Boot Camp was a bitch...but an excellant teacher.
I went home on leave in December of '69, and realized how really immature my close
High School friends really were, as if I had been away for years instead of 11 weeks.

I left for Great Lakes eager to start Electronics Technicians A School in the nuke program.

I lost a good friend today.
JD and I were close to the same age, went into the Navy within a couple of years of each other ( me in '69, JD in '72), became ETs ( he went Comm, I was Radar), both wound up working for hp as Techs in '80. With the Navy in common, we were able to, for the lack of a better phrase "agree to disagree" on current events and issues ... because, after all was said and done, we remained shipmates, just assigned to different ships.

I thought this would be a good way to recall my Navy service. The bad memories fade with time, and the 10 years, seven months I spent in the Navy were mostly good times.