YEAR ???

As I remember it, this cruise was divided into 3 parts, Pensacola, for flight ground school. Outlying fields for flight instruction, and Little Creek MCB, for marine indoctrination. We all gathered at Norfolk Naval Station, VA, where we were assigned billets on s special train to Pensacola Fla. I know we traveled on an old seldom-used track, because along the way, tree branches were constantly hitting the windows. I was lucky, I guess, because I was assigned a stateroom. As it turned out though, this became a marathon card game. The second day, we were surprised to be greeted by cheering crowds, as we passed through some of the Georgia small towns. There was a lot of flags waiving and banners of Good Luck Soldiers, Go get em Yanks, and other of the like, much to our bewilderment. We had no idea what all the excitement was about. Later on, we got a newspaper that was passed to us in one town, and we learned that the North Koreans had crossed the 38th parallel and were attacking the south.

When we arrived at Pensacola, I gathered that we were somewhat in the way, they had gone into high gear to get all possible pilots through basic and transferred to Texas, to learn to fly the new Jet fighters. They just didn't have much time for us. We did take, and complete the navy ground school qualifications, but that's about all we accomplished there. One weekend, the ladies of Pensacola town threw a dance for us, at the base gym, with all the trimmings, all the beautiful young ladies, an orchestra, punch, and finger sandwiches. We got all dressed up in our dress blues and went in. All the girls were white; all our middies were not. Soon there was a loud discussion at the entryway, about refusing to allow a dark looking middie to enter. There was a lot of discussion, amongst the officers, and a settlement"?" was reached. They were going to hang up a brown paper shopping bag at the entrance; anyone darker would be refused entrance to the dance. The word quietly spread around the room, no one liked this situation at all. Much to my pleasure, the Midshipman Commander called us all to fall in ranks, we formed up, and he marched us out of there much to the horror of the parents and officers. The next day, we were called to account for our actions. Our common reply was, this was a Midshipman's dance, That's all Midshipmen, or none. There was nothing in the invitation that stated only those of a certain color were invited, in fact it was put forth as an all hands evolution. They were caught by their own notices, and all charges were dropped.