Don K. Clements, LCDR USN Retired, 1958-1985 In late 1957 I decided to drop out of college and go into military service. I went to the Federal Building and visited the Army, Air Force, (walked right by the Marines) and Navy recruiter. Army and Air Force promised me all kinds of 'promises' - schools, OCS, etc. But the Navy recruiter said he didn't want me - I should go back and finish college. And if I did go in the Navy he would not promise me anything at all. Always liking a challenge I immediate enlisted and shipped out in January 1958 to boot camp in San Diego. Several weeks in the results of our tests came in and we visited the classification dudes. First he said I should be a Sonarman (perfect score) - but I had seen 'Run Silent, Run Deep' on the day I enlisted and wanted no part of either submarines or destroyers, so I politely said 'No thanks, what else have you got?" He said my scores qualified me to be a CT. I asked what that was and he said he didn't have a clue, but he was supposed to find guys with certain scores had them. I said where is the school, and he said he had four schools - two at IB, one at Mare Island, and one at Bainbridge. I asked him what the different schools were and he said he didn't know about IB, but Mare Island was ET School and Bainbridge was YN school. Since I wanted the travel pay back to the East Coast so I could stop in Detroit on leave, I picked Bainbridge. After YN school I was held at Bainbridge because my clearance hadn't been completed. I finally shipped out of San Francisco on a MSTS ship and they dropped me off at Manila, not knowing where the NCS was. Even after I got to San Miguel, I didn't have a clearance and worked outside the main office of the SecgruAdmin for 3 months. So it was 16 months after I enlisted and 9 months after I sewed on a CTSN patch that I found out what a CT really was and made CT3 about 2 weeks later! Since I ended up as a Presbyterian minister 16 years later, I guess I was 'predestined' to be a CT! Don Clements Former CT1 (A brancher linguist) Narrows, VA