"Dear
Folks:
"I made an unexpected move Monday. Instead of going to midshipmen's school as
expected, I went the other way - to boot camp.
So I'll be at home here not far from Buffalo - and about 14 miles form a
town called Geneva - for the next 4 to 6 weeks.
"Sunday
afternoon the executive officer called three of us over to inform us of orders
from Washington to transfer us to boot camp.
Because our eyes didn't quite come up to the 18/20 standard, they took
us out of the V-12 program....
"Well,
I'm just about resigned to my lot in boot camp now. We still have a chance to go to some service
school for a rating -- in fact the Exec back at Asbury practically promised us
we would, but I won't believe anything anymore until it happens. If I had failed to use my books and slid
through on D's back in V-12, I might be a lot higher in the Navy right
now. But, at least I got a year of free
college out of the deal."
--
Letter from my father, Camp Sampson, N.Y., to his family, Bloomington, Kans.,
Wednesday, April 19, 1944. This is the
bluest my Dad sounds in any of his letters from the Navy. He seems to think if he had studied less, he
would have saved his eyes and had good enough eyesight to have been admitted to
a midshipmen’s school, rather than going to boot camp. Being in boot camp meant, he was likely to be
sent into combat soon as an enlisted man, rather than staying in the U.S. for
officer training programs.
No comments:
Post a Comment