The day came when we would all graduate from Hospital Corps school and become HA's or Hospitalmen Apprentice's and have to sew on a new rating patch on the right hand sleeve on all of our uniforms. But before that we were going to learn where we were going to be stationed. I had kept my grade point average above 95% so I was certain that I would be sent to Long Beach Naval Hospital.
Then our instructor, gave us the bad news...The Navy had two Hospital Corps schools, one in Great Lakes MI for the Naval Districts on the East Coast and ours in San Diego, to service the Pacific. It turned out that the Great Lakes Corps school had just recently become infected with some contagious disease and that meant that the San Diego school would have to split up their graduating class and send some of us to the East Coast. With my luck, I was one of the graduates going East. The same thing happened to Bob and he was sent to a Destroyer, based in Norfolk VA. I found that I was being sent to Camp Lejeune Naval Hospital in North Carolina!
Camp Lejeune? That was a Marine Corps base and I felt cheated. All those promises and all my hopes were shattered.
It turned out that there were three of us going to NC. The two that joined me were unknown to me. Whatever...we were going on the same plane and bus ride together. We had orders to report to the hospital by 7:00 AM on the day after our two day plane & bus ride. That sounded simple enough. Not! We had to take a slow airliner to Chicago and then a slower one to Raleigh NC, where we could take a bus to our destination. Of course all of the flights were late in departing and when we arrived in Raleigh our bus ride was long gone. What to do? We found a bus ride going South, but not to Camp Lejeune. We decided to take it and then see if we couldn't find another bus that might get us there. So off we went...going South. We ended up in a very small town but it did have a restaurant. We bought some dinner and coffee while we tried to come up with a good plan. We didn't know where we were and it was getting late and dark.
Hitchhike was our only solution. So we stood out next to the highway with our thumbs out, looking for a ride. At 10 PM the restaurant closed and their lights went out. Now we were really in the dark. Then, at midnight, the traffic light went out. Still, we stood, hoping for a ride. Finally, a car stopped for us. I sat in the front while the two took the back seat. The driver told us that he would be glad to take us south and we could easily find a bus to take us the last few miles.
The driver had a big Bible sitting on the seat next to him and he told me that he was a pastor, a preacher that went from church to church...speading the Word. Then he reached down to the floor and brought up a quart sized Mason jar. It was 'Moonshine' and he offered it all around. We all begged off, saying we had to check in to our duty station soon and couldn't chance it, but thank you!
The driver continued to sip at his jar of moonshine. I was glad that we would soon be out of his car and a little bit closer to our destination.
The driver dropped us off at a bus stop, a Greyhound bus stop, and sure enough a bus did come along. We paid our fare to the next stop which was Jacksonville and 30 minutes later we pulled in to the bus station. We also had our first view of 'downtown' J-ville. There were MP's and SP's patrolling the streets and arresting & hauling away a great many Marines. There seemed to be bars everywhere and there were fights going on in most of them. It was time for us to get out! We found a local bus that served the Base, including the Hospital and we were soon speeding away from J-Ville.
We arrived at the hospital at 4:00 AM, just three hours early. A friendly Chief directed us to beds in the transient barracks, pointed out the chow hall and said that we could get a few hours sleep before the 7:00 AM deadline. That's exactly what we did, we got two hours sleep before reporting in.
I had been 'promised' a duty station of my choice and it would not have been in North Carolina. But, here I was...
No comments:
Post a Comment