he scooped up his teeth and kept on going. I swear on my life it “ain’t no sea story,” dig?
Fifty years? Yesterday. We got older and grumpier and more selective and cautious. Chalk it up to age. Wisdom, maybe. But any way we cut it our lives changed forever in military service, and in my case two carrier tours off Vietnam does not make me any more a war hero than John Bandaids Kerry, or that drooling fool Al Gore. You, Denny, got a lot of training you used for a long, long time. Other guys, other services, they can all say much the same.
Fifty years? Yesterday. Aren’t you glad you survived?
Yep! My electronics training did me well when I hired on with IBM.
50 years ago I was an E-4 (SP4) almost half way through my 6 years with the North Dakota Army National Guard.
Went through 6 months of basic, AIT, and OJT at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri from September 1962 to March 1963. Coldest December and January I ever remember when the heat system could not keep up in the old wooden barracks.
Because I had a bad attitude, ended up with an honorable discharge as an E5 instead of the promised E6.
My four brothers also served for two or more years in the Army before or after me.
Feel sorry for all the Military personnel now with all the stupid so called leaders we now have.
Damn you guys are old! 50 years ago I was a 4th grader trying to figure out who was who in a new school. When I turned 18 and got my draft card (#9, #9, #9) they’d stopped drafting.
I admire you guys for serving. When I was that age there was no way I’d have survived the military.
17 years old at Great Lakes in Jan of 78 just in time for the blizzard. I loved snow detail because I could smoke when ever I wanted to. I can watch ‘Trial by Fire’ on YouTube now. It scared me then. Went to A school in Philly. Saw the Broad Street Bullies at the Spectrum. My God,how the US has changed. But Subic Bay when you were a young man……Oh, to do it again!
Olongapo City. Cheap San Miguel and cheap whores.
This coming February will be 47 years for me.
Yup, GLAKES in February. Woooo.
Also across the road to NTC for BE&E and ET “A” schools. Lived in a WW-II wooden barracks for B-double-E and then got to move into the fancy new brick motel and 2 man rooms for the year-plus I was in School.
Crypto school in Norfolk and on to the PI for my first duty station.
Good times.
Fifty years ago I was three years old and in diapers. Denny and all the rest of you thank-you so much for your service and trying to keep us all free from rat commies. Thirty-three years ago I joined the Army, and went to Ft Benning, Georgia, to become an infantryman. Again to protect freedom from communists. As you have so wisely pointed on Denny they just took over from within. I never thought we produce so many ungrateful lowlife traitors who would shove a knife deep in our backs. But I to have noticed how quickly the time has gone by. Now at 53, I look back and wonder were that slim 19 year old went to. I am just amazed at how much has changed in this nation and in myself.
Thank you again for your Service, Denny!
50 years, eh?
Followed you by 10 years. By the time I arrived at Great Mistakes, they dropped the spats.
Fifty years ago, I was laying on my back flat in a rice paddy, breathing through a reed underwater for the next two days, and praying that the fucking gooks who killed all my buds would not find me….
50 years ago! I was at Schofield Barracks Hawaii. I went in in Feb. 1969. I ended up in Viet Nam in May 1970. Stayed until Sept. 1971. I spent my whole time in Saigon with the MPs. It changed my life. I married a Vietnamese. After that marriage did not work out I married another Vietnamese. 38 years and counting with this one.
When the memo went out for the VC to stop bombing in Saigon it was in English and the VC could not read it so they continued to do more than before. It got so bad that it made the news back home. My mother would send me newspaper clippings about all the bombings in Saigon.