To all,

I was leaning forward, waiting for high school to end, June 1954. One week later, on a Monday, my stepfather dropped me off at the Los Angeles Armed Forces Examining Center. We were prompyly lined up and quicklyly sorted into the various branches by following the particular colored lines painted on the floor. We were then mustered.

We took the basic qualifying mental test and were scored. Anyone that didn't make at least a category four was released. That was when the physicals began. Lots of paperwork, all governed by the various colored lines painted on the FLOOR.

The strip BA and cough, turn and spread'em, then dressed and following the colored line according to the schedule they gave each individual. You had to keep track of the time because we were not always going to the same place at the same time.

We even lined up for lunch by the colored lines on the floor. It was memorable because we were first taken to a Navy facitility for our blood and urine samples.

The eighty recruits that would become a company were loaded into a couple of Navy buses that took us to the Ritz-Flower Hotel. Lunch was my introduction to the Navy Standard S.O.S., Minced Beef on Toast with a green salad, beverage and a square of custard for dessert.

Back to the AFEC and the rest of the battery of exams. It was nearly 1400 when we were collected and informed that a snafu had allowed most of the blood samples to coagulate. We had to be scrambled back to the facility and have more blood drawn.

No bus this time. They found three carryalls and a four sedans available for nearly seven dozen men, not all at small. There were people sitting in the trunk with the lid open and legs hanging out the rear. Every time we went through an intersection the rear bumper would drag. And our feet, too, if we didn't pick them up.

It took us nearly three hours before they finished the tests and we were carried back in the same vehicles, like sardines, to be sworn in.

Now the Navy guys were really frantic after the swearing in. This time a they lined us up and took a shortcut at double-time through the AFEC to the parking lot and loaded us on a Greyhound.

I guess they put the fear of God into the bus driver because he was pedal to the metal the entire trip.

This was in the days before the interstates and the road most of the way down to San Diego was a two lane road with a center passing lane. I was sitting in the front seat on the right side, just back of the door, and was thoroughly bemused as the driver went flying down the center lane. If there was someone approaching in the lane, he simply flashed his lights and kept right on going.

He bullied and frightened a lot of people during that flight.

At San Diego, off the bus and onto numbers painted on the "deck". They called our names and we answered by the numbers we were standing on. Then it was moving to the standup desk to fill out the post card. "Fill out your home address on the front, and stop." Turn the post card over and write onlly this: 'I arrived safely. More later.' and sign your name." They collected the postcards and we went back to the numbers.

It dawned on someone that we had not had anything to eat since lunch. So off to the chow hall for a cold cut sandwich, an orange and a beverage. We learned it was called a 'horse cock" sandwich.

We were marched into the barracks and told to take a bunk, then go and take a shower.

I swear, I was the only one there with a bar of soap, a towel and shower shoes. Everyone was borrowing my cake of soap. It disappeared somewhere.

Fortunately, I had a couple of spares.

It was really a thrill to hear tatto and then taps at lights out.

I really felt as though I was in the Navy as I had wanted to be for so long.

The fun wasn't over yet, though.

About 0130, a really noisy bunch from Texas was stumbling around in the barracks and raising a fuss. That ticked off the MAA and he ordered all of us outside onto our numbers, at attention and quiet. We were there for an hour while we were harangued about our idiocy and unfitness to be in the Navy.  

Back in the rack, next was reveille at 0500.

"Drop your cocks and grab your socks. Your in the Navy, Line up on your numbers."

If anyone was late, the entire company had to march out to the grinder and pick up cigarette butts before being ordered back onto our numbers and sent off to chow, late.

That was the day we went to get our haircuts. Then it was into the uniform warehouse, to be given a big cloth bag (a mattress cover we were informed) told to strip and take off all of our clothes and put our civilian clothes into the bag. Then we were individually measured for our uniforms. Naked as jaybirds, scalps shorn to the skin, we moved to the first station, the skivvies, put the shorts on and then black socks, ONLY, and the high-top and low top shoes. Put the high tops on.

My problem was that my high top's soles would split right across the ball of the foot when I took a step. They scrambled around and found another 5-E and it broke too. He found another couple of pairs and flexed them. They also broke. So I was the only recruit in low tops and that infuriated the rest of the uniform issuers. It was a matter of official business that this recruit was not wearing elements of the prescribed uniform. I would be ordered to put them on. I explained that I did not have any. AFter I had dumped out the mattress cover, they believed that I really didn't have any high tops. So They would send me back to the station where the shoes were issued. The guy there would order me back to where I was supposed to be before that guy sent me back for shoes.

After I had gone through this about a half dozen times, my company commander passed the word along that they, the Supply clerks did not have my size. (They ordered some in from somewhere and they did not break. Those others must have been left over from WWI).

The afternoon was spent stenciling. they called out our names and we were given two sets of stencils, one for white uniforms and dungarees using balck ink, the other for the blue uniforms and white ink.

We were now officially Navy.

Our coupon books were issued and explained to us. Real money value, however it had to be spent on the station. We would pay for our haircuts with the appropriate coupons or could buy items from the gedunk when we reached Advanced Training, if we survived.

We were told to put our name and service number inside the front cover of our Bluejacket's Manual. It was the Fourteenth Edition. I noticed the first copyright date was 1938 and the last, 1950.

Ater everything was stenciled, all of our uniform pants, blues and whites and dungarees, save the ones we were wearing, went to the tailor.

That was a problem for me later. I grew two inches while I was in boot camp and the only uniform trousers I could salvage were the blues which had enough material in the cuffs to be lengthened.

It wasn't that noticeble while at RTC snce we had to wear the leggings that made up the difference.

So that day we walked around, with new, unwashed dungarees, skinned bareheaded, and most shuffled along. There were two of us who knew how to drill. I was in HS-JROTC for two years, and the other guy had been kicked out of the Navy before, when they discovered that he was underage.

So we were marched all over the place until that afternoon when we received our altered dungarees. Now we were given instructions on how to wash them while we surrended the ones we were wearing with the rolled up cuffs to the tailors to be altered as well.

We learned how to fold our uniforms and present them properly for inspection on our bunks.

As Geno said, buckets were scarce. One bucket per bunk for us, and you had better start right after evening chow or you wouldn't finish in time. You had to turn to for compartment cleaning and try to do the homework for the next day's classes. There were lots of guys still washing clothes in the dark and trying to find a place to hang them to dry.

Unlike Geno, we had to carry our steno pad inside our shirt, in back with the bottom against the waistband of the dungarees and leaning back so the top would be seen in outline. Our pencils went into the leggings. It was always a neat trick to remove the steno pad before sitting down in class, then replacing it when you stood up.

It seemed that every class had an instructor who would scream that he hated so see people poking the pencils up their noses. I think it was suggestive for there always seemed to be someone who did exactly that and the instructor would go into a tizzy.

That first week was a winner. I was finally on my way to becoming a man 'o warsman.