In 1988 I was asked to share experiences of my first days in the Corps with guests at the Marine Corps Anniversary Dinner at the Globe and Laurel in Triangle Virginia. The majority in attendance were active duty Marines, stationed at the Marine Base, Quantico, Virginia and their wives. Many of the wives in attendance had not seen a uniform such as I wore and I was asked, 1- Was I a Marine ? and 2- Was my uniform from WW I or II ? The uniform I wore- that evening was my regulation Greens from 1945 with the medals and ribbons I had earned in WW II.

Following is more or less what I discussed with them.

ENLISTMENT

The war in the Pacific had been going badly for the US throughout the winter and spring of 1942. The news of the war that summer was still not good and for weeks I'd been emotionally disturbed about what I could and should do to help out. My friends of the time all agreed they would have to be drafted and if they were lucky, maybe they would not be needed in the military. My feeling was if I don't join some branch of the service and do my part, will there be others willing to fight and die to preserve my freedom and that of my parents? My dad had fought the Germans in France in 1918, was I less of an American than my dad had been, was I less of a man than he? I reasoned that if we don't have young men who will defend our country, will we continue to be a free or a conquered people? I wondered whether I would be good enough, brave enough, strong enough for here I was a mere 130 pounder. The longer I thought, about it the more ashamed I was in having such thoughts. Looking ahead to the future and regardless of how the war might end, I asked myself, would I be able to live with myself if I failed to do my part? Who will stop the enemy? If not me, who? It soon became very clear, no one could do my job but me. Then I had to decide what my job should be.

On October 15, 1942 I had sorted out all the questions and answers for each when I walked into the United States Marine Recruiting Station and signed up. To permit me time to settle whatever had to be settled, my enlistment papers gave me until November 6, on which date I was to report to the same office at 9 A.M.

I didn't have much to settle but this delay gave me time to visit with relatives and especially to spend a weekend with my grandfather, Olaf Brandvold. My other grandparents had all died previously and he was living alone in the little town of Cyrus, Minnesota. The bus stopped at the general store which was a half block from the corner where grandpa's white 2 story house stood. He was at the general store to meet me as I got off the bus and we went to the cafe next door where he introduced me to the proprietor and a couple of his retired farmer friends. I remember we had a hamburger with onions, apple pie and a cup of coffee before crossing the street and walking the half block to his house.

We didn't do anything special, just talked about things that happened during the summers my mother, brother and I had spent with him and grandma on the farm. Sunday the cafe was closed so we didn't get back to the cafe until Monday morning and had a little to eat while waiting for my bus to arrive. He didn't cook, neither did I so on Sunday we had his favorite meal milk and sugar over broken slices of bread. I still enjoy bread and milk this way once in awhile.

INDUCTION AND TRAVEL ORDERS

At the assigned hour on 6 November 1942, my parents accompanied me to the Recruiting Station, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. There I met 17 other Marine recruits, who were to travel with me to the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California. The 18 of us came from North and South Dakota and Minnesota, the majority were American Indians. I don't think any knew each other before this meeting.

Before induction there were papers to sign and instructions given by the Recruiting Sergeant and questions answered. The swearing in took only a few minutes, after which travel orders and meal tickets were handed out. One of our group was designated as being in charge of the group until we were received by a Marine upon arrival at the recruit depot. Undisciplined as we were, putting one of us in charge proved to have little effect. With that we were directed to pick up our bags and march across the street to the train depot.

I suspect that in today's Marine Corps it would be unusual for a recruit to travel by train under a government travel order. Whereas in 1942 I traveled by train from Minneapolis to Omaha, then to Texas and on to California. The trip took about 3 1/2 days. One meal ticket that I was given but never used; and still have provided that I be furnished one meal at the government's contract, rate of $ .40 for supper.

At that time, 1942, the fastest trains from the midwest to the west coast went from Chicago to Los Angeles or San Francisco. They were the "City" trains, that is The City of Los Angeles was one and the other was The City of San Francisco. Both were the crack trains of the 40's. They advertised that the time for the trip was 38 hours. Our transportation was not by a "City" train but a Special train and was scheduled to make the trip in 72 hours but it took a little longer than that - about 80 hours - in Coach class. As we began our trip we were not concerned about the long hours it would take to San Diego or that it was coach class. Most of us had never been away from home, never been out of our home state and never traveled by train. For most it was to be a new experience. I guess I was somewhat an exception for I had ridden on trains three or four times as a youngster when my mother had taken my brother and me to spend those vacations during the summer with my grandparents out on the farm. These trips were all within the State, not beyond its boarders.

It was early afternoon before the train finally pulled out of the station and we were finally on our way. Our train stopped frequently along the way, at cities, towns, and rail yards to add and/or switch cars, take on coal, water or change train crews. We also stopped at other times by pulling into sidings to allow oncoming trains or faster ones to pass ours on the same rails. We never knew how long the train would be holed up on a siding or in a town and no one we talked to seemed to know either. Often we were permitted to get off the train during a stop to stretch our 1egs, but were warned not to wander off and to return to the train when told to by the conductor, for the reason that the engineer would take off as the train was ready to roll and would not wait to pick up passengers who wandered off.

Of course we were too young to be served beer on the train and although most of us didn't care about that, (some of us had yet to acquire a taste for the bitter brew). There were a few in our group who did; and after a night and a day and another night on the train, long stops, short stops, scenery became monotonous. We were bored and restless. A few of our group decided to run into town, when the train next stopped at a town; to attempt to get some beer. It worked out well for them the first time they tried it, and one or two of them had made a buy and got safely back unto the train.

Others on the train became envious and decided that at the next stop in or near a town that they too would run into the town to make a buy. When the train rolled to a stop at the next town, a half a dozen or so jumped from the train and ran into this little western town looking for a tavern to make a buy. This had been the wrong town. It was indeed a gamble, and one which they lost. This stop lasted only a couple minutes. As usual when the engineer was ready he gave a couple of blasts on his steam whistle, released the brakes and the train begin to roll. Two of the guys that had jumped from cars farther back in the train were close enough to make a dash to the train and while the train was lugging to get up to speed they caught up and were helped back onto the train. Needless to say for the rest of the journey no one tried to quicky run into a town.

It was quite late in the evening when our train finally arrived at the depot in San Diego and as we got off the train with our suitcases in hand we were met by a large Marine Master Sergeant in Dress Blues. He had an arm full of hash marks. We were told to line up with our suitcases. Our travel orders were asked for and provided by our acting Marine in charge. Roll was taken and it was learned that we were short 2 recruits. I never saw again the 2 who disappeared off the train at the little Western town and never heard any more about them.

We were transported from the train depot by Marine Corps bus to the United States Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. Once inside the base, we saw that all of the permanent buildings had been painted with large irregular patterns of gray, dark green and brown to camouflage them from the air should any hostile aircraft penetrate our coastal defense network. We were told that the Walt Disney Studios and others had cleverly camouflaged many of the aircraft and other war industries facilities throughout California. From the air some factory roofs looked like golf courses, others looked like residential areas. We were told that Coastal Defense gun emplacements and radars lined the coast and many emplacements were atop hotels and other strategically placed buildings in coastal cities.

Upon entering the base our bus circled around and finally came to a halt at the Receiving Barracks, where we would spend the night. Once again we were ordered to line up with our suitcases, instructed to follow our leader in single file into the building. Being that the hour was late we were assigned bunks for the night, shown where the washroom was located and given 15 minutes to lights out. With lights out and in a clean bunk, sleep came quickly even though a few of the lights out type stories were told.

Our comfort was short lived, maybe 4 hours when we needed 20. Suddenly the lights were back on and a shrill whistle announcing reveille shook the walls. A graveled voice barked for us to "Drop your - - - and to grab our socks, get up and at 'em, pull those sheets off the bunk and fold them like they were when you got them last night. Roll the mattress like it was when you arrived, place the folded sheet on the end of your bunk. Today is going to be a busy day, so don't dally. Get yourselves washed up. Leave your suitcases on your bunk and fall out in 5 minutes, and line up in a column of twos."

It was still dark outside as we were urged to run toward the mess hall. There we were required to stand in formation and wait our turn.. In the semi light of the early morning we heard for first time the greeting, "You'll be sorry!" Naturally we adopted the greeting and used it ourselves on every appropriate occasion while in Boot Camp. And as far as our first breakfast, the chow was good, compared to the food we'd become accustomed to on the train.

After breakfast our first indoctrination was an appointment with the barber. There were several barbers at work. They seemed very friendly and accommodating, asking each of us how we wanted our hair trimmed before they began working on us. Of course they were pulling our leg. I can't say that anyone working as a barber had ever had a day of training to cut hair. For that matter they didn't need training for what they did. I must say it didn't take them long before they were done and we were bare headed. Where once hair had waved with the breeze now there was nothing but skin. Our appearances changed completely and we had a few laughs among ourselves. At first it was hard to recognize the guys we had spent 3 days traveling across country with but we had little time to dwell on the haircuts.

After a little paper work we were scheduled for an inspection and a visit to the Quartermaster to be outfitted with Marine gear. We were each given a box and an address label, to be made out where we wanted our personal belongings to be sent. We were told to place in the box all personal clothing, radios, cameras, knifes and anything else we might have brought with us including what we were wearing, even the underwear, socks and shoes. Candy or poggy bait was to be turned over to the quartermaster staff but we could keep our wristwatches and shaving equipment. With all our worldly possessions in the box we were to seal the boxes and leave them where they could be picked up and mailed back for us. With that done we were to fall out and form 2 rows - in the nude. This was embarrassing. I had never been nude in front of anyone much less a platoon of Marine recruits. This was my first exposure to an inspection of any kind and it was called our Short Arm inspection. The inspecting medic merely walked past and made a casual visual glance at each recruit. Everyone appeared to have passed inspection. It turned out that this was to determine if any of the recruits had an obvious venereal disease.

We were then rushed into the Quartermaster section, given a pail, a scrub brush, a couple towels, green tee shirts and boxer shorts, socks, pale green herring bone dungaree pants and jacket, belt and mess gear. With these items draped over our bucket which we had to set down temporarily, we were told to place our feet on the marks with the heels against, the board, then pick up two pails of sand. A quartermaster clerk who supervised this activity called out the size of boots known as boon dockers for each of us. Another quartermaster clerk, standing within the racks of boots, picked out the corresponding size and flung them boomerang style toward the recruit. To prevent my head from being cut off by the laces that tied the boots together, I instinctively raised my right arm to block the flying missile. Now mind you I weighed in at 130 pounds and had never worn a shoe larger than a size 7 1/2. The size called for by the shoe fitter quartermaster was "9". I attempted to object and was told to pick up my gear and move on, that I would learn in time that this was my size.

Later when I put the boots on and laced them as tight as they would go, it felt like they would fall off when I lifted my feet. Of course, they didn't fall off but they gave me an awful lot of room. We were given boot polish and instructed how to put a spit shine on these rough out leather boon dockers. They were worn to drill in, run, crawl through sand and stand inspection in, at which time they must have a high sheen. Sand was used to attempt to remove as much roughness as possible. We also took matches and burned off what we could of the roughage, then came the polish. The polish was ignited with a match to liquefy it for ease in penetrating the leather. Then mixed with spit the polish was worked into the Marine Corps' spit shined boots. Of course this had to be done ASAP and was accomplished in one setting.

Another duty we were given that day and which had to be mastered immediately if not sooner was the scouring of our mess gear. I don't recall that anyone actually became sick from unclean mess gear but we all wondered if we might. These were issued with a dull oxidation of something that coated the pan, its cover, the canteen and canteen cup. Since these were to be used to eat from during boot camp and in the field all of the oxidation had to be cleaned off. Our only scouring aid was to rub them with sand. The knife, fork and spoon, made of a different material, didn't require sand blasting. Another difficult task. We were beginning to learn that a difficult job was one that a Marine would perform immediately, and that an impossible job would take a Marine a little longer.

Before we knew it, it was soon noon chow time, and again we were greeted by the friendly troops greeting us as newcomers. If we thought breakfast was good, we were dumbfounded with our lunch. It was a banquet consisting of turkey and stuffing, cranberries and yams, mashed potatoes, hot tolls, milk and pumpkin pie. Our prayers had been answered - we were in heaven. We were thrilled with the food but quickly learned, we would not eat like this every day, that this was a special day, for it was the Marine Corps' Birthday. Today November 10, 1942 was the 167th anniversary of the Marine Corps. We had left Minneapolis on November 6 and arrived at Boot Camp on the evening of November 9, 1942.

That afternoon we were issued a helmet and a Garand Mark I rifle, one of the first platoons at San Diego Recruit Depot to be issued an M1. Other recruit platoons were drilling with the bolt action 03s. More will be said about drilling and learning which foot to step off with and the difference between a left flank and a right flank. In the hours after supper, we were sitting in the sand working on our boondockers and our mess gear.