A Father's Advice to Emancipated Daughter

Dear Jackie,

You laid a pretty big one on Mama last night; I heard about it this
morning. As you no doubt know, the information that you want to move out has hurt her, as I suspect it would have, no matter when you told it to her. Deep down she realizes this too.

I'm taking this method of talking to you because, as you know, almost
every time I attempt to talk with you, we end up having an argument; things
are left unsaid, or said and not meant, and we end up hurting each other. Sad to say, but this is a fact. Perhaps by putting my thoughts to you on paper it will alleviate some of the anguish of such an encounter.

I can understand your wish for independence from your mother and father,it is the normal course of events. What Mama and I are concerned with is several different things. First and foremost I suppose, is that every mother wishes her daughter to marry before moving in with a man. It is the way she and I were raised, even though in our case it was different; she had already had you by another man and I was getting a divorce. Too, I was thirty-one years old and your mother was twenty-six when we met, you and Al are a bit younger than that.

Living with someone prior to marriage, while it may have some good
points, it doesn't always work out. It isn't like buying a new or used car,
where you try it out before buying it, that is always recommended. There is
no commitment on either party (legally) whenever they decide to live together. One can split whenever he/she wishes without incurring any obligations of the other. This transitory alliance bothers me. Besides, it’s an abomination in God’s eyes.

At the moment, from what I've been told, Al is only working part time
as a bar-back; he has no steady income. This means that your job and income is what you would be using to live on. It may or may not be enough to meet your bills and keep a roof over your head and food in the kitchen. I also was under the impression that Al would be going to college sometime in the near future. He would have to get a job part time and attend school and do the necessary schoolwork for a four to six year period. You should be aware of how difficult this can be; and this hasn't factored in the possibility of kids coming into the picture. And today, even with a college diploma, there is no guarantee that one would be able to find employment in a field of choice.

Your Mama and I both like Al; he appears to be a nice man, very person-
able. We only wish that you would wait until you had more tangible proof of some kind of commitment from him - like maybe an engagement - which is also customary. True, those can be broken, but at least it would be a sure sign of intent.

If you're determined to go ahead with your plans for moving in with Al,
several things should be considered. Hopefully, the apartment you will be renting will be furnished, because as you know, Mama doesn't want you to take your bedroom furniture with you. Her reasoning is that you would probably have to move it back in at a later date anyway.

Setting up house keeping isn't going to be easy even if it's a furnished apartment. You will still need to buy all your dinnerware, silverware, pots and pans, etc. You had best give up the idea of eating out all the time, you won't be able to afford it. That's another thing, you'll have to learn how to cook too. Then there's the utilities, such as gas/electric to pay, phone bills, groceries, gas and maintenance on the car, and the inevitable unexpected expense for repairs. And another thing to take into consideration is that you might get pregnant; what to do, have it or have an abortion? What kind of consequences will that have?

All these things come to mind when I think of the scenario of you moving out of the house and into an apartment with Al. The decision is yours, you're an adult now and while we can try to persuade you otherwise, it is you who must make the final choice. No matter what choice you do make, we want you to know that we will always love you and we want you to be happy! Know too, that your home will always be with us, no matter where you are living.

Love, your


Dad

Chun Chon, Korea in 1965

(This is a late posting to my book "Looking Back." The reason why I'm posting it now is because somehow I have two (2) chapter 7's in my book and chapter 6 was omitted entirely. I know this has caused some confusion but this should straighten it out. C H A P T E R 06 (1965-1966)

The airfield was under construction at Camp Page, Korea, in 1965 1966 because it wasn't long enough, or strong enough to support the larger aircraft that needed to land there with supplies. Most of the supplies were coming in by rail, or overland on wheeled vehicles. The labor force used to rebuild and extend the airport was the women from the local populace. I was dumbfounded!

Never before had I seen this type of work done by women, or without machinery. It was road-gang type labor, of the sort one sees being performed by Paul Newman on the road gang in Cool Hand Luke. I never understood why women did this work. I later saw Korean men doing equally hard work in Seoul, so maybe it was a societal type of thing, while the men tended the fields, or performed their military duties elsewhere.

When I first arrived, I was only a private first class (PFC) and had to pull guard duty periodically at the various locations around Camp Page that required security. The airfield was one of these places. It was out in the open, of course, and on the northeastern perimeter of the compound. An eight-foot-high, chain-link fence, topped by barbed wire, ran the length of the perimeter. The guards were taken out to various points along this perimeter by truck, dropped off, and the old guard picked up. The guard walked along the length of the fence over a designated distance, constantly inspecting the fence for break ins or anything else of a suspicious nature. At the drop-off point, there was an enclosed box that had a field phone inside and the sentry was expected to call in at designated times to report the condition of his post. The phone line was connected to the guard shack where the Sergeant of the Guard stayed when he wasn't posting his sentries. As I said, the airfield was just inside the fence, and I got to get a real close look at the labor going on to extend it. Some of the women were breaking rock into stones and then into gravel. This was done by hand. It was then loaded into baskets, which the women carried on their heads out to the work in progress. A base layer of rock about a foot and a half deep was laid out along the runway and steamrolled or packed down (this was their only concession to machinery). PSP or heavy-duty perforated steel plates, about a foot and a half wide and ten feet long, were then interlocked along the top of the packed surface. This is what formed the surface for the planes to land on.

When the weather was nice, the guard duty on the perimeter was not too bad. In bad weather, though, it was wide open to the wind and bitter cold! The only way to stay warm was to keep moving. I much preferred the more sheltered guard post around the main compound during the winter. About this time I met a fellow I'll call Johnny. He was a specialist four (E 4) who wasn't much to look at, because he was shorter than I was, at just under five foot, seven inches, and wore glasses that looked like the bottoms of Coke bottles. But Johnny was beautiful. What he lacked in stature or looks, he more than made up for by having an abundance of personality and good humor.

Everyone was Johnny's friend. It was he who introduced me to chopsticks and peanuts. It was also he who introduced me to what is the Korean equivalent of a geisha house, thereby making my tour of duty in the Republic of Korea then, and subsequently, vastly more enjoyable.

The mamasans’ house was way up in the village along a steep and rutted dirt road. The area was declared off-limits, but Johnny didn't let that bother him. He knew his way around the city of Chun Chon like the back of his hand. He and I ducked into an entranceway along a cement wall that was topped with broken glass (to keep out thieves). Inside we found ourselves in an open area, surrounded on all sides by apartments with sliding doors that were covered with rice paper. A veranda ran along the front of the apartments, completely around the entire enclosure.

To enter an apartment, one had to remove one's shoes, leave them outside, then step onto the veranda and slide open the door. Johnny had been expected, but they didn't know he was going to bring a friend.

The mamasan (a woman of indeterminable age) greeted Johnny and me, and showed us to a room where we were seated on the floor around a small lacquered table with inlaid mother-of-pearl. Cushions were provided in deference to our being Westerners. There were no chairs.

It is interesting how the Korean houses are made. They're made in such a way as to allow the floors to be heated. The dimensions of the foundation are laid out, and large boulders of various shapes, but uniform height, are placed throughout the foundation area. Slabs of cement are then built to a uniform level over the boulders. This way, a hollow about a foot high is formed as a basement. At one end an exhaust pipe leads from this hollow basement to well above the roof. Another hole leads to the hollow area, and it is located in the kitchen and sunk below the level of the hollow. Here it is that shaped, charcoal briquettes are burned, one atop the other, with the bottom one being replaced periodically when it burns itself out. Twenty-four hours a day these briquettes are kept burning. They are used for cooking in the kitchen.

When not cooking, however, covers are placed over the charcoal so that the heat is diverted underneath the floor of the house. In winter, a Korean house always has warm floors even though the surrounding air in the room may be brisk. The floor is called an Ondul floor and is unique to Korea. The only drawback to this type of floor is that the room must be airtight. If it isn't, carbon monoxide given off by the burning charcoal, can seep into the room and kill the occupants. Thousands die yearly from this happening.

We, Johnny and I, had just arrived and were sitting on the floor of this Korean house of ill repute, and waiting for some service. Mamasan talked with Johnny shortly, but I don't know what they were saying, although there was some pigeon English thrown in. It was evident that they knew each other and were comfortable talking together. They laughed some, were animated, and from time to time looked my way, so I knew they were saying something about me.

Mamasan left and Johnny began telling me what the evening was going to be like. I lost interest in his recitation when a lovely young lady in a colorful flowing dress came in. The dress covered her from neck to toe (no skin), and was very loosely worn (showing no shape at all). She brought two nicely iced cold beers and some clean glasses. She opened each one and poured it for us, offering it with both hands, looking demure with a downcast glance. Another young lady entered with some foods on a tray and chopsticks. They both arranged the food on the table for us and then remained discreetly by our sides awaiting our bidding.

Johnny performed the introductions and kept up the small talk, because I couldn't talk Korean, and the girls did not speak English. The girl by my side did sing part of an English song for us later, and I had to laugh; it was "Jimmy Crack Corn." Where on earth had she picked that up? I'll be damned if I know! It was a house generally frequented by Korean men and not Americans. Johnny liked to find out-of-the-way spots like that.

The foods were new to me, but tasty. Since I could not use the chopsticks yet (a bowl of peanuts had been thoughtfully provided for me to practice with, and the girl showed me how, but it is a matter of practice, and one doesn't learn to eat with them in one night), the girl assisted me in eating the various dishes. Several kinds of Kimchee (fermented cabbage) were available, and the ever present rice; bulgogi (fried strips of lean beef that had been marinated in soy sauce, garlic, onion, and hot pepper), and yakeemondu (that's as close as I can get to the phonetic pronunciation of that dish), which is a mixture of various meats, and vegetables and spices, wrapped in dough and fried. It is similar to a Chinese egg roll. After we had eaten, the entertainment began. In Korea, it is customary to make entertainment among yourselves by taking turns singing songs, dancing, telling stories, or playing music on an instrument, if you have that talent. The girls are there to assist in any way they can. They sang songs while one of them played the guitar. We sang songs also, and they tried to learn them. Throughout all this, mamasan popped in and out to make sure everything was going okay.

I'm not going to insult anyone's intelligence by saying the evening ended that way. It ended on a very pleasant note, though, and a good time was had by one and all. The evening hadn't been too expensive: it was held in a convivial atmosphere, and everyone got some pleasure from the experience.

Another favored haunt of mine was the enlisted club on post. I would take a book, find a nice table, and sip my beer while reading. About three nights a week, a live band performed on stage. We could sign in guests from off post as long as we only took them to the club or bowling alley, stayed with them, and signed them out before curfew.

The off-post clubs attracted more business from the GIs though. All were vying for customers. They did this by having some outrageous name, like the Purple Onion, or a garish neon sign blinking on and off. The most popular method, however, seemed to be to have a bevy of lithesome lasses ready to accost the passing soldier, and entice him inside for fun and games. Since it was an unaccompanied tour (wives couldn't be brought to Korea unless they paid their own way or you were stationed in Eighth Army, located in Seoul, and had special dispensation to do this; highly irregular and seldom granted), a lot of married men did get involved in situations that not only jeopardized their career, but their family lives back home.

I wasn't married. I was twenty-five or twenty-six years old and a long way from home and female companionship. In short, I was vulnerable. About my fifth month in Korea, I met one girl whom I started to see on a regular basis, forsaking all others. That was a mistake, because emotional ties began to tighten the bonding, and it became harder and harder to let go.

Most Koreans, male or female, are hard working and industrious. They are family oriented and respect their elders to the point of obsequiousness. The oldest male is the dominant member of the family, and even his siblings are expected to follow his wishes. The female performs much of the same household chores as we in the Western world, but since she must move to the house of her husband's family once she marries, she is not accorded the same difference within the family as a male child.

It is not unusual to see great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and their children living together in one enclave. The sense of family togetherness is very strong. Generally, additions will be made to the house as new brides join their husband's household. The house is usually built in a square with a center courtyard open to the air and a veranda running around the entire inside circumference. One must remove one's shoes and step up onto the veranda to enter an apartment of the house. The doors are sliding doors, and covered with rice paper. The house is surrounded by a tall wall, with sometimes, barbed wire or glass embedded in the top. This last is to prevent thievery.

Nowadays, I'm sure that most Korean families have inside plumbing. In 1965, however, only the big cities had it. Chun Chon hotels had inside plumbing, and offered communal baths, or private baths for a nominal fee. All private homes had outside toilet facilities (an outhouse) whose effluvium was periodically removed and used to fertilize surrounding rice fields.

The aforementioned information may seem incongruous to the reader at first, but if you will bear with me, as I relate the events which took place in Korea, you will see how they fit in.

My first contact with the Korean soldier serving with U.S. forces (KATUSA, or Korean Augmentation to the United States Army), came on my first morning at Camp Page, in the mess hall. After we had filled our trays and taken our seats, and while beginning to eat, some Katusa enlisted men seated at the next table began putting sugar in their milk. Some stopped at two teaspoons, but others put three and four teaspoons, and incredibly, one even added a fifth teaspoon after stirring in four, tasting it, and not finding it sweet enough! I found out later, that most Korean foodstuffs, including cakes and candies, have little, if any, sweeteners in them. As a matter of fact, one could even be so bold as to call these foods bland. There aren't many instances of widespread cavities among Koreans, but when given a chance to partake of American sugar or products containing sugar, they make the most of it.

The average Katusa came directly from the Republic of Korea Army (ROKA) upon completion of his basic training, and perhaps an orientation course to prepare him for working beside Americans. He generally had a better than high school education, with some English language instruction, and was between the age of nineteen and twenty-six.

The ROK Army chose only their brightest and best recruits to serve with Americans. This is because they didn't want their soldiers to bring disgrace upon the Korean army. This would have been a loss of "face," which was not acceptable. This sometimes led to misunderstandings and resentment.

There were several instances where American soldiers working with Katusa, gave instruction on how to perform certain procedures. Usually, the GI would then ask the Katusa if he understood. Most times, the Katusa did understand, and would do the task satisfactorily. At times, however, the Katusa would not understand, but rather than lose "face," would say he understood. Naturally, when the job didn't get done, or was done wrong, there would be accusations, and bad feelings would develop.

The Katusa first sergeant worked right out of the same orderly room where our first sergeant worked. As a matter of fact, all Katusa worked, slept, and ate, right alongside the GI. If something needed to get done to accomplish the mission of the unit, the combined forces worked together.

The discipline of the Katusa was administered by the first sergeant and he was exceedingly tough on his troops. I have seen him stand his men at attention in formation on the company street for over an hour, while he walked up and down their ranks, berating them for any shortcomings he found. Sometimes he even kicked them in the shins. They had to endure this without complaint or breaking formation.

Even with such discipline, the Katusa soldier had it better than his counterparts in the ROKA. It was much stricter there, so the Katusa considered himself lucky. Every month, the Korean government furnished him with what we came to call his "care package." It contained such items as toothpaste, toothbrush, soap, socks, underwear, towels, etcetera. His base pay ranged between six and eleven dollars a month depending on his rank. The average yearly income, for most Korean civilians, was about two or three hundred dollars. That's not a mistake, you read that right. The Korean economy wasn't very great in 1965, they were still trying to rebuild from the war.

With such a disparity in salaries between GI and Katusa, you would have thought there would have been more animosity. As I said though, most Katusa considered themselves lucky not to be serving in the ROKA. Technically, they were allowed to use the same facilities as we, such as the EM club, bowling alley, snack bar, etc. However, as you can see, their funds would not permit them these luxuries. Occasionally they would accompany GIs to these places, but not too often. They didn't want to feel obligated to the GI, and besides, the other Katusa would have felt resentment.

A normal tour of duty for an American soldier in Korea is thirteen months. Sometime during this tour of duty, he would have to fire his rifle for zeroing and qualification (that is, to make sure that the sights on his personal rifle were adjusted so that he could hit what he aimed at). Most soldiers serving there know that the main range for firing for qualification is just outside Tong Du Chon, at a place given the name of "The Nightmare Range." Not for nothing, is it called that!

The range is located between two hills (mountains?), with the control tower being in the center, and the firing positions in the center, and extending up along the face of both hills in a straight line. Generally, whole units (battalions or companies) will fire for qualification at one time, starting in early morning and continuing until finished.

Throughout the day, details comprised of several men, are picked (volunteered) for jobs such as loading ammunition clips with ammunition, carrying ammunition from point to point on the range for distribution, posting new targets, and various other police details. These jobs are usually doled out among the lower ranking enlisted men. Non Commissioned Officers (NCO's) did not do this type work, but supervised the lower enlisted men in carrying out these duties. All had to fire for qualification!

The center positions on the range were used for zeroing your weapon, and the targets were fixed at twenty-five meters. This consisted of firing three rounds of ammunition at the target (a Canadian bull's eye or half-bull), and trying to group the shot group so that it covered the bull, and the three holes could be covered by a quarter. After each three rounds had been fired by all on the range, all would go down to the target on line, and take note of where the shots had struck. Upon return to the firing position, the windage and elevation would be adjusted on the weapon by raising or lowering the rear sights, and adjusting the front site right or left several calibrated clicks. This procedure would be repeated several times until the shot group on the target was satisfactory. It was necessary that this be done correctly, or else, the person firing at the knockdown (KD) targets for qualification, would not be able to hit them. These targets were not fixed, but fell down when struck. They were placed anywhere from forty meters, to four hundred meters out from the firing positions located on the sides of the mountains. Each position had two men assigned. One acted as scorer while the other one fired for qualification. They would then switch positions and do it again. The targets would pop up at different ranges, and remain up until time ran out, or it would be hit by a bullet. The person firing had to fire from various positions, such as prone, kneeling, standing and foxhole. Ten seconds were the longest the target stayed up (the time varied), and the person firing could use more than one shot to hit the target, but only had twenty rounds to hit maybe twelve targets, so he had to be careful he didn't run out of ammo too soon.

Depending on how many KD targets you hit within the designated times, and at various ranges, you were given a score of expert, sharpshooter, or marksman. No matter what score was made every soldier who ever fired that range, will never forget it! I've heard that there is one in Germany which is tougher, but that is very difficult for me to believe! I fired on this range twice, once as an E-4 and again as an E-5. Naturally, it was easier for me as a NCO, but it was still memorable for it's toughness.

In November of 1965, my unit went to fire the Honest John missile at the missile range (entirely different from the rifle range). A Katusa, another radio teletypewriter operator, and me, drove my RATT rig (a radio teletypewriter set, mounted in a van, strapped with steel cables into the bed of a 3/4 Ton truck) in convoy to the range. I don't remember exactly where the range was, but the trip was a long one, over unpaved roads, and through mountainous terrain. The roads snaked up and down the mountains, sometimes making hairpin turns back upon themselves. Sometimes the roads paralleled rice paddies which had been terraced up and down the mountainside on both sides of the road.

This was winter, of course, but I had occasion in the spring to marvel at the ingenuity of the irrigation system employed to get water to all those paddies. I'll swear to this day that Korea was the first place I ever saw water running uphill. The system had been perfected for thousands of years, and custom has it that the land is handed down from father to son within the family for generations. Land is highly valued in Korea and almost all of it is used in one way or another.

To get back to the convoy, we followed the vehicle in front at about a ten meter interval and tried to maintain a speed of twenty to twenty-five miles per hour. This was the predetermined convoy profile. It was not possible for a convoy as long as ours to maintain that profile on those roads. There were about eighty vehicles in the convoy. There was a constant jockeying back and forth, and speeds fluctuated from six, to forty miles per hour.

We finally made it to the range, which, as I recall, was situated along the side of a dry river bed. We set up the Ratt rig and erected our camouflage net and checked into the Ratt frequency. We were all set for business.

It was very cold, which was especially noticeable early in the morning. Usually, before breakfast, the men had to shave, because the company commander, or first sergeant, watched the mess line to make sure that the men were maintaining their personal hygiene.

I would stumble out of my sleeping bag and take my steel pot (helmet) to the mess tent where the cook had some water heaters set up in clean trash cans. After filling the helmet half way with boiling water, I would go back to my vehicle and strip to the waist. I'd wash face, arms, and upper body (if more than three days, lower body was next), and then proceed to lather my face and shave. This whole procedure was accomplished as quickly as possible, amid much shivering and grumbling. After getting dressed, we would take our tin mess kits and get in the chow line for breakfast.

After breakfast on the last day, we broke camp, and lined up in convoy for the trip back to base camp. I drove, with the GI and Katusa sitting beside me (in an actual combat situation, they would be on the watch for air or ground attack along the route of the convoy).

About a third of the way back to camp, my vehicle broke down in a small village. There are mechanics in all convoys, but after he looked at my vehicle, he said he couldn't fix it. We would have to be towed in, bringing up the rear of the convoy. With no engine running, we couldn't run the heater. It was going to be a long, cold trip back!

I decided to fortify myself for that ordeal, so sneaked across the street to a village store, and bought a bottle of Yakju. This is a Korean rice wine with which I was familiar. It tasted a little like apple cider. The Katusa and the GI had a couple of swigs, but for the most part, I drank the bottle.

I remember singing American and Korean songs on the way back (I had learned a couple of songs), and occasionally, stamping our feet and flapping our arms to generate some warmth.

We got back to the motor pool, but I was too drunk to make it back to the barracks, so the GI said he was going to get help, and I should just sit there until he came back. I don't know how long they had been gone before I decided to try to make it back on my own.

I passed out on the chapel lawn, right across from the Camp Commander's Office. Someone saw me and got me back to my unit. I was called in front of the company commander the next morning, and the riot act was read to me. Luckily my platoon sergeant and the first sergeant put in a good word for me. I was a darned good soldier, and worked very hard; there were extenuating circumstances. I did not get busted, but only got a verbal reprimand. Three months after that incident, I made sergeant (E 5).

One day, while on liberty in the town of Chun Chon, I met a young lady who took me to her "hootch" (apartment) in a compound across from the entrance to Camp Page. She was a prostitute of about twenty years of age, and very knowledgeable about sexual matters. She couldn't speak much English, but there was another girl living nearby in the same compound who translated for her when she didn't understand something I said. This other girl was also a prostitute. That didn't surprise me, but later, when I became interested in this girl, I found out they were sisters.

As I mentioned earlier, girls were not as highly thought of in Korean families, so their parents had sold them to a "house mamasan" to train as prostitutes so that they could send home some extra money. The mamasan furnished them a room to conduct their business, bought them nice clothes, and even cooked and served their food, all for part of their earnings. If they were good at their trade, they made a lot of money, some of which, they sent back home. If they made enough money, they might even have a housegirl of their own to cook and clean house for them. This latter case usually occurred when a GI had agreed to "steady" them, or become their "yobo." In a lot of cases, the girl just became deeper and deeper in debt to the mamasan, and eventually, killed herself. Sometimes she would run away and try to begin life anew in /another location. That was hard to do though, because it was hard for her to be accepted into another community, especially if her profession became known.

I started going with this second girl, Chong Hui, on a regular basis; I became her yobo. That was a mistake, because I became very attached to her; so attached, that I decided to marry her and take her away from the life she was leading.

I only had about three months left in Korea, and I knew that wasn't enough time to get approval on a request to marry. What I did was to have a civilian wedding in a local church (Western style), and then a Korean ceremony at her home. They were both beautiful weddings and Chong Hui even made me a Korean costume for the ceremony. We'd planned the weddings for the weekend so that we'd have a couple of days to celebrate. We did that, and I had a most memorable time.

The marriage wasn't recognized by the U.S. Army or government. As a matter of fact, I could have been court martialed for marrying without my commanding officer's permission, so I kept it very hush-hush. Johnny and another friend were the only U.S. military at the wedding, and I cautioned them to keep quiet.

Later that week, I put in a formal request to get married. The Army frowns on anyone marrying a Korean girl for several reasons. The Korean culture is so different from American culture that many times, marriages of this kind do not last, so they try to stop such a marriage before it happens. The girl may be a prostitute, out to marry a soldier so that she can get an allotment and the other benefits that accrue to being the wife of a serviceman. Many times it is the serviceman's first time away from home and he is easily beguiled by feminine charms. I was twenty-six years old, however, and I figured I knew what I wanted to do, and I wasn't about to let them talk me out of it.

I soon had my orders to go back to the states! I guess the Army figured if they couldn't talk me out of it, they'd send me back to the states to let time erase the thought. I had time enough to take a train to Uijongbu to start the official paperwork for the marriage (they have to do a background check on the bride, and that's where her family papers were). We boarded the train in Chun Chon. That was an experience I'll always remember. The house mamasan had packed us a lunch of kimchee, and kimpop, which is fermented cabbage, and rice, pickled radish, and spinach, rolled into pressed sea weed; quite tasty once you acquired a taste for it! It was well she did, because the train ride was a lengthy one, involving many stops along the way. Most of the passengers had brought their own food and were willing to share it with their fellow travelers. It was a very friendly crowd of people. Most were peasants, going to the big city to sell their produce. The prices they commanded in Uijongbu, were better than in Chun Chon.

I was the only westerner on the train, and as such, I created quite a commotion. All eyes noticed me. The people were very courteous for the most part, but there were mendicants who zeroed in on my presence. Most of these people are allowed to ride the train on a daily basis, and press the passengers for alms, as long as they don't make pests of themselves. It is how they earn enough money to subsist. Most of the beggars appeared to be healthy enough to work and elicited little money from the passengers. One fellow, though, will always haunt my memory. His face had been ravaged by syphilis, and was most repugnant to look upon. The poor soul was so piteous, standing before me and begging for money, that I was happy to give him some money just to have his visage removed. Years later, I was to see the movie "Elephant Man," and it reminded me of him.

From Uijongbu, we caught another train to Seoul. We had to transfer some of the paperwork to Korean offices there, and fill out additional papers at the American Embassy. Rather than go through the hassle of a return train ride to Chun Chon, we caught a bus back. All too soon, I was also catching a plane back to the states.

Susana

11 February 1989

Dear Susana,

Your letter of 21 January arrived today and I was happy to get it. I thought you had given up on me so it came as an added surprise when I got it.

Yes Susana, I have traveled a great deal and it sometimes was very difficult leaving a place or my friends. I have been doing it for much of my life so have become used to the idea of making new friends in a new location. Unfortunately, I did not keep in touch with my old friends and it is not until now, in my later years, that I have the time and desire to correspond with them. They are spread all over the world by now (most of them were military dependents) and we have lost touch. That is why I have tried to re establish ties with old friends in a civilian school such as Central Falls High School. It stands to reason that they will not have gone so far a-field.

Your first letter sounded so positive about you going back to Portugal this year, but this one sounds like you have some doubts that you will. Do you have a choice in the matter? Since your parents are separated, I make the assumption that you are with your mother (correct me if I'm wrong). Have you talked with her of your feelings about returning to Portugal? Perhaps if she knows how you feel and how important your school and friends are to you, she will consider letting you stay in school at Central Falls. This might be especially true if she intends to return later. If you have a good rapport with her, it might be worth discussing.

You are correct when you say I might have found some of my secret loves felt the same about me if I had told them. Considering how bashful I was though, that was an impossibility at the time. As I stated in my first letter to you, I kept waiting for them to say something first; dumb me, huh?

I'm happy to see you are not plagued by bashfulness anyway. Jules is not one of the persons who wrote me. I've gone through all my letters twice and have none from him. That doesn't surprise me though. I'll bet there are others who didn't write also. I hope you and he are happy together. Be nice to each other as long as it last but do be aware that you will probably have many "loves" during your teen years. They will all be special and you will mature a little bit more with each passing relationship. Such is life.

Susana, please do keep writing to me. I enjoy getting letters and I do love to write. Maybe I get a bit verbose from time to time but you can chalk that up to old age and have pity on this one fault of mine. You see, age has made me less bashful about asking girls for favors.

Your friend,

John

Prologue to Teen Correspondance

PROLOGUE

You have, quite literally "My Life in Your Hands." At least it is my intent to name this work that. A second choice might be "Letters of Reminiscence" or still a third, "Letters from John."
No matter what the final title may end up being, you should know that any resemblance to persons or places depicted in this book, are purely intentional. This is indeed an autobiographical account of my existence at various locations, at differing times during my life. As such, it is intended to be factual, so street names and place names must remain as written.
I have endeavored to leave off surnames and have changed some of the characters names in the story. At best though, it is a thin disguise and can readily be penetrated by readers familiar with some of the persons or places mentioned.
It is not this author's intent to cause anyone pain or discomfort by these revelations. Rather, it is told to shed some light on a particular moment which has some redeeming quality that caused the author to store the moment in memory until now.
The school, and students who wrote, are located in the city of Central Falls, Rhode Island. You may recall that several years ago, that city was involved in a major drug bust that netted (at that time) the largest amount of illicit drugs in the nation, and uncovered the Colombian, Medellin Cartel connection. The children of that area are still being affected by those circumstances. Several students, in their initial letters, have


alluded to the drug problems the city has had, and, alledgedly, is still having.
It was the desire of the author to contact old friends or teachers to reminisce about good times in past years. The letter-writing campaign intensified when it was turned into a class project. At first I resented this intrusion by so many strangers. As I began to realize, however, the more I wrote to these students, the more clearly events stood out in my memory and the narrative began to flow more and more smoothly. For that alone, I owe the teacher and his students my deepest gratitude.
It is my hope, that should this book become widely read in the area, perhaps the citizens of Central Falls will realize the values and worth they once had and be able to reestablish those values. If for no other reason, it might make people realize that their children are growing up in fear of what the city has become.
I am not completely altruistic; I want to make a buck also! I happen to think I have some writing talents and have led an interesting life. I've tried to make this work reflect those facts.
It will be necessary for the reader to wade through some small talk in answering certain questions from letter writers. An effort was made by the author to keep the conversation lively and full of anecdotes; to answer all questions put to him and to make the letters not only informative, but humorous and stylistic. Of necessity, all letters could not be included because of


redundancy. I did answer each writer individually however, and the book version tells all.
Along with the story of my adventures in life (which in-
cluded life in Central Falls), I have tried to impart a feeling of pride in the city and it's people by showing that some of its leading citizens today (the former mayor, Carlos Silva, and several other schoolmates of mine), have gone on to become pillars of the community.
It is hoped the reader will be able to piece the story together without too much difficulty and that in doing so, will have a good read and perhaps some memory of your own will be called to mind by the narrative.
I wish to thank my wife who has been very patient with my absences and late night toil in this endeavor.
To the reader, enjoy.

John E. Hunt

Jeannie

Dear Mr. John Hunt,
John, I hope you don't mind me calling you by your first name. My name is Jeannie. I'm now living in Central Falls, but I came from North Providence about three weeks ago, therefore I don't know much about Central Falls. My father, on the other hand, has been living in Central Falls all his life.
In Central Falls the recent things I have seen are: the school I am attending now, which is C.F.H.S., and I've been to my father's garage and the store down the street called Paulette's.
They no longer take basketball as the big entertainment of C.F. Football seems to be in now that it's the season for football.
I've been to Jenks Park a few times. I enjoyed myself. I live right next door to the park.
Since I came, I also met several people. In my opinion, Central Falls is a lot different than North Providence, and the school I attend now is also different. I'm very glad to have had the opportunity to write to a man who knows a lot about a city I am new to. I will eagerly be waiting for your return letter.

Sincerely yours,

Jeannie




Dear Jeannie,
You don't have to worry about calling me John. I prefer that mode of address anyway; it makes me feel old when someone says mister. They say you are only as old as you feel (if that were true, I'd be 101) but I think it's all in the mind. My body is forty-eight, but my mind is as old as I want it to be and when I reminisce about old haunts and old friends and talk with someone of your tender years, I will my mind to become young again. You can do that when you write, you know? The years just melt away, and I am transported to that other me.
Your letter stands out, not because you are so new to Central Falls, but because of your address. You see, my first conscious memory of Central Falls is from a second-story window of an apartment on Washington Street. I must have been four or five years old, so that would put it at about 1944 or 1945. My father was in the Navy in the Pacific, and my mother was raising me and my brother by herself there on Washington Street. I was too young for school, but I used to watch for my brother to come home from first grade. The school was on Washington also and was a Catholic school, and we only spoke French. (My mother is
Canadian French, and I didn’t speak English until I started second grade in another state--but that's another story.)
The walk up in that apartment was a very scary place for a four-year old, especially at night. I still have one very scary memory of a drunk asleep on the stairs grabbing my leg as I tried



to pass him. His stubble beard on my leg (we wore knickers in those days) scared me but not half as much as I must have scared him when I screamed.

I remember going to the store with ration coupons to get butter and flour. There was a corner store (a tobacconist, I think, which might be the store you call Paulette's) I used to pass that store every day. It had an old wooden cigar store Indian statue out front and some old (to me) men used to sit outside on the steps and share a water pipe and the local gossip.
If I'm not mistaken, the streets were cobbled in those days. I remember the iceman delivering ice to the apartments. He'd haul large blocks of ice in his horse-drawn cart. The ice would be under burlap sacks. When you paid him for your ice, he would take his ice pick and chop off an appropriate amount of ice, grab it with his tongs and toss it over his shoulder, and carry it to your apartment. He wore a leather apron.
As you say in your letter, Jenks Park is only a stone's throw away from where you live. When I was young, the pool would be filled with water in the summer and all the little kids like me would play in it. The deepest part was less than three feet deep, what is now called a wading pool. I stubbed many a big toe running around the apron. It used to be pretty scenic to climb to the tower or the gazebo at the top of the rocks and look out and down at those in the park. I understand that it is a bit rundown now, but I'll bet I could still recognize it.



You say football is in season. Well, perhaps so. But if you knew Central Falls like I do, you would know that basketball is year round and the king of sport in that city. I think it always will be.
I certainly hope you will learn to love Central Falls as I did. It has got to be easier to get around than North
Providence; it's a lot smaller, for one thing, and I believe it has an international flavor, what with its diversity of ethnic groups. That's what makes it so interesting.
Well, Jeannie, I want you to write to me again, but please don't make it a school project. It's very difficult answering all these letters at once. If you all spread your letters out over a period of time, I will have time to answer them directly to your address.
Until next time then,

Your new friend,

John E. Hunt

Last of Teen Years/U.S. Navy & Two Ships

Chapter 3 of LOOKING BACK
by John E. Hunt
c 1996

C H A P T E R 03

(1959-1961)

Newfoundland and the visit with the relatives in New England were behind us and we had settled in to our new home at Virginia Beach, Virginia (actually about seventeen miles from the beach). I started school at Princess Anne High School on Virginia Beach Boulevard, about five miles from the beach proper.

The school was much bigger than I was used to. Classes had in excess of thirty students. Teachers were not able to devote as much time to individuals as had been done at my previous school. I'd missed about two months of school just traveling and visiting relatives. That, coupled with the fact that I had to learn the dreaded trigonometry that year, and couldn't get a grip on it, lead to low marks on my report card (some C's and even a D). I hadn't received low marks like that before, and it was very discouraging.

Bob Pellitier was a new friend I met, and a kindred spirit. He too, was unhappy in school. We began skipping classes and going to the beach. Occasionally, we bought some beer (I could pass easily for twenty-three, even though I was only nineteen – maybe I was just ugly) and went partying along the shoreline someplace. I didn't have a car of my own yet, but Bob's parents let him use their car all the time.

We talked of how discouraged we were with school and planned to enter the Air Force together. One night at the Beach, we partied a little too much, and we had an accident with the car on the way back. We hit a tree. The police made out a report and took us to Bob's house where he was promptly grounded. I had to call my folks to come and pick me up and explain to them what had happened. They were not happy and grounded me also.

I had three months to go until graduation, but I had no guarantee of that happening either. One day I went to the Air Force recruiter by myself and filled out the necessary paperwork. I had to get permission from my parents to enter, but after my current difficulties, I didn't think they would mind if I cut the apron strings. I got the permission, but later when I went back to the recruiter, I passed a Navy recruiting office and stopped in there to see what they had to offer. It sounded good so I signed a commitment. About a month later, I got a notice to report to Richmond, Virginia for induction into the Navy.

The year was 1959 and I had just completed a battery of tests at the induction center at Richmond, Virginia. I was called in for an interview with a counselor. He told me that based upon my rendering the correct number of answers on a Morse Code test consisting of three letters, a, e, and t, or dih-dah, dit, and dah, and the speed with which I copied them, he thought I would make a good radioman in the Navy. Obviously some other consideration must have been taken into account also, right? He said I was smart! Well, I didn't know about that, but it sounded like a job where I wouldn't be getting my hands soiled and would be privy to frequent contacts with my commander, which might lead to faster advancement. I said okay.

I was put in charge of about six other guys (actually given a plain yellow envelope that contained our orders assigning us to the United States Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois, and meal tickets for all), because I was the oldest or ugliest, take your pick. I hated that responsibility, but the guys were good guys, and didn't rib me too much.

We traveled by bus and arrived at the Center around 2:00 a.m., dragging our butts off the bus. We were led like cattle into this building with a huge room and a lot of tables and chairs. They gave us more tests until about six in the morning. Any sleep we had, had been on the way up on the bus. I guess they were trying to see how the fatigue factor entered into the equation on the test results.

I should mention that this was early April 1959, and winter weather still prevailed. The Center was just outside of Chicago, and cold winds blew right off Lake Erie, to frost our exhalations and shiver our bones.

When we had completed the test, they told us to leave our luggage, fall outside into a formation and go to the mess hall for chow. The normal pace of any recruit is at a run or jog, so that is what we had to do that morning. The necessity of posting a road guard at intersections before crossing streets was quickly explained and apparent once we took off. Recruits who had been there earlier, had seniority at the crossings and we had to put up with the disparaging chants they uttered about us as they passed. We were still in civilian clothes and these guys looked like seasoned veterans in uniform; some were even in step. We truly must have presented a bedraggled sight to them!

My first meal in the Navy consisted of a hot cup of coffee, a tin tray loaded with steak and beans, bacon and eggs with toast, and a glass of milk. I had never had steak and beans for breakfast, but I quickly began to enjoy the meals and could never get enough food, it seemed. I did not realize that the physical regimen we trained under and the classroom work we did was changing the physiological makeup of our bodies. I'll say more of this later.

We spent the remainder of the day getting issued bedding and clothing, for which we had to be measured, and they had a whole gaggle of tailors who went over our bodies carefully with a tape measure and noted various sizes at pertinent points. None of us could understand why the clothes fit so badly when we wore them later. The tailors had been so meticulous in their measurements. We were assigned a barrack, a bunk and locker, and instructed on how to store our gear and make our bed. Of course, we didn't get to bed until later that night at about 9:00 p.m.

Day two arrived at the ungodly hour of 4:00 a.m., in the form of bright, glaring lights from the overhead rafters and a sound like thunder sitting on top of my head. The noise, I subsequently learned, is the sound a coke bottle makes when it is spun round and round inside the mouth of a corrugated trash can, of which, three were evenly spaced down the center aisle. They seemed to have been strategically placed there to allow our drill instructors (DIs) to get our maximum attention at this hour.

We were told in no uncertain terms that we only had thirty minutes to take care of our three S's (shit, shower and shave), get dressed (again in civvies because we hadn't yet marked our clothes with stencils), and fall out in formation for chow. This we proceeded to do with varying degrees of success and a lot of grumbling.

The day was devoted to having stencils made, learning how to mark all our clothing, to include handkerchiefs, how to fold and stow them in a 3' x 3' x 3' foot locker (a place for everything, and everything in its place), and getting a haircut that put a bowling ball to shame.

The start of the third day was the same, but later we met our chief petty officer (CPO Hartley) who was the head DI for our company. We were issued a rifle (M-1 Garand), and told to memorize the serial number. We never fired it. The rifle was to be used to perform exercises called the Manual of Arms and there were sixteen of the exercises. These exercises built our upper-body strength and honed our coordination. We learned how to disassemble it, clean it, and put it back together again, along with the standard issue .45 caliber handgun.

Classroom instruction on military history, terminology, proper methods of address and salutation between officer and enlisted members; the art of swimming and instruction on moving in formation (faces and obliques), took up most of our daily lives. We also learned how to mount a guard on a dumpster for a twenty-four-hour period and the reason for having a fire guard. This was good practice for later when we might be called upon to guard something of more importance. Actually, the guard on the dumpster was occasioned because someone had gotten caught with a woman in one of the dumpsters and they hadn't been looking for something to eat.

On a daily basis, personal hygiene was checked twice daily during formation. You were stood at attention and when the DI passed in front of you, you were expected to reach up with thumb and turn out the neck of your T-shirt. That little white seam that runs around the collar had better not be dirty! Most of us learned to wash our clothes properly, often, and every day. This included the white spats, which had to be worn over the boots.

Clothespins were not used by recruits to hang clothes to dry. Instead, we were given twine ties that had metal studs on each end to prevent unraveling. We learned to tie off the corners of our shirts, pants, handkerchiefs, socks, or whatever, with these ties, and it must be a square knot that was used, and not a granny knot. The ends of the ties had to be even and not protrude more than a half inch. Mother never had it like that!

The time went by very fast, and those who couldn't take the strain were weeded out. Some sickness and injury occurred, which eliminated others. I caught rubella but was not absent from my company long enough to be set back. Graduation was fast approaching, but first we had a liberty coming in downtown Chicago.

The pomp and ceremony of a graduation from USNTC, Great Lakes, Illinois, with the huge parades of newly made sailors marching in review to band music, colorful banners, bright swords, clean uniforms, and expectant friends and relatives sitting in the stands, is a sight that is very stirring. It also takes a lot of practice to pull off to perfection. The last several weeks of boot camp were devoted to getting the moves on the field down pat.

During this period, we were allowed a little more freedom and even given liberty to downtown Chicago, as long as we stayed in uniform. This was a part of the regular initiation of every sailor. He could strut the street in his uniform, showing how sharp he looked. For the more adventurous (and there were always some), the tattoo parlors on State Street beckoned. Other things beckoned on State Street, also. There were the burlesque houses (since closed down, I hear) made famous by such delightful people as Fanny Brice, W. C. Fields, Bert Lahr, and the notorious bevy of scantily clad strippers who traipsed across those stages.

We finally graduated and got our orders to our next duty stations. Most of us took a short leave of absence to visit at home before reporting to our next assignment. Our good-byes were said, and sad, and it was not many who would see each other again, but some of us did. We made some strong friendships there.

I went home to Virginia on leave. My friend Bob Pellitier had gone into the Air Force, and I never saw him again. The time at home was short, but I was glad to take my departure and get on with my training at Radioman "A" School in Bainbridge, Maryland.

In late summer of 1959, I traveled by bus to Hyattsville, Maryland. The driver let me out at about eight o'clock at night at a small store where I was instructed by the proprietor to call the base (the number was on the wall next to the phone) and they would send someone out to get me. This I did, and sure enough, some transportation arrived and took me to the base. I gave a copy of my orders to the duty petty officer, was issued some bedding, and given temporary billeting for the night in a barracks full of other slumbering shapes. There wasn't much talking that night; everyone appeared tired.

In the morning we were taken to the mess hall in a group, but there was a little more decorum to the procession. It didn't seem as though we were being herded, and we were not made to run or march at lock-step. The mess hall was huge and looked like a converted airplane hanger. It had picnic-style tables and benches, which stretched from wall to wall and could feed about a thousand men and women at a sitting.

Along the walls and behind them were several small kitchens where trays were handed in through slotted windows. A trainee separated the knife, fork, and spoon into a tray, dumped and scraped any slops from the tray into a trash can, and emptied cups or glasses of liquid and placed them in a tray. All these items, in their own trays, were then placed on an assembly line that fed through a very hot steam-cleaning cabinet. A trainee operated this cabinet also, making sure that the temperature was always hot enough. He had to check the dinnerware for cleanliness as it came out the other end too.

Everyone hated the mornings that pancakes were served because the syrup got on everything and was hard to clean. Everyone took turns learning each phase of the operation, because at one time or another, he did it all. Other trainees were waiting to carry the newly washed utensils back out to the serving line and separate and stack them properly to await the next meal. Besides the scullery crew, which is what this team of about six was called, other trainees worked the floor, constantly seeing to it that the milk machines didn't run out, the condiment containers remained full, and the floors were free of spillage. At the end of each meal, the floor workers were responsible for cleaning the tables, benches and floors.

Some trainees were detailed to work the kitchen where the food was prepared. Mostly they off-loaded supplies from the trucks when they came in, peeled potatoes, and sometimes broke eggs into bowls for the breakfast meals (I can still crack eggshells one-handed in each hand and empty the contents without spilling a drop of albumen). They washed the pots and pans, and huge mixing pots, and swept and mopped the kitchen constantly. Some were detailed to work the line (ladle out the food onto the trays) during meals, but we were never allowed to actually prepare a dish on the menu.

The reason why I went into such detail here is that every trainee had to pull such duty for three months straight, out of the approximately nine months he was there for training. This included me. Bainbridge trained more than just radiomen. There was a large contingent of fire control technicians and Waves (women sailors) who passed through there also. Waves did not pull the dreaded KP. Why this was so, I don't know! These activities began about three-thirty in the morning, and finished up between eight and nine at night. The day's activities left little desire, nor any time for socializing. Mess hall duty was generally taken up in the fifth or sixth week, after the trainee had learned the basics of typing and had some classes on basic electronics. I had already had some experience typing, so my transition through this period of time was relatively easy.

When I started radioman school at Bainbridge, Maryland, in the fall of 1959, I was part of a class of about forty-five students, who, with the exception of the Waves, of which there were five in our class, lived in large open-bay barracks, with stacked bunk beds lining either side of the room at regular intervals. The obligatory picnic-style tables and benches, of which there were three, were placed in the center of the room and were for us to sit around while shining our boots and brass, or sewing, or doing schoolwork, or just to relax and shoot the bull together.

Class leaders and their assistants were elected by democratic means among us all, but usually those positions went to the more experienced or older of the students. At any rate, those selected wore special arm bands that showed their position of authority within the class. They were given more responsibility over our lives, and less of the menial chores that had to be performed. For example, they did not have to pull fire guard at night, but they were responsible for making out the list of those who did. They made out the duty rosters for the chores that had to be performed on a daily basis, both at school (sweeping the floors and hallways at the end of the day, dusting, etc.), and in the barracks.

One of the additional duties of such a person selected was to make sure that the class was formed up, and marched in an orderly manner under its own banner, to the school area. We were graded weekly on our marching ability and appearance, and at the end of the month, a class was chosen as being, "The Best All Around," and given a new banner to carry, along with the class banner. This singular honor exempted us (if we were the winner) from additional duties at the school, such as police call (picking up trash and cigarette butts).

My particular class happened to have a gimmick that garnered this honor for us many times. We had a Scotsman in the class who happened to have a set of bagpipes, and he knew how to play them. We were the only class that marched to school with the cacophonous roar of bagpipes swirling in our ears. Let me tell you, it takes a while to get used to that! I'll bet Bainbridge never saw the like of us again after we left.

Classes were divided into basic electronic theory-lecture type, or hands-on lab work, where we actually built electrical circuits. We had typing and Morse code classes also. These last were the eliminators, especially the code. The requirement for graduation was to be able to copy twenty-two words per minute accurately on a mill or typewriter. This was no easy task and generally
proceeded in stages where one would reach a plateau, say eight words per minute, and get stuck for a week or so, but finally reach the next speed of ten words per minute.

You advanced in speed at your own pace or ability to copy that speed. If you failed to make a certain speed by the nth week of training, you were set back to another class. Naturally, everyone wanted to stay with the same class he started with.

It was not easy! I have seen some students go catatonic in the classroom, and have to be taken away by ambulance to the hospital. That code is a real mind-bender when you copy it day after day, four to six hours every day. I found that after being stuck on a plateau for about a week without being able to advance to a higher words-per-minute speed, it helped to go to the club and get drunk the night before. For some reason, copying code with a hangover made you relax more and not anticipate the next character, which is where most of us made our mistakes. In this relaxed stage, your fingers automatically hit the right key as soon as the code character was heard. This method of getting past a block was not always infallible and occasioned some bad days at school.

It was during this period of time, the dead of winter, that I got a case of bronchial asthma and could not march to class, or do anything of a physical nature, without gasping for breath. Fortunately, I was not made to march, and was given light duties. This enabled me to keep up with the class in school, and not fall behind and get set back to another group.

I took a job (non-paying) working in the library at night and was able to practice my escapism act (reading) during lax hours. The job consisted of taking in, and signing out books to patrons, refiling books on the proper shelves, and maintaining cleanliness and order within the library. The Dewey Decimal System became a familiar one. I met some nice dependents at that job also.

Relaxation on base consisted mostly of a gymnasium, which was quite far from the barracks/school area, and necessitated a good hike. I went mostly on weekends. For socializing, there was an enlisted club up the street that had a tropical motif and sold a lot of pitchers of beer. It was a close-by place, where one could go to unwind, and meet some Waves for female companionship. I think I had the only job in the area (the library) that brought me into contact with non-military female personnel.

I spent some nights, mostly weekend nights, and some Saturdays going to a roller skating rink on the highway just past the Hyattsville city limits. Trouble was, I had to hitch-hike out there and back. In those days, it wasn't so chancy a risk, and it was easy to get a ride. The police looked the other way. For advertisement of my destination, I carried my precision skates draped across my shoulders.

As I said, one place we used for relaxation after school was the small enlisted club on base where we could socialize. One of our number had purchased a cheap clunker of a car when graduation was drawing nigh, thinking to use this for his departure.

On a Friday afternoon after school, three of us guys, and three girls (Waves), who were all classmates, met at the club, and after several shared pitchers of beer, decided to pack small overnight bags, load into the car, and go to Baltimore to unwind for the weekend. One of the girls was named Goode; she was the blond, the other two were a redhead and a brunette, but I cannot recall their names.

It was all innocent fun, the trip there and eating at a restaurant at two o'clock in the morning, but the city was dead. We piled into the car and went back to base, arriving early in the morning, too tired to do anything but crawl into the sack to sleep it off. I mentioned Goode's name, because until graduation, whenever we all met together, someone was bound to say "I feel good." Of course there had been no hanky-panky on that trip, but the statement invariably made Goode blush and vehemently deny any such happening, and it brought a smile to all our lips.

Well, we finally made it through graduation and were now full-fledged,
School trained radioman strikers. We were strikers until such time as we made petty officer third class. If you substitute the word peon for striker, you will get an idea of our status. The good-byes were said, and again, they were sad, because of the parting.

Surprise, surprise, my new assignment was the United States Naval Communication Station, Norfolk, Virginia! I lived at home in Virginia Beach, and commuted to work at the naval station with my father and brother in the morning. This was the only time we ever got assigned to the same area at the same time. My brother was aboard a ship at the Norfolk piers, my father was stationed ashore, about a mile from the pier, and I worked in a labyrinth of a huge cement block building, with no windows, and a lot of antenna on top. It was located between the naval air station and the naval operating base, and only about five miles distant from my father and brother.

Our house was a little under twelve miles from the base, so it was about a
Twenty-three mile round trip by car every day. There were a lot of days that one or the other of us caught duty, which required making other arrangements for transportation.

A redheaded civilian man worked in the automatic switching center downstairs in my building. He lived out beyond me, and worked the same shift I did (three eves, three mids, three days, and three days off), so I arranged with him for transportation. His name was House, and he was a cigar-chomping, philosopher, with a quick wit, and gentle laugh; a fine man to know.

The blockhouse that was NAVCOMSTA, NORVA, had elaborate security. Everyone was expected to wear an ID badge to enter the building and throughout the day. An U.S. Marine guard was posted at the door to check everyone entering or leaving, and believe me, if you had seen this guy 100 times, and time 101 your papers were not correct, the only way you could get in to work was to have your supervisor come out to the entrance and sign you in; and when you left, he had to sign you out.

When I first started working there, I worked in the basement boiler room until my security clearance checked out and a badge was issued. I was a glorified gofer, you know, gofer this, and gofer that. Later, my first job was in what they call torn tape relay, which was located upstairs. The job consisted of logging in the teletype messages received on banks of machinery, making header tapes for rerouting to the addressees, and logging out those rerouted messages. It was not a hard job to learn, but it was tedious.



In 1960, my second job at the Naval Communications Station was working downstairs in the Teletype Automatic Switching Center. Someone from upstairs in Torn Tape Relay had seen me work and thought I was good enough to work downstairs, so I was transferred.

It will not be necessary for me to describe the exact operation, but in order for you to understand how complex an automatic switching center is, I will need to tell you its' function.

Automatic Switching Centers send and receive teletype messages all over the world, twenty-four hours a day, from Saudi Arabia to Seoul, Korea, to any place you care to name. All this is done electronically, and if routed correctly, without the aid of human intervention in between points. At the same time it is sending this traffic (that's what it is called), it makes a back-up copy of the entire message and how it was routed and numbered, spins this teletype, taped message off to a separate room at the back of the center where it is stored on a continuous reel of tape, which must be constantly monitored, tightened, removed from the reel, labeled with date and time and stored. This latter work did involve the intervention of humans and is part of the work I did in the center.

Later, we worked the floor and the back room with the taped reels. The floor work was the difficult part to learn. Picture if you will, a very long and wide room with a center aisle about thirty feet wide; it was very brightly lit with overhead fluorescent lighting. In the center of the aisle was an ultra-modern, four-sided, transmitting and receiving station, containing the latest teletype technological equipment. This station was always manned by the supervisor of the shift on duty. He was generally a GS-15 or higher, and a civilian. There were outgoing banks of consoles on the right and incoming banks on the left, stretching the entire length of the room. Each console was about four feet wide and contained, four, either incoming or four outgoing, pull-out cabinets with reels of teletype paper rolls.

The incoming cabinets had approximately 109 possible audio and visual alarms. The operators had to be familiar with how to correct the alarms (torn or twisted tape, improper transmission sequence of characters, wrong numbers, etc.), and the outgoing cabinets had about 79 alarms. The machinery gave off a constant and loud hum.

There were about eight operators per shift, not counting the supervisor. Most of the operators were civilians, men and women. Of the active duty military on my shift, there was a Wave radioman striker who went through Bainbridge at the same time as me, but in a different class, and me.

Our job was to service the equipment by changing teletype tape rolls when needed, and paper at the center aisle command station. We constantly tightened reels, logged, serviced, and reset any alarms which were caused by faulty routing, and answered request from outlying stations for reruns of messages they may have missed, or received garbled.

We were a major trunk line, with RBEK as a routing indicator, and Washington, D.C., or RBEP, as the other major trunk line on the East Coast of the United States. Over fifty-thousand messages passed through our facility every twenty-four hours.



That should give you a general idea of my work environment at this place of duty. I was there for a little over a year. In 1961, I got orders to transfer to the USS Hoist, ARS-40, an auxiliary repair and salvage ship berthed down the road at D & S Piers (destroyer and submarine). That is where my adventures really began.

I suppose I should tell you that in 1959, the base salary for a new recruit was only seventy-eight dollars a month. For the first three months, he didn't see any of that because it was taken out of his pay automatically to pay for his uniforms and equipment.

While working at NAVCOMSTA, NORVA, in 1960 and living at home, I put on a bit of weight. I went from about 137 to 187 pounds. I was known as "the bear." My uniforms had to be adjusted accordingly, and it got to be expensive. I'd been in about a year by then, and made one rank higher in pay grade, so I was making about $122 a month.

My new assignment aboard ship at the D & S Piers in Norfolk, Virginia, caused me to lose some of that weight. The ship was a salvage ship, known as a sea-going tug. We had experienced deep-sea divers, scuba divers, and some demolitions men, and machinists aboard, who could design and build just about any machined tool to accomplish a task, or could blow up the same. The ship's mission involved clearing the harbor of debris, or towing ships to safety if they lost power, or were not able to get underway.

My job was to support communications by radio voice/CW (Morse code), or teletype while at sea. I had to maintain the radios, teletypewriters, and transmitters in operational readiness at all times, keeping an accurate log of all incoming and out-going messages. Coding and decoding messages was another responsibility of mine. I had to know which messages were important enough to wake up the captain during the middle of the night, and which could wait until morning. A ship at sea could not survive without good radio operators, so the captain of the vessel depended very heavily upon his "eyes and ears," the radioman, and a strong rapport usually developed between the Commander and his enlisted communicators.

Our biggest operation came in early 1961, when the USS Baldwin, a destroyer being towed from Boston to Philadelphia, slipped its tow and went aground on the beach at Montauk Point, New York. This was an island resort town ($$$), but it had a lobstering community on the coast also. My ship acted as Task Force Command ship, and four other ships were involved in trying to get the Baldwin off the beach. They were the Windlass, the Luiseno, the Keywadin, and the Salvager. In the end, the effort was proving unsuccessful, and the beach had gutted her, so boarding parties went aboard and salvaged what they could (I got some new teletype machines and radio receivers.). She was dragged from the beach, towed to sea, and used for target practice until she went to the bottom.

One man was killed on that operation and two were hospitalized. A two-inch-thick u-bolt used on the tow line shattered, and the fragments hit one man in the head, killing him instantly and injuring the other two.

The Second Class Quartermaster who plotted the day-to-day operation on a piece of parchment, was a friend of mine. He gave me the parchment upon which he had plotted the operation. I still have it here at home. It has an "X" to mark the spot where the Baldwin went to Davy Jones' Locker.

Next we went into dry dock at Portsmouth for three months for an overhaul, which included stripping the entire ship of old paint by sand blasting and air guns, checking all joints and engines and repainting the entire ship. When we finished that, we took the ship out and ran it by the degaussing station at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay to demagnetize it.

We were refitted and received our orders for a shakedown cruise to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. During this type of operation, the ship and the crew are put through every known emergency drill and procedure to make sure they are on a wartime footing. These drills included transfer at sea by hi-line from one ship to another, and target practice at air and sea-towed targets (the Hoist was fitted with 40-millimeter antiaircraft guns).

I had one night ashore in GITMO to look over old haunts, and tried, unsuccessfully, to locate my Cuban friend I played with as a boy, but he had gone to Florida, and I only talked to his sister. We returned to the States and tragedy.

We usually tied up at the D & S Piers at NORVA upon return to homeport. Instead, we were directed to the piers at Little Creek, Virginia, which was out in the boondocks about seven miles from town. There were some moth-balled ships tied up there. Everyone was tired; that shakedown cruise had been a real bummer on all our nerves. We were tested to the maximum of endurance both physically and emotionally. It was time to relax!

I invited the first class quartermaster and my boss, the first class radioman, to my house for supper. We stopped for a few cold beers and to play some pool on the way home. Supper at my house was very good, and Mom didn't mind the unexpected guests. She was good that way, I guess, because my father used to bring home uninvited guests at the drop of a hat, and she could always throw something together to make a meal. About 7:00 p.m., we made our excuses to my mother, and told her we were going to go to a dance just over the North Carolina State line. It was listed in the papers.

The car belonged to my boss, and he started out driving. It was a long trip, so we stopped occasionally for a beer. At one time, it was suggested I drive, but being unfamiliar with the car, I didn't. The QM drove out of the last beer stop.

A Civilian Hiatus

Chapter 4 of 13 of LOOKING BACK
by John E. Hunt
Copyrighted 1996
Filed with CIS Writers Forum as LOOKBK04.JEH

At this time, I haven't a market for this book. It is a work of love, detailing events that have happened to me in my lifetime, as a boy and a man. I appreciate anyone critiquing this work, and especially this chapter, because I think the chapter starts great but could be presented more strongly - I'm not comfortable with it.

C HA P T E R 04
(1961-1963)

The lights hurt my eyes and someone kept asking me questions. I didn't understand all of it. I hurt! I slept, and maybe I died. "Hail Mary ... grace ... Lord is with thee ... Blessed ... women and ... fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Pray... and at hour of our death, Amen."

The priest, he's giving me the last rites! I've seen him do that before! There's my mother and brother . . . Why doesn't Harold look at me?

God! I hurt all over! ....I know where I am now! It was a hospital ward and I'd been hurt. "Here's Mom and Harold again. He is still avoiding my eyes and leaves the room a lot." What happened? No one would tell me anything! We had a car accident! "Is everyone okay?" "Yeah, don't worry." "Your job is to get better."

I saw myself in the bathroom mirror on day four, after being helped out of bed. Then I knew why my brother wasn't looking at me. Mom was full of smiles, but she must have been hurting like hell inside to see me all busted up like that. I was thrown from the back seat, through the front windshield, and the car came to rest on the back of my neck. I had compound facial fractures, with my nose and upper jaw being broken in several places. I was wired together with what is called a Barton Cap. I would not be able to open my mouth for about six weeks. My meals were taken through a straw.

What happened to my boss? He got a broken hip and leg. He was worried I might sue, so he sent his girl friend, a pretty brunette, to make small talk, and keep me company during the day. She was nice, and good at distracting me. The Quartermaster, I found out later that he took the steering wheel through the chest. He had a wife and two teenagers too. She wrote me later. She didn't understand what had happened, but did not hold me to blame. God, I felt terrible reading her letter! What do you say to a grieving wife, and mother of two teens, who has just had her life torn asunder? How to explain it? Her husband was older than I was, and I suppose one could say he knew what he was doing. That doesn't make it any easier to swallow though.

Eventually, I was well enough to leave the hospital and go home to convalesce. They wouldn't let me go until I was made to understand that I must wear a scissors tied around my neck twenty-four hours a day, until the rubber bands came off my jaws. That was to prevent me from choking to death if I were to regurgitate. An airway could be cleared by cutting the bands.


When the bands came off, I was assigned to temporary duty until a new assignment became available. The temporary duty involved being a prisoner chaser at the brig (jail) on the Naval Base. I was issued a loaded, 45-caliber pistol, helmet, night stick, and webbed belt. My job was to escort the prisoners, day and night, any time they had to leave the cell blocks. I also had to account for silverware at meals, razors in the morning (we watched them shave), and in general, maintain order and discipline among the inmates.

Most of the prisoners were in for petty crimes like AWOL (absent without leave), shoplifting, failure to obey a lawful order, etc. Some, however, were doing hard time for rape or murder. They're the ones who had me worried. I had just gotten out of the hospital with a broken jaw, and look what kind of assignment they gave me! I sometimes thought, if one of those hard cases had turned and stared real hard, my jaw would have broken again!

I only had one bad moment. It was on a wash detail one day, when a prisoner began teasing me, and threatening to run away. I told him to go ahead, that I wouldn't chase him, but would just shoot him in the back. He didn't know how to take that, so he stayed. It was a bluff, though. They gave you the equipment, but told you if you shot one of your charges, you'd end up in the brig in his stead.

My permanent assignment orders came in, and in the spring of 1962, I reported to the USS Rockville, EPCER-851 (Experimental Patrol Craft Escort-Rescue) based at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, Alexandria, Virginia, which is just outside our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.

The mission of the ship was to support the research of the scientists at the Naval Research Lab. They were testing equipment for listening to sounds underwater. Our job was to take them to the various locations they used, such places as Bermuda, and the Tongue-Of-The-Ocean, in the Carribean.

My job was essentially the same as it had been aboard the USS Hoist. I had to keep the radio telecommunications equipment operational, maintain proper logs of incoming and outgoing message traffic, and encode and decode messages for the commander. When I first reported aboard, there was a second class radioman in charge of the radio shack. I made third class petty officer shortly before reporting aboard, and shortly after that, the second class left the ship. I had my own radio shack, with a subordinate third class, and two radioman strikers under me. I was king of my castle.

On one trip to sea, a scientist must have taken pity on me because I didn't have anything to do (I was off-shift in the radio shack), so he showed me how to operate his equipment. It was a radio, photo facsimile set-up, and it fascinated me to be able to capture a picture from a radio signal. He taught me to listen for what a facsimile signal sounds like, and how to tune in to it.

It was the winter of 1962. To get to the ship, it was necessary to pass through the grounds of the Naval Research Lab, and through a large, chain-link gate at the head of the pier. The pier was about 250 feet long, and the Rockville was berthed at the end at a T-junction.

We had to have liberty cards in those days when we left the ship for pleasure ashore. The gate was generally locked after midnight, so if you didn't make it back from liberty on time, the gate had to be scaled; not an easy task to accomplish, this! Especially if it was two or three in the morning and you had been out partying in downtown Washington, D.C.

In the winter, that pier was a torment to cross. Being right on the river and open to the weather, on a blustery evening, the trip to the ship could sober up a guy. When you are twenty-two or twenty-three years old, though, you don't let little things like that stop you. It was rough at times, because our day usually started aboard ship at 5:30 a.m. Weekends were much easier on the health.

Aboard the Hoist, we had a ship's laundry, and turned in our dirty clothes to them to be cleaned and ironed. The Rockville did not have such amenities. One simply stored one's dirty clothes in a "ditty" bag at the foot of one's bunk for a few days, and then made a trip into Alexandria to a laundromat. In emergencies, the sink in the head (that's what a bathroom is called aboard ship) was used.

I used to go to a nice little laundromat I found, about three miles from the ship, within walking distance. There was a bar a few doors down that had a nice atmosphere (not a dive) and a good pool table. Generally, I would get the clothes started, and go next door for a couple of cold beers and some pool. Occasionally, I would check on the clothes, and transfer them to the dryer when needed, then back to the bar for more beer and pool. When the clothes were done, I'd fold them, put them back in the clean ditty bag (I washed it too), and store it behind the bar until I was ready to leave.

During the course of the evening, I would go down the street to a restaurant that made fabulous bean soup and crackers. That became a regular routine with me while we were in port, unless the wicked lights and temptations of downtown D.C. beckoned. That happened often enough also. Let's face it, though, I could only have just so much night-life on a RM3 paycheck.

In the Fall of 1962 we went into the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard for an overhaul and repairs. Gee, how could I get so lucky? In less than two years, and on two different ships, I had to go through that routine again! Again, the ship had to be put up in dry dock, stripped completely of paint, and repainted from stem to stern.

I got a little luckier this time around though. I had to get a driver's license to operate a mail jeep between the post office ashore, and the ship, which was in the yards, completely across town. In addition, I had to drive the commander around town during the day, if he needed me. I made the trip across town at least twice a day, which carried me past such famous spots as the Philadelphia Town Hall, with the Liberty Bell outside; Connie Mack Baseball Stadium (now called Veterans Field, I believe), and the notorious traffic circle at midtown. Additionally, I was able to pinpoint a few of the nicer establishments to frequent in my off-duty hours. That was quite an experience!

After we left the yards, we didn't have such a rigorous shakedown cruise as the Hoist had. We did have a mission to perform in the Atlantic, which involved some testing of sounds by lowering a device on a cable deep into the ocean. The scientists had all kinds of hydrophones and listening devices they checked out. This particular mission was to be sidetracked though, and when I tell you why, you will realize how desperate the situation had become.

Khrushchev began pounding his shoe in the United Nations, and storing missiles in Cuba at about this time. Kennedy was talking blockade. He had backed Khrushchev to the wall and given him an ultimatum to get the missiles out of Cuba. To do this, Kennedy had to have a show of force, blockading the island nation. You guessed it, he called for all ships operating in the area at the time, to head for Cuba, and become part of the blockade.

We didn't even have the advantage of a 40-millimeter antiaircraft gun that the Hoist had. Small arms were the extent of any armed resistance we could offer. Nevertheless, go we did! Fortunately, it was called off before we got there, or the Russians might have split a gut laughing.

The U.S. Navy tests all its enlisted men periodically in two areas, general military knowledge, and job skill. This comes in the form of written examination, and hands-on application in both areas. In order to take these tests, the enlistee must make it known through his chain of command that he is ready to take the test for advancement to the next higher grade. The personnel office will order the tests in that man's name if the executive officer has okayed it. The tests are given twice a year, and you are competing against everyone else in the Navy, trying for that same job skill advancement.

Only a certain percentage of those with the highest grade will advance in rank. That means that you could technically pass the test, but still get passed over for promotion, if someone got a slightly higher test score than you. I neglected to mention that your supervisor (next higher ranking in your skill) submits a written evaluation of your performance, which is also taken into consideration.

Once while I was on the Hoist, and once on the Rockville, I had been asked by my superiors if I wanted them to order the test for my advancement to RM2. Both times, I had declined, saying I didn't think I was ready for that responsibility. After the RM2 on the Rockville had left the ship, I was in charge. I ran the ship's communications for eight months. Naturally, I thought I had gained sufficient skill and knowledge to pass the test, and so, requested the personnel man to order the tests for me.

In late 1962, when it came time to take the test, one rating (job skill) after another was given the test on the mess deck. I kept waiting to be called to the mess deck for testing. When I wasn't called, I went to personnel to find out what had happened. I was told that no test had been ordered for me. I went to my signal officer and asked him to find out what had happened. Shortly thereafter, I was called into the presence of the executive officer (XO), LTJG Nunn, whose job it had been to okay the ordering of the test. My signal officer, a young ensign whose name I cannot now recall, was present. The XO told me he hadn't ordered the test. When I asked him why, he said he didn't think I was ready, and outlined an incident that had happened several months before.

As I recall the incident, the commander was expecting a message to come in on the teletype (subject matter forgotten at this time but unimportant for purposes of this narrative), and when it wasn't forthcoming, he sent the XO to the radio shack to double-check the files for it. He found it in the incoming log of messages, and my junior operator and I, had both initialed off on the teletype copy, as having reviewed the files. The XO called me on the carpet for that one, because I was the senior man.

After looking at the message, I knew why we had missed it. The shore station had readdressed the message incorrectly, and the call letters that we checked for in the heading of every message, had not been inserted. The only way we could have been expected to spot that message was if, like the executive officer, we had known the contents of the text to look for. The XO didn't buy that excuse, so I went to the radio shack and got the appropriate publication, which showed how the shore station should have readdressed the message to us. The XO had to admit that the fault for missing the message was not ours.

Apparently, being shown in black and white that we were not culpable, rankled the man, and his method of getting a pound of flesh from me was to not order my test. This last was to cause irreparable harm shortly.

The Rockville picked up some scientists, and we were off for the coast of the beautiful island of Bermuda; gently rolling seas, clear green water, and lots of white sand and colorful rooftops. The azure of the sky was reflected into our eyes by the gentle rolling of the sea. The mission of the scientists was continuing. We had been operating for several days.

When not on duty, the men lolled around on deck, getting a tan or writing letters home to wives or girlfriends. Some of the men fished. About the only thing that we seemed to attract, though, were sharks. Someone had a bright idea for sport, and talked Cookie (the chief mess cook) into letting the men have some meat to bait hooks for catching the sharks.

Old, orange-colored kapoks were used for floats on the line to keep the line from sinking out of sight beneath the keel. The water was clear as crystal, and one could see to quite a depth.

For days, we caught sharks. They were unpredictable as to when or why they attacked. Sometimes they attacked the brightly colored kapok instead of the meat. The old wives' tale that they had to turn on their back to hit a target on the surface was laid to rest. They can hit you from any angle. When the men landed one, invariable it was drawn up on deck and bludgeoned to death or eviscerated. Some of the men removed the teeth for souvenirs, and one enterprising young man took out the eyes, which he said could be dried out and made into interesting jewelry. This "sport" lasted for about three days, and then we headed in to Bermuda for a little liberty prior to going back to home port. On the way in, someone caught a pompano and it was prepared for the Captain's meal that evening.

I was granted liberty when we tied up in Bermuda at Hamilton Bay. No one had prepared me for Bermuda. I didn't know that the local populace was black, for example, and it came as a bit of a shock, I suppose, but I don't know why. There are vestiges of prejudice in us all, I guess. Once on shore, I headed for the nearest bar. I wanted to tie on a good one. I was still mad as hell about being denied the opportunity to take the test for promotion. I learned long ago that solace will not come from a bottle. I was only twenty-two at the time and didn't know any better. I think I went to several bars until I found the one that captured my fancy the most.

The decor inside was tropical, the bartender as black as polished ebony! His lilting speech, rolling off his tongue in the Queens' own English, fascinated me to no end. He played a mean game of Ship, Captain, and Crew also, this latter being a dice game, whereby participants take turns tossing five die to determine who can obtain a ship, a captain, and crew before the other. The winner must get the most crew. The game is played for money, or it can be played for drinks. Ah, that bartender! He was a most genial host. He liked Yankees also, and was generous to a fault with the libation of rum he was serving me. Just what I needed, right? Wrong!

I woke up the next morning in a jail cell. A jail cell is unmistakable in any country. I knew where I was, but I didn't know why. I knew my ship was supposed to get under way for homeport that morning. Hollering did not produce anyone willing to help me. I was pretty disheveled, and my eyes were red and bleary. My uniform was a disgrace also; it looked like I had slept in it, which I had.

My signal officer arrived, tight-lipped and ashen-faced, in late morning to take me before the Magistrate of the Queens' Bench and face my charges. I was placed in the dock, and a jury and three judges dressed in black with (God help me, I thought this was only supposed to happen in movies) white-powdered wigs sitting atop their heads (they weren't even good-fitting wigs), took their places, and the charges were read.

It appears I had broken a glass pane in a door of a house I was trying to enter to see my sister (I had one, but she died before my birth). It was late at night and the black family inside had retired for the night. They must have been terrified when I kept trying to get in. They called the police, and I was picked up.

The family whose home I had tried to break into was there, the arresting officer was there, and the proof of a crime was my quaking body in the dock. How did I wish to plead, the magistrate wanted to know? What choice had I? I plead guilty, naturally. Were their any extenuating circumstances, he wanted to know? Here, my signal officer stood up for me and said how out of character my actions had been, and that my military record bespoke of no derogatory facts until now. He asked for the courts' mercy on my behalf.

My sentence was approximately thirty-five dollars in fines (he said it in pounds and shillings, which I didn't understand), and I was banned from returning to Bermuda for the next twenty-five years, unless I first received permission from the Bermudan government. My signal officer paid the fine, and I was taken back aboard ship, a very crestfallen young man. It wasn't over yet.

Back aboard ship, I was allowed to clean up and make myself presentable. Then I was called before the commanding officer for a Captains' Mast. The captain gave me a monetary fine (I forget how much it was now), and reduced me to radioman striker.

I had been the chief radioman aboard that ship for over nine months, with three men working for me. Now I had to take orders from them because they all outranked me. I knew more about the operation of that radio shack than any of them and they knew it so they did not boss me around. They could have, had they wanted to, made my life miserable. I had always been fair to them, however, and pulled my just share of the workload. They felt sorry for what had happened to me.

The situation was actually very untenable for me. I had three months to go until my discharge/reenlistment date. When the last day had arrived, I chose to get out rather than try to salvage that military career. In April of 1963, I saluted the ensign at the stern of the Rockville, and the quarterdeck watch officer, and asked permission to go ashore. I was a civilian again.