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I
went to P.I. in 1958 for boot camp with the high hopes of not getting
into the FMF and toward the end of boot camp; some one came into the
squad bay and asked for volunteers to go to Communications School in
Imperial Beach, Ca. Well, having never been west of the Susquehanna
River (Pa.) I raised my hand. Something you are told never to do
(volunteer). So I was off to MCRD San Diego and then I. B., about as far
south as you could go in Calif.
before T.J. We never had to go through the main gate to get off the base
as we would just go through a hole in the fence and walk down the beach
to town. Meals were at the UDT base on the Strand .There were just two
of us marines in the CTR class.
From I.B. it was off to the Brooklyn Naval Yard to catch a ship (MSTS
Upshure) to Spain and flew on to Rabat Morocco and Sidi Yahia. As it
turned out I didn't have to stand many CT watches as the base Recreation
Officer tapped me to teach swimming and lifeguard for the dependents at
the base pool. On the mid watches it was so slow that we didn't copy
much and we dialed into Wolf Man Jack out of a New York radio station. I
still have my extremely gaudy red and gold Sidi Yahia jacket (custom
made). Of course it doesn't fit any more.
From Morocco it was back to San Diego and another MSTS ship Gaffee over
to Honolulu and finally FMF. This would have been in 1961. There were so
few troops going that they never opened the troops hold and the 20 or so
of us Marines and Navy had our own cabins top side, ate with the
dependents, and had no duty.
What a way to go to Hawaii.
So now it is FMF and First Composite Radio Company. We had many training
exercises and within probably six months I and about 15 other marines
were off to Viet Nam with a passport and civilian clothes to work for
the army with a handful of army, navy and air force. We were briefed in
Saigon, put our uniforms back on and flew up to Pleiku. Our M-1 s were
locked up and too my knowledge we didn't have any amo anyhow. Most of my
time was operating a Direction Finding Van with an ARVIN Sgt. off base
in the middle of a rice paddy. The only real excitement was when a
disgruntled ARVIN pilot took it upon himself to bomb the Presidential
Palace and our entire base was put on alert for a couple of days.
I probably transferred back to Kaneohe in early 1962 and I was back at
another base swimming pool until I mustered out in Treasure Is. San
Francisco in Sept. 1962.
Now for the past 46 years. Brief year at Colorado State Forestry School
after discharge but was encouraged to return to Calif. to go into the
swim school business. back to college at Cal State Northridge and
graduated with degree in
Recreation Education. Stayed with Swim School for a few years and got a
job managing a Planned Community Club (about 400 homes) for the
developer but discovered that when the club facilities were turned over
to the homeowners
there wasn't much money left for the running of the club so I gave that
up in 1969 and took a job with Transamerica Occidental Life and pretty
much traveled the U.S. and Canada setting up new offices contracted with
Transamerica.
Married in 1972 to Patricia have three boys still in Calif. and moved up
to the Panhandle of Idaho in 2001 to Hope, Id. along the Lake Pend
Oreille. The oldest son just returned from his second deployment. He is
a Capt. in the Calif.
National Guard and holds a full time job with the Guard in Sacramento.
So we still have military in the family.
For information about this site, contact:
webadmin@1st-radio-company-usmc.org
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