1968 - My Chance To See The World

Like so many young people many experiences were the result of on-the-spot decisions. Little things can become so important...little things...like joining the Navy.

1968 – Navy Day

We had been playing the same game of Monopoly for 3-days. We had already seen every movie in town. “Alfie”, Georgie Girl”, “The Graduate” and “I Am Curious Yellow” had all been on the agenda. We had window shopped and hung out at the beach which was an indication of how desperate we were to find something to do that was NOT Monopoly. It was the beginning of February in Northern Illinois with a big dump of freshly fallen snow. The beach was interesting but with the lake shore frozen over and nothing to see it didn’t take long to write that entertainment off the list of desperate activities. It was now morning of the third day of Monopoly when I awoke. “W9GYP, W9GYP Calling CQ, W9GYP calling CQ.” I could hear Kerry’s dad in the lower level of the house on his ham-radio trying to make contact with…just about anyone. He repeated, “W9GYP, W9GYP Calling CQ, W9GYP calling CQ.” I rose and put pants and shirt on. Opening the door I could hear Kerry’s dad even clearer. Stepping down the short stairway to the ground level I found Kerry in the kitchen fixing breakfast. I joined him at the Monopoly board with my bowl of cereal. Kerry sat absently mindedly chewing breakfast and eyeing the game with suspicion.

Noticing his expression I spoke, “I’m not sure I’m ready for another day stuck in the house.”

Kerry answered, “Me either. What do you want to do today?”

We sat in conversation until I suggested, “We’ve been talking about going to a recruiter. Do ya’ want to do that today?” For a few years I had looked forward to joining the Marines just like Bobby’s dad. Bobby had been my best boyhood friend who moved to Upper Wisconsin a couple of years before. We had seen all of the John Wayne movies and knew all about (we thought) the war in Viet Nam. We had talked about joining the Marines and could barely wait until we were old enough. As I had turned 18 the previous September I was the proper age but with Bobby moved away I hadn’t seriously considered joining for awhile. Even so I just KNEW that one of these days I would be a Marine hero, so when I suggested talking to a recruiter it was mostly for something to kill the boredom but the possibility was always there, that a quick talking recruiter could sign me up on the spot.

“Sounds ok to me.” Kerry answered. “Let me get the keys from my mom.”

We cruised downtown Waukegan for a little while but with no action on the cold, snowy streets we quickly reached the conclusion that we were going to have to get out of the car to do anything interesting. As we passed the recruiter for the second time Kerry spotted a parking place and pulled in. As it was only half a block from the recruiting office we had a very short instance to walk before arriving at the front door. During the drive down I had spoken to Kerry about the Marines. His dad had been the Commander of the 9th Navel District when he retired in Zion. Kerry was convinced the Navy was the way to go although conversation revealed a little doubt stemming from the fact his dad was so often gone for long periods during the early part of his career. Kerry’s dad started as a Radioman and moved into the officers corps by way of Warrant Officer and was one of the first “mustangs” that moved from the enlistment side to the officer side. By the time we arrived at the storefront I had Kerry convinced we should at least talk to the Marine Recruiter first.

We walked into the store front downtown Waukegan to find the Army, Marine, Air Force and Coast Guard recruiters busy with interested young men. The Naval Recruiter sat reading the newspaper with his feet up on the desk. He glanced up as we entered but went back to his paper when we showed interest in waiting for the Marine Recruiter. As we killed time waiting we started reading the articles taped to the wall about local heroes. Most were Marines with a few Army guys and 1 each Air Force flyer and 1 Navy sailor having won chests full of medals including a Congressional Medal of Honor and plenty of Purple Hearts. By the time we got to the end of the wall we were well impressed by all of the local heroes and were discussing among ourselves the possibility of joining the Marines when we turned to the Navy recruiter asking, “We see all of these heroes here getting medals and there’s a lot of different medals probably depending upon the service but they all got this one here. What’s the posthumous medal?”

“Those guys are all dead. That’s what that word means – awarded after death.”

We stood frozen in place…”You mean ALL of those guys are dead?”

“Yep.”

We looked the length of the wall. There were a lot of articles taped up. “We want to talk to you.” Suddenly the Navy guy was busy.

He sold us on the Navy with very little problem. We were willing and without direction. I imagine we were easy pickin’s. We were designated as on the Buddy-System which assured we could spend at least boot camp together and increased the possibility we would get similar training and, if we were lucky, we increased our chances of going to our ultimate assignment together. We filled out all of the paperwork and found out we could go get our physicals in Chicago the following Wednesday. He gave us a time to meet the train and directions to find the bus to the Selective Service Center where we would take our pre-enlistment physicals.

The experience of wandering around all day in my underwear with hundreds of other boys is something I have managed to erasw from my mind althrough the draft-board scenes in the movie "Alice's Resturant" seems to draw a sympathatic note in my memory with hundreds of skivvy-clad lads shuffling from line to line ("Comeon! Nuts to butts, boys nuts-to-butts! Close up that line!) being poked and prodded, filling out forms and answering questions.

We completed our physicals and were shuffled back into a line taking us to the bus that would deliver us back to the train station. As we approached the bus we asked one of the enlisted men directing us, “Where do we go to sign up? We were supposed to join today. No one expects us at home.” In fact that morning when we left we said goodbye to Kerry’s mom and casually told her we’d see her soon. Dressed in thin dress pants, a t-shirt and my CPO jacket – somewhat thinner than a Pea Coat – with slip-on deck shoes, in the middle of a blowing snow-storm in February – Brilliant!! I froze my tail off for 3-days until we were issued uniforms and Pea Coats. My frozen feet were only matched by the wind blowing through the hole in my pants leg where I tore it dismounting from the bus. As we were only 10-miles from home you’d think I was smarter…but NOOO.

The soldier we asked for directions told us “You better get going. They’re giving the oath right now. It’s a small room at the back of the building.” He gave us directions to the place we were to take our oath and officially become sailor recruits. We ran like the wind, cutting in and out of the crowd and lines and barely getting there in time to hear “I, state your name…” we ran into the room and took our place alongside the other young men desiring to change their status. Out of breath we were unable to repeat the oath until the last couple of sentences but they took us anyway directing the various groups to the assorted departure points. We were headed for boot camp. Most everything was a blur after that but I do remember as we got on the bus to take us to boot camp at Great lakes Kerry turned to me and said "Here we go! Atleast we're going through this together!"

Took them 2-days to separate us – so much for the Buddy-System.