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| Recruits heading to boot camp |
A
program called “Bundles for Britain” was set up in the U.S. President Roosevelt armed the merchant ships
that were participating in the convoys of foodstuff and war materials to
England. The president was still dealing
with a very divided nation even after two American destroyers were sunk in the
Atlantic.
Pacifists
like Charles Lindbergh talked isolationism.
The German-American bunds were flourishing in the larger cities of the
U.W. Hitler had signed a non-aggression
pact with Russia. The “Axis”—Germany,
Italy, and Japan—came into being. In the
newsreels Hitler ranted, Mussolini pranced and postured, and Premier Tojo of
Japan grinned from behind his steel-rimmed spectacles.
Personally,
I could only feel that it was only a matter of time before the U.S. would have
to get into the war, just as it had happened in 1917 to stop the German
Kaiser. The thought of it starting for
us in the Pacific never occurred to me in spite of the continued aggression of
Japan in China. I had paid very little
attention to events in that part of the world.
It
was the first day of July in 1940 when I went to the Federal Building in
Portland. The Navy recruiting office dug
out my record, gave me a thorough new physical, and said they would take
me. The following week, a Chief Petty
Officer came to our house and interviewed
my mother and father. They signed
the necessary consent form and on July 16th I received my orders to
report on July 22nd.
I
quite at the CC Store and left a recommendation with Mr. Garrison for my
brother Rex. (Rex subsequently worked
there for a year when he got out of high school before the joined the Seabees.) I said goodbye to my friends at Gearhart’s
and to Patty Cross. She cried a little
bit and wished me good luck.
Breakfast
was a bit strained on the morning of the 22nd. Rex told me goodbye then he took the
bicycle—his by the right of succession along with the large bedroom and my
model airplane collection—to go off to mow someone’s lawn. Little Sandra Dean, now a husky four-year-old,
hugged me and could not understand why her brother Richard had to leave and now
I was going also. I promised to bring
her a present when I came home and that mollified her.
I
had packed a clean shirt and my toilet articles in the same little zippered bag
Richard had carried when he left (it had been sent home by the Navy along with
his civilian clothes). I remember
standing awkwardly in the kitchen to say goodbye to my mother. My father had not gone to work that morning
and would walk to the bus depot with me.
As
I have said, we Ozark folks are not normally very demonstrative or given to
displays of emotion. My mother hugged me
and smiled, although there was moisture in her blue eyes, and simply said, “You
be a good boy, Conrad, and do what they tell you. I know that both you and Richard are going to
make us proud of you. Go on new—Dad is
waiting out front.”
I
looked back as we walked off up the street.
Sandra was on the front porch waving to me. I did not see my mother but I saw the curtain
move in the front downstairs bedroom and knew that she was watching me go. Mercifully, I could not see the warm tears
that poured down her cheeks as she knelt there by the window.
Dad
and I walked pretty much in silence, as I recall, all the way down to the
depot, each with our own thoughts. It
reminded me of my drive from Bona to Fairplay with my grandfather in Missouri
just three short years before. Dad was
never one to talk much, excepomwhen he had a few beers, and he had never given
us advice after we got into high school unless we asked for it. He turned to me when we got to the depot and
were waiting for the Portland bus. He
held out a folded five-dollar bill.
“Here,
boy, you might need this for something extra on your trip down,” he said
gruffly and just as my grandfather had done three years before.
I
shook my head. “You keep it, Dad. I got a couple of dollars of my own (I had
not yet found the two-dollar bill my mother had tucked into my bag). The Navy will take care of me when I get
there. They said that all our meals on
the train would be furnished. You keep
it.”
“Never
mind,” he said as he took my hand and pressed the folded bill into it. “I give five to Richard when he left and I
want you to have it. You’ll find a use
for it.”
I
put the folded bill into my pocket. He
then placed a gnarled hand on my shoulder.
“Ain’t never been on to give unasked advice, Conard, and I hope me and
your mother has raised you boys right.
We are proud of both of you.
“Ain’t
been one to go to church, much, either, but I will tell you what my Uncle Jim
told me when I left to go in the Army back in the World War. You are liable to run into some rough times
down the road there. Just remember, a
real man goes where the hand of the Lord leads him and he does what he has to
do when he gets there. Go on now son,
the bus is loading. Goodbye, boy.”
He
dropped his head then, turned, and walked away down the street. I boarded the bus and got a seat by the
window. As we pulled out, Dad had halted
on the corner and was lighting his pipe.
I do not know if he saw me waving but I think he maybe did.
At
the recruiting office in Portland, I quickly began to understand why they say
that the military is a matter of “hurry up and wait”. I cooled my heels all morning in an anteroom
while other recruits gradually straggled in.
There was the Olsen brothers from Portland, a fellow from Astoria, two
or three from the Chehalis area, one from Montana, and others I did not get a
chance to talk to. Finally, after they
had sent us out with chits for lunch, we were gathered in an office and a Navy
lieutenant came and administered the Oath of Allegiance. We were now officially apprentice seamen in
the United States Navy and they gave each of us a little certificate to prove
it.
After
we had been sworn in, we waited around for another hour or so, then we had
another physical mostly to make sure we all met the height and weight
requirements. Later a yeoman came and
handed out chits for a night at a hotel.
We were informed that we would not leave for San Diego until the
following day after another batch of recruits arrived. Those of us who were close to home could go
home for the night if we wished.
I
did not want to go back to Vancouver. I
had said my goodbyes and that was that. I
did not want to have to do it all over again.
I got together with a recruit from Montana—a tall, lanky young fellow
whose name I no longer recall—and we had dinner on another Navy chit, then went
to see the new movie “One Million B.C.” at the Coliseum Theater before we
bedded down at a hotel. The movie was
good and, of course, I promptly fell in love with a new starlet, Raquel Welch.
The
next day it was wait, wait, and wait again while more Pacific Northwest
recruits straggled in from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Finally, around noon, we were told we would
be catching the train to San Diego at twenty-two hundred hours. It took us a minute to figure out that, on
the Navy 24-hour clock, that meant ten p.m.
I
had no desire for my family to come over and see me off like a kid leaving for
summer camp, so I called the only one I thought of offhand that could drive a
car which was Shirley Mills. She came to
Portland about eight o’clock after supper and picked me up in front of the
Federal Building.
We
drove to Portland Heights somewhere around the zoo and parked to talk and neck
a little. My heart was not in it,
however, because I was looking eagerly forward to getting on that train. I had her take me back to the station before
nine-thirty.
I
did not want Shirley hanging onto me and kissing me goodbye in front of the
other recruits, so I insisted on leaving her there in front of the station so
she would not have to go and park the car.
She was weeping a little bit. I
impulsively reached into my bag and produced the Oath of Allegiance I had
signed.
“Here,”
I said, “you can keep this for me until I get back.”
I
got out of the car then and marched into the train station without looking
back. I do not know why I gave her the
certificate—I should have sent it to my mother.
I most certainly was not in love with Shirley—she was just a fun date.
The
Navy had provided a Pullman car for us and the porter had already made it up
for the night when the thirty or so of us boarded. I was assigned an upper bunk with only a
small window beside me out of which to peer at the passing lights of the
Willamette river waterfront. It was not
until the train had cleared the Portland suburbs and Oregon City and headed
into the darkness of central Oregon that I began to feel the pangs of
homesickness.
I
lay there sleepless for a long time, thinking of home and knowing that my life
would never again be the same. I thought
about what it would be like at breakfast in the morpnig, just the four of
them—Mother, Dad, Rex and Sandra—with my chair and Richard’s empty and pushed
out of the way from the table.
I
thought, too, about the good friends I had left in Vancouver, particularly my
confidant Patty Cross and lively and vivacious Elaine. I vowed to myself to keep in touch with
letters (and I did for a long time).
I
was still lying awake when the train halted for a short time at Roseburg,
Oregon. This time it was not simply as
if a door was closing behind me—this one seemed to literally clang shut. There was another wide open in front of me,
however. I thought about that and the
adventures to come. When I finally fell
asleep with my head on a slightly damp railroad pillow while the train was
laboring up the mountain grades toward Mt. Shasta in the pre-dawn darkness, I
was probably smiling because I relished the challenge of my strange new world.
(the
best was yet to come.)
