End of Boot Camp Thoughts

When we finished Boot Camp and paraded up to receive our "honors", i.e. we were told we had gone from Apprentice Seaman to Seaman 2nd Class, I believe; then, after Boot Camp we had to take an I.Q. Test and on special forms we stated what we wanted to do in the Navy, plus we gave a resume of what we had done; high school in my case. In the case of those who wanted to ship out and see action faster that was factored in by the evaluators. Those people were immediately segregated from those who wanted to be, say, radiomen, corpsmen, etc. I wanted to be a radioman. To keep us in condition we exercised just like in Boot Camp. Staying in shape was to be a permanent goal. When I graduated from high school I was six feet tall and weighed 143 pounds; a pretty thin kid, but I had played all the sports, including my favorite sport, football; but football didn't like me I guess. As a quarterback brought down (illegally it turns out) from Junior High I had taken a helmet in my right kidney; hurt some nerves in my shoulder tackling someone one handed, and then lastly, cracked a bone in the calf of my right leg while throwing a pass. I recovered quickly, but saw the hand writing on the wall - football was not for me. Track and tennis became my sports favorites. I was fast and ran 18 blocks to high school each day, just so I wouldn't be more than 5 minutes late for class! I asked the track coach if I could join his squad and he tested me against his quarter miler, whom I beat. I told him I wanted to continue to play tennis and he said I had to make up my mind - track or tennis? I chose tennis, but the quarter miler I beat won State! I was number 1 boys tennis but got beat by an excellent California trained tennis player who played for Pueblo in the State semi-finals and he won the tournament. That's life! My consolation was when I was fifteen our 15 and under softball team won State, and the same year I won the boys 15 and under city tennis title.