ART JOINS THE NAVY

 

In 1959, I joined the Navy to see the world. Truth be known, I didn’t really join the Navy, I joined the Navy Reserve. The Navy Reserve was only a two year enlistment with a four year inactive reserve component.

I went to NAVY bootcamp in the summer of 1959 between my junior and senior years of highschool. It was later in 1962 that I reupped for six more years but that’s another sea story for another time. Needless to say, I wasn’t at all intimidated by any fat slob gym teacher or any other self taught bad ass teachers. 

I went on active duty to Philadelphia in July of 1960 fresh out of high school. I took an overnight train and had a roomette which was living high at that time. After about three weeks in Phily at the receiving station I got my orders to Guided Missile A School in Virginia Beach. The school was actually in Dam Neck, VA abutting the aptly named Great Dismal Swamp which was crawling with poisonous Water Moccasin snakes and other critters. I had to extend my two year enlistment for an additional year in order to become a Guided Missileman.

In February of 1961 I flew on a DC-3, a Vickers Vicount turboprop, a DC-7 and a DC-8 jet from Norfolk to Los Angeles with stops along the way. All in one day. When we got to LAX, this was before jetways were used, on a February evening we deplaned. It was colder that a witches tit in Virginia so I had on my woolen Navy dress blues, a wool Navy turtleneck sweater and my woolen peacoat. It was about 77 degrees outside at eight in the evening and I knew right there and then that this was going to what I will be calling home. I was to attend Terrier Missile BT-3 C school at the General Dynamics plant in Pomona where the missiles were built. After almost a year of missile schools, I was now ready to join the fleet and finally see the world.

Was I going to stay in California and be in the Pacific Fleet and visit exotic ports of call. Or was I going back to Norfolk to join the Atlantic Fleet? FIGMO, F It Got My Orders. It wasn’t to be Pacific or Atlantic fleets. It was Southern Indiana. What the hell was in not just Indiana but Southern Indiana I wondered. NAD Crane was the answer. Deep in the heart of Southern Indiana away from any bad guys is the Navy’s central ammunition depot. This was farm country 110 square miles of rolling hills with over 10,000 earthen covered ammunition magazines.

Never the less, being sailors we learned many many ways to amuse ourselves deep in farm country. The only local radio station we could receive signed off at sunset.

But, once again, as usual, I digress.

Back to Art. Crane Indiana is a bit over 400 miles from Cleveland so I used to drive up and back on long weekends. It was about an eight hour drive. During Christmas of 1961 I was back in Cleveland hanging with my buds and after six days I had to go back for one day for “duty”. Duty in the Navy means that one has to stand a watch of some sort even though everything is closed for the holidays. My watch consisted driving about 10 miles in a Navy pickup truck to make the rounds of the Guided Missile Service Unit where I worked and make sure that the place was  “secure”. Secure in navy talk means that the doors were all closed and locked. That the place hadn’t burned down and maybe no Cubans hadn’t swum up the Wabash River and penetrated the security.

I asked Art who is my oldest friend that I’ve known since the third grade if he wanted to go down to Indiana for a day. He asked where he could stay and I told him in the barracks which was an old Navy hospital that had been repurposed as a barracks. There was only about a dozen single sailors who lived there and most of them would either be at home on leave or in jail. He said he didn’t have any Navy uniform to wear and I explained that we wore civvies except during actual work.   Where could he eat? He asked. Right in the chow hall with who ever actually there and the cook would be passed out on one of the tables. Which he was. Art had a great time. Nobody asked who he was. He was the new guy. Nobody gave a shit where he was assigned to and didn’t ask and at 1600 when I went off of my watch, we all went out for beers.

To this day, Art likes to tell people about the day he spent in the Navy. People would ask “You were in the Navy for one day?” Where? Southern Indiana, at that point most people think he is either lying or hallucinating.

I spent another six years in the Canoe Club but that, as we say, is another story, or more.