Bob - The Navy Years, Chapter 1

I JOIN THE U. S. NAVY

In my Senior year of High School, several friends and I decided to join the Navy after graduation.  Now, back in those days,  if you weren't in college, you either joined a service, or our government decided for you to join the Army,  through the Draft. After graduation, having planned to join the Navy for many months, the time came.  Well, all my friends backed out, Billy Doyle, Jacques Sabrie, Charlie Pate.  But I went ahead and joined up anyway. I joined the Navy on January 26, 1965, 8 months after graduating from High School.  I was 18 years old and had never been away from home more than one night running.  The night of January 25th was the last night in my life I lived in a house with my parents.
My Dad drove me down to the recruiting office and dropped me off.  I'd joined several weeks prior to this day, but this was my actual sign up and departure day.  With about 10 other guys, all from around Kentucky, we spent several hours signing papers and waiting around.  The first of many times in the Military that I had to stand around and wait.  The old military saying 'hurry up and wait' is so true.  After we were all signed up, papers in order, we were bused to Standiford Field, now Louisville International Airport. There, we waited around for our plane to Chicago, and the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.  We arrived at O'Hara Airport in Chicago late afternoon and, you guessed it, waited around several hours for a Navy bus to take us to Boot Camp.  I left Louisville with a gym bag with toothbrush and shaving gear, wearing my High School Letter Jacket.  Louisville temperature cold, but nothing extreme.  When we landed in Chicago it was 19 degrees below zero and the ground covered with snow. Little did I know that I wouln't see the ground 'snow free' until the first of April!
The bus finally arrived and we piled on.  We pulled onto the Navy base late at night, I'm thinking around midnight.  The bus pulled up in front of a large 'Drill Hall'. This is a large empty hall about the size of the armory downtown, or about the size of 8 high school gyms. We went inside, of couse a Navy drill instructor starting yelling at us as soon as the bus door opened. They called us a lot of things, and none of them were endearing.  We were each assigned our bunk for the night out of about 200 in the hall.
 We were given 10 minutes to wash up, brush teeth, go to the 'bathroom' ('Head' in the Navy), and get to bed.
So, here I was, my first night in the Navy, in a large drill hall with a couple of hundred other guys, lying in a bunk bed, looking up into a dark empty space wondering what in the world I'd gotten myself into.

to be continued......