6 March 2021
I left you with my lottery pick for the draft.
That summer after the draft lottery, I worked as Scoutcraft Direct at Camp Kickapoo in Clinton, Mississippi. My days were numbered. After camp, I got a phone call at home from a recruiter from the U.S. Coast Guard. I went in for testing and an interview. I had already passed my physical. In passing, I asked the recruiter how he got my name. He said someone recommended me and if I signed, he would let me know. The Disney movie The Boatniks about the Coast Guard had just come out and I had seen it. I liked the movie so I signed on the dotted line.
The recruiter asked me if I wanted to know who recommended me. Honestly, I had forgotten that conversation. I said sure and he said Mrs. Sheppard. I said I didn’t know any Mrs. Sheppard. He said sure you do – your Aunt. I insisted I didn’t have any aunt named Sheppard. Apparently he lived in a duplex below a Mr. and Mrs. Sheppard. He asked if I was sure I didn’t know a Velma Sheppard. Lightbulb! It was Aunt Velma and Uncle Shep. No one in my family ever called them other than Velma and Shep. Until he said the last name, I don’t think I even knew their last name.
Anyway, off to boot camp. It was my first time flying and it was out of the Jackson airport. The airport has extremely limited flight patterns. The jet took off and immediately I was thrown back into my seat. I’ve never flown anywhere anyplace that the flight ascent is as steep as Jackson’s airport. I was terrified.
The Coast Guard, at the time, operated two bootcamps. One was in Cape May, New Jersey and the other was in Alameda, California. Although Cape May was closer to Mississippi, they sent me to Alameda.
At the time, USCG bootcamp was considered second only to the Marine Corps in difficulty (I didn’t know that when I signed the dotted line). It was pretty physical even for someone who was in pretty good shape (I was at the time). However, it was more mental than physical – at least to me. If one person screwed up, the entire company was punished.
PE was at 5:30 am every morning, breakfast at 7 am (the common phrase in the cafeteria was “Suck it up and get out!”). We then had another round of PE, classes in seamanship, lunch, more classes in seamanship, more PE and then we headed to chow for dinner. Afterwards we either had guard duty of we had to clean rifles and barracks.
Guard duty was interesting. You had to challenge anyone (including the company commander of our company) and if no response was given you had to roust the company out of their beds.
It wasn’t uncommon for the company commander to come in at 3 in the morning and tear the barracks apart and have us put it back together before PE at 7:3o in the morning. Occasionally I had to stand guard duty at the OOD (Officer of the Deck) for the entire boot camp. It was there will freezing my butt off “guarding the clothes line” that I saw my first fog bank. I was so startled at the sight I took my life in my hands to address the OOD and report a huge cloud on the bay. He came out and looked and laughed and told me what it was. It literally was a white wall of clouds.
In boot camp, you have all types. One particular type was “the skater.” That’s the one that does everything to get out of everything. His name was Tarpley. For some reason he took a liking to me. He very cleverly volunteered to serve as the treasurer of our company. Our paychecks were deposited in the base bank but we were not allowed access to the funds. Instead, specified amounts were removed and provided to the company treasurer for things like laundry expenses, purchase of uniform parts, etc. Invariably, when a bill was paid by the treasurer, there was left over change. Tarpley carried all the cash and change in a cash box. Because of the change, he couldn’t run. In bootcamp, you never walked from point A to point B – you always ran full out. Tarpley learned about that little gem and he never had to run again on base.
Because he thought enough of me, he designated me as his co-treasurer. Since he carried company money, he always had to have an escort on base. After the first week of boot camp, I never had to run again.
When I had my original physical with the draft board, they were unimpressed with my two flat fleet. I passed the physical with flying colors. In boot camp, we were on our feet 24/7 (at least it seemed we were) and my feet started cramping as well as my shins. I went to sick bay and was seen by a “doctor” who immediately wrote down on my chart “Boot Camp Blues” and had me report for full duty.
We also had every vaccination know to humankind. I was vaccinated for yellow fever, smallpox (for the third time), and most of my childhood vaccinations again. All in one day. To ensure we had no adverse reactions the company commander had us drop and do 50 push ups so we wouldn’t have sore arms. This was also the first time I’ve ever been vaccinated by a vaccination gun – like you do with cattle.
I was stunned to realize that people enlisted in the Coast Guard without knowing how to swim. We had a huge Olympic sized pool. If they didn’t drown you on your swim test, the next thing you had to do was jump off the high dive. It wasn’t an Olympic high dive. Instead, it was designed to mimic the height of someone having to jump overboard from a ship from the bridge. It was extremely high. Just for your information, one hand goes on your nose and the other hand cups your family jewels and you cross your legs before you jump.
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During boot camp you were tested for what position would be best for the Coast Guard considering your abilities. I seemed to score the highest on Corpsman (the equivalent of medic in the army) and as a radioman. They had enough Corpsmen so I was sent to radio school at Governor’s Island, New York.
However, the new class for radio school didn’t start until October and it was only August. They put me TAD (temporary duty) on base in an old wooden barracks. It was a great time. I had access to the enlisted mens’ club with cheap beer and booze and to the base theater and PX (think Wallyworld).
Eventually, I shipped out to New York and my barracks was across the street from the radio school. The Coast Guard taught me a lot – mostly what I knew I didn’t want to do – but it did teach me to type. As a Boy Scout, I already knew Morse Code but the Coast Guard had a really interesting way of teaching you code. The sounded out the code for the letter “A” which is dit dah (. _) and you typed the letter “A” with the proper hand position on the key board. So, as you learned code, you learned to type.
However, before we were allowed to start learning code, everyone had to pass basic math and electronics. The Coast Guard had an accelerated program of one week where they took you from 2 + 2 = 4 to algebra and from atoms (and electrons) to complex electrical circuits in that week. I learned more math and physics in that one week than I did in all my years in high school and college.
I can’t remember if I’ve written about this but while in radio school the Master Chief of the entire U.S. Coast Guard was a radioman stationed at the school. In essence, he ran it. He must have felt sorry for me because he had me join him on all inspections of the barracks (I took notes and noted demerits) and he also gave me a pass to the USCG cooking school on the first floor of the radio school building. That meant for chow, all I had to do was walk across the street for breakfast, lunch and dinner while everyone had to wade through snowdrift and the gale force winds coming off Long Island Sound to eat in the dining hall.
The cooking school turned out chefs – not cooks. If you requested an egg over easy and the chef accidentally broke the yolk, he would scrape it into the garbage and start again. It was the best food I’ve ever eaten and it lasted my entire time in the radio school.
One of the best things about duty at Governors Island was the free Coast Guard ferry to Manhattan. We could go on leave or liberty in the big city. The USO would provide free broadway tickets (they were generally front row) and I got to see 1776 and Fiddler on the Roof, among others. I also got propositioned as I crossed the street at times square by one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. It must have been the Coastie uniform that did it.
I ended up third in my class and could copy Morse Code at 18 words per minute and type even faster. (Later, I was able to copy Morse Code at 30 words per minute – considered fast – and type at 100 words per minute with no mistakes.) It was time to be assigned a duty station. I was assigned to the Eight Coast Guard District out of New Orleans. I had to appear at New Orleans to get my actual assignment. When I arrived, I was told I was to be assigned to the Coast Guard Cutter Acushnet in Gulfport, Mississippi. The Acushnet was an old rust bucket from 1942. I was told that since I was third in my class I was allowed to chose where I would go in the Eight district. The only other open berth was the Coast Guard Cutter Reliance stationed at Corpus Christi, Texas. I didn’t want Gulfport nor the rust bucket so I insisted I be assigned to the Reliance. Little did I know that the Acushnet was scheduled for decommission and the radiomen would be assigned duty at the radio station in New Orleans. I apparently was a little too full of myself and the officer in charge of personnel sent me to the “hell hole” of a ship in Corpus as punishment.
I arrived for duty after midnight when someone picked me up at the Corpus airport and drove me to the ship. I was logged in at the OOD shack and taken down winding, darkened passage ways to a bunk that I had to make up in the dark. I finally got to sleep around 2 am and at 5 am awoke to a general quarters alarm. I had no idea where I was, what I was supposed to do, what my duty station was during general quarters – in other words – lost. It was a fire in the galley. That was my welcome to the Reliance, my home-away-from-home for the next 18 months.
Stay tuned!
