The Next day was the 20th of December and Boot Camp was shutting down for the Christmas Leave Period. Our Company Comander came in and we spent the day stenciling our clothes, blankets and everything that was issued to us. The 21st of December we had a tailor come in and we put on our dress blues and he measured them and took them with him to be tailored. The 22nd was a day in which we were kept busy packing and unpacking our seabags. We learned how to make up our beds, where to keep our Blue Jackets Manual and a book we were all encouraged to buy, an autobiography of a retired Navy Chief, who was a Navy boxer. He had the cauliflower ears and all the syndromes that go with ex-boxers. The book kept him in living expenses, for his retirement so many years earlier, bought him a very small pension. Our ditty bags had a certain place to be tied and our towels and wash clothes had to be hung just so. On the 23rd, 24, and 25, we did little of nothing. Our Company Commander spent most of those days at home with his family.
to view this picture in a larger size just select it or click on it.
Someone from the duy section came over to check on the Company several times a day. And the Company Commander came in at least once each day to check on us and give us a pep talk. Most of the men were 18 years of age and this was their first Christmas away from home. It was three sad days and tears trickled occasionally down the checks of these youngsters. I was the old man of the company at 23 years of age and was too full of wonderment at being in the Navy and in San Diego, California to be very depressed. Yet the other men's sadness did have an effect on me. Soon, before we realized it, it was over and we were on our way to Camp Elliott for our 3 weeks of quarantine. Here we got in our shooting practice with carbine and the standard sidearm 45 pistol. Most passed the swimming test here and we all got in a few days of Mess Cook practice. I was sick, almost had Pnuemonia and it was cold in January even in San Diego, so I did not get in the swim test here. That cost me some liberty days later.
Some pictures made on liberty in San Diego, January and February 1952.