Half a Century Later

I realized with a shock today that it’s been almost 50 years since I got out of the Navy. Half a century! How is that possible? I just dug out my DD 214 and realized I wasn’t released until August 30, 1967. I was sure it was June; how could I have misremembered such a date? And I thought I had gone on active duty in early June, 1963; actually, I see it was July 31, 1963.

Well, hell, that was 50 years ago; no wonder I don’t have a clear memory. DD 214s don’t lie. And besides, since I worked in the ship’s personnel office, I typed up the 214 myself. It has to be correct. I started this blog thinking it was almost exactly 50 years ago that I was released from the Navy; I’m off by a more than a month, but I’m going to continue it anyway and reminisce a bit—and hope all my memories aren’t flawed.

I was 20 in 1963 and my life was pretty much a mess. I had been kicked out of college for bad grades. My plans to be a biologist were scrapped, thanks mostly to chemistry 101. I struggled on as a music major for a while until I realized I wasn’t disciplined enough to be a musician. I was working at a decidedly dead-end job as a customer service rep at an insurance company, writing letters to customers explaining their policies. My personal life was hardly any better; in fact, there really wasn’t much of personal life at all as I was deeply closeted, as I would remain until after my discharge.

The woman who worked in the desk in front of me, Daisy, and I became friends. We started hanging out together. Daisy was dating a Naval recruiting officer. I must have mentioned that when it was time to go into the service, I was planning on going into the Navy: all those novels I had read, such as Two Years Before the Mast, no doubt gave me a greatly skewed idea of what the Navy would be like: the romantic life at sea and those very sexy uniforms.

Vietnam was beginning to build up. Although I hadn’t yet been drafted, it was just a matter of time—probably months. With my life in such a disarray, the Navy looked more and more inviting; Daisy was more than happy to introduce me to her Navy buddy. He and I talked about possible options if I joined, and I decided to apply to the Naval School of Music, then in Washington, D.C. I became friends with another potential recruit whom I had met at the recruiting office; and we decided to join immediately, without waiting to hear from the School of Music. I signed up, took the oath, broke the news to my parents, who were decidedly unhappy, and flew to San Diego for boot camp.

After a few miserable weeks in “regular” boot camp—the usual: marching, exercises, humiliations--I received word that I had been accepted to the School of Music. I was immediately transferred to the Drum and Bugle Corps, eventually becoming drum major—with my own office. Once I was in the Corps, my boot camp experience basically ended; all we did was rehearse and play for boot camp graduations every Friday. The only actual real boot camp experience I had after transferring to the Corps was the time we spent in the tear gas room and the time we had to crawl out of a smoke filled “ship.” Compared to regular boot camp, I got off lucky. I still have the yearbook we got at the end of boot camp.

Because I was in the Corps, my boot camp time lasted longer than most, but it was easy duty indeed. And at the end of that I was shipped off to the Naval School of Music in D.C. But that’s a story for another blog: I got kicked out of there, too.