For a few years now various people have suggested that I chroniclize my life's story. I'll start out with my first years in the Navy. My life didn't really start until I went into the Navy. That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. In May of 1959 while I was a junior in high school, I joined the US Naval Reserve. During the summer vacation between my junior and senior year, I went to boot camp at NTC Great Lakes north of Chicago. I remember we came into The Windy City on a New York Central passenger train. We then had to transfer to The Chicago & North Shore railroad, which looked like it came straight out of a cartoon. It was very old elevated train and wound through Chicago until it got out of town and rumbled up the west shore of Lake Michigan.
I should go on record that even though I started out as a titless wave. as reservists were called then, two years after going on active duty, I reinlisted into the Regular Navy with much pride. Navy boot camp wasn't all that difficult, at least to me. Instead of being the usual eight weeks, reserve boot camp was only two weeks. In my senior year in high school, after having been to boot camp, I was probably a very large pain in the ass. If a teacher thought he was being a hard ass, I just let him rave on. Monday evenings were reserve training sessions and due to the rigors of the bar(s) with other sailors I was usually too hungover to attend school. Most of the Chiefs were retired USN who just couldn't let go of the lifestyle.
It was at the Reserve Center that I first realized that just maybe I was pretty smart. After taking the usual battery of test that all recruits take when joining, I was called in to see the head man, the captain of the base. He commended me and told me that he hadn't seen scores that high for years. He told me I could have any rate, job, in the Navy. I told him I wanted to be a Guided Missileman. He paused for a minute and told me that they didn't have any training or trainers for that rate. He then said that when I go on active duty next year that he was sure that I could work something out.
A month after graduating from high school, I was on a train to the receiving station in Philadelphia. When I talked to the personnelman in Philly, he explained that could go to Guided Missileman A School in Virginia but I would have to extend for a year. I figured that the three years was a bargain because the regular Navy guys had to extend their hitch from four years to six.
Two days later, I was on a Greyhound bus headed for Virginia Beach and A School. I sat near the back of the bus and bullshitted with another seaman apprentice from Chicago, who happened to be black, about what our lives would be like in the big bad world. When we got off of the bus in Virginia Beach I noticed that the whole bus station was all Negros as they were called way back then. When we walked out of the front door of the bus station, some old guy wearing a short sleeve shirt and clip on tie started screaming "Nigger lover". Neither me or my black friend from Chicago knew what that was all about. The old man pointed to a sign over the door that we just walked out of and the sign said COLORED. Then he pointed to another sigh over another door which said WHITES ONLY. Welcome to The South.
I caught a gray Navy bus that said NAATC Dam Neck over the windshield. NAATC meant Naval Anti Aircraft Training Center. Dam Neck was where it was located in the heart of The Great Dismal Swamp.
I settled in and two weeks before my class started it's seven month run, I was informed that our trigonometry refresher course would start the next day. It was being taught by one of my classmates. The guy who was just bounced out of "The Academy" for behaving like a sailor. He was sent "back to the fleet" which is where he started out from. I told the guy that it may well be a refresher for most everyone else but that I didn't know nothin' about no Trigonometry. He and
I went to the EM club every night for the next two weeks and I got "horsed" up.
During the day, I had to stand watches at "The Old School" because my secret clearance hadn't come in yet. My first day as I was walking around I opened one door and there it was right in front of me an entire Polaris ICBM was lying around in pieces.
The first hour of our first day at Guided Missileman A School, the instructor started out with Ohm's Law. I assumed that a GS worked on ultra fancy missile airframes. When I asked why he was wasting time on electrical knowledge, who cares. I was told that I should care because this job was mostly electrical and electronic. Class standings were published each week and each week I moved up a notch or two. You couldn't get promoted to be a pettyofficer while in A School. Navy rules. Most didn't care because they didn't have enough time in rate to be qualified. Being a reservist, I had enough time in rate. A School ended on a Friday and on Monday was the Third Class Pettyofficer exam. It was the first time of many that I squeaked through.
On Wednesday, those of us going to Terrier BT3 C School were taken to the Norfolk for our flight to Washington National Airport. I had never been in an airplane so this was a real adventure. We took off in a DC-3 and ten minutes later the captain came on the horn and announced that we were turning around because it was too rough. We sat in Norfolk for an hour, or so, and waited for a Capitol Airlines Vickers Viscount turboprop. That beast went where angels feared to tread. At Washington, we boarded a Douglas DC-7 for a ten minute hop to Baltimore, and finally for our cross country flight a United Airlines DC-8 four engine jet.
Next time Pomona.
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