Semper Fi meets Anchors Aweigh

Memorial Day isn't what it used to be. Billed as "The Official Start of Summer," the true reason for the holiday tends to get lost in the shuffle of furniture sales, barbecue cook-offs, and zero percent financing on the SUV du jour. Don't get me wrong--I love barbecue and nobody on the planet enjoys a sale more than I do. But it seems like the TV stations are the only ones who remember--THAT's where you'll find the Memorial Day marathons of movies like A Bridge Too Far, Tora, Tora, Tora, and my latest personal favorite, The Great Escape.

SO--in honor of what this holiday REALLY stands for, I thought I'd share a few recollections of life with a Navy man. I'm sure most people are familiar with Hollywood's version of the process whereby rootless drifters become Naval aviators, a la An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun. What follows here is the TRUE story. I am not making any of this up!

My sweetheart, Randy, finished his bachelor's degree at BYU in December of 1980. Fascinated with cars and airplanes, the only jobs that were available at that time for a Political Science major just didn't fit the bill. He just didn't want to become an outside sales rep for Georgia Pacific, or a desk jockey for any of the rather anemic companies that set up recruiting booths on campus. On his way home from school one day, he happened to pass by the Navy's recruiting booth and it was love at first sight. I was appalled at the prospect of getting into the Navy--it wasn't the military that bothered me, it was the deployments. Was I gonna stand by quietly and watch my husband sign on for a job that would take him away from me for six to eight months at a crack on a regular basis? Not only NO, but NOOOO! So I pitched a fit and whined and complained and he interviewed with a few companies and then promptly headed off to Aviation Officer Candidates' School (AOCS) at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida, in January of 1981. I was nine months pregnant at the time and, too pregnant to fly, I stood there at the airport gate in Salt Lake City with my three year old daughter, Annike, and watched him fly away. So much for pitching fits, whining and complaining...

At that time, AOCS had changed the program just a tad and the first week of training was called "NAVIP" week. I think it stood for Navy Very Important Person week or some such nonsense but the point was, it gave the potential candidates a week to undergo all the physical and mental testing required BEFORE official training started. This is very important. On the first day of official training, the guys would all have their heads shaved. What AOCS officials found was, massive numbers of candidates would either wash out or "DOR" (Drop On Request) during the, shall we say, rather intense training, and then would find it difficult to get a job given their rather intense appearance. And trust me, it was intense. Randy's own daughter would have nothing to do with him for the first few minutes of our reunion because someone had taken her Daddy and replaced him with this bald-headed ex con. But I'm getting ahead of my story.

The first week went well, according to Randy's letters, although he made the mistake of watching a movie about the Hanoi Hilton the night before he reported which made him sort of second guess his decision. But he passed all the physical and mental testing and stood poised with his comrades to endure the next fourteen weeks of abuse at the hands of the Perris Island Marine Corps drill instructors who would pretty much beat them into submission--or, I should say, beat them into officers. (If you've ever seen An Officer and a Gentleman, you sort of know what I mean)

Anyhow, now I must introduce Gunnery Sergeant Buck Welcher. A Vietnam veteran, Gunnery Sergeant Welcher (or Gunny Buck to his colleagues) is easily the most intimidating man I have ever known. Here's a picture I was lucky to get (and yes, I most certainly DID ask permission first).

Gunnery Sergeant Welcher was tasked with taking the forty or so guys that entered training with Randy and turning them into Naval Officers. It was a responsibility he did not take lightly. His reputation preceeded him. It was widely known that he had a photograph on the desk in his office in which he was posed with his arm thrust through a gaping hole in the chest of a dead Viet Cong, flipping the bird to the photographer. Did I mention he was intimidating?

SO. It's the night before the first day of this excruciating experience. All of the guys are really nervous and apprehensive. Nobody knows quite what to expect. Nobody sleeps much. About all they know at this point is you NEVER look a drill instructor in the eye and you ALWAYS use "SIR" before and after every statement. As in, "SIR, YES SIR!" and "SIR, NO SIR!"

Just before dawn, the entire squadron is awakened by the sound of several large metal trash cans being tossed down the length of the barracks hallway, accompanied by not one, but several drill instructors shouting, "GET ON LINE!!" (meaning, get in the hallway, backs to the wall, at attention, and do it yesterday) Stumbling from their bunks, forty grown men scramble at top speed to get in the hallway and get lined up. In such instances you do NOT want to be the last one. In fact, you don't want to do ANYthing that would draw attention to yourself in any way.

Now, let me pause a moment, leaving our forty men sweating profusely in their underwear amid the shouts of the drill instructors, the clamor of the trash cans, the chaos of it all. Well, I should say thirty-nine men were sweating in their underwear. One of the guys standing next to Randy decided he'd get a head start on things and had slept in his uniform. Wrong. Very, very wrong. Remember the part about not attracting any attention to yourself? The drill instructors were all OVER this guy. Randy remembers Gunny Buck screaming just inches from Randy's ear, "GET THOSE CLOTHES OFF!!"

Remember how you're not supposed to look a D.I. in the eye? Randy didn't--and he sure as hell wasn't going to ask questions. So, amid the chaos, he scrambled back to his bunk, took off his underwear, and re-appeared in no time flat back out in the hallway, at attention. Buck naked.

It wasn't long before he realized that he was the only naked man in the hallway. AGAIN, scrambling at breakneck speed he darted back to his bunk, put the undies on, and back out into the hallway at attention. With all the commotion still focused on the guy with the uniform on, Randy fervently congratulated himself on rectifying his mistake without anyone being the wiser.

It wasn't until much later, at the end of course party at the club, that Gunny Buck confessed that he had seen the whole thing. In his words, "It took all my years of Marine Corps training to keep from busting out laughing! I had to take my Smokey Bear off and put it over my face to keep it straight!"

I think Randy was his favorite from then on. That first week is always fondly known as "Poopie Week." Nobody ever explained why, although I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it has to do with the distinct possibility of having to change one's trousers after coming face to face with a screaming D.I.

Here are more unfortunate "Poopies," wearing their "chrome domes" and being "PT-ed" (physical training) for some indiscretion:

But things got better over time. Gunny Buck was tough, you couldn't find anybody tougher. But he was also fair and won the undying respect and admiration of the men that he trained. When Randy got the news that I had safely delivered Bryan, that baby I was waiting for when AOCS began, it was Gunny Buck who saw to it that Randy was allowed to call me. It was Gunny Buck who insisted Randy buy Bryan his first football. He never let that tough guy image slip--Randy remembered him quietly asking about me and Bryan, all the while holding a lit cigarette lighter just inches from Randy's ear--removing a loose thread in Randy's uniform. Nice cover-up for a personal conversation.

And here's our little family together again, just before Randy's commissioning--have you ever seen more adoration on any little girl's face??

Randy was commissioned on May 1, 1981, and we spent ten of the best years of our lives in the Navy. I am SO glad that he listened patiently to my whining and complaining about his decision and then did it anyway. He was right. I loved it! And Gunny Buck? When I asked permission to take that photo, he told me "Hang on to it--it'll be worth something some day." He went on to Hollywood to become the technical advisor to the film An Officer and a Gentleman. If you look closely, you can see him jogging by with his class in tow, as Louis Gossett, Jr. tells Richard Gere, that's what an AOCS class SHOULD look like.

Aviation Officer Candidate School Class of 04-81:

The "Silver Dollar Salute"

Ensign Randall W. VerHoef and Gunnery Sergeant Buck Welcher

Semper Fi.