LIFE AFTER
EAST HIGH, PART 1
After graduating from East Nashville
High School, I had a job
with Sears while I did my first two years of college. At the city’s largest department store I sold
boy’s clothing and caught shoplifters. I
didn’t arrest shoplifters, but alerted the floorwalkers and assisted them in
several respects leading to arrests. In fact, I was a better detective than
salesperson.
But World War II was still
going on after several years of it and my older brother was in the Signal Corps
of the Army somewhere in Europe. Several cousins were also there and in Southeast Asia. I
wanted to see the long war over and America and our Allies the victor,
with our family’s menfolk once again home. I thought about all this and made a
decision.
Sears gave me an extra day
off but I left home that May morning as if I were going to work as usual. I
spent the day at the Naval Recruiting Office. No member of my family or any of
my friends knew what I was doing. I enlisted in the WAVES for the duration and
six months afterward.
I chose the Navy for several
reasons. The requirements for getting into it were higher than those for
getting into the WACS. To get into the latter a girl did not have to be a high
school graduate and could be only eighteen, whereas the WAVES demanded a high
school diploma and age twenty-one. I had had two years of college while also
working more than two years at Sears and the combination of these two filled a
requisite for Officers’ Candidate
School. I would aim for that.
Another reason for choosing
the WAVES was the uniform. The navy blues and the dress whites were beautiful,
designed by a prominent New York
couturier, Mainbocher. Khaki would have been terrible for me. I would have
wanted to add a bit of red to that uniform.
During the next thirty days,
while waiting for orders to head for boot training, I got somewhat frightened
about what I had done. Not being much into politics at that time, I considered
the war’s continuing for many more years and the military changing. I might actually have to fight. I did not
tell anyone of these fears, however, and was excited again when the official
papers arrived.
Of course, I already knew
boot training would be in New York
City and I had never been there. (This was before the
days when the average American thought nothing of getting on a plane and going anywhere.) I rode the train -- Pullman car -- from Nashville to The Bronx. I
was stationed at Hunter
College, which consisted
mainly of four large, rather grand, stone buildings, laid out in a square and
connected by exceptionally wide, light and comfortable underground tunnels with
concrete floors, which we would use when it rained.
Today, after we’ve all seen
wars on our television screens and in movies -- and some of us in reality -- it
is almost unbelievable when I relate my experience in the military. First, that
my training was in New York City.
Then, that we lived in civilian apartment houses which families had to give up
for the Navy’s purposes. My building was huge, with three wings and several
stories. Each apartment had an entry hall large enough to serve as a dining
area, two bedrooms, a kitchen and a bathroom
We were not allowed to use the kitchen, but we had to have it spotless
for Captain’s Inspection (white gloves). Each bedroom held two sets of bunks;
therefore, eight Waves lived in one apartment. Eight females to one bathroom
and one closet located between the bedrooms. No problem. We were kept to such a
rigid schedule no one had time to spend in front of a mirror. For the closet
each one had two sets of dress blues, two gray-striped seersucker dresses, two
white shirts, one blue shirt, appropriate ties and a second pair of “old-woman
laced and tied” shoes.
We each had one hat and it always
had to be with us. One day in Regimental Review, my hat blew off my head and
away. Since we were instructed never to break step while marching, even if the
one in front of us fainted in the heat, I marched on. My hat got back to
barracks before I did and was waiting for me.
We had the first shoulder
bags to be used by American women, black leather, its strap on our right
shoulder but the bag on our left hip, smart and practical. Perhaps that is why I can hardly endure the
current trend in huge handbags worn on only one side.
We had exactly seventeen
minutes for eating each meal, then dipped our metal trays in dirty water and
used a big brush to clear them before they went into a huge dishwasher. We
learned early on to turn up the cuffs of our raincoats before we began eating
or someone would say, “What’s up, Doc?”
“Updoc” was what you got on your sleeve if you didn’t.
Boot training lasted eight
weeks and I had a ball. Each floor of a wing of the apartment building had one
apartment set aside as a smoker. The girls who smoked and some who didn’t,
rushed to the smoker whenever there was a free five minutes. I did not, but
instead, wrote letters home. Later, they would be envious when at mail call I
would receive up to thirty letters a day.
An interesting situation in
Boot Training occurred when it was time for my platoon to have work detail for
one week. As we were billeted alphabetically and the work-detail jobs were also
listed alphabetically, the other seven girls in my apartment whose last
initials were “J,” “K” and one “L,” all got kitchen and laundry detail while I
got the library! They had to get up at five o’clock and don galoshes for their
watery work, while I didn’t get called till six o’clock. If they imagined I
slept in for another hour after their wake-up call, they were mistaken, for
even then the writer’s closest companion -- insomnia -- had already moved in to
stay. I got up right after they left, showered, scrubbed the tub and got
dressed in the uniform of the day and after breakfast, spent the rest of the
day in the library, talking mainly with the Padre and the Red Cross
Representative. Certainly no Boots came in for reading material.
Another reason for choosing
the Navy is that after Boot Training one automatically is promoted to the next
step. I became a Seaman, Second Class. And I was asked what kind of work I
would like to do. When I said Officers’ Candidate
School, I learned it had closed down
before I arrived in New York.
“They” had been working on part of The Bomb just down the highway at Oak Ridge, of course, but
they hadn’t told me. So, instead of attending OCS, I stayed on in New York for further
training in personnel supervision. After those four weeks I got another stripe
and was Seaman, First Class.
But while I was in Specialist School,
we celebrated V-E Day on Times Square and had
extended liberty. Four of us WAVES went together by subway. When we passed
sailors on the street, they would shake salt on the shoulders of our dress
blues from a shaker they’d picked up in some restaurant and called us “old
Salt.” The happiness among all the people there in the Square was really
something to behold.
Before the evening was over,
we ran into an Italian block party, the area roped off and with dancing in the
street. We sampled many Italian foods and turned down all the drinks. They
toasted us because we were in military uniform, treating us as if we had won
the war, when we had not even finished
our training. We had a wonderful night and got back to barracks on time.
