My Navy Years – 1960 to 1964

Photo 1 - That's me on the right, in whites.

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Several weeks ago in a telephone conversation with my brother Gerry he mentioned that he was reading “Hillbilly Elegy by J. D. Vance.” I responded that I had read it and liked it. This afternoon he emailed asking if my experience joining the Navy was anything like Vance’s joining the Marines and if so, in what ways.

It’s been a while since I read the book so I made an attempt to find my copy in the piles of books around this house so as to refresh my mind as to what his experience had been. My search has been unsuccessful so I’m left with writing about my own experience and letting Gerry draw his own conclusions.

If I were asked to point to a single time that most influenced my life it almost certainly would have been the summer of 1960. It started in a particularly odd way. The eleventh year of my formal education was concluding on yet another not particularly successful note. I was not a good student and was getting wrestles to get out into the world. I didn’t have a destination or occupation in mind. I was just itching to do something. I had been working part time at Dale’s Market for several years boxing groceries so I had some of my own money, a car that I’d bought, and a desire to go skin diving. In the 1950s there was no such thing as SCUBA diving. That level of formalization wouldn’t come along for a few more years. Dive computers, buoyancy compensators and tank gauges were still in the future. You might have been able to buy a wetsuit, but I don’t think so. Instead you bought a kit to make your own, which I did.

In the second half of what turned out to be my last year at Grover Cleveland High School, my junior year I had gotten friendly with Gino, a young chemistry teacher at the school who was only about 10 years older than I. Gino was pretty easy going and would sometimes hang out a bit with students, at the end of the school year probably with me more than others. With more years of life experience it’s now easy to see the Gino was socially immature and found it easier to relate to folks much younger than his own age. He was also in an emotional tailspin over the breakup of his relationship with a graduating senior at another school that blew up when her parents found out that she was dating him. They promptly sent her off to France for the summer. He needed a shoulder to cry on and for a time it was mine.

One afternoon as we were talking about what to do that evening he remembered that he was supposed to chaperone what was probably the prom, though I’m not sure it was that. It was a dance in any case. He suggested that I come along for that then we would go do something that I’ve now forgotten. Sometime during that evening it seems that one of the girls decided to flirt with Gino and he came away with a phone number.

Not long after that evening (and after my first foray to investigate enlisting in the Navy), we had made plans to go to the beach north of Malibu. Geno called the girl whose number he had to see if she would like to come along. She would. Gino drove and we spent the afternoon at the beach. Late in the day we were heading south on Pacific Coast Highway through the town of Malibu in Gino’s 504 Peugeot. What happened next requires a little sidebar. Gino was Swiss-Italian. He also has Tourette’s syndrome, the neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by erratic motor movements. Whether it was the Italian heritage, or the Tourette’s I don’t know, but when excited, Gino talked with his hands. He was also a great guy and fun to be around because he’s enthusiastic about life but maybe not a candidate for driver of the month. So, Gino is driving, she’s in the middle seat, remember this is the days of bench seats in cars, and I’m at the passenger side door. We are in the left of the two southbound lanes. Gino is talking excitedly, with his hands too, and looking at me as we go through downtown at commute hour. I see the Ford Skyliner stopped ahead of us with turn signal on waiting for traffic to clear so he can pull into the Bank of America. I shout and lean across toward Gino. He brakes, but too little and way too late. We hit the back of the Ford Skyliner (that was the car that had a folding steel hardtop that stored in the trunk) going at a probably 40 miles an hour. This was also, of course, before cars had seatbelts. Gino hit the steering wheel. The girl hit me. I hit the glass windshield and took it out. Within seconds there were lots of people all around helping me get to the side of the road and get a towel around my head to try to stop the bleeding. It didn’t. I spent a week in the hospital and went home with a whole lot of stitches and looking very monster like.

But, the day at the beach came several days after I’d visited the Navy recruiter in downtown Reseda to talk about what I might do in the Navy. I’d filled out some forms and answered some questions. It wasn’t the signing up, just the first skirmish. Needless to say after the crash I was not going to be a sailor candidate for a while.

All of that took place in June, 1960. By sometime in July I decided I was ready to get on with life. A friend was working that summer for the father of a classmate who owned an air conditioning business. Summer was their busy time so I decided to go apply myself. It my surprise I was hired on the spot and assigned to work with their shop guy making up the various parts for the next day’s orders. After a couple of days the shop guy went to one of the installation crews and I was left with the shop job. It was mostly swing shift work spray painting the diffusers the color required the next day and making up plenums and transition pieces out of galvanized sheet metal. Here I was, 17, working alone at night in an industrial site running huge hydraulic metal shears, brake presses, and spot welders! I’m guessing that today it would get some arrested. I spent the summer at that and when work slowed down at the end of September I bailed out and went to see the recruiter again.

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The Navy guy was not fond of the idea that I would be dropping my last year of high school and spent some time trying to convince me that I should wait. I wasn’t convinced and in the end I did the actual signing up. I was given a day and time to show up the next week with a toiletry kit and nothing more. I reported on Monday, October 10, 1960 to the Reseda recruiting office where there was more paperwork. There was another enlistee there too. Once we were sufficiently papered one of the Navy guys drove the two of us to a much larger Navy office in downtown Los Angeles. There were now about 20 of us. More paperwork. A little written test that seemed to be finding out nothing more than if we were literate. Then the medical part. Height, weight, heart, lungs, pee, blood, stand, sit, bend over, can you see, can you hear. You seem to be alive. Line up over here. “Last chance guys. After this next bit you’re in the Navy and no going home. If you don’t want to do this now is the time to walk out.” Raise your right hand and repeat after me. Then it’s done. I’m in the United States Navy. Still in jeans and a tee shirt, but I’m the property of the United States for the next four years. We sit and wait. First introduction to the fact that much of the military is about sitting and waiting. At some point earlier in the day someone has brought us sandwiches and sodas. We get another round of that. Late in the day someone comes in and tells us to grab our gear and follow him. We do. It’s onto a Navy gray school bus that heads out into the evening traffic going south. A couple of hours later we are entering a large Navy base in San Diego. It’s dark so there’s not much to see. We do try though. More Navy guys meet the bus, get us off, and lead us to the second floor of a very big barracks. There are already a whole lot more guys already there. We are all trying to figure out what’s next. No one has any idea. Just a bit later a guy in uniform comes in with a nightstick which he proceeds to apply to a trash can with some vigor. He also has a very loud voice which he employs to tell us the lights will go out in 15 minutes and when they come on at 5:00 the next morning we will have 15 minutes to “shit, shower, and shave” before out day begins. Everyone seems okay with that. Lights out!

Five o’clock in the morning on October 11, 1960 in San Diego is very dark. It is also very loud. May not have been the same guy, but it was the same trash can. We are up, attend to business, and are escorted across the quad to a giant mess hall where there are nice stainless steel trays and a steamtable line with all kinds of stuff to eat. Dining is at long benches. The room smells of steam, food, sweat, and coffee. It affects several hundred nervous stomachs in different ways. I eat lightly and selectively. Some of my new friends eat like they haven’t eaten for months. The food is unlimited and free. Some are now having trouble with keeping it down. Breakfast doesn’t take long because in Navy boot camp breakfast is not about what or how much you eat, it’s about time. You get to eat what you are able to eat in a half hour. Then it’s done until the next feeding. When time is up we are invited out doors and then across the quad to another giant building that looks like it was either an aircraft hangar, or a basketball court for giants.

But, something is familiar right away. There are school desks arranged in rows and socially distanced from one another. Take a seat gentlemen. Do not touch the paper or pencil on your desk until I tell you to do so. You will have 40 minutes to complete this test. There is an answer sheet in your test booklet. When I tell you to start remove the answer sheet and print your name and the serial number you were given on a card at the top. Then open the booklet and answer the questions by marking the correct answer for each question on the answer sheet. Be careful not to mix up the question and answer numbers. If your pencil breaks raise your hand and another will be provided. Now start. Time. Stop!

While the tests are being collected and the next one passed out you may stand and stretch. No talking, No wandering off. Sit. Ready. Start. Time. Stop! This happens for two more cycles for a total of four tests. Then things change. If I read out you name stay seated. When I finish I will tell you and at that time everyone else fall out through the doors on your right. Names. “Luckham.” Shit, I’m in trouble already. I didn’t think those were very hard. I answered all the questions. I wonder if I messed up the answer sheet! You that are remaining move to the open desks toward the front. Then here comes a guy handing out more tests. Are we getting a second chance? Start. Time. Stop! Another test, then a third. When I opened the fifth booklet I realized that maybe we hadn’t failed on the first round. The fifth test was on electronics, Ohm’s Law, circuits, amps, volts, watts, frequency. The sixth was acoustics. I’ve forgotten what the last one was. Although I hadn’t done very well in school I had been an electronics and mechanical tinkerer, so that part wasn’t particularly scary. What I realized looking at the scores was that they had scored that first test as the next three were being given and the score on the first determined whether you got the extras.

Once all that was over we were taken out to where the others were already well along in getting uniforms and boots, and belts and hats issued. The issuing was easy. Get in line for boots. A guy measures your foo and then hands you a pair of boots. Other lines for other things didn’t bother so much with measuring. You were either S, M, L, XL, or maybe XXL and that was it. Then you find the guy that’s making stencils with your name, and another with your serial number. Then the dog tag guy does your tags and gives you a chain to wear them. Somewhere in there was the 30 minute lunch. You spend a couple of hours at benches where you use your stencils to put your identity on every item you were issued. And, do not screw it up and stencil across the outside of your white hat! Then more name calling and some 400 guys are divided up into 80 man training companies and each is assigned an instructor. I’m in Recruit Company 544 assigned to C. H. Turner BM1, Company Commander. Turner has been in the Navy for 18 years. He heads us to dinner, then to our permanent barracks. He gives a little pep talk, tells us to get out shit organized in our assigned locker and to get a good night’s sleep because it starts tomorrow. Hard to imagine, but this has taken the entire day. We get ourselves organized and hit the sack.

Next morning at 6:00AM it’s a different trash can but, I swear, the same nightstick. The boot camp version of an alarm clock. Up, shit, shower, shave, breakfast. Back in the barracks Turner explains that for purposes of boot camp only company officers will be appointed. For boot camp these are real ranks. Pay attention. Follow orders. For the 80 man company there will be 18 company officers. He starts naming from the lowest and handing out stripes to be sewn onto uniforms. Just as I think this is over I hear my name. “Luckham, you’re the Recruit Company Commander.” He seems surprised at who Luckham is, but doesn’t flinch. I take the patches. He tells the new officers to get their patches done and directs the rest to the bulletin board in the hall with test scores. Pay attention, remember your scores. They are important. Why didn’t anybody tell us that before the tests! I tend to my patches, then check the test results. It’s now clear how he came up with the officer list. It’s the first 18 names. My scores are the highest on almost every test. My executive officer, who scored second highest, I will soon learn had just graduated from UCLA. I’m barely 17. There’s no one in the company who can’t walk into a bar and a few who have probably been doing that for a decade. I have no clue what’s going on.

After a bit Turner calls me and the Executive Officer in for a talk. I am to be in command of Company 544 at any and all times when he is not present. It’s my job to keep the barracks clean and orderly, to ensure that the rules are followed, deal with any disciplinary issues, and to ensure that each recruit completes each and every assigned task, etc. My Exec takes over whenever I’m not present. Together we can assign duties, blah, blah, blah. Yes Sir, I understand! I still have no freaking idea.

I didn’t think that I’d led a particularly sheltered life growing up in Southern California, but quickly realized that just maybe wasn’t quite so true. My XO was another SoCal kid, maybe 5 years older than me, but the rest were from all over the country. They were also at least 5 years older than me and most had had some real life experience under their belts. There were some characters. One was a very tall black guy from somewhere in the South. At meals he was fond of going from bench to bench emptying the little thin bottles of hot sauce into one of those heavy Navy coffee mugs and then drinking it. Somewhere in the middle of boot camp he disappeared. The rumor was that the Navy had decided he was not ever going to be Navy material and sent him home.

I had barely started shaving and they had already gone through a number of razors. It was clear that they didn’t think much of me. Fortunately because we were all completely new to the military experience we were all intimidate by the idea of rank so I was spared immediate challenge. That would come soon enough.

Then boot camp begins. There are classes about the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Navy regulations, ranks and insignia, nautical terminology, ships of all sizes and shapes, marching, rope handling, and on, and on. Turner will start us out on marching and after a few turns will disappear for a while. It’s my turn to march them. The Exec and I assign barracks duties. Then we have to housemother. Turner finds something out of order. I catch hell. I pass it on. This goes on for weeks.

One evening in the barracks I’m sitting on my bunk reading the “Bluejacket’s Manual” which is the Navy bible we have each been given to study. There are sounds of a ruckus. A couple of guys come running over to me, “You’d better come get this straightened out…” I jump up and head for trouble. As I round a bank of lockers “boom, and boom again a couple of times” punches mostly to the head. Some words that I don’t understand then no one’s there. I take myself back to my bunk, then to the head to wash my face and clean up a bit. When Turner sees me the next morning it’s “My office, now!” What happened? I fell in the shower. Sure. Go. That afternoon he announces there will be some reshuffling of company officers.

I loose stripes. Somebody else is Company Commander. I still am something that I don’t remember. Boot camp is over in another 3 weeks, so it’s not too bad. We got the company officers photo last week so I’m still the guy with the stripes in the photo!

Toward the end of boot camp when you are supposed to now have had some exposure to what specialty or department you might like to be assigned to you have the option to select a first, second, and third choice. It’s finally at this point that they tell you that those test scores will determine your opportunities for the entire rest of your Navy career. Score high enough and you get to do whatever you want, your first choice is going to be it. Farther down it might be first, or second, maybe even third. Low scores, you are going to be an ordinary seaman assigned to the deck division during your time in the Navy. I pick, and get my first choice. I’m going to the United States Navy Advanced Undersea Weapons School in Key West, Florida.

At that point, and for some time to come my experience as a Navy sailor had been pretty good, even considering my encounter with the real world of command. The first couple of months at weapons electronics school only reinforced that feeling. I finished first in my class of 15. From there my next assignment was a destroyer, the U.S.S Moale, DD-693, then in Charleston, South Carolina. But when I reported to the Moale I learned that the ship was actually dry docked in the yard undergoing a major overhaul. The crew were living in barracks ashore. Because there was little for the crew to do as many as possible were being sent off for more training in their specialty. For me it was quickly back to Key West for training in specific weapons systems. That was fine with me. I liked Key West and ended up first in each of the classes I took. Eventually Moale was ready to go to sea and I spent another year and a half cruising around the Atlantic and Caribbean having various adventures.

I think it was somewhere during those years that I began to reflect on my boot camp experience and what I might learn from it. The most important lesson was that leadership and authority are two entirely different things. Authority may come with stripes on the sleeve, or gold bars on the shoulder, but leadership come first from a deep understanding of human nature and a willingness to within a group not on top of it. It is the skill of understanding an objective and convincing others of its importance, a willingness to accept what is sometimes a great risk, and develop the will to accomplish a goal together. Over the remaining two years I spent in the Navy, and in the more than half century I have had many occasions to experience some great natural leaders and some with authority who had no idea of what leadership was all about. At about the beginning of my third year as a sailor I was assigned to my second ship, the U.S.S Grand Canyon, AD-28, based in Newport, Rhode Island. Experiences there with non-leaders relying only on authority came very close to sending me AWOL and out of the Navy on less than honorable conditions. But, that too was a learning experience and together with what I learned from boot camp it’s one that I have never forgotten and which has informed me every day of my life since.

What’s next is a collection of photos from my Navy years, 1960-1964. Although I didn’t greatly appreciate it at the time my tour of service ended at just about the time that the United States was beginning a buildup that became the Vietnam War. [Click here for those photos.)