Wayne.B wrote in
:

On Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:34:11 -0500, "mmc" wrote:

We just did a job at Ft Jackson. Thought about scooting down to Chas
but was too wrapped up with work.

You haven't *really* been to Ft Jackson until youve gone through Basic
Training there. Fond memories of: Double time marching to the rifle
range through the sand barrens; running up Tank Hill and Drag Ass hill
with full combat gear; coming under "friendly fire" while on a work
detail; having a brick of RDX blow up near you on the combat
simulation course; being thrilled to get a weekend pass so you could
share a room at the Holliday Inn with 7 other guys; etc, etc.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpKd-N71BfU

About 1969, one of my boyhood friends had joined the Army and was going
through basic training at Ft Gordon in Augusta, so I put on my best
dress blues as an ET1 (E-6 Electronic Technician) and went searching for
him at Gordon. I traced him through a few companies and met some nice
Army NCOs who helped me only to find he'd been transferred to Ft Jackson
in Columbia. So, back in my VW Campmobile and off to Columbia, no Joel
yet. Army guys kept saluting me, even senior sgts, because of my ET1
crow and hash mark, I suppose. It was embarrassing! I knew what Army
officers looked like! They should know what Navy officers look like!

At Ft Jackson, I had a similar great time and after a few more orderly
room searches found Joel painting another war mural on the walls of the
local mess. Joel's always been an excellent artist, since he was a
little boy. That was why he was still at Ft Jackson. They were handing
him off from place to place doing murals of wars he'd never seen.

The senior sgt in charge of his group gave him a weekend pass and I got
him out of the Army for a few days to renew our friendship that went
back to when we were babies. When I returned him to the post, the NCOs
invited me to eat some Army chow in their NCO mess, making quite a stir
as they had never seen a sailor in uniform of any rank/rate and didn't
quite know what to make of me, but were very curious about Navy life.
As I came off a surface ship, USS Everglades (AD-24), a destroyer tender
and had done a couple of Med and Caribbean cruises aboard her, I was
amazed at how little these Army guys knew, almost as if Army were afraid
they'd defect....(c;] Their major got wind of my visit and also had a
lot of strange questions about Navy life. These guys always flew to
combat or overseas duty. I left the NCO club late and drove back to
Charleston to work the next day.

The Army guys had my address and sent me some stuff they gave to
visiting VIPs and invited me to come up to their next dress parade
ceremony. 4 of us sailors, all dressed up in blues, invaded Ft Jackson
and were treated like VIPs by the NCOs at the ceremonies. They even
announced us on the PA system for the brass.

That was the last time I had any contact with Army until my father, an
infantryman in the Big Red 1 (First Division) fighting Germans in WW2
got invited to a great program whereby very old Army vets were paired up
with the newly graduated recruits and the Army showed the old vets what
it can do with today's weaponry and skills. My dad went every year and
talked about it for months until his death. THEY EVEN LET HIM DRIVE THE
TANK!, something he found quite amusing because the tankers wouldn't let
him anywhere near their tanks in WW2....(c;]

Thanks for the memories.....

We had no way of paying Army back for the honor of their ceremonies back
then. I would have loved to take some of those guys out to sea on the
ship and let them feast on the chow in the swells....

Larry