Navy schooling

In the late 1950s, the world was a very different place than it is today.

We were just a decade from the end of World War II, and we were involved in a cold war.

Sputnik

Russia had just launched the Sputnik satellite. Everyone was concerned that it could hear every conversation in America, see everything Americans were doing, and launch A-bombs into the heartlands of America. This was not true: it was only 184 lbs (83.6 kg) and 23 inches (58cm) in diameter. It did have a receiver and a 1-watt transmitter. In today's inventory of megaton weapons, megawatt radios and television transmitters, and space stations that house dozens of astronauts, this is not only absurd; it is laughable. As I said earlier, the world was a very different place than it is today.

Sputnik was one of the deciding reasons I joined the Navy.

I joined the Navy with an enlistment score of 96, and I was given my choice of schools. I was already a ham radio operator and working in a neighborhood pharmacy, so I chose electronics.

Recruit Training Command, Great Lakes

Boot camp, for me, was a breeze. I had been in California Cadet Corp, a form of junior Army ROTC. I knew about close-order drills, uniform care, and rifle ranges.

I was asked to be in charge of my company of about 50 sailor recruits. Instead, I volunteered to be in the company drill team. It was simple. I was excused from night watches, went to the head of the chow line, and got four extra liberty days.

The Roberts family visited me for my graduation from RTC. They were on their way from Fort Wayne, Indiana to Denver, Colorado. My father had taken a new assignment as head of facilities at Martin-Denver's new missile test site. (More on this later.)

Upon graduation, I received orders to the NTC, Great Lakes.

California Zephyr

Christmas rolled around and I got two weeks' leave. I took the local train to Chicago's North Station and boarded the 'California Zephyr (CZ) for Denver. The sixteen-train-car Zephyr left just after noon daily on it is a three-day trip to Oakland, CA. With stainless steel dome cars, dining cars, and sleepers, it was a sight to be seen. The Chicago-Denver segment was thirty-six hours long and it gave passengers plenty of time to get to know each other.

Freshly showered and shaved, sea bag over my shoulder I was warmly greeted aboard by the Zephyr staff. Meals in the Dining Car were always delicious and served with decorum.

When I arrived in Denver, my dad was there to greet me. When I asked how he knew which train I was on, he replied there were only three westbound trains passing through Denver, all within ninety minutes. He took me by the Denver Mint, the State House, the Library, three museums, and five churches. He then told me I could find the rest of 'the entertainment' on my own.

It had been snowing so we spent most of my leave indoors except for a few excursions in the evenings to check out "sailor entertainments".

Ten days later, I boarded the Zephyr for my return to Chicago. As the luck of the draw would have it, this segment had the same staff as my Chicago-Denver trip. I felt like I had returned home.

When I graduated from Electronics and Electricity Prep school thirteen weeks later, I returned to Denver aboard the Zephyr. As I approached the train (dressed in my whites sporting my new Seaman's stripes), the conductors and service staff greeted me, "Good afternoon, Mister Roberts. It's good to see that you are traveling with us again." It was kind of fun to be greeted with such warmth. Nearly three hundred people were ready to board in suits and dresses and me in my whites, and I am the one recognized by name.

Naval Training Center, Great Lakes

I checked in after the Christmas Holiday and was assigned classes and barracks. My first school was Electronics and Electricity Prep School. We started out with 3,600 students. During the 24-week school, 1,200 were dropped for one reason or another, and 2,400 graduated. 36 of us went on to Electronic Technician school, while the rest were sent to schools for electricians, radarmen, sonarmen, or interior communications (telephones) and other schools, depending on their graduation scores.

So I got graduation leave again—another trip on the California Zephyr to Denver.

We lost about half of my classmates when, halfway through school, it was discovered that the current in an electric circuit did not flow from positive to positive like I learned being a ham radio aficionado. It flows from negative to positive.

This new law of electronics was being taught because it was the only way transistors, a brand-new innovation at the time, could work. This change in course curriculum was a major upheaval, causing one sailor to awaken from a nightmare sufficient enough to allow him to be reassigned to the psych ward at the naval hospital. You have to remember we were in class seven hours a day, Monday through Friday, and a half day on Saturday, and if you needed it, extra classes on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Twenty-four weeks later, I graduated from Electronics Technician "A" School and took another trip on the California Zephyr. This time, I rode the Zephyr to Oakland because the Roberts had moved to Sunnyvale and Gerry had landed a new Director's job in aerospace contracting.

After leave, I reported back to NTC in Great Lakes. I extended my enlistment by eight months to attend the Navy's first computer school. It was taught by civilian instructors from Remington-Rand, Racine, Wisconsin.

The course required a lot of hands-on work at the Remington-Rand offices.

I wasn't sure where all of this was going, but...

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