My Kiddie Cruise

By Bill Van Vlack

The United States was escalating its involvement in Vietnam and Cuba was receiving aid from the USSR. The United States government was very nervous. Our military was quietly increasing its manpower.
I was seventeen, about to graduate from Glen Cove High School and eager to see the world.
Between World War Two and Vietnam the U.S. Navy had an Early Enlistment Program that allowed young men, seventeen years old, to enlist with parental permission and be separated from active duty on their twenty first birthday.
My father signed the papers, and I joined the Navy under the Early Enlistment Program. Regular Navy sailors called us Kiddie Cruisers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9798350905298

Book preview

A white background with black text Description automatically generated with low confidenceA white background with black text Description automatically generated with low confidence

Copyright 2023 by Bill Van Vlack

All rights reserved. No part of this publication, except for brief excerpts for review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission of the author.

This collection of anecdotes and stories from sixty years ago has been recorded as I remember them. I have researched technical and geographical information to make the stories as accurate as possible. This is not a historical document.

Some names have been changed to protect the privacy and reputation of the characters.

ISBN: 979-8-35-090529-8

To Charla

Who gave me a lifetime for fifty yen

PROLOGUE

The United States was escalating its involvement in Vietnam and Cuba was receiving aid from the USSR. The United States government was very nervous. Our military was quietly increasing its manpower. 

I was seventeen, about to graduate from Glen Cove High School and eager to see the world.

Between World War Two and Vietnam the U.S. Navy had an Early Enlistment Program that allowed young men, seventeen years old, to enlist with parental permission and be separated from active duty on their twenty first birthday.

My father signed the papers and I joined the Navy under the Early Enlistment Program. Regular Navy sailors called us Kiddie Cruisers.

This is the story of MY KIDDIE CRUISE.

Table of Contents

RECRUIT

POTSEY

MEATLOAF

COMPANY 246

CAPTAIN WHITE

BLOOD

SWASHBUCKLERS

A QUIET SUNDAY

GEORGIA

JOHN'S NEW TEETH

TIMES SQUARE

I QUIT

ANNAPOLIS

THE BOWLING ALLEY

CAPTAIN READY

SIZE MATTERS

RED MARTIN

QUARTERS K

ROLLER RINK

SHUTDOWN

ACCIDENT PRONE

DAM NECK

GUIDED MISSILE TECHNICIAN

MESS HALL

GIRL ON THE BOARDWALK

CHESAPEAKE FERRY

HURRICANE DAISY

CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS

JAMES

SECURITY CLEARANCE

LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS

PRIVATE COMPARTMENT

U.S.S. COONTZ

CROSS COUNTRY BUS

TREASURE ISLAND SHUFFLE

A LITTLE TURBULENCE

COLD?

COFFEE MUGS

TIN CAN SAILORS

THE EASTER DUCK

NAKED PREY

BEPPU

TIMEX

REAR ADMIRAL JOHNSON

JOHN HARRIS

VETERANS DAY

WHITEHORSE BAR

MESSAGE TO THE ADMIRAL

GARBAGE MOUTH

U.S.S. KING

MORGAN

COOPER

PEEL

THE CHRISTMAS STOCKING

GENERAL QUARTERS

GOOD MORNING GOOD MORNING

KOSKI

DRUMMER

BO

COLLISION ALARM

TEATIME

SURFER BOB

TIJUANA

SOAP

SHIPPING OVER

MAGNETIC TIMEX?

NAKED IN CLEVELAND

RECRUIT

In the spring of 1961, I enlisted in the United States

Navy. Reporting to Whitehall Street in New York City,

I was, Injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected, and selected. (Arlo Guthrie)

POTSEY

The Navy allowed me to delay the start of my active duty long enough to graduate from high school. The graduation ceremony ended at eleven o’clock on a Friday night. Eight hours later, I reported for duty.

I thought, incorrectly, that bootcamp would be easier if I showed up with my head shaved, so I walked down the hill to Vic’s barbershop. I had been sitting in Vic’s chair since I needed a booster seat. He tried to talk me out of the extreme haircut, but my mind was made up.

I didn’t know anything about the Navy, but I should have remembered what I knew about sunburn. The June sun turned my head bright pink. The only hat that didn’t hurt my head was an old fedora that belonged to my dad. If you don’t know what a fedora is, think Indiana Jones. 

Unfortunately, for me, there was no Indiana Jones for comparison in 1961. The only man we knew that still wore a fedora was the old janitor in our school. Because of a protruding beer belly, we had nicknamed him Potsey.  Of course, when I showed up in that hat, everyone immediately recognized me. It’s Potsey Junior!

On graduation night, as I stepped on the stage to accept my diploma, somebody shouted, "Way to go,

Potsey!"

MEATLOAF

My Kiddie Cruise as a sailor in the United States Navy started at the strangest place, the Newark, New Jersey train station. I don’t know what I expected when I enlisted in the spring of 1961, but Newark was not on my list.

Seventy-five men from all over the northeast met at this odd place to begin our journey together. The only thing we had in common was that we were all excited and terrified.

We had all completed reems of forms in the weeks before we received our orders, but the government is all about paperwork, so it was noon before the Navy fed us our first meal as a group. 

We were escorted to the station restaurant by a petty officer who didn’t even smile as he told us we could order anything we wanted, as long as it was meatloaf. The train trip across four states would take two days. Since meatloaf was the cheapest thing on the train menu, our next six meals would be meatloaf: Oh yes, breakfast too!

We were soon to be Company 246, but on this Saturday afternoon, we were just seventy-five strangers on a train. The petty officers escorting us were evaluating us and working on a written report for our company commander. 

Young men only slightly older than us, recorded the first men to complain about the meatloaf, the first to fight, the guys who broke up the fight and the ones who ignored it all and kept to themselves. When we got to basic training, they picked people for various positions, based on what they observed on the train.

A mean, little bastard from Quincy, Massachusetts started fighting in the Newark station. Nobody liked him and he didn’t care. They put him in charge! At Great Lakes, they made him the Recruit Petty Officer Chief. The RPOC was second in command to our company commander, Chief Highland. 

Chief Highland had been in the Navy for almost twenty years. Making up for lost time, he went home to his family each night. The RPOC was in charge from five in the afternoon until five the next morning.

When the first fight broke out on the train, a tough guy from Brooklyn stepped in and broke it up. He didn’t say a thing; he just stepped between two strangers and held them back until they calmed down. They made him the Master at Arms, responsible for barracks security and work schedules.

I was not the smartest man on the train, but I scored highest on the entry exams. Our young escorts decided to make me company yeoman (clerk.) For the next thirteen weeks, I kept rosters, maintained schedules and made sure all seventy-five sailors got to everything on time.

When we left New Jersey, our car was between the caboose and a private car that belonged to what was obviously a wealthy, Chinese family. About thirty people dressed in traditional Chinese garments occupied a car beautifully decorated with paintings of pagodas and dragons. When the porter brought us our meals, the sweet smell of incense drifted through the open door.

The other thing that drifted through the open door was the vision of a beautiful Chinese girl about our age. She had long, black hair and her body was wrapped in a red and gold robe.

A good-looking guy from Jersey went out on the platform between the cars to smoke. The girl moved closer to the door and cracked it open enough for them to whisper quietly. A young Chinese man spoke harshly to her, but she waved him away. The girl and the guy from New Jersey whispered to each other until one of the petty officers told him to come back inside. 

He sat by me and told me that she spoke a little English and that she was going to meet him in Chicago. Apparently, her family had other plans; sometime during the night, their car was switched to a different position on the train. When we got out to stretch at one of the stations, we saw the girl on the other end of the platform. She stood with her back to us, her head bowed.

The Erie Lackawanna tracks took us from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. Halfway across Pennsylvania, the mountains gave way to rolling hills and farmland. We rolled through Ohio, Indiana and into Illinois. 

The occasional, small town was always a surprise; many times, the tracks ran right down the main street. The residents stopped what they were doing and watched the train rumble by. It was odd to see people rocking on their front porch, watching the train go through their front yard.

During the two days and nights it took us to travel from Newark to the Great Lakes Naval Station, a group of strangers became Company 246. We knew the good guys and the bad guys; we knew who had your six and when you had to watch your back. And we learned the reason the Navy started our training in a passenger car on a train. Navy life is all about living in close quarters and seventy-five men stuffed into one train car is as close as you can get.

COMPANY 246

When we arrived at the Great Lakes Naval Training Facility in July of 1961, the Navy was processing and training more men than they had since World War II. The barracks were all full, so they were using a drill hall as their intake facility.

There were nine hundred bunk beds lined up on a floor normally