Keith Tillotson
Basic Training (1936)
I reported November the 15th and took the oath – in Des Moines. They sent me to San Diego for training. We went by train. 'Course that's the first time I ever saw the Rocky Mountains, you know. But then, we went through the whole Rocky Mountains during the night. Ended up in California when I woke up.
"Myself standing by a fish pool. In the background are the barracks."
The Navy – what was it, three months training, or four months? I forgot. There was four companies. And they had a chief in charge of each one. 'Course somebody was commander I suppose over all. And drill instructors – each one had four squads. Enough to make up a platoon would be four of 'em. Eight men to a squad – four of those make a company, I think. And you'd march – carry those big, heavy guns. We had to have these leggings on – why, I'll never know. They had to tighten the things up so you could hardly walk, you know. Everything had to be tight. You couldn't raise your leg up like this or you'd stumble.
Everything had to be perfectly neat. Had to clean the toilets every morning. Shine the brass – all the knobs and stuff. Mop up the floors – just seemed like you could never get everything done. Had to sleep in a hammock – you had to cinch that thing up until it would just sing. You know, it would just double up like this. Now you got to get in it. It's between two stanchions. Now you got to be able to get in that thing and still not roll over like this, see? And a lot of times, you did. That's what you slept in. You'd get in there – now, if you got in one position, you might as well just lay there, 'cause that's where you're gonna be all night. You can't turn over, or you'd bow down a little bit. 'Cause if you bow down too much, the guy in charge would come down and butt you with a board. So you'd have to get up and straighten up your – the heavy guys had a big problem, 'cause they'd sink down a little farther. They didn't want those to do that. Just stupid stuff like that.
You had to air your bedding – I think it was on a Thursday. You had to get all your stuff out, and air your bedding. Then they give you what you call mess cooking. Everybody had to take their turns at it – there would be about a week or so of that. Dice up potatoes, and prepare a lot of things. I remember they had like a dishpan there full of mayonnaise. I didn't know what it was. I said, "What's that?" And it was mayonnaise. So, I got dubbed "Mayonnaise" – that was my name all through training. Everyone thought that was funny.
One day, dicing up potatoes a guy cut off the end of his finger. And that went into about two bushels of diced potatoes. I didn't eat any potatoes that morning.
"Left to right, myself, Shults and Fowler. Barracks in the background."
One time I was late getting the bedding out on account of having the mess cooking. And you got chastised for doing that. You had to do a little extra duty or something. But the biggie was that, we're out there marching. You'd maybe have all of them out on the field at one time marching and sometimes they're passing each other. You know, squad right, oblique – this kinda stuff. I'm what you call the "key man" in the squad, and they had to kinda turn around me. I don't know why that was. Somehow, one of the drill masters ended up with five squads, and we ended up with three in this maneuver. So we were dubbed the "dolt squad." I was the key man in the dolt squad, that caused all this, see. They marched us 'til about midnight that night straightenin' that out. And he says, "I'm gonna make you guys honor company, or kill ya." Or, something like that. And he did. We came out honor company – of all four companies.
But I was sure glad when I got out of there. You just forgot all about that training when you got aboard ship – a lot of stupid stuff. One thing you had to do, if they didn't like what you're doin', you had to hold that rifle out there. That thing weighed about 20 pounds – that's a heavy rifle. Hold it – can you imagine how long you could hold that heavy rifle straight out? Little things like that they'd make you do once in a while – weird stuff. [It had nothing to do with being in the Navy] – you didn't have any more hammocks – you had a bunk. Regular bunk, stacked three high.