“The
authorities are getting a little stricter on us around here. I guess they were too easy the first
month. Lieut Soderquist gave us a
lecture Monday evening on our failure to obey housemothers and other shortcomings
and pointed out that we could be sent to Great Lakes on the basis of bad
discipline. ‘The Navy needs lots of
seamen’ -- a direct quotation.”
-- Letter from my father, Cape Girardeau, Mo.,
to his family, Bloomington, Kans., Wednesday, August 4, 1943. Being in the V-12 officer training program
kept my father and his fellow navy men out of combat, at least
temporarily. But they could be sent to
combat training on the Great Lakes -- a precursor to being shipped out on a
vessel to the war zone – at any time.
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