The year was 1951, I was 19 years old, (Boy! Was I skinny?) and in July I would be 20. There was a lot of talk going around about the Military draft and the army had already drafted some of my friends and sent them off to Korea. I have tell you I was pretty scared, the news on television everyday was pretty grim and I was of prime age like fresh meat and I didn't want to go to the market. It just so happened I knew a girl who knew another girl who was dating a guy who worked in the draft office in Norwood, Ohio where I was registered. In those days you were assigned a Draft Number based on your birthday and age and some other factors and anyone with that group number would be drafted. I asked her if there was anyway she could check the list of who would be called up next. She did and when she told me my number was on the list of those who would be called up in four to six weeks I knew what it felt like to have a chill run up and down your spine. I now had to do some serious soul searching. When I thought about lying in dirty wet foxholes and trying to survive the bitter cold Winter in Korea, I knew I needed to act now before it was too late. I thought of joining the Gung Ho Marines because all the girls really went for the gyrenes in their fancy dress blue uniform but I also know how tough it was to become one with their rigorous training and some of them were also going to Korea. So the navy seemed the only cowardly choice which made any sense. I talked it over with my Mom and she was very sad that I had to go but understood the situation. I went down to the Navy recruiter to check it out and he made all kinds of promises to me that I really didn't understand at all. but I signed on the line anyway. It wasn't a week later that I got the "Greetings" letter from the Selective Services Commission that I was being drafted, Sorry Uncle Sam, I already signed up! God bless that friend of a friend of a friend

Within a week I was on a train in an overnight Pullman sleeper car headed for The Great Lakes Naval Training Center just Northeast of Chicago, Illinois. You can now drive to Chicago in a little over 4 hours but I was on that train all afternoon and all night arriving there early the next morning. I'll try to shorten the story a little now. I went through 13 weeks of extensive training during which time I had to spend 2 weeks in the hospital for a hernia operation. I also spent time in the dentist chair as they pulled all my front teeth and one on each side of my mouth and fitted me with a partial upper plate. SMILE!
While there we all had to take an aptitude test to find out what kind of duty we were suited for. My test said I had an aptitude for Electrical and Mechanics, so after a week's leave at home where I paraded and strutted around in my Navy uniform as If I were in a fashion show. I headed right back to Great Lakes to attend "Electricians School". The classes came easy to me and I did very well, after 13 weeks I graduated 2nd. highest in my class, I wonder who the SOB was that finished ahead of me. Then we had to select a duty station. The way this works is, they list all available duty stations on a blackboard, these were mainly ships but a few shore stations were available. The guy first in line had "Glory Eyes" as he selected a Destroyer ship which is not a big ship by any means and it rides like a truck when at sea. It was now my turn to choose.
I glanced over the list and N.O.L.A. caught my eye. I asked apprehensively what that was. It stands for New Orleans, Louisiana was the reply, I countered with a loud "I'll Take It". After another week at home on leave I was headed by train for New Orleans. I had never been anywhere outside of Cincinnati so this was very exciting for me. The train station was on Canal Street which is the main street in downtown New Orleans. The Naval base was located across the Mississippi river in a little town known as Algiers, La. The only way to get to the base was by taxi cab which crossed the river by ferry. There were no bridges in New Orleans in those days due to the fact the city was located below sea level, this is also why no one is buried in the ground there, They are all in vaults above the ground, they would hit water if they dug deeper than 3 feet in the soil.

The next day I reported to the "Officer of the Day", Navy talk for the guy in charge. He read my papers and said I was perfectly suited for Special Services. This is the division that is responsible for Entertainment for everyone on the base. I was assigned to the department that loaned 16mm Movies to ships that pulled up to our base. There was a Chief Petty Officer and another skinhead like myself working there. We were housed in a little 25' X 30' brick house close to where the ships docked. The ships crew brought the movies to us in the morning and picked up a new one to be shown on the fantail of their ship at night. It was our job to rewind the movies, When it slipped through our fingers as we rewound it we could feel damaged areas and broken sprocket holes. We would then cut out the bad area, repair it and put it back in the rack to be checked out again. The room was ideally laid out, there were rewinding tables on both sides and a large projection screen at one end. At the other end by the front door were 3 large overstuffed chairs which the 3 of us would sit when we reviewed the movies. You see, every afternoon after lunch we were required to watch one of the movies and write a short review on it. Now I ask you, is this Tough Duty or what? One morning I was called to the Commanders Office, They needed a motion picture projectionist for the base theater. but I had no training for the large theater machines, which used Carbon arc rods sparked by electricity to provide the light to project the picture. These are similar to what are used in giant searchlights. "No Problem!" he said and once again I was on a train headed for Great Lakes Naval Station again.
This school was only 8 weeks long and then back to N.O.L.A. again where I was then put in charge of the base theater which seated 500 and had a balcony. No enlisted men were allowed to sit in the balcony, Officers Only!

One of my duties was to pick up a jeep from the motor pool and drive into New Orleans to pick up the movie we were showing that night and drop off the previous one we had already shown. They treated the Navy really good because we usually got movies to see that still were not being shown in town yet. Now when I was told to go get a jeep and I was asked for my drivers license, before I could check it out, I had to admit I did not have one. Someone (I don't remember who) got in the jeep with me and asked me to drive around the base. After a couple of blocks he told me to pull over at an office. He went inside and came out with my driver's license. I felt 10 feet tall, I HAD A DRIVERS LINCENSE!, WOW!. In those days they typed on the back of the license what you were qualified to drive.

I signed up for and played for the Naval Base Baseball team, I was a pitcher. I was pretty good too. I remember once when we played a team from Texas and in the first 3 innings,I struck out the side all three innings. I must say I had a wicked curve ball. When I pitched I would throw straight at the batters head, They usually fell down to avoid getting hit while the ball curved over the plate for a strike. I could tell the guy was embarrassed lying there on the ground and I couldn't keep a large grin off my face. Another one of these curves for strike 2 and I usually threw a fast ball right down the middle for strike 3.
The manager for the team had signed us up to play teams from other Navy Bases such as Pensacola, Fl. and a team some where in Texas. The only trouble was we had no one to drive the bus to get there. So I said "How hard can that be?" I was scheduled to take a test with a bus and the guy who issues licenses. I drove the bus around the base a few times and then about 5 miles outside the base. When we got back he went in his office and returned with my license with "Authorized to drive Jeeps, cars and Busses" typed on the back. I was really big stuff now, I could drive a 40 passenger bus. I drove it all over the south with the team as we played different Navy Bases.

One weekend while on the baseball practice field the manager noticed how rutted and rocky the field had become, almost unplayable. He called someone to get help but no one could come till Monday and this was Saturday and we needed to practice. There was a place on the base that I knew about that had a dump truck and a bulldozer loader. Does anyone here know how to drive one of these, said the Chief? I held up my hand and said "How hard can that be?" So I got up on the dozer and started the engine. It turned out be be surprisingly simple. It had tank like treads on it. To go left you pressed the left brake and gave it the gas and the opposite to go right. The bucket raised and lowered with 1 lever and dumped with another. I filled the dump truck that was there with a mixture of sand and topsoil, Strictly unauthorized of course. Now I had to get the dump truck to the ball field, "How hard can that be?" I said to myself. I turned out to be no harder than driving a car. Off to the field we went. When there I opened the tailgate and started raising the dump body while I drove around the infield depositing a smooth layer over the field. To smooth this further I drug a large piece of chain link fencing around the infield with the dump truck. We now had a first class playing field. The following week I applied for and passed my license for "Authorized To Drive Jeeps, Cars, Busses, Heavy Trucks and Bulldozers and Loaders" I was really proud as no one else had a license like mine. Maybe someday I will get a licence to drive a ship.

In the Navy, they give you 30 days leave per year. I decided to take 2 weeks off in December of 1951 to be with my family at Christmas. While I was home I found out that my brother-in-law, Johnny Roach was selling his 1941 Oldsmobile. It was a pretty neat looking old car with large whitewall tires. I talked him into selling it to me or was it the other way around. On December 31, It was time to leave for New Orleans. I remember my Mom crying and telling me to be careful as I drove away. I had to be back on the base in 24 hours and I knew it was about an 18 hour drive, There were no expressways in 1951, It was 2 lane roads all the way with an occasional 4 lane boulevard to ease the stress. As luck would have it' It started to snow as soon as I left, It got heavier as I got further south, Not many cars on the road. Some where in Kentucky the snow turned to sleet and freezing rain and continued through Tennessee where it was time to fill the gas tank @ .19c a gallon. The only trouble was I could not open my door. There was so much ice all over the car the doors were frozen shut. The guy at the station

(In those days they came out to your car and checked your oil, water and anything else you might need) pounded on the door till he cracked the ice and the door opened. Now that I think about it I must have been driving on icy roads without realizing it. The only other thing I remember is that somewhere in Georgia as I was driving about 3 in the morning, (I had been driving for about 18 hours straight) I remember looking up and realized I was driving on the wrong side of the road. I have no Idea how long I had been doing this and all kinds of things raced through my mind, I wondered if any other car had to swerve to avoid hitting me. I managed to stay awake the rest of the trip. I got to the base with only an hour to spare. I had been driving for 24 hours straight without stopping, Now that was really dumb! There were no expressways in those days.

The Olds was a pretty good car considering it's age and condition. Except for the time that 3 buddies and I decided to go on a weekend trip to a beach in Pensacola, Fl. Getting there was not a problem and we hung out at the beach all day flirting with the girls. However on the way back to the base I felt exhausted and one of the guys wanted to drive so I let him and I got in the back seat and soon I was sound asleep. I awoke to hear the loudest metal clashing and clanging sound I have ever heard and smoke was rising from under the hood. I knew that the car burned some oil but I just added a quart every so often and it ran just fine. Apparently the guy driving did not notice the oil pressure gauge that had fallen to zero and the car was running without any oil for who knows how long. A car will only do that for a short distance before disaster strikes and it struck with a force that exploded a piston inside one of the cylinders. We were about 100 miles from the base and the car wouldn't run. We had to get back to the base so we left the car by the side of the road and hitchhiked back to the base. About a week later Me and another guy borrowed a car from one of the civilian guard that manned the base entrance, I went in and out all day so he knew me pretty well. we drove back to the abandoned car only to discover someone had stolen the battery and one of the tires. Can It get any worse? we had a bald spare in the trunk which we put on and we didn't need a battery because it wouldn't run anyway. We had brought along a very heavy duty rope which was called a "Hawser" in the Navy. It was about 1 inch in diameter and was used to tie up ships to the pier. We tied it between the bumpers of the 2 cars. He got in the lead car and I in my car and off we went. It was kind of scary because if he had to stop suddenly I would have to also, if I stopped to soon and he kept going forward it could have torn off one of the bumpers. We limped along like this for the 100 miles back to the base. I don't think we ever reached a speed of more than 10-15 miles per hour. I remember at one point as we were going up a hill and the other car was struggling to get to the top pulling a load like it was I began to smell something like burning rubber. I signaled for him to pull over to the side of the road. The smell was coming from the clutch in the borrowed car. We let it cool off and I cautioned him that whenever he came to a hill he had to put the car in low gear. We finally made it back to the base late in the day. I never did tell the guy we almost burned out his clutch, I always felt guilty for not telling him but what the heck I had more problems than I knew how to deal with already.

I was definitely not an auto mechanic but I had to do something, which leads to another part of this story. Located in the building that I was in charge of was the base Chaplain on one end and the base library on the other. I went to the library to see what I could find on auto repair. I not only found the book I needed, (Chilton's Auto Repair manual) but I couldn't help noticing that the librarian was one of the prettiest girls I had seen in a long time. I spent more time there than I needed to, pretending to browse and read books on auto repair. I discovered she was going steady with a very tall skinny sailor whom I did not know. In those days most girls and guys I knew went "Steady" Most of us made commitments to someone and didn't date anyone else. I must have been very persistent for it wasn't long before we had a date. Soon after I never saw the tall skinny kid anymore. More about her later.

I had never done anything more than change a spark plug in a car before but I needed wheels so I dove right in. I removed the head of the engine, it was a straight 6 cylinder engine so that wasn't too hard. Next I had to get under the car and drop the oil pan I discovered that the piston had exploded as I thought but the connecting rod which was attached to the piston on one end and to the crankshaft on the other had wrapped itself around the crankshaft. I had to cut it off with a hacksaw. This was starting to be more than I wanted to tackle and I almost gave up. My next step was to go to an auto graveyard where I found another car with an engine like mine. I was able to extract a piston, connecting rod, bearings and piston rings from it. Nowadays I wouldn't even think about attempting anything as major as this. I started putting it back together and if you have never put a piston in an engine block you can't imagine how hard it is if you don't have a compression ring to hold the oil rings compressed as you lower the piston into the block. after several hours and many failed attempts I finally got all the parts put back together, installed new gaskets where needed, put in new oil and a used battery from the junkyard and turned the key.GLORY BE! The engine ran, I couldn't say it purred smoothly at this point but I was overjoyed that I had done it. Further tinkering got it running pretty good.
Now back to the librarian. As I said she was a very pretty girl,.She was only 17 years old and a senior in high school. Her name was Dorothy. I asked her if she was from Kansas or somewhere over the rainbow? She said she was from Andover Massachusetts, her father was a professor in a college there. He was in the Naval Reserves and was serving a tour of duty at the base. I found it hard to believe she was actually interested in me. What complicated the relationship was that her father was the base commander, HOLY MOLEY! He was in charge of the whole Navy base. I was scared to death. He could send me to Siberia if he wanted to. We dated steadily for about a year. One memorable date was when we went on a moonlight cruise on the Mississippi River on a steamship called "The President". They had a great Dixieland jazz band and I don't think we sat down once the whole evening as we danced almost every song. Since you might never hear it unless I tell you right here, I was a pretty good dancer if I must say so myself, and I must say so myself. When The boat docked and we made our way to my car it began to rain very hard, in fact it was storming. We got to the car and I reached for my keys, No keys, I peered through the rain soaked window only to find the keys were in the ignition and the doors were locked. As we continued to get soaked I tried everything I could think of to get into the car with no success. Finally I took off my shoe and pounded on the cozy wing. In those days the side windows of cars had a little triangle window just forward of the main window that could be opened for air without rolling down the main window, It finally broke and I was able to open the door. I'll never forget the two of us standing there in the rain looking into a locked car.
I had of course taken her home many nights and left her at her doorstep but never went in. After one of our dates as we were talking about our future together apparently I must have asked her to marry me although I don't remember doing it. Maybe she asked me? I do remember going into town and picking out a diamond engagement ring which I couldn't afford and putting a down payment on it and assuming the balance on monthly payments. She seemed really thrilled when I gave it to her but I doubt if it was a very big stone. I think it was a half caret. In those days my Navy pay was $75 a month and part of that was sent home to my Mom in what was called an allotment, The Navy matched whatever I sent.

Soon after giving her the ring, I was invited to her house for a formal dinner with her family, I already knew her father but I met her mother and sister for the first time. All I remember about the evening was after dinner her father and I sat in the living room while Dot and her mother went to the kitchen to do the dishes. There was a curtain hanging in the doorway to the kitchen for privacy as there was no door there. I could see that she and her mother were hiding behind the curtain as the commander spoke. "I understand you want to marry my daughter" he bellowed". "Yes Sir" I replied. And how do you expect to provide her with the lifestyle she is accustomed to?" I'm not sure exactly what I replied, something about going back to school or training. I assured him that with all the training I was getting in the Navy it shouldn't be a problem.

About 2 weeks later I learned that his tour of duty was up and he was leaving to return to teaching in Massachusetts and of course was taking his family with him. It just so happened My duty was also up and I was informed that I would be going on board the largest battleship the Navy had. The U.S.S. Wisconsin. It was docked in Norfolk VA. I remember a tearful goodbye by the base entrance as she drove off, We promised each other we would write every day until we could be together again.

When it was time to leave the base and go home on leave before reporting to my new duty assignment. I had serious misgivings about my 1941 Oldsmobile. I never did run like it did when I got it after blowing up the engine. I was afraid to risk driving it home as I did not want to get stuck in the middle of nowhere with a broken down car. On the day I was to leave I drove the car off the base and parked it at the curb about 50 feet from the base entrance, this is where some of the guys parked their cars. I locked it up and kept telling myself somehow I will come back and get it. That was the last I ever saw of that car. I have wondered ever since what happened to it?