We made it to the plane, but the stewardess wouldn't serve us any liquor. About four hours later, we landed at LAX for a small layover and another plane to fly us down to San Diego. The LAX bartender served us a several pitchers of beer on the house. After a couple of hours, I left a sawbuck under an empty pitcher and we were off again.
When we landed at Lindberg Field, we still had a couple of hours of freedom before check-in time. Again we found the airport lounge and were allowed to drink, but the only freebies this time was popcorn. With about 15 minutes left on the clock, Cinderella time, we managed to find our way over to two lines of Marine and Navy inductees. A Marine Sergeant was screaming up and down his line of recruits, and our Navy Chief just took our orders and told us to remove any contraband we might be carrying, and to place it in a trashcan by his podium. Then he told us to stand at attention while our final transportation arrived, bound for NTCSD.
The Marine recruits all looked terrified. The Navy recruits looked upon them with more curiosity than concerned. Since our Chief wasn't yelling a bunch of obscenities at us, we were relieved and patiently watched the show across from us. When our Chief was satisfied there were no stragglers, he told us to head out the concourse front door, stay on the sidewalk and line up at the first chain-link fence and stay together as we wait for our transportation.
Shortly thereafter, we accompanied by the Marine recruits who were being chased around by the screaming Sergeant. He told them not to talk or move and to stay away from the queer looking B.S. staring at him on his right. Then their Sergeant took off.
The Navy recruits spoke among themselves and smoke cigarettes as we waited, on the other hand, the Marine recruits were petrified into silence as they became part of the brick wall they were leaning up against.
Five minutes later, a shiny Marine green IH cabover towing what looked to be a cattle car, pulled up to the curb, idling and set its brakes. A lone Marine Corporal exited the cab, walked over and stood on the curbside, then straightened his campaign hat, blouse and checked his sharp creased pant legs. All the while ignoring us, as he then walked to the side doors of the trailer, proceeding to latch open the two side doors. All at once he started hurling all manner of derisive, heckling and degrading epithets at his Marine recruits. All the while, he beat on his charges with his riding crop as they were trying to clamber inside and over of one another. It was pandemonium. Screaming, crying and yelling was dispatched across the entire airport concourse. When time was up, he slammed the doors closed on recruit hands and legs. After latching the doors, crying and futile sobs could be heard from within the Marine green cattle car. The Corporal once again paused to re-arrange his apparel as he stood before us. He looked over at the now terrified Navy recruits and said,"You're next." The Corporal then walked around the tractor, mounted the driver's seat, released the brakes and pulled ever so slowly from the curb, into darkness...
We were shaking in our shoes and speechless. As we awaited our demise in the salty air, another vehicle slowly approached us. This time it was a nasty looking, faded gray International school bus. As it finally squeaked to a halt, the side door flipped open, but everyone was still clinging to the chain link fence in fear for their lives, so no one budged. After a moment or two, this fat, bald civilian pops his head out and says in a toothless, whinny speech, "If youse boys is head'in to the Navy boot camp, get on this bus now, 'cuz I ain't got all day!"
"Whew!''
