Richard W. Hadley, CTR2 USN, 1968-1972 


I've been TDY to North Dakota with my DMAT team this week so I've missed a 
couple of digests, but I've been enjoying the stories that I've had time to 
read.  Here's mine...

I graduated University of Northern Iowa in May of 1968, got married 4 weeks 
later.  I spent the next few months stalling the draft board, trying to get 
into the NG or AF OCS, but they were full.  In November of '68, my friendly 
draft board gave me 30 days to enlist or be drafted.  By then, my new father-
in-law, a '46 Annapolis grad convinced me to enlist in the Navy rather than 
the AF.  I talked to the recruiter, who told me my sky-high GCT scores made me 
a shoo-in for OCS out of boot camp.  That didn't happen...another long sea 
story I'll tell sometime.  During boot at SD they passed out the books to help 
us decide which ratings to apply for.  I'd been thinking YN or PN, but as I 
read the books, I noticed a curious thing.  There was this rating called "CT", 
apparently having something to do with communications, but strangely enough 
the description read "serves at shore stations and at sea"...in that order, 
rather than the reverse like every other rating except corpsman.  Not wanting 
to leave my new wife any longer than necessary, I applied for CTA, CTO, and 
CTR in (I think) that order.  A couple of weeks later, I was driven along with a few 
other guys, to a building on the other side of the base for an 
interview....with a civilian, no less. He gave us the "come to Jesus"
talk about security clearances, telling us if we had any reservations about a 
background investigation to leave now and there'd be no further questions 
asked.  Those of us who stayed completed the interview about lunch time and 
were told "walk, don't run to the galley, and if anyone hassles you, just tell 
them you're with the Naval Security Group".  At that point, I knew I'd made 
the right choice.  Even though I only did one tour, after almost 40 years I 
know that's still true.

Rick Hadley, CTR2
1968-1972, NCTC, Cheltenham, San Antonio, Hakata