The Recruit Lounge
Navy boot camp lasted eleven weeks, as I recall. Actually, it was a week longer than that due to something called Service Week.
Navy boot camp lasted eleven weeks, as I recall. Actually, it was a week longer than that due to something called Service Week.
During service week, each recruit was assigned to a single duty that he'd do all week. Some were assigned to help cook or wash dishes; some were assigned to do something else.
That was when I met Harley Davis (yes, that was really his name), of Wink, Texas. I was in boot camp Company 484, and he was in 483. He claimed to be personally acquainted with Roy Orbison, which really impressed me.
Harley and I were assigned to regular cleanup duty at the petty officers' barracks. Most of the petty officers were friendly and even kind to us. By the time a third recruit was assigned to help us with our chores, Harley and I had turned the barracks storage room into what we called the Recruit Lounge.
Our Recruit Lounge had magazines, soft drinks, and snacks. Keeping the barracks clean didn't really take up much of our time, so we had plenty of free time to lounge. I made it a point to get there early each morning so I wouldn't have to do morning drills and exercises.
Some boot camp, huh? That wasn't much like the boot camp that the Jack Webb movie, The D.I. had led us to expect, but that was fine with us. We preferred McHale's Navy and Hogan's Heroes anyway.
I saw Harley only once more after that week. Somebody in my company was angry with him about something and got even angrier when he noticed Harley looking at the name stenciled on his navy work shirt.
My Brief Career as a Smuggler
In late August or early September 1969, the YOG-71 (yard oiler, gasoline) was towed to Subic Bay, Philippines, for an overhaul prior to giving it to the navy of the Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam). I would be stationed there until late January 1970.
I didn’t smoke, except for an occasional cigar; but I took full advantage of rationed cigarettes. We were allowed to buy a certain number of cartons of cigarettes, tax-free, each month. Taxes made up the lion’s share of the price of a carton of cigarettes, so that was quite a savings. As a consequence, illegal street vendors did a brisk business in bootleg cigarettes, usually by the pack because a carton was usually too large to smuggle past the guards.
We were searched, so to speak, each time we left the base, but I noticed a weakness in their system. If a sailor leaving the base wasn’t carrying a bag, the guard would search him. If he were carrying a bag, he’d be ushered to another line. There the guard would search the bag but wouldn’t search the sailor.
Whenever I wanted to smuggle cigarettes off the base, I’d make it a point to carry a bag but conceal the cigarettes on my person. I once smuggled twenty packs of cigarettes in this manner, but I usually limited myself to ten or fewer. The guards never caught me, and they never caught on to this ruse.
