Travel

Stuck at the Airport, Recruits Face a Hardship Test
By JEFF BAILEY and MARINA TRAHAN MARTINEZ
Travelers on the way to boot camp have joined thousands of others stranded as American Airlines cancels flights.

Odd. How headlines trigger memories. Oh, I made it to boot camp on time, back in 1959. But it was after I graduated from Hospital Corps School that I had my more memorable experience in cross country travel. The Navy was my travel agency and they had three of us traveling by plane (American Airlines - with propellers!) to Chicago and then Washington, D.C and finally to New Bern, North Carolina. And each leg of the journey found us in progressively smaller aircraft. We were also progressively late and we missed the bus connection in New Bern. The last bus of the day. So we began to hitchhike. Midnight found us in a small town where we watched the lone traffic signal shut down at that late hour. But, we were picked up a few minutes later by an itinerant preacher who tried his best to ‘save’ us while offering us a drink from his pint jar of ‘shine’. We made it to Jacksonville without accident and without drinking any of the clear liquid in his jar. From ‘J’ville to the Naval hospital at Camp Lejeune was an easy 15 minute bus ride and we were only 2 hours late, The duty officer forgave us and gave us bunks for the night. Ah! Travel…ain’t it grand!