What was how to go to Joman "A" Schooling.
I came to Meridian, Mississippi, for Joman “A” schooling, they called it. It was supposed that this would be a school for a couple of months, where they would teach you all the proper way, to print the correspondence of the Navy and other paper work.
I arrived in the middle of the night at my new duty station. The way the dorm rooms were created, there were 3 guys in the room and 4 rooms in the common area, with seating tables, a TV, etc., What looked like our living room. I remember a really big fat man screaming at his lungs, "fresh meat", he shouted. Fortunately for me, this breakthrough came out of the game, and I did not have to endure it for long.
I remember the first day, right up to school. First, you had to get in touch with everyone else. All school went from a barrack, up to school, in the military order. At school they were going to teach us the type to start. I had a typing class in high school, but I never learned to type one word on a typewriter. Teacher was kind to me and dared me to D-, so that I could pass the class. But it was a navy, and I’m sure they expected me to learn typing. There was no way to learn how to type, it needed to be done. I learned how to enter the correct path and at a certain speed in about 2 weeks.
The way the Navy teaches you how to type shows you a movie in the dark and hides your keyboard from your eyes. They turn off the light, and they show you these IUDs, which last about two weeks. Every two hours of the movie shows how to enter different words, and before you know it, the movie is done, and you know how to enter in a dream. You do so much repetitive typing that you end up doing it in a dream, it looks and you have to be able to enter a certain number of words per minute to complete the class, and go to your next duty station.
Between daily schooling, proper paperwork, and the like. Johann’s school was pretty much like any other school, and you’d learn it. In addition, you went to uniform, and every morning you came to education, and listened to what you were told.
You could do what you wanted after school every day. You were allowed to do what you wanted, but you were not allowed to leave the base and go to the city. I was in Meridian for about two months, but I didn’t have a big chance to see many different parts of the city, only a few times when they released us.
At school, most people come and go, getting ready to send, to new places of service. People received orders for all kinds of exotic sound in places. They have something in the Navy that they call a "dream sheet", where you choose the three places that you would like your next new duty station. The Navy says that they will try to get you one of your dream duty stations or as close as possible to one of them.
I chose Australia, the Philippines and Hawaii. The Navy eventually gave me orders for a ship that was stationed in Guam. I have never heard of Guam before. I had to look for it on the map. It was about the middle of all three of my workplace choices, but not just one of them. But, going to my new ship, will still come later. I still had to finish the yeomen school and finish it first. Some people never had to type at a certain speed. They had to quit school and choose another job to study.
The school was still a new place for most people. We just finished the training camp and learned how to get more freedom, and we were much less screaming like a boot camp. Some of the characters in which we were tied were just insane.
The building in which we all lived was three floors, and different people lived in it. Some of the people who lived in our unit were awaiting discharge from the Navy for various reasons. In one of the rooms, which was right below us, there were some bright gay people living. They were so outrageously funny and bright as Lieber. Black and white guy.
The Navy subscribed to both of them, because they were frankly funny. They were about the funniest guys I've ever seen, and I think they could be the first people I've ever seen, in real life, on TV. I was from a small town, they could actually do the best darnning to get out of the Navy, but I don’t think so, no guy would go that way.
One of the days that my first hours were assigned to me, it had to be with a partner. Within four hours we will be a school patrol. When I appeared on my watch, I was a partner of a girl, and that too would be the yeoman.
When we walked for about 4 hours while watching, we did the usual things. Just hang out and make sure nothing happened. My new partner, whom I had just met, asked me which drugs I like. I told her about my experiences that I had drugs, and it was limited, and she told me. I have never heard of some of the drugs she talked about anyway. Now the days, the things that she said are everywhere, but she was from the city and said that she liked it and did it all the time, and I didn’t even know what she was talking about. It was the first girl I ever talked to, which was the same form as mine, and I wonder which girls join the Navy?
While I was still at the school in Yeomen's school, we received another salary. Suddenly, I had a lot of extra money, and I owed nothing to anyone. I was looking at a bulletin board somewhere, and I noticed this bike for sale for $ 500. It was one of the employees who was stationed at the base, and also lived at the base, but simply worked somewhere else.
Students were not allowed to leave the base if they were not free. I bought and paid for a motorcycle with almost all the money from the salary I just received. The guy I bought from the bike also cave me a lot of extra parts, such as an extra gas tank, gas canister, oil, such things you get with a bike when you sometimes buy it. I parked the bike in the parking lot of the barracks. I was going to keep the bike, just to ride with him, at the base, only when I was at school, and then got rid of him. I put all the extra details, gas, oil, etc. ... in the storage cabinet, which stands like a small cupboard that should contain your form.
Employees once said they would have a surprise to see how things were going. We didn’t have any checks at school before, so this was new to me again.
When they come to inspect, they call "attention on deck", and you must stop what you are doing and stand still until someone shouts, "continue." They made us all go to our lockers, take a closer look, and they opened each locker and saw how the guys' clothes were removed, and then they came to mine.
When they got to my locker for inspection, and I opened it for them, they first saw all these gas cylinders, oil cans, motorcycle parts, and more, they didn’t know what to think. They had to call special people to learn about the fire hazard. I was told to pull everything out of my locker, and they told me that I was not allowed to have a motorcycle at the base. I ended up getting rid of it by another employee for $ 50, who knew that I had a peg.
I was getting to ride around the base, and he lacked a silencer, and it was loud, it was not Harley, but you could hear me. When the other guys were in the common area, they just sat, watched TV, I was out of school, rode a motorcycle, checking the base, on my motorcycle, which I should not be.
At the end of graduation, they allowed students to go to the city. Before you are allowed to go into the city, at the call of freedom, you are told what to expect, and what to do, and not to do, in order to remain in trouble. They said that the townspeople do not really like the naval people, so be careful while you are in the city to avoid any fights.
We all went to one of the most popular brand bars in the city, where almost all the boys and girls were at the base, and not at many local residents. It turned into a giant meat market. In the end, everyone could catch someone they wanted from school, which you could not do at school or in barracks. Any man or woman stored in every room in the school was called fraternization, and was very serious, and you could be kicked out of the Navy. In the city, everyone ended up with someone, and they all rented rooms for the night.
The school was over, and it was time to join the “regular navy,” as they called it, and the regular fleet meant the ships and the sea, and go to other countries.
I sent my first vacation from the Navy before going on a business trip and reporting my debt to my first ship. I wore my uniform, as required, and I took a bus with a greyhound from Meridian, Mississippi, to Detroit, Michigan. It was one of the longest rides I've ever done on a bus. Along the way, he should stop at each ranch of a chicken farm. When I finally returned to Michigan, I was horrified by the fatigue of the bus. I stayed at my sister's house for about 10 days.
It's time to go to my first “real” duty station. My first real service point was a tender for a submarine, called USS PROTEUS (AS-19), at which there were just over 1,300 people. 6 crew members were ladies, all officer ladies. Half of them will work in my department.
