Bob - The Navy Years, Chapter 4

Bob explains the *items

Our Company was comprised of guys from all over the United States. The purpose of  Boot Camp was to prepare you to live in close quarters, shipboard, with many other guys. You needed to know how to keep yourself and your belongings clean and orderly, and to be able to get along with each other.  Boot Camp weeded out those who couldn't cut it. It was hard.  Very hard.  But it was meant to be.  Everyone in there wanted to 'quit', as Mary Lynn said in her comments.  But, we knew when we graduated from Boot Camp the rest of our Navy Tour of Duty would not be like that.

*Laundry
  Remember when we were issued our clothing we were also issued a bucket and brush.  This was a normal galvanized bucket with a typical scrub brush.  This was our washing machine. Each night we cleaned the clothes we wore that day.  In a large 'Laundry Room' with flat sinks for laying out our clothes, we washed and scrubbed our clothes with a brush.  We didn't use clothes pins, we used heavy duty string. Before washing our clothes we tied a string around the bottom edge of shirts, one on each side, on pants a string in a belt loop on each side. I really can't remember after 45 years what we did with socks or underwear, or our Navy White Hat.  But these were all washed each night.  After scrubbing out our clothes, we went outside to hang them on the clothes lines. Remember, below Zero?  We were required to tie our clothes on the lines, in a square knot. These would be inspected the next day during barracks inspection. Well, the little strings would freeze before you could get the clothes tied up.  It was like trying to tie wire ties.  But we did it. With very cold fingers.
Now, the next night. Our clothes outside did not dry. They froze! We had a drying room.  A large room with lines to hang clothes, and kept very warm.  We removed clothes from the drying room, folded them and put them in our lockers. Moved the clothes outside into the drying room. That was fun, because the clothes hanging outside were  stiff as boards. Then we hung our clothes outside that we had just washed. So, it was a three step process, moving them every night. Clothes washed, clothes already hanging outside, clothes already hanging in the drying room. You say "Why didn't you hang your clothes in the drying room in the beginning?". Well, I can't answer that question, but there was a perfectly good reason that I can't remember after 45 years. My memory makes me tend to believe that we shared the drying room with another Company and that there wasn't room for all the clothes in the drying room. So it wasn't an exact swap of clothes from outside to inside each night.

*Personal Inspection

Besides our Barracks being inspected every morning, we were given a personal inspection each morning.

Before I go any further, I'll let you know that any of the pictures you see with 'white' uniforms was not our Company.  They were taken in the summer. The whole time we were there, except for Graduation Ceremonies, we wore dungaree pants and shirts. We did have a white t-shirt on underneath, so our pose was exactly as the ones on the left.
When you were called to attention, ready for inspection, you had your white hat turned inside out, over the top of your rifle.  This was so that the inspector could check the cleanliness of that hard to keep clean white hat, where it sat against your head.  Your left hand, your thumb turned the top of your t-shirt inside out so the inspector could check that. Once he checked your t-shirt, he slapped your hand and your hand went immediately to your side. Of course he walked in front of you then behind you, looking for dirt, buttons missing or undone, leggings not tied properly, tears in you clothing, etc. Demerits were earned for any 'hits'. Each demerit was required to be worked off by one hour drilling at night in the drill hall. Of course, shoes spit-shined, belt buckles polished, neckerchiefs tied properly. This was our daily personal inspection. I was a squad leader. It was my job to check each member of my squad to make sure they were ready for inspection.  Therefore, if any of them got a 'hit', I got one, too.  So I usually checked them out pretty good.

I'll stop for now, but will cover swimming lessons and gas mask drill in the next installment.

to be continued..................