O/T Some dates you don't forget

Forty eight years ago today I was awakened to this guy screamining get up. It was my first day at the Navy Great lakes training center (boot camp). Boy what a surprise was in store for me the next three months. Right off the farm to this. I lived through it like a lot of you guys here. As I look back it wasen't that bad, and would do it again. Stan

I won't forget the day I woke up screaming. Had a dream and my wife was in it.

Stan,

Thanks for your service. I enlisted in the Navy while I was a senior in high school and left for San Diego about a week or so after I graduated.

Like you, I was a farm boy (from Ohio) who had never traveled out of the state except for a brief visit to Niagara Falls one time when I was about 12 years old.

San Diego was like an alien planet. Coupled with the screaming and strange behavior of a certain Chief Engineman, I had serious doubts about my decision.

After bootcamp, I greatly enjoyed my one enlistment in the Navy. It was a great decision afterall.

Tom in TN

Boot camp is a real eye opener for most of the guys. The early rising thing was easy. I actually usually was up before the DI. HE really looked at me funny the first day when I was already up, shaved , and dressed when he came in to wake everyone up. The physical stuff was not that hard either as I was in good shape from working on the farm and feed mill. It would kill my fat old butt today. LOL

The biggest thing I found interesting was being around colored fellows. I had never be in regular contact with any. There was not any in my home town and the school even today does not have more than a few minorities. Became good friends with George Carver. We all called him "Sparky" he was real dark complected but had the biggest white smile that just sparkled. He always was in a good mood and in high spirits. He was the best rifle/pistol shot I ever personally met. HE grew up dirt poor in northern Alabama. HE hunted for game for them to eat. He had a plenty of ammo but it was just a 22. He would get any kind of game you could think of with that single shot 22 rifle. From Deer to quail. You could throw a beer can in the air and he could usu sally get 5-6 holes in it with a M16 before it hit the ground. I have seen him hold a three inch pattern at a 1000 yards with the wind blowing. We went through basic, airborne, and Ranger school together. Served with him until he pointed out and came home. We would get together a few times each year. He would always tease me about bring my wife down to meet a "real" man. She always told him he could not even think to handle her that he had better stick to his small southern women. (his wife was only 4 foot ten inches tall) Man I really miss those two. My wife died in 1995 and he died the next year.

Made a lot of good friends in basic that where friends for life. Getting fewer left each year now. That is one of the bad things about getting old. Watching those you care for leave this world.

First day in the Army was 13 Mar. 1968 at Ft Benning Ga. First day in Vietnam was 25 Mar. 1969.

July 1, 1969, Fort Lewis, WA. Eventful summer- first moon walk, Woodstock occurred the weekend of my 21st birthday (I spent the day driving the bus back and forth to the visitor's center). Something else important happened that summer too, which has slipped my ever-more-slippery mind.

Every RA and US in my outfit went to Vietnam after Infantry AIT- took them straight to McCord AFB to ship out, didn't even let them go home, for fear they'd never see them again.

Pretty grim times.

I had a date with that redhead down at the trailer park one time that was absolutely unforgettable. (;>))

Drafted,in Jan 6 1968,in "The land of the little people" by June 6. As a replacement to a outfit that nearly got wiped out June 6.Infantry point/recon team,in muddy Delta.
Jan 6 1969,about 12 in front of me got killed in ambush,I should have been on point at that time.
April ? '69 pulled guy I was training back after sniper hit,died in my arms that afternoon.
Came home about June 6,first [blind] date with now wife of 40 yrs on June 13 a FRIDAY!!
Discarged Dec 18,1969.
Hit head-on Feb 12 1997 by drunk/doper nearly died,broken bad, $250.000.00 +++ bill for his 25,000 in ins.
Feb 17,2012 surgery for hip replacement,repair damage from wreck again Feb 18 2012 walking in hospital hall.
March 18 2012,woke up to see the grass from the topside,and PROUD of it,life goes on.

One year ago today the Fatherin-law the Chief. lost two firefighters in a fire in Listowel when the District Chief ordered a blotched interior attach.

Arrived at Great Lakes in Jan '69, A few days too cold to march on the "grinders". Breeze off the lake was fierce. Toward the very end we got a little cocky, Company commander was getting to be a little more human. someone would come in our baracks, someone at the other end would holler "attention on d?ck" instead of "deck". Last day we were down to "chicken on deck".

LOL 31 July, 1974, 1st day of basic.......my bunk was closest to the door where a light burned all night......something woke me and I saw our Drill Sgt standing there with a 30gal steel garbage can over his head just an instant before he threw it down the center of the bay and started yelling......waking everyone else up! 31 Jan 96 I also remember well.....thats the day I retired from the Army!

Rick

On 3-18-2000 my wife was 6 months pregnant for my first boy......She had a bad miscarriage, Burying an infant like that is terrible.

I got the wife pregnant 3 months later and I got a healthy boy who just turned 11 a few weeks ago.

Tell us more; enquiring minds want to know. Did you get to phirst base?

Like walking into a tavern and see a sign that says, "If you weren"t born before this date 21 years ago, you can"t enter". You think about it and say, "Shoot, 21 years ago today, I had been drinking beer in this tavern legally for several years". Oh oh.

Mark

I stepped off the bus at 1am Sept30 1968. Great Lakes Naval Center. Screamed us off the bus put us in line to get rain gear. Screamed us awake at 4:30 took our rain gear away from us. Then Hell started. I thought they would never stop screaming at us.

At the barbershop we had a kid with real long hair. Barber asked him if he wanted to keep it.He said yes. So the barber got a bag,cut him bald and gave him the bag of hair.I remember Thanksgiving day. The sewer line broke in front of the mess hall.We had to stand beside it before eating. I was real glad to get into the fleet and out of training command.

My son went there in 1999. His barracks were just one over from mine. From the pictures not much had changed.

If i did that AGAIN... I would have to be Made to do it... Just like the first Time!!! LOL! Larry

I was in the Air Force and went through Officer Training School, they didn't do the yelling thing under the theory if you needed to be yelled at you didn't belong there. Don't remember the date I got there but I left 21 May 1985 with a pair of 2Lt bars.

She was phiery, phast, phelationistic, phlighty, phlambastic, phamous (locally), phuturistic, phull oph phun, and, oh yes, phine at phinance (her own). (;>))

08/15/68... Somewhere over the South China Sea on a Freedom bird, "Gentlemen, we have now cleared Vietnamese airspace." It was my 22nd birthday.

I went up to Great Lakes in 2005 to see my son PIR. I think Great Lakes is it now. San Diego doesn't do basic training do they?

Gene

Another Great Lakes Alumnus here. Boot Camp, Feb-Apr 1969, BE&E and ET-A school until September of 1970.

She was also phatalistic but that was understandable. (;>))

Great Lakes 1964. Had no room. Had to wear same clothes for 5 days. No bunks. Slept on floor in drill hall. Tough but we were young. Waves boot camp was across the field. No real duties at that time. Seems like 9 weeks. Make you grow up fast. PN2 later. And recruiting service and duty at reserve base no longer existing on Grosse Ile, Mich.

New years Day 1964 arrived at Fort Leonard Wood Mo. for Army basic training, Left there Friday the 13th of March. I've liked Friday the 13th every since.

Went into GLAKES Dec. 13, 1967. Coldest dammed winter I ever spent anywhere. Snow and wind. And more wind. Never did figure out where all that snow went. And the four inches of frost that was on the windows in the barracks. Product of the sweat and breathing of all the chitbirds in our company---

I salute and thank you all. I tried to enlist, but my sophomore year in High School i had back surgery and they all took a look at the scar and said No Thanks, go home.

Drafted Jan 11, 1960 and shipped to Fort Ord, CA.
We got there at night, we were lined up and the Drill Instructor yelled "You boys can write home to momma and tell her to sell the outhouse because your a.. is mine!"
Then the yelling started......
LA in WI

Thursday March 6,1963, Newport, RI. Heard on the radio in the barracks that Patsy Cline had died the day before. Two days later left there for my first ship.

After growing up with my dad blasting me outta bed @ 4AM to help milk, it was like going away to summer camp when I went in the Army in '66. I was used to all the yelling.

Jan 15th, 1959 was my join up date. The recruiter said that I/we would be going to Glakes and I said NO, we want San Diego. The lakes was awful cold in January. He said I'll see what I can do. San Diego was real warm...smile. Although you did have to keep an eye on those gulls flying overhead marching on the grinders and you had to kinda jump out of formation once in a while, they would bomb you. I can still hear our company commander- Chief Gunners Mate Henry Savage (mean sounding name) saying get back in line there, what the h**l you doing. No one said anything, just smiled. So, my outfit was company 037, graduated about April 15th. Went aboard ship and went to Wespac on the USS Alamo, came back and went to Machinery Repairman school and went to the east coast and went to the Med twice. Discharged Nov. 7th 1967 as MR2 ohfred