I was driving around on errands today and feeling my arthritis a little when it occurred to me that I’m getting old. By this time in June, 1965, I had already graduated from high school and enlisted in the Navy Reserve.
I had a “plan” – because I was 18 and a freaking genius I suppose – that I was going to join the Reserves but go to the Regular Navy boot camp in September and then to Hospital Corps School and then do my two years active duty and then go to Iowa State on the GI bill and teach high school history. It was fool-proof! The guy who recruited me into the Reserve said it sounded good to him!
I went to my first drill, got my uniforms, hit the books and passed the Basic Seaman test with flying colors on my first try. Piece of cake!
It was at the August drill that I got called into the office where I was asked when I was available to go to the Reserve boot camp, and I explained the plan all over again for the Leading Chief this time. That’s when the scales were peeled from my eyes.
In order to go to regular boot camp one needs high enough test scores, and the tests were given at boot camp.
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Last, but not least, I was in an Engineering and Hull unit so I was not going to be going to Hospital Corps school from there. I was going to be a “snipe.”
That’s how I came to be in the Regular Navy recruiter’s office the following Monday morning and through the AFEES in Chicago and at Great Lakes by midnight on August 24th as a newly-minted Hospitalman Recruit (HR).
I still had a lot to learn – including what it was exactly that Navy Corpsmen did for a living, etc. – but it struck me again today that I have been extremely fortunate. This life could have gone a whole ‘nother way at any number of points along the way. I try to remember that whenever I catch myself getting a little too retrospective.
I am deeply sorry for the people I have hurt along the way, and there’s that one woman who has never left my thoughts, but it’s all brought me here, and here is good.
