It was September 6, 1955 and I was off from the City of Ogdensburg, New York to the metropolis of Syracuse to be sworn into the United States Navy. I was all of 17 years, 1 month, and 18 days old. Most of those today that are that age have a year or two of high school remaining, but I had graduated at age 15 more than a year prior, and was prepared to get on with life.
At Syracuse I signed some papers, had a cursory physical examination, held up my hand and swore to be a good military man, and they packed me and some fifty others into a bus and we headed off to Bainbridge, Maryland for the great adventure of basic military training. It was called “Boot Camp” because all trainees wore leggings, or boots. I really think this was so they could readily tell we recruits from the regular Navy folks.
On the way to Maryland we made no stops. One other newly signed up recruit had to urinate. He asked the bus driver when we were going to stop and was informed we weren’t to stop for any reason. Why I’ll never know, but this guy then asked me what I’d do so I told him I guessed I’d urinate on the floor of the bus if the driver didn’t want to stop. So, he did. When we arrived at Bainbridge, the bus driver tried to show his authority by determining who had soiled his bus, but no one knew anything, so after a while he gave up on that.
We were allowed a few hours sleep before we were all given full physical exams, hair cuts, and issued proper Navy clothing, as well as a big white canvas seabag to carry our entire wardrobe around in. Our civilian clothes were mailed back to our permanent homes. I, and 55 other recruits, was then assigned to Company 447, 16th Battalion, 1st Regiment which commenced actual training on the 16th of September 1955.
From the moment we arrived we never walked around by ourselves outside our barracks. We were always in formation, and marched everywhere we went. We were issued a rifle for some reason, and were taught the fundamentals of caring for it in case someday we wanted one to take care of us. Everywhere we marched we carried that rifle. Oh what fun.
I got off on the right foot by noting six of our new Company Members had longer hair than the rest of the crew. I asked one of them how come and he informed me he was an RPT. It seems the six were not up to military standards education wise so went to what was called Recruit Preparatory Training for several weeks so they would qualify for the Navy. Thus their hair had grown back for that length of time. I wondered if anyone would notice a seventh longer haired recruit, so I walked away form the haircut line. Several days later some fellow recruit who must have been a bit disgruntled ratted me out, so I was given my haircut after all the rest and wound up with shorter hair. I really didn’t care, I just wanted to see what would happen.
That was my start in the Navy.
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