Before I went to the Navy I had 2 years and 9 months (more or less, the memory fades sometimes) in the National Guard, over 1 year was on active duty with the Army and no Basic Training. That was hilarious several years later but at the time--Wow, it was not fun, KP was not fun. If you want to see some pictures of the Weatherford National Guard, Augusta and Camp Gordon--later it was given the status of a Fort and became Fort Gordon, then click on My Army Days in the black box below.

So if you read the Army days then you know the Army starved me into the Navy. I went to Boot Camp on December the 17, and it was 17 degrees that morning in Dallas, Texas. There was only one other boy at the Navy enlistment office, Billy Booth of East Texas. The planes were booked so the two of us who left Dallas that that day were put on a train and as the trains were pretty well booked too, we had a roomette. Pretty nice for two small town kids. The porter would bring us beverages of our choice for a small tip. Finally we found a pint of whiskey at one lay over and we did not have to tip for whiskey and water any more. We did, however, ask for a bucket of ice ever so often. The Navy furnished us with meal tickets, so we ate every time the dining car was open. The food on the train was delicious.

Since then I have ridden many airplanes back and forth across these United States, I have driven to new duty stations, nothing, absolutely nothing compares to the passenger trains of the 40's and 50's. If I had a choice, I still prefer to travel across country on a train with a good dining car and Pullman sleeping cars. The only way to go.

Now comes the rub, the train reached Los Angeles and when we got off at the train station there were many, many shore patrol and hundreds of other new recruits debarking from other trains pulling in. They kept gathering us together and then put us on a train bound for San Diego.

It finally left and we were soon in San Diego where we were put on haze gray (a color the Navy dearly loves) buses and bused to Boot Camp. We arrived there about 9 PM and stood in long lines waiting to get haircuts. I had already got a crew cut before I left for I knew from the National Guard what was coming. But that seemed to make the barber angry and when I left I was even more bald than I am now but I didn't care and thought it funny that I had upset him. But there was many 17 and 18 year olds that were in tears when they saw their long (yes for the time some wore pretty long hair, it curved all the way around their heads to that the back of their head looked like a ducks rear end so you can imagine what we called that style) hair on the barbershop floor. When you come out of that line you fell into another line and when we had 80 men in that line we became Company 267 or 287 forget now which. We were then marched off to a barracks and were able to get some sleep about midnight.

Up at 5 AM and shower, shave and dress, no uniforms yet. We were marched off to the chow hall in our civvies to eat our breakfast. This was a new experience, in the National Guard we had our own cooks who were citizen soldiers from our home town and they were good cooks. While the Army had nearly starved us by not serving enough to live on, the Navy put plenty of chow on the line. I ate everything they put on my tray, although the eggs had been in the reefer for along time and tasted of old stale refrigator, Navy eggs always had this taste. The company stayed in a group and ate as a group and when finished we stacked our trays at the end of the mess line just before we left the building and fell out in a group. We were then marched to clothing issue. We took off all our clothes and were given Navy underwear. We put those on and then we took the little blue hand bags that Navy Recruiters had told everyone to bring, and put our civilian clothes, all the things we had in our pockets, our shoes, and the underwear we had arrived in and stuffed that little bag full. If we had brought soap, razors, razor blades, everything civilian went into that bag. We were given shipping tags and our little blue bags and everything that tied us to home, went home.

Next we were handed little white cloth bags that closed with a drawstring, these we called ditty bags,in these we put in Navy soap, razors, blades , toothbrushes, toothpaste and all the necessary toiletries. We were then issued Sea Bags. We drew our clothes folded them and stuffed them into the sea bag. We wore a dungaree shirt and dungaree trousers (looked much like blue jeans except they flaired slightly or belled at the bottom) white sox and black Navy shoes. We drew 2 little mattress covers, the Navy name was "Fart Sacks." We drew 2 cream colored blankets. Oh Boy! I thought, I am a sailor. I had wanted to be a sailor every since the first grade. My first grade teacher often told sea stories about her brother who was a sailor in the Merchant Marine and she was responsible for me being in this spot at this time. Most of us were landlocked in the middle of Texas and had never seen the Gulf of Mexico, let alone an ocean or sea. First and second grade teachers be aware of what you are saying, your influence is unbelievable at this point in time.