2 - Hey Nineteen!
Naval Recruit Training Center, San Diego, California...June, 1969.
The 4:30 am wake up call was abrupt, noisey, and brutal. Hardwood night sticks being banged against the metal, gray-painted steel frames of the old bunk beds. Smacked and rattled on the partly rusted frames by a few over-zealous, barely-out-of-boot camp teenagers assigned to get all of us new arrivals up and on the road to our new adventure, the chipped and dented sticks continued their obnoxious rhythm until every bed in the old barracks got its share.
“Alright you slimey fucking pukes”, bellowed one of the teenagers with a stick, “Get your swingin’ dicks up and dressed...you got 5 minutes!” One of his buddies switched on the lights...yellowish, incandescent bare bulbs that bathed the barrack’s bunk room with an eerie, inadequate light. I rubbed my eyes open, trying to focus on what was going on...and where the hell I was. Forty or fifty guys about the same age as me started rolling out of the bunks, some stumbling aimlessly for a moment or two until the reality of it all began to sink in. A few remained in their beds, still asleep after all that racket. I pittied them for what was about to happen.
The stick-wielding fellows went one by one to the guys still asleep and dragged them out of their bunks by their clothing, throwing them on the worn linoleum floor. Each one receiving a generous dose of swearing and name-calling as well as an order to, “Keep your puke ass on that floor and give me 20 (pushups) you morons. Did you think you were gonna sleep in? I ain’t your momma!” Every once in a while, one of them would place his foot on the guy’s back and slam him back to the floor in mid-pushup. “Faster...I ain’t got all day!”
This denegration went on for a minute or so, giving the rest of us time to get dressed, take a leak, and pack our bags. This would be the last time for several months that I would put on civilian clothes.
Just then, one of the stick guys screamed at the top of his lungs, “Attention on deck!”, and snapped to a stiff, upright stance with his hands straight down at his side, chin up, eyes straight forward.
Since none of us knew the meaning of that command, none of us really knew how to react. Attention on deck? What the hell is that? I glanced toward the door at the end of the bunk aisle. And there, standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, unfiltered Camel cigarette hanging out of the corner of his pursed lips...khaki, long-sleeved tunic, brown billed cap tilted back on his head, and medal ribbons from his shoulder to his shirt pocket...stood the “Chief”.
He was same Chief that I saw briefly on the bus at the airport. He just stood there, staring down the middle of the barracks. With his cap tilted far back on his head, you could see that he was bald on top with whiffs of blondish grey hair combed back over each ear. He wasn’t a large man, he was quite short, maybe five foot six at the most, 50-ish...but with an imposing look on his wrinkled and freckled face. On the foresleeve of his tunic were six diagonal black stripes. I found out later that each stripe represented four years in the Navy. The brass anchors on his collar were a “Chief’s” moniker. The black emblems on the upper sleeves had three chevrons down and one up, another sign that he was a high-ranking enlisted man. The crossed anchors in the center revealed his was a Bosen’s Mate, the “worker bees” of a ship...the guys that did all the dirty grunt work, the scrubbing, the cleaning, the scraping...the shit jobs. This guy was an old “salt” who had probably been through a lot in his twenty four plus years in the service...and he didn’t look happy right now.
The Chief slowly reached up to the corner of his mouth and removed the last vestige of the unfiltered Camel cigarette, still burning, it had an inch long ash on it...the ash didn’t fall off. He gingerly held it over the galvanized trash can at his side by the doorway. Then reached down into the trash can and pressed the butt into the side with his index finger, extinguishing what was left of it, then letting it go into the can. His unhappy look had now turned into a scowling grimace. Shaking his head from side to side, he just muttered, “Jesus fucking Christ!”. Then knelt down to a squat, pulled up one pant leg, and removed a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes from his left sock...removed a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth without parting his lips at all. He stood up, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out an old Zippo lighter, flipped it open with one hand, spun the flint wheel, and lit the unfiltered Camel hanging from the corner of his mouth. The tip of the Camel glowing bright red in the dimly lit barracks.
The stick guys who woke us up stood still, at attention by his side. The rest of us did the same, no one said a word. We all just stood where we were when the Chief showed up in the doorway, quiet, not moving. There wasn’t a sound in the room.
The Chief sucked further on the Camel, at the same time replacing the Zippo in his pants pocket...he made a military spin turn on his right foot, and existed the barracks the way he came in...a large vortex of cigarette smoke engulfing his head and shoulders as he disappeared out the door. And he was gone...for now.
With my eyes wide open now, I could only utter one word to the guys standing near me, “Fuck!”
What had I gotten myself into? I would find out soon enough.
The 4:30 am wake up call was abrupt, noisey, and brutal. Hardwood night sticks being banged against the metal, gray-painted steel frames of the old bunk beds. Smacked and rattled on the partly rusted frames by a few over-zealous, barely-out-of-boot camp teenagers assigned to get all of us new arrivals up and on the road to our new adventure, the chipped and dented sticks continued their obnoxious rhythm until every bed in the old barracks got its share.
“Alright you slimey fucking pukes”, bellowed one of the teenagers with a stick, “Get your swingin’ dicks up and dressed...you got 5 minutes!” One of his buddies switched on the lights...yellowish, incandescent bare bulbs that bathed the barrack’s bunk room with an eerie, inadequate light. I rubbed my eyes open, trying to focus on what was going on...and where the hell I was. Forty or fifty guys about the same age as me started rolling out of the bunks, some stumbling aimlessly for a moment or two until the reality of it all began to sink in. A few remained in their beds, still asleep after all that racket. I pittied them for what was about to happen.
The stick-wielding fellows went one by one to the guys still asleep and dragged them out of their bunks by their clothing, throwing them on the worn linoleum floor. Each one receiving a generous dose of swearing and name-calling as well as an order to, “Keep your puke ass on that floor and give me 20 (pushups) you morons. Did you think you were gonna sleep in? I ain’t your momma!” Every once in a while, one of them would place his foot on the guy’s back and slam him back to the floor in mid-pushup. “Faster...I ain’t got all day!”
This denegration went on for a minute or so, giving the rest of us time to get dressed, take a leak, and pack our bags. This would be the last time for several months that I would put on civilian clothes.
Just then, one of the stick guys screamed at the top of his lungs, “Attention on deck!”, and snapped to a stiff, upright stance with his hands straight down at his side, chin up, eyes straight forward.
Since none of us knew the meaning of that command, none of us really knew how to react. Attention on deck? What the hell is that? I glanced toward the door at the end of the bunk aisle. And there, standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, unfiltered Camel cigarette hanging out of the corner of his pursed lips...khaki, long-sleeved tunic, brown billed cap tilted back on his head, and medal ribbons from his shoulder to his shirt pocket...stood the “Chief”.
He was same Chief that I saw briefly on the bus at the airport. He just stood there, staring down the middle of the barracks. With his cap tilted far back on his head, you could see that he was bald on top with whiffs of blondish grey hair combed back over each ear. He wasn’t a large man, he was quite short, maybe five foot six at the most, 50-ish...but with an imposing look on his wrinkled and freckled face. On the foresleeve of his tunic were six diagonal black stripes. I found out later that each stripe represented four years in the Navy. The brass anchors on his collar were a “Chief’s” moniker. The black emblems on the upper sleeves had three chevrons down and one up, another sign that he was a high-ranking enlisted man. The crossed anchors in the center revealed his was a Bosen’s Mate, the “worker bees” of a ship...the guys that did all the dirty grunt work, the scrubbing, the cleaning, the scraping...the shit jobs. This guy was an old “salt” who had probably been through a lot in his twenty four plus years in the service...and he didn’t look happy right now.
The Chief slowly reached up to the corner of his mouth and removed the last vestige of the unfiltered Camel cigarette, still burning, it had an inch long ash on it...the ash didn’t fall off. He gingerly held it over the galvanized trash can at his side by the doorway. Then reached down into the trash can and pressed the butt into the side with his index finger, extinguishing what was left of it, then letting it go into the can. His unhappy look had now turned into a scowling grimace. Shaking his head from side to side, he just muttered, “Jesus fucking Christ!”. Then knelt down to a squat, pulled up one pant leg, and removed a pack of unfiltered Camel cigarettes from his left sock...removed a cigarette and stuck it in the corner of his mouth without parting his lips at all. He stood up, reached into his pants pocket and pulled out an old Zippo lighter, flipped it open with one hand, spun the flint wheel, and lit the unfiltered Camel hanging from the corner of his mouth. The tip of the Camel glowing bright red in the dimly lit barracks.
The stick guys who woke us up stood still, at attention by his side. The rest of us did the same, no one said a word. We all just stood where we were when the Chief showed up in the doorway, quiet, not moving. There wasn’t a sound in the room.
The Chief sucked further on the Camel, at the same time replacing the Zippo in his pants pocket...he made a military spin turn on his right foot, and existed the barracks the way he came in...a large vortex of cigarette smoke engulfing his head and shoulders as he disappeared out the door. And he was gone...for now.
With my eyes wide open now, I could only utter one word to the guys standing near me, “Fuck!”
What had I gotten myself into? I would find out soon enough.
posted by James | 2:00 PM
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