During the late summer of 1959 there had been an occasion when Patrol Squadron Eight received a message in the middle of the night which required the immediate action of providing a patrol aircraft for a particular mission. The officer on duty had a twenty four hour shift, and was known as the Officer Of the Day or OOD. While the OOD slept an enlisted person was on duty. If anything of importance transpired the person on duty was supposed to awaken the OOD. On this occasion the enlisted man on duty had no idea he was supposed to even read incoming messages, much less do anything about them. Therefor the OOD wasn’t awakened, and it was several hours before it was discovered the requested aircraft had never been launched. Due to this error the squadron decided to install an enlisted man in the duty office on a daily basis in order to insure a more orderly transition to the night shifts. As a Second Class Petty Officer, having just stopped being a part of a flight crew, I volunteered and was accepted to this position.
On November 16, 1959, with four years in the Navy I was selected to be an Aviation Structural Mechanic (structures) First Class Petty Officer. Shortened this was an AMS 1, pay grade E-6. Soon Christmas and the New Year celebration had both passed as life passed on a day to day basis.
March 1, 1960 I checked out of VP 8 at Breezy Point, Norfolk, VA headed for VF 174 located at Cecil Field, Jacksonville, Florida. My wife and I spent about a month on leave at our parent’s farms (near each other) in northern New York before actually reporting in at VF 174 April seventh of that year.
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