I first discovered this great site back in July. I didn't have to lurk for too long to realize that I wanted to be part of what y'all are doin' here.
There was a nostalgia thread goin' and it had some great stuff in it. One of the most enjoyable threads I've seen...that didn't have pic of guns in it.
Now that I'm an old coot with more good days behind me than ahead I seem to be spending more and more time in the past. Only natural I suppose but anyway you can see why I love these nostalgia threads.
I have had a very full and rich life and I've taken the time to recall and record some things while I can still remember them. I hope that y'all will humor me and not object to an occasional trip back to the sunny slopes of long ago.
Here's one from my military daze:
ADVENTURES AT THE BAR FIRST CHANCE
or
The dangers of letting your mouth write checks
That your butt can't cash
In January of '64 I was stationed on Okinawa and I was
selected to be part of a medical team to go to a
marine camp at the base of Mt. Fuji, Japan, as Medical
support for part of the 3rd Marine Divisions foul weather training. I don't know who's idea it was to use this
sight for this purpose but it was a good choice. We
could rarely see the top of the mountain for the
cloudy skies. The temperature would hover just above
the freezing mark then it would snow. Then it would
rain for a day or so, turning all the snow into a
muddy slop. Then the temperature would plummet to the
single digits and we'd spend the next few days
walking/sliding around on frozen mud. Then it would
snow like hell for a few days and begin the cycle all
over again. Can y'all spell MISERABLE?!?
The camp itself was a sordid little set up. Very
primitive, very spartan. I don't guess I expected much
in the way of amenities or creature comforts...after
all the point of this whole exercise was foul weather
training. I suppose I'm a poor candidate for cold
weather service, having grown up on the warm Texas
Gulf Coast, I just couldn't seem to learn to
appreciate taking a cold water shower, standing on a
pallet in the mud with a couple of feeble streams of
freezing water on me when the air around me was below
freezing. They shoulda called it "pneumonia training"
Everything was tents. I lived in a tent that was lined
with parachute silk with an oil burning stove right in
the center. The floor was pallets laid right on the
dirt. There was about one foot area around the stove
to have your cot in a good warming zone. 6 inches to
close and your apt to wake up with your hair and your
sleeping bag on fire, 6 inches to far away and you
could expect to wake up with ice cicles on you and
your lips and eyes frozen shut.
One tent served as a sort of enlisted mens club. One
night a guy had his guitar out and he was singing and
playing some mellow tunes and I had a bottle of White
Horse Scotch. I sat around the stove drinking and
singing along and having a very fine evening. Before I
knew it I was snot slingin', knee walkin' drunk. I
walked outside and the cold hit me in the face like a
Mike Tyson punch. There was nearly 2 feet of snow on
the ground and when I got back to my tent the remains
of my dinner and all that scotch came back up and I
melted a 2 foot crater in the snow, all the way to the
ground. To this day I can't even tolerate the smell of
scotch.
There was a little town just a short ways up the road
from the camp. The name of it was Gotemba. It was
little more than a collection of bars with an
occasional noodle house or store of some kind. As you
come into the town the first thing you come to was a
bar, on the right side of the road and it was called
the Bar First Chance. On the same side of the road a
"benjo ditch" or sewer ran along parallel to the road.
It was unusual in that it was banked with concrete,
they are usually just dirt. It was about 8 feet deep
and at it's bottom ran a small, constant stream of RAW
sewage.
There was a narrow foot bridge over the benjo ditch
and a path to the door of the Bar First Chance. On
either side of the bridge there was half a wagon wheel
which served as a hand/safety rail.
This was my favorite hang out for the obvious reason
that it was the "first chance" to park my butt on a
bar stool and tank up. The, ahhh, uhhh, errr,
"hostesses" were friendly and the marines were quite a
good group of guys. Sometimes it would get a little
rough but there was never any malice or hard feelings.
Just a bunch of good guys, tired from a hard day of
training how to kill and maim, blowing off a little
steam.
On this particular occasion, it had been raining and
as a result the benjo ditch was running a little
deeper than usual, about 1 1/2' if I remember
correctly. We had a midnight curfew and it was getting
close to that time so I started heading out. We had
been having a rousing time and spirits were high. On
the foot bridge, I stopped and leaned my butt against
one of the half wagon wheels and as a small group of
marines passed I issued forth the challenge, "I bet
there ain't one of you grunts big enough to
knock....". That was as far as I got. I don't remember
going over the wheel but the next thing I new I was
sitting in the very bottom of the benjo ditch. I was
so plastered that I was unaware of any bumps or
bruises or that I was sitting in a river of, well, no
need to be too graphic here I suppose. I remember
thinking how funny it seemed at the time. The guys
were all looking down at me and laughing up a storm. I
was laughing right along with them.
Eventually they left and I was left with task of
getting out of the benjo ditch and getting back on the
base before midnight. To my shock and disappointment,
I discover that the grade was too steep and I was too
drunk and to wet and slippery to to get out. The
expression "in a world of ****" comes to mind. I
suppose that I went to sleep or passed out shortly
after that because I don't remember anything else till
about 7:30 the next morning.
I was sitting with my eyes open, trying to recall just
how it came to be that I was sitting in a river of
sewage freezing nearly to death when I was aware of
the sound of children laughing and giggling. I looked
up to see a small group of kids, in their school
uniforms, on their way to school who had just paused
briefly to laugh at the "stinko" GI. By this time I
was sober enough to be aware of the reality of my
situation and it didn't seem so funny at that point. I
started trying to get out of the benjo ditch and about
that time a jeep with a couple of MPs pulled up and
read me the riot act. Fortunately for me the Sargent
was a guy that I had given penicillin shots to, on the
QT, for treatment of a social disease so he was happy
to cut me some slack. They got me back on the base and
let me go with a warning NOT to repeat that behavior
again. Believe me when I tell ya that I had absolutely
NO intentions of doing so.
It was quite some time before I could see all the
humor in that deal. The guy that knocked me off the
bridge felt bad about leaving me there but a few beers
later we were the best of pals again. I learned not to
go around letting my alligator mouth overload my
hummin' bird ***, too...a valuable lesson.
There was a nostalgia thread goin' and it had some great stuff in it. One of the most enjoyable threads I've seen...that didn't have pic of guns in it.
Now that I'm an old coot with more good days behind me than ahead I seem to be spending more and more time in the past. Only natural I suppose but anyway you can see why I love these nostalgia threads.
I have had a very full and rich life and I've taken the time to recall and record some things while I can still remember them. I hope that y'all will humor me and not object to an occasional trip back to the sunny slopes of long ago.
Here's one from my military daze:
ADVENTURES AT THE BAR FIRST CHANCE
or
The dangers of letting your mouth write checks
That your butt can't cash
In January of '64 I was stationed on Okinawa and I was
selected to be part of a medical team to go to a
marine camp at the base of Mt. Fuji, Japan, as Medical
support for part of the 3rd Marine Divisions foul weather training. I don't know who's idea it was to use this
sight for this purpose but it was a good choice. We
could rarely see the top of the mountain for the
cloudy skies. The temperature would hover just above
the freezing mark then it would snow. Then it would
rain for a day or so, turning all the snow into a
muddy slop. Then the temperature would plummet to the
single digits and we'd spend the next few days
walking/sliding around on frozen mud. Then it would
snow like hell for a few days and begin the cycle all
over again. Can y'all spell MISERABLE?!?
The camp itself was a sordid little set up. Very
primitive, very spartan. I don't guess I expected much
in the way of amenities or creature comforts...after
all the point of this whole exercise was foul weather
training. I suppose I'm a poor candidate for cold
weather service, having grown up on the warm Texas
Gulf Coast, I just couldn't seem to learn to
appreciate taking a cold water shower, standing on a
pallet in the mud with a couple of feeble streams of
freezing water on me when the air around me was below
freezing. They shoulda called it "pneumonia training"
Everything was tents. I lived in a tent that was lined
with parachute silk with an oil burning stove right in
the center. The floor was pallets laid right on the
dirt. There was about one foot area around the stove
to have your cot in a good warming zone. 6 inches to
close and your apt to wake up with your hair and your
sleeping bag on fire, 6 inches to far away and you
could expect to wake up with ice cicles on you and
your lips and eyes frozen shut.
One tent served as a sort of enlisted mens club. One
night a guy had his guitar out and he was singing and
playing some mellow tunes and I had a bottle of White
Horse Scotch. I sat around the stove drinking and
singing along and having a very fine evening. Before I
knew it I was snot slingin', knee walkin' drunk. I
walked outside and the cold hit me in the face like a
Mike Tyson punch. There was nearly 2 feet of snow on
the ground and when I got back to my tent the remains
of my dinner and all that scotch came back up and I
melted a 2 foot crater in the snow, all the way to the
ground. To this day I can't even tolerate the smell of
scotch.
There was a little town just a short ways up the road
from the camp. The name of it was Gotemba. It was
little more than a collection of bars with an
occasional noodle house or store of some kind. As you
come into the town the first thing you come to was a
bar, on the right side of the road and it was called
the Bar First Chance. On the same side of the road a
"benjo ditch" or sewer ran along parallel to the road.
It was unusual in that it was banked with concrete,
they are usually just dirt. It was about 8 feet deep
and at it's bottom ran a small, constant stream of RAW
sewage.
There was a narrow foot bridge over the benjo ditch
and a path to the door of the Bar First Chance. On
either side of the bridge there was half a wagon wheel
which served as a hand/safety rail.
This was my favorite hang out for the obvious reason
that it was the "first chance" to park my butt on a
bar stool and tank up. The, ahhh, uhhh, errr,
"hostesses" were friendly and the marines were quite a
good group of guys. Sometimes it would get a little
rough but there was never any malice or hard feelings.
Just a bunch of good guys, tired from a hard day of
training how to kill and maim, blowing off a little
steam.
On this particular occasion, it had been raining and
as a result the benjo ditch was running a little
deeper than usual, about 1 1/2' if I remember
correctly. We had a midnight curfew and it was getting
close to that time so I started heading out. We had
been having a rousing time and spirits were high. On
the foot bridge, I stopped and leaned my butt against
one of the half wagon wheels and as a small group of
marines passed I issued forth the challenge, "I bet
there ain't one of you grunts big enough to
knock....". That was as far as I got. I don't remember
going over the wheel but the next thing I new I was
sitting in the very bottom of the benjo ditch. I was
so plastered that I was unaware of any bumps or
bruises or that I was sitting in a river of, well, no
need to be too graphic here I suppose. I remember
thinking how funny it seemed at the time. The guys
were all looking down at me and laughing up a storm. I
was laughing right along with them.
Eventually they left and I was left with task of
getting out of the benjo ditch and getting back on the
base before midnight. To my shock and disappointment,
I discover that the grade was too steep and I was too
drunk and to wet and slippery to to get out. The
expression "in a world of ****" comes to mind. I
suppose that I went to sleep or passed out shortly
after that because I don't remember anything else till
about 7:30 the next morning.
I was sitting with my eyes open, trying to recall just
how it came to be that I was sitting in a river of
sewage freezing nearly to death when I was aware of
the sound of children laughing and giggling. I looked
up to see a small group of kids, in their school
uniforms, on their way to school who had just paused
briefly to laugh at the "stinko" GI. By this time I
was sober enough to be aware of the reality of my
situation and it didn't seem so funny at that point. I
started trying to get out of the benjo ditch and about
that time a jeep with a couple of MPs pulled up and
read me the riot act. Fortunately for me the Sargent
was a guy that I had given penicillin shots to, on the
QT, for treatment of a social disease so he was happy
to cut me some slack. They got me back on the base and
let me go with a warning NOT to repeat that behavior
again. Believe me when I tell ya that I had absolutely
NO intentions of doing so.
It was quite some time before I could see all the
humor in that deal. The guy that knocked me off the
bridge felt bad about leaving me there but a few beers
later we were the best of pals again. I learned not to
go around letting my alligator mouth overload my
hummin' bird ***, too...a valuable lesson.
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