Induction Day at USNA “Seventeen,mighty mean…how many do you want, Sir?"

50 years ago today, half a century..."When Ships were made of wood, and men were made of steel." :-)

On June 26, 1968 I was Appointed a Midshipman in the US Navy in a Ceremony at the US Naval Academy at Annapolis.

There are various ways to get an appointment to a United States Service Academy…Congressional Appointments, Secretary of the Navy appointments, Vice Presidential Appointments, and Presidential Appointments. Because of my dad’s service of over 20 years, I was eligible to compete for one of the 125 Presidential Appointments...Thank you LBJ!

What is it like going from a successful high school age student, to becoming a Plebe...the scum of the earth?

About 1200 of us were divided into 36 groups, called Companies. Here are my recollections to my Classmates in my Company.I publish this piece with a few changes and editions each year.

Greetings Classmates,

It is amazing how fast June 26 now arrives each year! What do you recall of that warm summer day in Annapolis in 1968?

On the morning of June 26, Steve Grenfell, returning with the Class of 1971 in September, drove me to Annapolis from Alexandria. We stopped for a coke at a little place on West Street before Steve delivered me to my date with my destiny.

After I made my way through the check in process in the Library Assembly Area, I was told to stand out in the sun and wait for further instructions; and while I waited, to memorize everything on a card I had been handed when checking in. I studied the card closely and memorized everything on it except a few numbers down in the corner...something called an "alpha code." Why bother to memorize numbers? They couldn't be that important! Little did I know that that was my new Unique Identifier.

A second classmen asked me if I had memorized the card and I responded that I had...he then asked me what my "alpha code" was...and it was there, Classmates, that I received my first taste of the temper of the Class of 1970, and how important a few numbers could be. One of the reasons that I wanted to leave San Diego State College (now SDSU), where I attended for a year while waiting to get into the Academy, a school of 30,000 plus students, was that it was a place where I was just a number!

Onward, as I marched up to 3-4 with a group of others (going to different floors/Decks) where my new bald roommates were marking up their new gear...Jack Kennelly and Cliff Kelly. The only rack left was the top one so it looked like that would be home for a while. Across the passageway were Collin Huddleston and John Jarnagin. Five weeks later John would leave and Cliff would move in with Collin...and I would get a bottom rack. For the rest of our stay at USNA, the Jarnagins were family. I still hear from John at Christmas. When we received our class pin, I bought 2. I gave one to my mom, and one to Mrs. Jarnagin. You might remember John’s dad was a retired Navy Commander and they loved the Academy. A few years ago, Mrs. Jarnagin was going through her belongings, found my pin, and sent it back to me for safe keeping. I gave it to my wife of the last 37 years, Janie…who didn’t know me when we were Mids.

It would be weeks (months) before we really knew our way around those big gray buildings...it was so easy to get lost in Bancroft Hall. It was all so very new and strange. “Youngster” ladders we could not use, “curved walks” we could not walk on, “Second Class Doors” we could not pass through…”First Class Alley” and “Second Class Alley”…Lots to learn, while being harassed constantly.

How did we, Seventeenth Company, as a group, get selected to be together in the same plebe summer platoon and become Seventeenth Company Class of 1972?

Over 4 years we dropped from about 38 guys to 19 and ended up as a pretty successful group overall. Seventeenth Company 72’ers were tops in academics our last semester, Brigade field ball champs, pretty decent in drill and second or third in Colors. And today as a group (and as a class) we have in our ranks lawyers, PhDs, business executives, and a Four Star Admiral. Who would have thought 50 years ago?!

June 26, 1968 was the beginning of an eventful summer and the introduction to so many new things. Forty Fives, M-1s, memorizing names and rates, iced tea (with no sugar or lemon), uniforms, uniform races, come arounds, discipline, accountability, folding laundry, new habits and ways of do things, and friendships that last a lifetime. If I think about specific events, I can actually still feel some of the excitement...

It was quite a culture shock and by the end of that first day, I was ready to go back to San Diego State…except for the fact that if I returned to civilian life I would be Draft Status 1A, and I would be in Nam within a year…so there was a little more incentive to “gut it out.”

And so it began…

Memorization, physical exertion, isolation, deprivation

Unbearable heat and humidity without air conditioning

Haircuts every 3 days

Windows with no screens (do any of you remember screens? How did we keep from falling out of the windows?)

Rifle Range (and Dum Dum walking down a live range)

Tailor Shop Parties

Slide rules

Alpha codes

Writing your Alpha Code on your new “clothing” with a magic marker

Snow flake drill (Night One)

That awful Gong

White Works Charlie

Dixie Cups

Combination Caps

Tying a neckerchief and hanging it in the closet with shoes tied to the ends

Platoon Leaders (Dollarshell and Hash/Watson and Casteel)

Being associated with groups, Third Battalion, Company F, Platoon 17

Wings, Decks, Overheads, Bulkheads, Racks, Ladders and Heads

Napsters marching us down to get the big box full of new stuff in the 3rd Wing Basement

Calling Napsters sir (don’t call me sir)

Mass Sings at Mahan Hall

Marching back from Mahan Hall in the rain, wearing raingear in 90 degree 90% humidity weather

Talent Show (won by Third Batt in Mahan Hall)

Steerage

Eating ice cream with a shoe horn

Cookies from Steerage and water, the first treat of Plebe Summer

TWLs for the first time...Weekend of July 4, 1968

Pushups and bracing up

3 inches of the chair

Eyes in the boat

Shoving out (I never had to do it to my recollection)

Green Bench (that either)

How long will it take us to get a Dixie Cup on the chapel dome?

No sir, How Long is a Chinaman (No longer politically correct)

Reef Points and all of its content

Sheet Posters

Pep Rallies

Mokes (Branch)

Hardly a moment to yourself

It was the beginning…I’ll be thinking of you all day Classmates.

“ Seventeen,mighty mean…how many do you want, Sir?