Cadet Goes to College
Boot training done at Miami Beach,Florida ,we were put on a train December 4,1943 and arrived at Gettysburg College mid-night December 5,1943. We were put in rooms of 2 or 3 cadets in OLD DORM whitch was civil war Army Head-quarters. Each room had steam heat but the hall way to the shower room had no heat, so it was a challenge to run down the hall-way after a hot shower. I was in a corner room with Norm Bullard, Oswego,N.Y. and Dick McKinley Erie,Pa.. The food was great, made and served by the
Civilian women of Gettysburg. There was about 200 co-eds , 100 male students and 500 cadets.The town was about a few blocks long with 3 lane bowling alley, drug store, theater, barber shop old hotel and a few other buildings. There was no Mc Donalds or Holliday Inn.As cadets we could only go to town on Saturday and Sunday. The first week there about half the cadets had the Flu, I was lucky I did not get it. Here is a typical day.
Up at 5:20 for roll call, clean our room until 7:00, fall out and march to breakfast. After eating we could march back to our rooms in any number of cadets but one would count cadence. Then classes until 12:00 when we would have lunch, Then classes again until 5:00 P.M. Christmas was a happy one for me. My fiancée,my mother & dad came to see me.. They stayed at the one and only old hotel.. The last month of our schooling here we went to a small air-port where flying instructors would take us up in a Piper Cub to get cadets feel of flying. As I had my pilots license before I en-listed in Air Corp. my instructor said we would go joy riding & scare the chickens.. When we finished our 6 months training they discovered we finished a week early, so they gave us a week furlough. I called my fiancée , asked if she wanted to get married. She said yes so I went home ,got married went back to Gettysburg College, shipped out to Pre Flight at Max well Air Base and did not get back for 2 years, after going to Philippine Island and Taegu,Korea
|
Great Story, Art.
