I find it hard to believe that on this day 55 years ago, I was a 17-year-old seaman recruit at the U.S. Naval Training Center, commonly known as Boot Camp, in Great Lakes, Illinois.
The story below
about Navy Boot Camp is chapter seven in my crime thriller Olongapo,
which I hope to soon publish.
Boots On the
Ground
By Paul Davis
Prior to going on watch in the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk’s message
processing center as we were operating on "Yankee Station" in the
South China Sea off the coast of North Vietnam in 1971, I was standing in line
in the galley waiting for chow to begin being served.
Standing in line with me was Willie Henry, a bulky
25-year-old black sailor from Houston who worked with me in the aircraft
carrier’s Communications Radio Division. Henry was wondering what was going to
be served.
“If I can’t put it between two pieces of bread, I ain’t
eating it,” Henry explained.
“I guess soup is out,” I said.
In the past, I’d seen him place a large piece of meatloaf
between two pieces of sliced white bread, and another time I saw him slap a
thick steak between slices of white bread. I even once saw him place a mound of
mashed potatoes between slices of white bread and squash it down.
“Gangway! Prisoners!”
We moved aside when we heard the Marines yell as they
marched the dozen or so brig prisoners past us to the head of the chow line.
“That’s Lupre,” I said, pointing towards the brig
prisoners.
I recognized the tall and lanky black sailor, his head
shaved, marching in close order with the other brig prisoners, toe-to-heel and
crotch-to-ass.
“You know Louie Lupre?”
“Yeah. He was my friend in Boot Camp.”
Henry told me that he met Lupre in Olongapo. Henry said
that this was Lupre’s second time in the brig. Lupre, usually a low-key guy,
was working as a mess cook when he assaulted a petty officer who threw a mop at
him and ordered him to swab the deck. Lupre hit the petty officer with the
mop.
Henry said that Lupre had previously punched out a petty
officer who was stupid enough to raise his voice to him. Henry also told me a
story of Lupre in the “Jungle” section of Olongapo, where black sailors
preferred to hang out away from the white sailors.
“Two brothers were razzing Lupre about being a dumb,
country-ass fool,” Henry said. “Lupre didn’t say anything back. He just punched
them both out. One, then the other. That crazy brother hits hard.”
I liked Lupre and I felt bad for him. As I stood in the
chow line, I thought of our time together in Boot Camp.
The road to Olongapo for me
began on a platform at the North Philadelphia train station on February 9th in
1970 when I was 17 years old. My mother and father were with me as we waited
for the train to take me to Chicago and then on to the Naval Recruit Training
Center at Great Lakes, Illinois.
Salvatore Lorino was also
there, standing alone a few feet from me. I recognized him from our South
Philly neighborhood, and I was surprised to see him there. I nodded to him, and
he nodded back.
We later spoke on the train
as we barreled towards Chicago. Sitting in the diner car, I looked at the menu,
thinking I was worldly and cool like actor Sean Connery as James Bond on the
Orient Express train in the film From Russia With Love. The
waiter disabused me quickly of this notion, as he told us that as Navy
recruits, our meals were planned and prepaid.
Lorino told me over dinner
that a judge ordered him to join the military or go to prison, so he decided to
enlist in the Navy. He wondered if he had made the right choice.
I told Lorino that I needed
to use the restroom, and I went off in search of one. The train was rocking
hard from side to side as it sped on, and I tried with some difficulty to keep
my feet firmly on the restroom’s floor and keep my stream of urine directed at
the center of the toilet as I swayed uncontrollably from the train’s motion. I
recall hoping that my aim would be better on the Navy’s rifle range.
When we reached Chicago, all
of the recruits transferred to a bus that took us to the Navy base, arriving
late in the evening. It was bitter, bone-chilling cold, as we stepped off of
the bus. As we emerged from the bus, we were greeted by a screaming wild man.
The wild man yelled out that he was Gunner’s Mate 1st Class
Petty Officer Calhoun, our company commander. Calhoun had a pronounced rural
Southern accent, and he cursed us as he herded us into the barracks like we
were cattle.
The barracks, built in WWII,
was decrepit and dreary. And very cold. The two-tier bunks, called racks,
appeared to be even older than the barracks.
Calhoun was a muscular
6-footer with close-cropped blonde hair. He berated us and hurled insults
ranging from “fucking pussies” to “candy-ass pukes.”
Navy recruit basic training
was informally called “Boot Camp” and recruits were called “Boots.” We were in
the U.S. Navy, but for the next three months we would not go aboard a ship or
go to sea. First, we Boots had to be trained as sailors and military men ashore
at Boot Camp. We were, in a sense, Boots on the ground.
Once in the barracks, Calhoun
informed us that in the U.S. Navy’s order of things, Boots like us were less
than human and we would be treated accordingly. Calhoun had us line up in front
of our assigned racks. He informed us that we were in a temporary barracks and
in one week’s time we would be “crossing the river” to our new barracks.
The following day we were
issued uniforms and had our heads shaved. We spent that first week at Boot Camp
marching, running, doing calisthenics and extreme exercises with a 12-pound M-1
rifle. As punishment for infractions, the recruit offender had to extend his
arms outward and hold the rifle horizontally at shoulder’s length.
Sounds easy? Try it for a
half-hour, as I did on several occasions.
I hated the company
commander, as we all did, even though as the son of a former Navy chief, and a
voracious reader about the Navy and the military, I knew that these extreme
basic training conditions were meant to instill military discipline and teamwork.
Still, I thought the company commander went way overboard, and he appeared to
truly enjoy torturing the recruits.
That first week in Boot Camp
we had to memorize the 11 General Orders of a Sentry, and we had to recite them
to any drill instructor who happened to visit us while on watch. We stood
security watches across from the company commander’s office, at the head of the
passageway between the rows of bunks in the barracks. While on watch, we stood
at parade rest, our right hand on our M-1 rifle as it leaned forward at our
side, and the left hand placed behind our back, with our legs spread apart.
While standing watch one
early morning as the recruits were asleep, Calhoun snuck up on me. He looked me
up and down, shook his head in disapproval, and called me a candy-ass and a
puke excuse for a sailor. I stood rigid and said nothing, but I had a fine
thought about punching this old man's lights out if I ever encountered him
outside the base.
Calhoun placed his ugly,
twisted face nearly up against mine and screamed, “What is the 5th Order
of a Sentry?”
"To quit my post only
when properly relieved, Sir!"
Calhoun looked disappointed
that I knew the response. He walked into his office without another word.
Over the course of the first
week, I saw many other recruits draw a mental blank through nervousness, and
some broke down and stammered, and some even cried when Calhoun screamed,
cursed, waved his hands about, and stomped his feet in an effort to confuse the
sentry.
Having been raised by a
former Navy chief who ran our house like a ship, I felt like I grew up in the
Navy. So this was not new or especially intimidating to me.
Calhoun didn’t take
particular notice of Lorino and I, thankfully, but he tormented Louis
Lupre, a tall, gangling and soft-spoken 20-year-old black recruit from
Louisiana.
Calhoun seemed to
always find fault with Lupre, from the way he made his rack, to the way
the tall recruit stood at attention. At least twice a day, Calhoun would
be on Lupre, mocking his name and his looks, and criticizing the recruit’s actions.
Lupre took it all in stride, and this appeared to infuriate Calhoun.
“You got kerosine rags
around your ankles, Lemonade?” Calhoun asked Lupre while we were all at
attention for an impromptu inspection by the crazy company commander.
“Sir, what?”
“You got kerosene rags
around your ankles to stop them ants from crawling up your leg to eat your
candy ass.”
Lupre frowned and shook his
head, “No, Sir.”
“You eyeballing me,
boy?” Calhoun said as Lemon stood at attention.
“Don’t’ call me boy,”
Lupre said in a low voice.
“Don’t call me boy -
Sir!” Calhoun yelled back. “I ain’t calling you boy because you is colored.
I’m calling you boy because you is a boy – a young boy Boot!”
I was one of many, if
not all, who silently urged Lupre to strike Calhoun.
Thankfully for Lupre, he did
not.
At the end of that long
first week, Calhoun told us to go to afternoon chow.
“I don’t care if you just
drink a glass of chocolate milk, I want you back here in fifteen minutes at
1300,” he screamed, his face red and distorted, saliva spitting out from his
rubbery libs. “I want to see you in full uniform at parade rest with your sea
bag in front of your rack ready to march across the river.”
We quickly gobbled some
food and then rushed back to the barracks. “Full uniform” meant a Navy-blue
wool watch cap, a Navy-blue wool turtleneck sweater under our chambray shirt,
bell bottom dungaree pants, “BoonDocker” boots, and a heavy, double-breasted
Navy-blue peacoat. After about a moment or two of standing at parade rest, our
arms folded behind our backs, legs apart, we discovered that the insane company
commander had raised the heat up in the barracks.
The barracks was like
the proverbial oven and with our layered clothes, the sweat poured off of us.
The barracks had a wall clock and out of the corner of our eyes we watched time
tick on slowly as we remained at parade rest. No one moved, as we were
terrified that Calhoun would sneak in and catch us off guard.
It was not until 1400
that a grinning and prancing Calhoun swept into the barracks. He appeared to
enjoy seeing our discomfort.
"I got some bad
news for some of y’all,” Calhoun announced to the sweat-soaked and weary
recruits. “We are splitting the company up. Some you pussies will not have the
pleasure of serving in my company.”
He explained that those he
called out would be transferred to another company under another company
commander.
“When you hear your name,
fall out.”
After the fourth name was
called, I heard him say “Davis, Paul.”
“Thank fucking God," I
said aloud without thinking.
Calhoun was on me in a flash.
His twisted face, which no doubt housed a twisted mind, came within an inch of
my own.
“You don’t like me, do you
boy?”
“No, Sir. I don’t” I
replied.
“Well, at least you’re
fucking honest. Move out!”
Lorino remained in Calhoun’s
company as I joined Lupre and the other recruits outside of the barracks. We
met our new company commander, a stout Boatswain’s Mate 1st Class
Petty Officer with thick glasses named Schmidt. He was no sweetheart, to be
sure, but he was certainly less manic than Calhoun.
The new company commander
lined us up and marched us across the mythical “river’ that separated the old
base from the new. “Across the river” was often mentioned that first week and
we were all taken aback to discover a body of water more accurately described
as a small creek than a river. And the bridge across the shallow water looked
like the kind of “bridge” one would see at a miniature golf
course.
Thankfully, the new barracks
we moved into was recently constructed and we felt much more comfortable.
Lupre’s rack was across from my rack in the barracks, and we became friends.
Lupre told me that he was glad he was no longer in Calhoun’s company.
“At some point, I would have
punched that cracker and ended up in the brig.”
Lupre told me that I was his
first white friend. He said that in the rural Louisiana area where he was born
and raised, he had seen the occasional white man, but as his neighbors and his
schoolmates were all black, he had no real contact with white people. Lupre,
who didn’t say much, told me he got a kick out of my stories and old jokes.
One humorous story I told
Lupre, and a couple of other recruits cracked him up.
“I passed this old guy on the
sidewalk the other day. “How ya doin?” I said to him in passing.”
“Sailor!” I heard the man
call out behind me. I turned and asked, “Are you talking to me?” I wasn't sure
if he was talking to me, as no one ever called me a sailor before.”
That got a big laugh from the
other recruits.
“Look at my uniform, sailor.”
The man bellowed in a commanding voice.
“Hey, don’t feel bad,” I
replied. “Look at the one they gave me.”
That also got a big laugh.
“The man looked
frustrated and angry. He sputtered and finally said, “I’m an admiral!”
“Yo, that’s a good job. Don’t
fuck it up.”
My fellow recruits laughed
heartily.
I also told my fellow
recruits about the time I saw a Navy corpsman in sick bay and told him I had a
back problem.
About a half hour later the
corpsman ushered me into the Navy doctor's office. The doctor consulted a sheet
and asked, "You have a back problem?
"Yes, Sir," I
replied. "I wish I was back home in Philadelphia."
Another time when a recruit
mentioned that he joined the Navy to see the
world, I responded, “Well, I don’t want to sound arrogant, but I joined the
Navy so the world could see me!”
That made Lupre laugh out
loud.
On one cold and gray day,
Schmidt stood in front of us on the “grinder,” a football field-sized cement
parade ground across from our barracks where we marched, ran and performed
physical training, called PT. Seeming out of the blue, Schmidt told us that the
best tool our enemy the Communists have is “McHale's Navy,” a popular TV comedy
that aired in the mid-1960s. He did not elaborate and moved on to another
subject.
Back at the barracks, I told
Lupre that “McHale's Navy” was one of the reasons I joined the Navy. Lupre
never saw the show, so I told him that “McHale’s Navy” starred actor Ernest
Borgnine, a real Navy veteran, as the commanding officer of a PT boat in WWII
with a crew of rough and roguish sailors. McHale’s sailors were wild and
undisciplined on shore, but when it came to fighting the Japanese at sea,
McHale’s PT boat had the best combat record. McHale’s nemesis in the show was
Captain Wallace Binghamton, portrayed by actor Joe Flynn. Binghamton was an
incompetent and ambitious officer who resented McHale’s combat success. He was
called "Old Lead Bottom” contemptuously by McHale and his crew.
I told Lupre about one
particular episode that I loved. In that episode, Binghamton was sucking up to
an admiral at lunch. Binghamton told the admiral that McHale and his crew were
pirates. He said he had to watch them all the time.
"You have to be ruthless
with them, " Binghamton explained.
The admiral responded that
his style was less adversarial, and the men under him loved him.
"But that's me,
admiral," Binghamton proclaimed. "Lovable and ruthless."
Lupre laughed.
Despite a rigorous schedule
of physical training and classroom instruction, we had some humorous moments in
Boot Camp. As part of the recruit uniform, we carried a folded 8x5 notebook
tucked under our belts. Schmidt often pulled out our notebooks to see what
notes we were taking from our classes.
One afternoon in the
barracks, while we were all at attention in front of our racks, Schmidt pulled
out the notebook belonging to this odd, quiet recruit named John Trevor.
The company commander was
furious to discover that Trevor had drawn several crude pictures of female
anatomy in his notebook.
“What the fuck is this,
Trevor?” Schmidt asked. “You defaced Navy property with your stupid drawings of
tits, ass and pussy!”
Trevor looked as if he were
about to cry.
“You like pussy?” Schmidt
asked.
“Yes, Sir,” Trevor mumbled.
“Then eat that pussy.”
Schmidt tore out a page from
the notebook, crumpled it up and shoved it in Trevor’s mouth. Half of the page
protruded from Trevor’s lips as he stood rigid at attention. We all started
laughing.
“Anyone who thinks this is
funny, get down and give me 20,” Schmidt yelled.
I hit the deck, like Lupre
and most of the recruit company, and began doing the 20 pushups as we continued
to laugh.
The following day our company
was ushered into a gymnasium where we were addressed by a Navy Captain.
The big, red-faced Irish Catholic Chaplin said he was from Philadelphia, and he
asked if anyone was from Philadelphia.
I raised my hand.
“What part?”
“South Philadelphia, Sir.”
“What are you, a South Philly
hoodlum forced to join the Navy because you stole a car?”
I stammered and started to
respond, but the Chaplin moved on, speaking to someone else.
Back at the barracks, I was
approached by Ronald Watts, a 22-year-old tall and muscular black recruit from
Chicago. Earlier, Watts had been pointed out to me by another black guy from
Chicago. Watts, I was told, was a notorious drug dealing gang leader and
supposedly a hit man. When he was arrested for various crimes, his lawyer
greased palms - the Chicago way - and the bribed judge offered to drop charges
if Watts joined the military. Although Watts was a veteran of gun battles on
the streets of Chicago, he feared gun battles in the jungles of Vietnam, so he
joined the Navy.
“So, you a hoodlum from South
Philly?” Watts said to me with a broad smile. “A judge let me join up in this
here Navy to avoid prison too. Better the Navy than the joint, huh?”
I agreed.
Watts was a bully and he
enjoyed tormenting the other recruits who were afraid of him, but he left me
alone, thinking I was a fellow hood. But Watts made a mistake in ridiculing
Lupre. Like Calhoun, Watts thought Lupre was an easy target. Watts would tear
into Lupre whenever he passed by, mocking him for being a country boy and
calling him “Stepin Fetchit,” after the black vaudevillian and film comedian
whose stage persona was billed as “the laziest man in the world.”
While we were in the head
brushing our teeth one cold morning, Watts started in on Lupre, calling him a
“country boy retard.” Without a word, Lupre turned and hit Watts. Watts fell to
the deck and was out cold. Several recruits, including me, laughed.
Watts was picked up and taken
to sick bay, where he told the corpsman what he had told the company commander
- that he slipped and fell.
Later that day, I told Lupre
that I was impressed with the punch he threw at Watts.
“I boxed at the Boys’ Club in
South Philly. Did you train as a fighter too?”
“No,’ Lupre said
softly. “That was only the second time I hit somebody.”
“Wow. That was a
good punch. Good snap. But I was taught to throw combos, a combination of
punches together, not just one punch.”
“I only needs one
punch.”
“So you do,” I
replied.
“The first time I hit a
boy was in school,” Lupre said. “This boy was always calling me a slowpoke. I
didn’t pay him no mind until he shoved me into some lockers. I punched him.”
"Don’t tell me:
you knocked him out?”
"Yeah, I did.”
"You should go
into the ring. You’re a natural.”
“No. I don’t like
fighting.”
“Tell that to
Watts.”
I later had my own fight in
the head. Hanson, a recruit from Oregon that I barely knew pleaded with me to
switch security watches with him, He had the earlier watch and he begged me to
switch with him so he could go the Gedunk, where they sold hamburgers, hotdogs
and sodas to off-duty recruits, and use one of the bank of payphones there. He
said he had to call his girlfriend back home as she had written him a “Dear
John” letter and broke up with him.
Reluctantly, I agreed to take
his watch, and he said he would take my midnight watch. I stood his watch and
then hit my rack. I was asleep when Schmit kicked my rack and woke me with a
start.
“Hell, Davis!” Schmit
screamed, waking everyone in the barracks. “You got the watch. Why the fuck are
you sleeping and not on watch?”
I stammered something about
switching watches with Hanson, who I saw was in his rack a couple of rows down.
“Shit, Davis, you dummy. You
can’t do switches without my approval. Now get up and stand your watch.”
I dressed quickly and
relieved the recruit on watch. For the next four hours I thought about bashing
in Hanson’s head with my rifle butt as he lay sleeping.
The next morning, after
returning to the barracks from breakfast, Schmit told me I was on report and ordered me to follow him to the Quarterdeck,
where the Division Lieutenant had his office.
I followed Schmidt down the
stairwell to the Quarterdeck and Schmidt told me to stand at attention in the
outer office as he knocked and then entered the lieutenant’s office. As I stood
there rigidly at attention. Two chiefs, both drill instructors from other
recruit companies, barged in. They stood on each side of me and asked what I
was doing there, and I responded that I had failed to stand my security watch.
Outraged, the two chiefs began to berate me. Some recruits would have been
mortified, but having been raised by a former Navy chief, this was, to me, just
another Tuesday.
Schmidt called me into the
office and the lieutenant, a grim-faced young officer, began to chew me out. He
did not ask me why I didn’t stand my watch. I started to explain, but Schmit
tapped my leg with his boot. When the lieutenant was done chewing me out, he
ordered me to perform four extra hours of duty as punishment.
Later that evening, I walked
into the head and Hanson was there at one of the sinks. He looked at me and
said something about hearing I was in trouble. I was furious.
This 25-year-old must have thought I was a 17-year-old kid that he could
take advantage of. Well, he was right, I was a kid - a South Philly street kid.
I hit in the jaw with my “Sunday punch.” The straight right dropped him to the
deck and he lay there against a bulkhead, moaning softly.
“Don’t ever talk to me again
or even look at me,” I said in a low voice. “And be thankful that we're not on
the street, where I’d bust your head wide open.”
The following week, perhaps
to redeem himself in the eyes of the company after Lupre decked him, Watts took
on a big, white country boy named Baines. Without provocation, Watts punched
Baines square in the face. Baines absorbed the punch and grabbed Watts around
the arms, which prevented the Chicago hoodlum from throwing another punch.
Schmidt witnessed the
entire altercation in the barracks. He broke up the fight and ordered Watts to
go to the building’s quarterdeck and report to the company’s lieutenant. Watts
did not return to the barracks, and someone gathered up his personal belongings
and took them away. We later heard that Watts was kicked out of the Navy.
Schmidt didn’t like me. I
asked too many questions, made sarcastic comments, and talked too much, as
Schmidt told me several times over the course of our training.
“You’re a real smart ass,
Davis,” he said.
But I scored high on the
classroom instruction weekly tests, and I could march, shoot, and do PT, so
Schmidt tolerated me.
One cold February morning at
0400, Schmidt and another drill instructor entered the barracks, turned on the
lights, and began to bang metal trash can lids together.
“Out of your racks,” Schmidt
screamed. “The barracks are on fire. Clear the barracks now!”
I woke up and quickly pulled
on my dungarees and my BoonDocker boots.
Schmidt was on me like a
flash.
“Would you put on your pants
and boots if the building really was on fire?”
“In the Great Lakes in
February, yes Sir,” I replied.
He walked away shaking his
head.
Although I incurred the wrath
of our drill instructor, I was the only one not standing in the freezing cold
outside of the barracks barefoot and clad only in a t-shirt and skivvies
underwear. Even with my dungarees and boots without socks, I stood at attention
shivering as the cold wind whipped through me. After about 20 minutes in the
cold, Schmidt secured the drill and ordered us back into the barracks.
On the last day of Boot Camp,
as we were preparing to go home on a week’s leave before reporting to our
assigned ships, stations or service schools, Schmidt looked at me and Lupre as
we were packing our seabags.
“You got plans to fuck a girl
when you get home, Davis?”
“Several,
Sir,” I replied.
Once the Kitty Hawk’s brig
prisoners were seated together with their trays of food, the cooks began to
serve the rest of us. Henry was happy because they were serving ham, so he was
able to make a ham sandwich for himself.
I looked over at Lupre. With
the Marine guards watching him and the other prisoners closely, Lupre’s eyes
faced straight forward as he chewed his food.
Henry leaned over and told me that he heard that Lupre
was going to be kicked out of the Navy with a dishonorable discharge once he
got out of the brig.
I felt bad for Lupre. As I recalled from Boot Camp, he
was a friendly, unassuming guy - until he was pushed.
© 2022 By Paul Davis
Note: You can read other posted chapters via
the links below:
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Butterfly'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Salvatore Lorino'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: The Old Huk
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: Join The Navy And See Olongapo
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The 30-Day Detail'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'Cat Street'
Paul Davis On
Crime: Chapter 12: On Yankee Station
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Cherry Boy'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: 'The Hit'
Paul Davis On
Crime: My Crime Fiction: Welcome To Japan, Davis-San
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