Sorry for the inarticulate title, but this post deals with some of our activities, etc., that didn’t seem to fit into other categories.
Pass in review!
Each Saturday morning, we showed off(?) our precision marching skills and adept handling of a weapon. Maybe by the end we were more precise and adept, but not so much in our early efforts.
First, of course, came the uniform. White leggings for all, sword belts and swords for regimental officers, and white belts for the rest of us. If you weren’t carrying a sword or guidon, you carried a “vintage” rifle. The M1 Garand had been the standard service weapon for US forces in WWII and the Korean War.
The M1 was 43.5 inches long and weighed approximately 10 pounds. Those of us carrying the rifle were, while marching and in unison, to move it from shoulder to shoulder on command. That wasn’t that difficult. Harder was, when standing still, to hold it in the inspection arms position (extended slightly in front of you, with the butt down to your right and the barrel up to your left), slide the bolt back, and then release the bolt by pushing down on a part inside with your thumb. You had to make sure you made contact with the part and then get your thumb out before the bolt slid forward and caught your thumb. Don’t get “Garand thumb”!
The thumb action was particularly tricky because of the white gloves we had to wear. The glove surface was slippery handling the rifle and when you tried to release the bolt. The work-around was to wet your gloves beforehand, giving them more traction. Not a problem in October, early November. Standing outside the gym prior to entering in late November and into the winter with wet gloves on your hands was not pleasant. (Did we also wear peacoats, shucking them off just before entering the gym?)
Swords
At some point, we had been instructed to order a sword. I don’t believe I ever used mine at NAVOCS, but Don Cockrill did as company commander and Harvey Katz as assistant regimental commander. (I did wear mine at a few ceremonies on active duty. I also remember that a few years after active duty, alone at home and hearing a noise downstairs, I brandished it against a possible intruder. Nobody there.)
Cockrill’s sword was definitely memorable to the members of A6906, the class that entered when Don was company commander. In their Seachest, among their snippets of memory was this:
Now, Don’s sword was particularly notable. Remember, we had to get a sword with the appropriate length, the length that would result in the tip of the sword being at the middle of our ear when we held it in the carry position (right). Don, being 6’6″, had a long sword. I, being a foot shorter than Don, had a sword that, to me, brought to mind the “sword” one might find in a club sandwich.
Still have my sword. It shows its 50 years. At least the gold braid does . . . salty! The blade has been kept pristine, with no runnings-through to its credit.
Abandon ship!
Not the words you want to hear. But good to know what to do, just in case.
For us, the learning exercise involved jumping off an elevated platform into the NAVOCS pool and treading water for some extended period of time.
Nearly all of us in A6903, I would guess, had never dove or jumped from a location so high above the water. Looking at the photo, the platform doesn’t look terribly high. Maybe 15-18 feet? Lenny Borg remembers it as 10 meters.
“While addressing the physical challenges of OCS, our trip to the swimming pool should be mentioned. If on a sinking ship, we needed to be able to jump off before it became too late. To prove that we could, we had to jump from a 10-meter tower. As most of us probably would not have not have chosen to do that as a lark, there was considerable discussion about the upcoming jump on the day before it was required. We even speculated about whether everyone would be able to do it; however, in the end, all of us managed to leap from the tower.”
It sure looked like a long way down. You were looking not so much at the space between you and the surface of the water, but the space between you — your eyes another five-six feet above the platform — and the bottom of the pool — another six feet — for a total of maybe 20-30 feet.
I remember being somewhat reassured, though, by the efficacy of the method we were taught to stay afloat. Removing one’s pants, tying off the ends of the pants legs, and then filling it with air by bringing the pants from behind your head and over it, created a somewhat viable device. Same could be done with your shirt. That was under perfect conditions. I’m glad I never had to do it in real life.
This was part of an overall swimming test. It was the Navy. Duh. All Navy personnel have to pass what is now described as a “third-class” swimming test. The evolution described above — jumping from a high platform, using clothing as a flotation device — is part of it. We also had to swim 50 yards using any stroke or combination of strokes and float prone for five minutes.
More “stuff” to come.