Ford Island Boat House in the bay of Pearl Harbor Oahu Hawaii.1956: I was there for about 18 months. I had just moved from downtown Honolulu back to the base and was awaiting orders to deploy to the Suez canal zone. A conflict was in the making. It never happened.
At this particular time I was a Motor Launch Coxson and was living in the boat house just to my left, I would run a 40ft night runner some times 50ft day time launch between Landing Able an Charlie. Just like a poster I had seen a few years before. A sailor in his Dress Whites, standing on the poop deck leaning into the wind, his uniform fluttering, pressing firmly against his body, the breeze blowing through his hair, his scarf trailing behind, the tiller in one hand guiding the boat safely though the harbor traffic, the other hand gently but firmly in control of the bell-rope, ready with the next command to his Fireman below. It was cool I was alive in a poster. On occasion I was treated to run the captions gig. Awesome stuff with a Chrysler 230hp hemi, big power at that time in a beautiful hand made boat.
. To me the Navy was about like civilian life expert you did have more rules to abide by which was understandable. But at least in peace time you could change jobs if you felt some other niche would serve you better or would just be more fun. Before this job I was the one and only Baker on the island for the entire base of seven hundred fifty sailors, you know pies, cakes, pastry's, biscuits, buns and bread. I had worked with the master baker for only two weeks when out of no where, in swoops the MP's, snatched him up and off they went, later hearing that his folks were alleged communist. You may have heard of senator McCarthy. Instantly I became the master baker. The fastest promotion I've had, but no raise in pay,this job held my interest for 6 months I was eighteen. It was wild in the fifties.
My sweet young bride had just retuned to Oregon. There our first son was born and in four months or so we were all back on the main land, living in Coronado California.
Another ferry boat ride to another island, more beach, another cool spot and the birthplace of my second son. I was attached to the North Island Naval Air Station and was on the support team tending A3D's, PBY's and a navy work horse the DC3. By this time I had clawed my way to the rank of AMS3.... Aviation Machinist-Structural 3rd class..I was a Navy certified heliarc welder @ 19 and certified to weld aircraft structure. After eight or nine months I was transfer to a navy survival training camp in the mountains of California, between San Diego and Palm Springs as a member of a team of survival instructors. Me my wife and our two little boys moved into one of a small cluster of nicely appointed cabins about three or four miles from camp on a lonely stretch of road.
I would highly recommend a military experience, in serves of your country. Whether you are a Top Gun or get to work on/or around there rigs. It is a lot of fun, you learn a bunch. Things you don't learn unless you have been there, done that. they feed you like a king take care of all your medical needs, house you and after boot camp you are treated with respect while you make your way in this challenging environment. A wonderful experience you will be at awe of all the extremely fine equipment you will train on to defend your country with, if need be.
The USS Arizona was less than four hundred feet behind me, no memorial platform yet, but you could see this magnificent ship very plainly in the beautiful clear blue water, setting on the bottom. You knew there had been a battle on this small island, there were bullet holes in all the original buildings that survived, a few bomb craters and rubble still around on the back side of the island where the small air field was, there were still sunken ship wreckage visible. It defiantly reminded you why you were there.
It was now peace time and Falstaff was 25 cents a can in the Beer Garden at pool side. Elvis was on the jute box doing his Heart Break Hotel number and me asking who the hell is that. Tossing in another dime remarking, lets hear that one again. This was the beach, life was good.
Ugene