The Navy

By Michael R. Häack

From the long hours of CTR School in Imperial Beach to gripping ice and snow ofAlaska and back down to an isolated military radio station near Malibu, readerswill enjoy tales of one man's humorous hitch in the U.S. Navy. His time as aMorse code operator for the Naval Security Group will appeal to any reader'slove of history and humor. The rakish life of a young man trusted withconfidential military information errupts from the pages as events unfoldthroughout three years in..."The Navy."

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Apr 23, 2007
• ISBN: 9781452021423

Michael R. Häack

The author resides in Modesto, CA, and is an artist working in mixed media, graphics and fabric art.

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© 2007 Michael R. Häack. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse 12/10/2020

ISBN: 978-1-4259-9516-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4520-2142-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Preface

Section One

Section Two

Section Three

Section Four

Section Five

Section Six

Section Seven

Section Eight

Section Nine

Section Ten

This book is dedicated to my daughter, Christy A. Haack,

 with thanks for her long hours of proofreading and her

constant encouragement.

The cover photograph is used with permission from Janis

Jorgenson, representing the United States Naval Institute.

Additional photography is thanks to Mr. Kregg Miller.

Additional proofreading is thanks to Mr. Jay Cox.

Cover design is thanks to Warren A. Haack.

Preface

The grossly underpowered fan waved its noncommittal head back and forth, indifferent to the atmosphere. The air in the room, topside in the Navy Annex building of Oakland, California, remained stagnant and overheated. In the background some tired radio sang Cathy’s Clown to a disinterested and sober gathering of young men.

On command the entire group rose to their feet and spoke the words prompted by the attending lieutenant. The standards of the United States and the U.S. Navy fluttered to the left and right, demanding the respect of all present. At the close of the ceremony the gathered multitudes raised right hands and spoke the words of commitment: I will. With these words we, though green as the fields, became members of the United States Navy.

Section One

The plan to join the navy did not just erupt on a hot day in June. We had been planning to join for months. The band of friends had met often in the basement of Don’s house to get on the air with his ham radio station, an activity dubbed sniffing the ozone. The entire group shared this pastime. Everyone had a ham station at their house and we spent hours on the air searching for friends and discussing the future. We were all tired of high school, fickle girl friends, boring jobs, and our home town. We planned to see the world and on a lark, Don suggested we all join the Navy.

The silence that followed could have competed with the dead calm in the eye of a hurricane; the disruption to follow was equal in force to the winds on the perimeter. We considered the idea and came to an agreement—joining the navy was the way out.

We all visited the local recruiter. He informed us of the sobering facts: one, we needed to graduate from high school, and two, we were all too young. Therefore we would need our parents’ permission. The upside to the idea was that at that time, the navy had a program nicknamed the Kiddy Cruise. If we joined before we turned eighteen, we could get out before we turned twenty one. They also had the Buddy Program, which allowed us to join with our friends and stay together during our ‘cruise.’

When you are seventeen, nothing looks like an obstacle. We would graduate, our parents would gladly sign for us, and we would all be in the navy by the middle of June in 1960. From there, we saw ourselves out on the seas in command of aircraft carriers. No one bothered to take into account the months of drills, marching, schooling, and general military life, or the possibility that our parents wouldn’t support our lofty plans.

Nothing worked out exactly as envisioned. In an amazing burst of stamina, Don graduated early in January and joined the navy the next week. I would eventually see him when I was in boot camp in San Diego.

All three of the Mikes planned to join after graduation in June. The paper work and exams followed, but when the time came, I was the only Mike to join. The other two joined eventually, although our paths never crossed in the service.

Just two days after high school graduation I caught the Greyhound bus to Oakland. Nothing was in writing yet—but I had plans to get into the Naval Security Group. However, one couldn’t just join that group. A massive FBI background investigation and a commissioned officer nomination were required. I felt sure I would pass the background investigation, but finding the officer was another issue. My Uncle Roy, a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, had flown his plane down to see me and discuss joining the Navy. He recommended a supply captain at the Navy Annex in Oakland. If he signed the papers, I was in. If not, I could choose another direction in the navy, or remain at home and go to college.

It was a very uncertain young man who set off to Oakland that day. I was torn between wanting to be with my friends, and wanting to become a member of the U.S. Navy. In Captain Blanscoff’s office it all came to a head. Michael, I feel strongly that you will make a good addition to the navy; therefore, I plan to sign this waver. After taking the vows, you will be inducted and on your way to boot camp by tonight.

Fear began to set in.

Hours later, my plane landed in San Diego. A solemn, frightened mob of us waited in front of the airport for the bus to boot camp. It was a warm, moist evening, the fog glistening in small orbs around the streetlights. As it grew darker, the heat and moisture and fear pressed in around me, suffocating me.

On the ride to the Naval Training Center—NTC—I watched the streetlights dance by. Glancing at the houses as they passed, I wondered which one belonged to my grandmother. She had recently remarried and lived somewhere in San Diego. A short thirty minutes later we arrived at Receiving and Outfitting at the NTC, and it struck me that I was in Navy Boot Camp. From Don’s house, through school and down to San Diego I had traveled, and now—it had begun.

We started our twelve weeks of training by learning that standing in line was normal in the Navy. It happened every day. There was a line for everything, and they never moved fast. The phrase, Hurry up and wait! fit every occasion. My company commander’s name was Mr. G.—I discovered that he was neither commanding, nor a very good leader. He was a lonely and hard drinking chief engineman.

To begin our stay, we had a bag of things to tend to, a place to sleep, numerous cards and papers to fill out, and a fire and security watch to post and stand. Every birthing space in every navy station and ship in the world is manned day and night with at least one roving fire and security watch. The barracks that night were no exception. I had the watch from 2400 until 0400. The first night passed into very early day, and already there were things to do.

Our first morning in boot camp we still had hair, civilian clothing, and no knowledge of the navy. We were up at 0500 to sit or stand and wait to get in lines. We waited in line to go to ‘chow.’ I had never felt less like eating in my life. Alone in the mob, I was confused, anxious, and missed my family. These feelings would last for weeks.

During those first days in boot camp, I spent considerable time waiting with my new friend, Peter. Men in the company were from all over the states, but Peter and I were both from California. He was from Hollister and at once we became good friends. We talked for hours those first days. The hours of talk relieved some of the tension of waiting.

I recall some details of those first days. We did not have the required 200 men to form a company. There was a ship of Filipino men quarantined in the harbor to fill our company, but they also had to wait. We wasted days waiting when we could have been progressing through our twelve weeks of training. During those days we sat, talked, read our Navy Blue Jacket’s Manual, memorized dozens of expressions, general rules, knots, general orders, officers’ ranks and dress, our ranks and dress. And we marched. We eventually had uniforms, haircuts, and shots, lots of shots.

The Navy haircut was very simple—short all over. The thug who issued it would ask in a most sarcastic tone, So, how do you want it cut? We were all cautioned to say nothing but, Whatever is regulation, sir. Then he would laugh and take a power razor and cut off all of our hair except for 1/8th inch of bristle. We used to count the time required to scalp a boot; it never took more than ten seconds. Guys with especially long hair were the most picked on. The scalpers loved to see them lose their golden locks. The locks fell, and we emerged bare headed. The sure sign of a Boot was the pale bald head. I was no exception. However, I had been warned and entered boot camp with a genuine buzz cut, thus I had little to lose. We received haircuts every other week, and always the scalper had the same attitude. Always the result was very short.

Navy shots came in bursts and went on throughout boot camp. The navy assumed you had never had a shot of any kind. We were cautioned about all the horrid types of shots and the locations in which they would be administered. Rumors of the process were rampant in boot camp, kept us terrified, and went on the entire twelve weeks.

They were issued in mass production line, with no regard for the patient. We would take off our shirts, proceed through a doorway and receive one or two shots at a time on each arm. A large syringe would be stabbed in and pulled out, and we would walk ahead, pull out the needles still stuck in our arms, place them in a sand bag pin cushion, and walk on. If you walked in too fast, or left too fast the needle would rip your skin before it entered, and it would rip your arm as you exited, too. Shot time was always fun—and we sure did get a lot of them. I was lucky, I had never been too alarmed by shots. Many of the guys fainted at the sight of needles, or just the idea of a shot. A lot of them spent a long time on the floor in boot camp. The same thing held true for the boot camp dentist.

The boot camp dental exam was horrid. I suspect the dentists had their training at the Dachau Concentration Camp School of Inhuman Behavior. Again, I was lucky. My teeth were in good condition when I entered boot camp. If your teeth were too bad, they pulled them, right then. I watched the horror as they administered the shot and immediately, without waiting for the Novocain to take effect, pulled out whatever was bad. Some men fainted then or later. Others walked down the hall holding bloody towels, vomiting on the floor. It was not a nice sight; it stunk, and made each bystander with good teeth feel all the worse for not having experienced the pain of their shipmates. No one ate on the day of the dentist. And many had to go back to him again and again.

In boot camp there were no ratings. You were the lowest of the low. You were an E-1, seaman recruit with one stripe until you graduated. After graduation you were a seaman apprentice with two stripes until you started your school or rate program, and then made seaman and received a third stripe. The increases then became more difficult and included petty officer three, two, one, and finally chief.

The boot camp basic issue uniform was t-shirts, skivvies, black socks, dungaree pants and shirts, white hats, and boon dockers (high top leather boots). This was the working dress of the enlisted man throughout the navy. Once issued it would last a long time and only changed in appearance as it was repeatedly washed, and as ratings were eventually sewn to the left sleeve. No garment in the Navy is considered clean until it has been washed. Everything required washing to be worn or to pass any type of inspection, including the dreaded sea bag inspections.

The sea bag inspection was particular to boot camp. In this awful blitz of terror and agony the one-stripers are required to lay out, in a specific formation, everything in their clothing allotment, or sea-bag. It must be folded, clean, with all buttons unfastened, and in purposeful layers. The clothing is laid on the bunk, which must also be made up in a particular fashion. The inspecting officer takes pains to touch, tussle, and mangle everything on the bunk. I had the reputation of passing sea bag inspections with flying colors. It was amazing and almost always worked. Once I missed a button and was given points off. Mr. G. turned to me with a breath brisk enough to fry a walrus and stormed in my face, You nummy, are you trying to screw with me boy? I was certainly not stupid enough to answer, although I was tempted to say that yes, it had been my lifelong mission to screw him up, and steal his position as resident drunken leader.

In boot camp we did all the washing on cement tables with Lava bar soap and brushes. Clothes were rinsed and hung on clotheslines with an item called a clothes stop. Only the navy would do that. It is a small five inch long piece of ropeyarn with knots at each end. Every item is hung in a certain fashion, facing a certain way, spaced a certain distance apart. Clothes lines were regularly inspected in boot camp and many companies returned from a whole day on the grinder, the blacktop field, to find their entire yard of clothes dirty on the wet, muddy ground. They had failed someone’s inspection and been cut down. We had a lot of horrid things happen to our company, but dropping a yard of clothes was never one of them.

Our boon dockers required breaking in and of course a military spit shine. On a given night everyone was told to take off everything except their socks and boon dockers and get into the dumpster outside the barracks. Our Dempsey Dumpsters were not normal size. They were huge. Half of our company could fit into one of them at one time. I was lucky and was in the first batch, things got worse as time went on. The dumpsters were empty, and then filled with about two feet of water. We marched back and forth for two hours, breaking in the boots and getting blisters and staggering about in a rough formation. We learned not to fall down in formation in a flooded dumpster in boot camp at night. No one gives a darn, and as a whole they will march right over you. My friend Daren fell down and came up for air one whole pass later. He vomited dumpster grime for hours. The longer we marched, the more stuff was broken loose from the floor and the worse the water stunk. When our turn was up it was horrid slug, not just water. I felt sorry for most of the men in the second section, most—but not all.

Try as one might, there were some in boot camp one could do without, and grew to strongly dislike. One such man was a tough thug from Louisiana who was the swimming petty officer. He suspected he was the only person God had ever taught to swim. He put himself in charge of degrading everyone in the company as they struggled in deep water to pass the swimming tests. In boot camp there were three major swim tests.

Due to a foot injury, which became infected, I spent a week in Balboa Naval Hospital. My foot was swollen and could not be walked on. I had injections, foot soaks, and bed rest with the foot in the air. It was fine except I worried that I might be sent back a week and lose my company. Although it worked out, I spent a very uneasy week of rest. It was the week of July 4th, and I stood on the roof of the hospital to