Fifty Years ago in Chicago
Posted 01/15/09

A reunion in Chicago reunion this year, that’s fantastic. Fifty years ago today, Jan 14 1959, I arrived in Chicago while heading to Boot Camp. The journey was by first class rail accommodations, courtesy of the US Navy. Before departing the recruiting station in Baltimore, MD I was given my first leadership position. I believe this appointment was only due to my height exceeding the height of the 5 other recruits. (Wow! I was in charge of a bunch of runts). After the swearing in I was given the orders for the six of us. Verbally I was told that we had report to the Great Lakes Center as soon as possible after arriving in Chicago. Before the orders were sealed I saw that we were to report no later than 24:00 on the 15th of Jan.

Being in charge and arriving in Chicago at 09:30 on the 15th, I made a ‘command decision’. I granted a 12 hour liberty to the recruits. We split into 2 groups with the warning that anyone who fails to get back before the Navy bus left would be in trouble as I would simply have to say they apparently decided to return home.

Happily, all the little guys were back at the appointed time. As we entered the base I was surprised at the way the sidewalks and the street were cleared of snow. Compared to the sidewalks in Chicago they looked like not one flake of snow ever dared to settle on the Navy’s concrete. I wondered how they did that, but not for long. About 02:30 (That’s really early morning for those that reading this are now only familiar with civilian time) I was awakened from my bunk that was not nearly as comfortable as the Pullman quarters the night before. I had my question answered as I was handed a shovel and given my very own sidewalk to maintain for two hours. Where were those little fellows now? Man, it was cold out there.

The next day we were handed our uniforms, and true to the meaning of uniform, they all were equally ill fitting. I believe that every article of clothing was too large for every recruit, especially true for the runts. Items that we were told we could take to boot camp electric razors, portable radios, cameras, photos that were going to be hung in lockers and other items were sent back home along with our civvies. I had only one item to return. The recruiter told us we could take them, he never said we could keep them with us.

We all endured the joy of formation marching from place to place, all the while carrying a beat up totally non-useable Browning Automatic Rifle and looking like wannbe soldiers. (I left home in Aberdeen MD, a large Army base, and didn’t wannbe a ‘Grunt Soldier’). I wanted to be a sailor, you know, just like those in the TV series “Victory at Sea”. (You gotta be over 60 to have seen that series.) I was quite sure that there was not enough space on a ship for marching to the mess decks and the barber shop. Flight decks were big enough, but they have too many planes there and that seemed like a really bad place to run close order drills. I observed some recruits with a philosophy similar to mine, and possessing a slightly lesser marching skill than I had being granted some one-on-one tutoring in the fine arts of ’Forward Harch!’, ‘Column Right – Harch!’; ‘Column Left – Harch!’, ‘About Face” and other commands while usually mispronouncing the word ‘March!’. There seemed to be no shortage of tutors and those with lesser skills were tutored for hours at time while the rest of us had a little time to relax... I modified my philosophy and improved my marching skill. There is something to be said about not being an example to others that need motivation.

I found a way out of mess-cooking during our week of service. The corpsman at ‘Sick-Bay’ called it malingering. (I really didn’t blame him. It was still January and I was wearing Whites, so he knew I was mess-cooking and he knew that nobody really likes doing that.) When ‘SickBay’ finally ran out of recruits that were wearing their Blues and I was called. The corpsman found my temperature was 106. The Doc called it bronchitis and put me in the Sick-Bay for a week. I was able to rejoin good ole Company 39 with out having to be set back to another company doing their mess-cooking.

PE. Wasn’t physical exercise a lot of fun? No? It wasn’t my favorite activity either, even though it made better sense than marching. I found that there was a boot camp band that I could tryout for. Band practice was during our PE time, and the only other 'drawback' to the time of practice was that band members received an extra day of liberty. The real drawback was that we were given from our pay only 10 bucks when going on liberty. Well you know, somebody had to play the trombone. I tried out and was given the job. Life was good, and I didn’t mind the marching each Saturday for the companies that were graduating to their next assignments. That got me out of even more PE.

Boot Camp wasn’t all that bad, I survived. I left there with orders for across the road to the Main Base for electronics A-school. This was good as I would be seeing more of Chicago and more of a young woman I meet on that third liberty pass. Life was still good. The classes were divided into two week sessions. In this school I came to understand the unique motivational methods of the military. I was not convinced I would get through the electronics training after the rigors of the first week. It was a bit overwhelming, and though I was quite whelmed that I got though the second week of this class. The class size started out large and two classmates that were at the bottom of the standings were given orders to Port Said, Egypt. That didn’t sound good. My standing was in the middle of the class. Two weeks later two more classmates would be joining the first two drop outs, and that put my standing a bit closer to the class bottom. I’m no fool. I detected a pattern after only two sequences. It was time to really study. I was motivated, very motivated. That motivation frequently carried me to the top of the class, and I watched others get their orders to… yep… Port Said.

Ultimately, I left Chicago and the young woman. She had been planning to come out to my home in Maryland and meet my parents during my leave after Radar School in Norfolk. A week after I left her ex-boy friend from the Army came home and I got a ‘Dear John’ letter. Maybe I should have learned to march better with a rifle than with a trombone. Life was not so good. But wait; even Norfolk had young women living there. Life was good again after the next liberty call. When finishing Radar School, I got my orders to the USS Topeka and CincPacFleetSeven (what was a CincPacFleetSeven, nobody seemed to know). So, a few more months in Norfolk and then we were off to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to commission the USS Topeka.  (CincPacFleetSeven meant Commander-in Chief 7th fleet.  No I was not the commander in chief, but I was going to the 7th fleet, which was and still is the Pacific Ocean.  That meant my two years of French class in high school were totally wasted.   Oh well, I never did very well in that class, and Japan sounded more exotic anyway.

The Navy was good for me. I learned a lot from the relationships of those I worked with, from the radar crew and many (not all) of the CIC (Combat Information Center) officers that were there. I enjoyed nearly all of those that I worked with and enjoy seeing many of them at the reunions. I am saddened as I post names on the TAPs page of so many shipmates that I did know and enjoy time with. I am only slightly less saddened when adding the names of those I did not know on the same page. As shipmates, we saw and enjoyed parts of the world we would never have seen on our own. We have experienced events, some with a rush of adrenaline as a bit of fear set our pulse pounding (Typhoon Nancy with 60 foot waves comes to mind.) We experienced more pleasant events, such as taking donated clothing and Christmas gifts to orphanages, giving blood to hospitals. Meeting people and sharing time with them in Sasabo, Manila, Shimoda, and for sailors that came after me, other ports in Europe.  (I hope they took French classes in high school)

My Navy training gave me the experience and skills that led me to a good and fun career at IBM. I know others used their Navy training in civilian life as well.

I have no second thoughts or regrets about my decision to join the Navy 50 years ago.

I am proud to have been able to serve.

Ken Noble RD2 1959 – 1963 and still serving as Web Petty Officer since 1999 to present