As a Midshipman you have many choices surface, submarine, pilot, marine, under water demolition available. In order to get a feel for the possibilities the cruise between sophomore and junior year exposed us to a few of these options.

Our first segment of this cruise was to take place in Corpus Christi, Texas. We were to experience life as an AViation CADet (AVCAD). This was the program Richard Gere was attending in the movie An Officer and a Gentleman. Uniforms for this summer will mostly be dungarees and the blue banded dixie cup with our officer type uniform for special events and liberty (off duty hours). Our shoe supply has been supplemented with what are called Boon Dockers (steel-toed ankle high shoes). These are to be worn with our dungaree uniform and will provide protection if we have to bail out of the aircraft.

When we first report we are introduced to our first Drill Instructor (DI). In our case we would have several DIs as we traveled from training site to site. These are people you love to hate. They seem to be up and going before we are and up after we go to bed exhausted. Yet they march with us, they show us how to do things, they yell at us, they seem indestructible.

DIs are specially trained and amazingly consistent. They are teachers and their teaching is designed to get the point across quickly and precisely. They teach through example as well as intimidation. They teach physical fitness, discipline, teamwork as well as special skills.

It didn’t take long for the DI to get our attention. Our uniforms were to be properly folded and stored and we were to maintain our 6 man rooms so as to pass inspection at any time. We did a lot of pushups and marching. Our Wednesday marching drills had only crudely prepared us for this type of marching. At school we marched around a small field, here we marched form place to place. On an air station things can be a long ways apart.

We were introduced to Texas sandspurs in a most unpleasant way. The Obstacle Course (now called Confidence Courses) included a place where we were to crawl under some barbed wire, it seemed to be lined with them. Obstacle courses can be run two ways, as a team, and solo. Most of the time we ran it as teams and were able to help each other where there were weaknesses. My biggest problem was the solid 8-foot wall. You run and jump to catch the top then pull yourself up and over and jump down the other side. I always needed help on that one and it would come to help me in the future. I would soon find that there were courses that made this one look like a playground. We had plenty of opportunities to practice this course.

We also got the opportunity to find out what flying a plane was like. We went to a basic ground school that covered little more than safety procedures, including bailing out of a T-34. Then we were given the chance to make 4 flights in the T-34, the primary training aircraft used by the Navy. The T-34 of that day was a convention engine, low wing, aerobatics capable, two man aircraft. It had two fully instrumented positions located one in front of the other. There were no ejection seats, if you needed to get out you opened the canopy and dove over the side trying to aim for the wing so that you got below the tail. It was emphasized that we should try to hit the wing, that there was no way we could do so, but if we didn’t try the tail could clip us.

My first flight was on a typical Texas summer day, hot and humid. I was nervous with anticipation and excitement. According to the briefing it was going to be a nice easy flight. We would fly out to the training area then I would have a chance to fly the plane as the pilot talked me through what the various controls and instruments were. If I felt up to it the pilot would show some of the maneuvers the use on a day to day basis. Since this was the first we would do no more than I felt capable of handling.

The flight to the area was uneventful. Once we arrived the pilot said, "She’s all yours" and turned over controls to me. He taught me about trim tabs, little pieces of the wing and tail that could be adjusted to minimize pressure on the control stick. Without trim tabs you might have to make an entire flight pulling or pushing on the stick just to fly straight and level.

Then it was time to learn to turn the plane. It seemed obvious that moving the stick to the right should turn the plane to the right and, in a sense, that is correct, however, moving the stick just changes the position of the wings so that the right wing is lower than the left. Soon the nose starts to lower and there is some movement to the right, but hardly the desired result. I learn about coordinating rudder and stick to achieve the desired result.

The flight has been going well and it is time to experience the joys of Naval Aviation. The pilot took control and took me through demonstrations of a loop, aileron roll, minimum radius turn, and a hammer head stall. The hammerhead stall is an interesting maneuver. The plane is put into a vertical climb until the engine just can’t pull it any higher. Then as the plane starts to fall back to earth you kick the rudder over to get the nose headed towards the earth. Once the speed has built back, pull out of the dive.

Everything went well and as we headed back to the air station the events of the day must have caught up to me. Fortunately, they had provided us all with air sick bags. I reach under my leg, pulled out and filled my bag before we entered the pattern. This was the first and only time I ever got airsick.

We had our requisite ‘tea party’, where the young ladies of the area all congregated to meet, dance with, and invite out the visiting Midshipmen. We were supposed to be in uniform whenever we were on liberty. Of course, when we left the base we would head for the nearest gas station. We would remove our caps, blouses (jackets), and ties and head out on the town or to Padre Island in our white shirts, dark trousers, highly shined shoes, and close haircuts. We never figuring anyone would take us for midshipmen.

Here is one other example of life with a DI. One day the DI scheduled us for a room inspection. We knew this was going to be tough so we went all out, scrubbing corners with tooth brushes, wearing socks over our shoes, so we didn’t scuff the floor, covering doorknobs until the last minute. We thought we had covered every conceivable item. At the appointed hour we were ready. We stood by our bunks as the DI checked the windows, the floors, the hospital corners on our bunks, and our lockers. Everything was looking good until he lifted the mattress on one of the bunks and rubbed his white glove around the springs. He stood in front of us with his slightly discolored glove finger upraised and declared the inspection totally unsatisfactory. He proceeded to declare us not only unfit as future Naval Officers, but also as human beings. He decreed that we should demonstrate our unworthiness by doing a series of pushups before we cleaned the room again. Obviously, the inspection could never be passed.

What is the point of this type of treatment? It gave us a focus for any anger or resentment. It showed us what it was like to be under pressure to accomplish a task. It showed us how authority could be exerted upon those under that authority. It showed us that no matter how completely we though through something, there could always be something that we would overlook and most importantly it unified us as a team to complete a task. We were single minded in our efforts to clean that room. We had experienced being an underling with an over bearing boss. Of course, at the time, all of this was beyond my grasp.

The rest of our time was spent marching, exercising, running the obstacle course, and completing our other orientation flights. I had not properly broken in my shoes and spent a couple of days in the infirmary paying for that oversight. I did not, however, miss-out on my additional flights or an exciting experience in the ejection seat trainer. This gives the prospective aviator a feel for what it is like to eject from an aircraft. I can say from experience, it is a very realistic trainer.

I had always felt that I wanted to fly, but this experience confirmed my intentions. I wanted to be a Navy Pilot and fly jet fighters.

This, however, was not the end of our indoctrination into the various options available to us as Midshipmen. We were loaded on military transport aircraft for a flight to San Diego, California where we were to continue our training.

Our first stop was at the U.D.T. (Underwater Demolition Team) base on the strand a Coronado. We were introduced to another friendly Drill Instructor who decided to take us on a tour of the base before we went to our barracks. Fortunately, we didn’t have to take our baggage with us because the tour was at a double-time march. It turned out that all movement around the base would be conducted at double-time.

Our sleeping area was a barracks where all the Middies were together in a single room and our head (bathroom and showers) were in a building that wasn’t even very far away. This week was to be very intensive physically. Our day would start before dawn with the DI throwing open the door and kicking a metal shit can (trash can) the length of the room and announcing that we were already late for morning exercises. We had five minutes to be outside in the exercise area for morning calisthenics. It was true, by the time we were awakened and in uniform (in this case our boon docks, bell-bottom dungarees, tee shirt, and dixie caps) we found the base alive with men who had already been exercising and in some cases swimming in the Pacific.

We did our morning exercises and were allowed a few minutes to shower and take care of personal needs before we double-timed to breakfast. We then double-timed to the beach where we were introduced to a new and different obstacle course. There were only similarities to the nice gentle course we had left in Texas. The crawl under the barbed wire may not have had the sandspurs, but it must have been five times longer. All the tasks were longer, higher, or just plane different. The plane wall was higher, there was a cargo net climb, a tower where each of the four levels was slightly larger than the one below. On this incredible torture device you had to jump out and up to grab hold of the deck above and swing your body up and over the edge. Failure at any level resulted in a rapid return to the sand below and the worst thing was the more successful you were the higher you got on the tower the further you fell.

This amazing course was demonstrated by a couple of S.E.A.L. candidates who ran the entire course like it was nothing. We were then allowed to try our hand at it. Fortunately, we were not timed and only needed to demonstrate a valiant effort at each obstacle. By the time we had exhausted ourselves it was off for a quick dip in the ocean. We were hot and sweaty with sand sticking to our uniforms, so it sounded good to us. This, however, was U.D.T training and so we were to take our dip as we were shoes and all. My strongest memory was how incredibly cold the water was compared to what I was used to on southern Cape Cod.

By the time we finished our swim we were double-timed to the mess hall for lunch. We were not alone in our wet uniforms. It seems that trainees are very rarely dry at this school. After lunch we were introduced to the sand pile. This was a dump truck load of sand that was piled at the edge of our workout area. We were informed that we were all bulldozers and it was our task to spread the sand around by running at the pile and diving in chest first to spread the sand as much as possible. Even after all these years I do not understand the logic of this one. We did out best and dove at the pile repeatedly. This went on for over an hour. We were then allowed a 30-minute period to recover and take care of personal needs. Then it was off to class at what always seemed to be the other end of the base from wherever we happened to be.

We repeated a similar routine for the remainder of our stay. We did have a few nights when we were allowed off base, but we were so exhausted few braved the night-lights. At this time San Diego was a ferryboat ride away and we were discouraged from making the trip. Our ‘tea party’ for this segment was quite spectacular. It was held at the Hotel Coronado and by this time we had figured out what was going on, but we truly enjoyed the break in the routine.

This experience, while quit memorable, did not discourage my from my desire to become an aviator.