Non-Qualified Swimmer Part II

I wanna fly an F-14

Your left, your left.

I wanna fly with cockpit open

I wanna hear those commies scream.

Your left, your left.”The sucker had a bass voice, lower than whale dung. And he loved being in the navy. He was the first to learn how to roll his hat. It looked almost as good as BK’s. This recruit, if he really was a recruit, was the sinister Gary Long, and he would become RPOC when Woodward went home because of an illness in the family.

Woodward was gone two weeks or so, and when he came back, he was still a member of Company 485. As the saying goes, “It’s not who you know, it’s who you (expletive deleted).”

Then there was the supporting cast of the privileged elite.

After Camp Barry, Company 485 officially began recruit training at a place called Camp Moffett. The barracks were built during WWII; they were probably fire hazards, but nobody dared play with matches in this circus. Besides, there were recruits wandering the base called “fire watches.” Even during the middle of the night, two recruits were secretly inspecting Dempsey Dumpsters, drying rooms, and barracks, looking for old Jack Flash. A fire wouldn’t have a chance against this finely honed crew. Fire watch was kind of fun. Hayraker was assigned this duty once. He had to go to battalion headquarters to be inspected, but this was not make work, and the inspection was minimal. The question the lieutenant asked was the first general order and even those sent to Mickey Mouse knew that one. “Do not leave your post.” Not if you’re suffering from diarrhea. Not if you’re about to throw up. Not under ANY circumstance. It was the only general order Hayraker remembered twenty years later.

Fire watch was like being free. You didn’t stand in one place anticipating the arrival of the OD (officer of the day) who would again ask you some dumb question. The question he should have asked is “What do you do if there’s a fire?” Hayraker had no idea and he was guarding these matchboxes.Back to the privileged elite.

Frank H. Premock was second platoon leader. At first, Frank was your hale fellow well met. He slept in the bunk below Hayraker’s. But then Frank went Gung Ho. It started when he was made the day watch, and he did such a bang-up job that BK kicked him upstairs. The first indication that Frank was a prick was the time Hayraker came back from the shower itching and asked Frank what it was. “Probably crabs,” Frank sneered. Maybe in New Jersey where Frank was from but Hayraker had never even heard of crabs. Hayraker hadn’t rinsed off all the soap from his shower.

Later on, the last day of boot camp---that oh too good to be true day---Frank asked Hayraker to check to check his T-shirt for smudges, just in case they threw a surprise inspection at us and made some of us go back to 1-1 day. Even Frank was paranoid about that happening. Anyway, Hayraker jerked the top of Frank’s t-shirt out slightly like the inspectors usually did and Frank went crazy. He whipped off Hayraker’s white hat and belted him over the head repeatedly. Apparently Frank was not aware that assault would get him sent back sooner than a dirty T-shirt, or worse, he could have been sent to 88C, the psycho ward. But Frank was a Woodward. Nobody even noticed.

Frank was very tall, perfect for a platoon leader (It looked better during drill inspection.) This was really all that platoon leaders did.

The other platoon leader was Sam Grasdorf, also from New Jersey. Tall and good-looking. Premock, on the other hand, looked like a frog. Sam was a very good swimmer and during another one of those intermediate swim tests, Sam could not understand why it took Hayraker twice as long to make it to the middle of the pool, dive down, and come up on the other side of the fake burning obstruction. Not everyone had access to a swimming pool in their high school. Hayraker’s school didn’t even have a football team. Sam was one of the few who made it all the way through boot camp without being demoted.

Hayraker would have killed for one of those jobs, especially when he found out what service week was like. FA Kranz, Jr. was the Educational PO. He had two years of college. It’s surprising that he never was demoted either because the company never won the regimental “I” flag, which prevented BK from winning Hall of Fame company.

Probably the most coveted job was mail PO , for obvious reasons. One of the Enright twins held this job. He got to go get the mail every day. He was the first to get his letters. He got two or three every day. The sucker had a fiancée and was engaged to be married.

Hayraker got a letter from his girl almost twice a week. She would always be the only girl for Hayraker. She was smart, salutatorian of her class and pretty, runner up for Dairy Queen in their county, and she had a good sense of humor. She always laughed at Hayraker’s jokes, even the one about “Sonnets from the Eskimos” when they rubbed noses.

But she made boot camp worse for Hayraker. She sent him a “Dear John” letter. It was a gradual break up. When he got to call her from the base, he was always so worried about the three minute time limit that their conversation left a lot to be desired. He would tell her about the house cleaning humiliations (washing your clothes by hand, tying our clothes on the lines with a clothes stop etc.) but she couldn’t relate. The humor was gone from their relationship. This thing just wasn’t funny. The Navy was trying to destroy Hayrakers’ personality, and they were doing a good job of it.

The event that drove the nail in the coffin happened during Christmas leave. Like Samson, Hayraker’s hair was everything. Hair meant strength. Hayraker tried to cover up his bald pate with his watch cap but her reaction was, “Maybe it would look better if you had hair.” Instead of laughing it off, he gave her the silent treatment.

It all seemed so childish twenty years later. At first she didn’t answer his letters at all. What was really ironic was the one he got when he returned to boot camp telling him how much she loved him and how much she was looking forward to seeing him.

He had told her before he left, “Whatever you do, don’t send me a ‘Dear John’ and she was holding fast. Before he returned to Boot Camp, she refused to see him, but he went anyway. She had on a bathrobe and her hair was in curlers and she wouldn’t talk. It was over then.

Finally, after much goading, she answered his letters telling him it was over.

Other letters came from friends and from Mom occasionally. Mom’s letters were short: “the family’s fine, I hope things are well with you.” It was amazing how a woman who could talk on the phone for two hours at a stretch could not find more than that to say when word from home was so important.

There were times when Hayraker whould beg her to get him out of the service. She’d say she’d try but that he should make the best of it until she could figure something out. Hayraker knew she was just humoring him. She wouldn’t know where to start. On the phone, she sounded like a different person. The German inflection seemed so much more apparent; she hadn’t spoken English until she entered first grade. Distance gives a person so much better perspective. But she was right in not trying to get him out. Boot Camp was the most traumatic and the most important event of Hayraker’s life so far. He was confronted with and overcame obstacles every day that he was there: the loss of his friend Brown, BK’s harassment, pushing the piece, the swim tests, and the ‘Dear John’ letter, and he was still whole, slightly chipped but whole.

If he had wet the bed or gotten out because of his hemorrhoids, he would have presented a pathetic picture to the folks at home.

Hayraker also got letters from his friends. One of them had flunked out of the Institute of Technology at the University of Minnesota. Freedom had been too much for him and he had spent all of his time partying and chasing women. On his first date in high school, his parents went along as chaperones so he guessed that was to be expected.

Hayraker found a bit of succor in religion. He wasn’t going to get his two or three letters a week from the traitorous wench, so he had to turn to something. He wanted to be the religious PO but the other Enright twin had that job. He was a Bible thumper. Hayraker began to pray. The Blessed Virgin Mary had always been very important to him; they had the same birthday after all. He believed the stories about Lourdes and Fatima. She had appeared to those children and warned them about the impending world war. She told them to pray the rosary.

So Hayraker prayed the rosary and things were better. He never had any trouble sleeping for one thing, even though Long would wake them up by rattling a coke bottle around the inside of a trash can. They got to go to Chicago on liberty just before they graduated, supposedly their reward for winning color company. Previous to their break-up, Hayraker had written his girl, telling her he was planning on getting a tattoo. She replied that if he did he needed bother coming around her again. Case closed. He got one anyway. An anchor with the letters USN over it. His students constantly asked about it:

“Do you regret it?”

“No, I don’t think about it. I never see it.”

“Did it hurt?”

“It stung a little. They do it with an electric needle. It bleeds some and crust forms. You can catch blood poisoning, which is why I never got a Marlboro tattoo on my fist. You needed permission from the captain for that and he wasn’t about to give it to me.”

In Chicago they visited State Street and were immediately confronted by a man who wanted to sell them sex. They talked each other out of it. They were worried about being conned. Actually they were afraid. If you got in trouble, you could get set back. They had a good meal and they went back to the base.

They also had on base liberty for the first time. They went to the recreation building and listened to records and had pizza. These were real thrills to boys who had been virtual prisoners for two months.

You went to church in boot camp, too, but it was held in the drill hall.

It just wasn’t the same. They sat on folding chairs and knelt on the floor. God wasn’t there.

The Jewish boys (Al Wagner and Paul Schreder) went to synagogue on the Sabbath. Wagner and Schreder were two of Hayraker’s favorite characters. Wagner was the one who told Woodward when he went home on sick leave to “take my penis and get it fucked.” Al later accompanied Hayraker to his next duty station. Al always seemed like a fish out of water. New York City was his element.

Schreder was the comedian of the company with a New York accent that would make a bleacher bum proud. He was more typically Jewish. He was also the company pet. Any place other than Glakes, Hayraker would have loved him. He was constantly kidding with the company commanders, even The Choker.

“And how was your evening, Mr. Brown? I hope you had a pleasant cutlet with some nice greens. And was your wife agreeable?”

And The Choker would scowl and pretend that he hated this little puke with the audacity to address him as an equal. But Schreder really loved boot camp, and he was really sorry to leave the company commanders when he left. He was the only one to say good-bye and Hayraker believed he really meant it when he wished BK good luck. He was also the only non petty officer to get good duty during service week. He stood day watch almost as much as Premock had in Moffett, but Hayraker would be damned if he knew what his title was. Company Mascot, 3^rd class?

Wagner and Schreder were not the only likable characters. The aforementioned Briggs, who had been knocked out during the smoker, always had a cheery disposition. He had a big round face with black horn-rimmed glasses, and he always had a kind word for everyone. Hayraker had kept a picture of his girl and Briggs made a big fuss over her. Briggs took some of the blame when Hayraker reversed his blues and whites in the dark. “I looked at that locker every day for a week. I knew something was wrong, but I’ll be damned if I knew what. I should have brought it to your attention.”

The next stage in recruit training was Camp Porter. These were the nice new three-story barracks. Company 485 marched over to Porter directly from the service week barracks. Hayraker and Nelson were late because their supervisor needed them to peel potatoes, despite the fact that they were assigned to the bakery.

Working in the bakery would come back to haunt Hayraker. He was told, before he began working there, to put three coats of polish on his boondockers; however, coat after coat of custard pie had worn down the protection. Before the first inspection at Porter, BK had inspected the troops himself and had noticed Hayraker’s shoes. It was now Gary Long’s job to get Hayraker in shape for inspection.

Hayraker tried for several hours but it was no go; however, he decided to check with Long anyway.

“This is about as good as I can get them. Cotton balls don’t work on them anymore and I haven’t got anything else.”

“Well, they’re not good enough, Geronimo. Get back there and put some elbow grease into it. Look at yours compared to mine. Yours look like you’re been shoveling manure.”

“Do you have anything I could use besides cotton balls?”

“Use one of your T-shirts. I don’t care how you do it, just get it done.”

Long knew he couldn’t use one of his T-shirts. They had to be accounted for. Hayraker also knew that the privileged class had all kinds of equipment they could have let him use. But that wasn’t Long’s style. His job was to make life miserable for Hayraker.

There were others who hated Long. His suggestion for every infraction was “set him back to 1-1 day.” How could this traitor look himself in the mirror?

Woodward’s replacement as Master-at-Arms had a grudge against Long. Larry Lang had been a reserve before he went on active duty. He could have gotten away with a two year hitch, but he was considering making the Navy a career. He really had his act together. His white hats were folded and tied with clothes stops when he came to boot camp. If Woodward could skip two weeks, Larry should have been able to skip all nine.

Long had been on Larry’s clean-up crew. All those recruits with a heavy beard were held out of inspection in the morning to clean the barracks. The barracks didn’t need much cleaning. It was so spotless that you could eat off the floor. Al Wagner, Bob Thurmudo, Sal Passalacqua, all of your semetic types, were on this crew. They looked like Recruit Training Command’s version of the mafia and it was another opportunity to goof off, smuggle in candy, sneak a smoke, read girlie magazines etc. But they got caught and Lang was the fall guy. You didn’t send this motley crew to inspection though. They could shave three times a day and get hit for not shaving. According to Lang, Long was the biggest goof off on the team. But he knew how to cover his butt: Set up a watch and don’t do anything that you can’t cover up in a split second. Only one person could sneak a smoke at a time. Do an extra special job on BK’s office. Save some of Mom’s cookies for BK. Lang had to go along with all this since a rat would suffer a GI shower (a forced shower with a steel brush). Did Long want Lang’s job? How had BK found out. He had gone right to Wagner’s bunk and pulled out a skin book.

Long was an ugly mug. He looked more like a marine than a sailor. He also must have been in his share of fights because his eyebrows were scarred and his nose was broken. He also had what looked like a granite jaw and his ears stuck out. His whole aspect was that of a bulldog. He had that voice, gravel personified.

While marching up and down the grinder, Hayraker fantasized about what kind of background Long came from. He was from Cleveland, from a big family. He had belonged to a street gang called “The Vindicators.” He had a ninth grade education. He was kicked out of school for striking a teacher. There were eight brothers and two sisters in Long’s family. He was the seventh brother. So, perhaps it was not only the street fights that had given Long the scarred eyebrows.

He was major domo to the leader of “The Vindicators.” So much the better for BK; a major domo knew how to take orders. BK knew about the street gang.

Hayraker had always wondered what had happened to Long after boot camp. He was certainly lifer material, twenty-three years riding tin cans, never quite making chief.

Anyway, some of the members of the clean-up committed didn’t like Larry taking the rap alone. They went to BK about it and were diplomatically told that BK needed Long, these minor indiscretions could be excused.

“Then what about King, sir?”

“King was a mistake. He was a pompous asshole who wasn’t tough enough. He didn’t have the guts to snuff some of the bugs. Some of these scumbags don’t belong in the navy. It’s our job to weed them out.”

Our job?

The clean-up committee still wanted Long’s behind. One night around two in the morning, Long was swept out of his bunk; his blanket was tied over his head and secured with a rope. He was screaming bloody murder, but the whole company was involved as was the sister company next door, so nobody who could have rescued Long had heard. The only one who could come to Long’s rescue would be BK or the OD, but BK was sleeping off a drunk and the fire watch boys had the OD under surveillance. The enforcers tied Long to a chair and read the grievances against him:

Sucking ass - cleaning BK’s already immaculate office - catering to his already inflated ego - trying to subvert Lang’s authority - and of course squealing to BK about the porn under Al Wagner’s bunk, not to mention selling out his men - recommending that Quattlebaum be set back because he couldn’t march - recommending that Hogan be set back because he couldn’t pass his seamanship test - showing favoritism - recommending Woodward be appointed Master-at-arms when he returned from his Georgia vacation.

Guilty on all counts.

Long was pounded and kicked through the blanket by the clean-up crew. Hayraker got in one or two shots to what he hoped was Long’s groin. After ten minutes or so, Wagner called a halt to the proceedings and they carted Long off to the shower where he got the wire brush treatment.

Such was Hayraker’s fantasy about getting even with Honorman Gary Long. It never happened. Recruits were too scared to pull anything that radical. It happens but it happens on board ship and at other duty stations. At his regular duty station, Long would be evaluated on test results. Boatswains mate Gary Long would scrub a lot of decks and chip a lot of paint before he ever got the privileged position he held in Company 485.

There was one time Long surprised Hayraker. BK had shown up at the barracks late at night to spring a surprise inspection. He was as drunk as a skunk. He hit just about every rack with demerits. Meanwhile Long walked along behind pretending to write everything down in his notebook. Long thought this was really funny. Good old BK. Perhaps BK had pushed one boot too many and it was getting to him.

Apparently this was the case because about two weeks before training was over Mr. Fisher took BK’s place. BK’s story was that he was going to “C” school, advanced training for Gunner’s mates. He had been in the navy sixteen years and he hadn’t made chief. This was his reward for pushing boots.

Everyone was suspicious. Why would they change horses in the middle of the stream? Hadn’t he known about the school prior to beginning their training? Maybe he hated this dehumanizing job. Hayraker wondered about BK’s past.

Sixteen years and still a First class petty officer? This man had the ability to do big things. He had shown proven leadership. He had come within a whisper of pushing through a Hall of Fame company. 35 years old. Still time to do something on the outside. But if he made chief he’d have it made. Sit around all day and tell people what to do. No more reports to fill out and no more Lieutenant JG RH Roberts USNR lording it over him. Every time some mother called to complain, BK got called on the rug. 

Continued ... BK's version of things.