Chapter 3 Basic Training

It may seem that I entered the military late in the war when lots of the danger was past but that is not the case. As far as Europe was concerned the late events of 1944. Battle of the Bulge was still t come. There was fighting across Europe. There was plenty of time to get killed. If you got sent to the Pacific as some of our outfit did with fighting in the Philippines or even Okinawa there was even more time. Because I was eventually sent to advanced training at Ft Sill and I had an accident which put me in the hospital with pneumonia in the end it turned out to be a stroke of luck. Although I almost died from pneumonia. But it was just the luck of the draw that as it turned out it was more like a camping trip gone bad. But back to basic training.

We arrived at Camp Roberts north of San Francisco at night from Ft. Lewis. As usual the army never tells you anything. So I had no idea what I was headed into. Infantry? Artillery? But there were some trucks. They marched us to across the parade ground. Someone asked the driver where we were going. He told us if it was the infantry we would be walking. That was a relief. I never got over that corn on my foot until I got out if basic training and didn't have to spend so much time on my feet. Because I stayed in the Artillery I wasn't bothered with corns. But to this day if I get on my feet too much I get a corn. I don't remember much of those first days. What does stand out in my mind was the week ends when my wife visited me from Seattle. After I had been there a while I was permitted passes on the week ends. She got a job at the Paso Robles Inn which burned down 10 or 20 years ago. Maybe more. Cleaning the mens and womens restrooms. She is way too good for me but she would do what had to be done.

It's a wonder I lived through basic not because I was in any danger to speak of but because on a couple weekends one of the guys lived in Modesto just north of Merced where I wanted to go to visit my dad and other relatives. He was a driving maniac. I don't remember the highway number but in those days over the mountains it was winding and not a good road. He would drive like there was no tomorrow. He had owned a garage in Modesto before being inducted. Anyway we made it OK. Here is a picture of Kay and me in the Merced park. The other picture is friends and us on Pismo Beach. Looks like placement of pictures on this blog is hard. Unless Google has a way of doing it that I dont know about. So bear with me and hope that as time goes by I will be able to overcome the inability of picture placement.


Meanwhile back at Camp Roberts we were mainly interested in weekends when we could meet our wives if they managed to come to Paso Robles to stay. One week end four of us went to Pismo beach which is near Paso Robles.




















I'll end this for now and get back with another page very soon. Today or even tomorrowl at the latest. Stay tuned


I don't know how to have you start at the beginning but scrool down to the first post and work from three. I'll improve as time goes by.