How I Became a CT Neal P. Gillen, CT2, 1955-1958 In June 1954, a good friend suggested that I consider protecting myself from the Army draft by joining the Naval Reserves. Another friend, a member of the Reserves, agreed to drive three of us to his next drill meeting. The Naval Reserve Armory was located on the North Shore of Long Island Sound near the Queens’ side of the Whitestone Bridge. During our introductory drill meeting we met with the Executive Officer and the senior enlisted men, and filled out the requisite forms for processing our enlistment. Late in July, we were notified of our acceptance and requested to appear in August to be sworn into the U.S. Naval Reserve Surface Division 3-76 as Seaman Recruits. My father was happy with my choice, since he was a member of the Naval Reserve in the late 1920s, where he won the Atlantic Fleet lightweight boxing championship. At the time, I was working in the Manhattan home office of the Equitable Life Assurance Society. Another friend from my neighborhood in Woodside, Queens, who also worked at Equitable, convinced me, one night after work, to accompany him to Brooklyn to visit the Pratt Institute of Technology, a highly regarded art and architectural school, which offered a few pre-engineering courses. Many of my high school classmates were preparing to set off to college in a matter of weeks. For me, levity still reigned. I was having too much fun to reflect on college. That night at Pratt, while my friend was filling out admission application forms, I perused through the available literature and the course catalog and wandered about the hallways absorbing the college atmosphere. I continued to read the literature going home on the subway. When I arrived home, I reviewed the materials again, leaving them on the kitchen table. The next morning they were gone. Puzzled, I thought had I misplaced them, and would find them later. Dad was waiting, when I returned home from work. That in itself puzzled me because he was usually having a few drinks in a neighborhood watering hole. “Son, I’d like to talk to you about your future.” What brought this on? I wondered. “Son, I always wanted you to be a college man, an engineer. I was very happy, when I found the materials from Pratt this morning.” Dad explained that he took the Pratt catalog and brochure, and reviewed them with the civil engineers at the construction site, where he was working. “It’s a terrific school. I’ll help you with the tuition,” he announced. He was in an expansive mood and beaming with pride. I knew this was special, my conduct and scholarship to this point in my life produced few, if any, moments like this. I had finally done something right. His feeling good was gratifying and encouraging. We discussed the preparatory courses, the engineers recommended I consider taking, and I began to believe that I could really do this. I was going to college, if they would accept me, which they soon did after I applied. Introductory Physics and Trigonometry were my initial course offerings that Fall. Since my weekends activities were less taxing than those of the summer, my brain synapses were functioning somewhat better, at least in the Physics course, which I enjoyed in high school. The classroom number was the only thing I was sure of in Trigonometry, as I was in over my head. I should have taken a refresher course in Algebra since everything sounded like Chinese. My first quiz mark in Physics was respectable, but my trig grade was a sixty-five, a charity grade that probably included points for personality and perhaps spelling my name correctly. None-the-less, I kept to my schedule of working overtime at least two nights a week, fitting in the weekly Navy Reserve meeting, and going to school the other two nights. The pace set at Pratt was challenging, and the overtime at Equitable enabled me to put aside money for the future. Well into October it became apparent that my efforts in Trigonometry fell short of my relative accomplishments in the Physics course and the expectations of my patient and capable teacher. At a smoking break just prior to the mid term examination, he approached me. “Mr. Gillen, could you please tell me who’s paying your tuition?” “Well, ah, my father and Equitable Life.” “As far as I’m concerned, they’re wasting their money. Have you thought about the GI Bill?” “Well, I haven’t. What do you mean, sir?” “The fact that you don’t seem to have a clue what we’re doing in class. The sooner you get yourself into the military, the sooner you’ll straighten out.” I asked him if we could discuss the matter further. He invited me to meet with him after class in the teachers’ lounge, where for fifteen minutes he asked me about my life, the type of work I did, and what I expected of myself. “Neal, why did you come to Pratt?” “Well, I actually agreed to accompany a friend who was registering. I picked up some literature, looked around, and thought about coming here. My Dad always wanted me to go to college, to be an engineer. He was really enthused about me enrolling.” “I’m trying to determine your motivation. I don’t see any. It’s all about your friend enrolling, and your father wanting you to be an engineer. What do you want? “I don’t know,” I responded. I was so damned confused. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, attempting to get a grip on the situation and myself. Then, it suddenly hit me, this epiphanic moment, coming from such a simple, but, albeit dispositive question. My response, “I don’t know,” rocketed throughout my brain. Everything came into clear focus. I was wasting my time at Pratt. I lacked an adequate foundation in higher mathematics. I lacked the proper attitude to listen and learn. I lacked so much of everything. I’m involved in a great charade, fooling my father and myself. It became all too clear that I should be considering other alternatives in life. My trigonometry teacher volunteered to talk to my father and promised to find out when the GI Bill was expiring. Dad was disappointed, but surprisingly, he took the news calmly. At my next and last class at Pratt, I was informed that the GI Bill was expiring on January 31, 1955 - the clock was ticking. Acting on my decision to join the Navy the week of Armistice Day, I visited the Third Naval District Headquarters at 90 Church Street and reviewed my enlistment options. The massive, gray, structure, which forty-seven years later survived the destruction of the neighboring World Trade Center, sits there, an intimidating fortress, making the bold statement of a drab federal building. It houses many U.S. Government bureaus and agencies. Following inquiries in the lobby, I was referred to a Chief Petty Officer in the Navy Recruiting Office, who reviewed my situation and informed me that I could go at anytime. He was an impressive person sitting behind a large gray metal desk in a dress blue uniform with a considerable number of ribbons on his chest and rows of gold hash marks on his left sleeve, indicating his lengthy and honorable service. The Chief inquired why I wanted to join, and what I expected from the Navy. He outlined various areas of potential interest and opportunities to learn and travel. When I exhausted my list of questions, he indicated it could be arranged for me to be called early in January. He cautioned, that in any given week, I could be sent to either the Great Lakes Naval Training Center on Lake Michigan, north of Chicago, or to the Bainbridge Naval Training Center in Perryville, Maryland. He noted, that were I to be sent to either place in January, “You’ll freeze your ass off.” He also informed me that if I wanted to leave in the coming weeks, I would miss the extreme cold common to those locations in mid-winter. I told him that I would risk the cold, since I needed the additional time, thanked him, took the enlistment papers, and returned to the Equitable Life building. I went over the papers with Mother and Dad that night and completed them at the office the next day. Later in the day, I jumped on the subway and delivered them to the Chief. When he reviewed the forms he discovered I was only seventeen. He presumed that I was eighteen. What he did not know is that I graduated high school at 16. He figured that since I had been working full time for almost a year and was a member of the Reserves that I was older. Returning the enlistment papers, he requested that I get a signed and notarized letter from my parents and submit everything together. Mother took the parental authorization letter; I typed for her, and went to her bank, where it was notarized. At a dance that weekend, a friend home on leave from the Navy, advised me not to go until after the Christmas Holidays. “Neal, you want to be home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. God only knows where you’ll be next year.” His advice was right on the money, since I was overseas for the Christmas Holidays in each of the coming three years: 1955 in Guam, 1956 in Okinawa, and 1957 in Naples, Italy. I returned to 90 Church Street, submitted my enlistment papers, and notified my Naval Reserve unit of the ongoing process. A few weeks later, I received a notice to report to 120 Whitehall Street for my physical. The Whitehall Street facility is an historic Federal Period building, where, beginning in the post Revolutionary War era millions of young men from New York City have lined up in its drafty rooms and corridors for their physical exams and undergone their military induction procedures. That morning, about a hundred of us were being examined for all branches of the military. My notice from the Navy arrived the first week in January 1955, instructing me to report to 120 Whitehall Street by eight a.m. on Thursday, January 21st, which would make me be eligible for G.I. Bill benefits, that I would make full use of at New York University and Georgetown University Law School. I showed up that morning, was sworn in, handed a large brown envelope containing my personal data, and a white cardboard box containing an orange, American Cheese sandwich on white bread, and a small container of milk – the standard Navy transit lunch. Then, we were quickly loaded onto buses bound for the Bainbridge Naval Training Center. The bus arrived at Bainbridge early in the afternoon. When we disembarked a short and stocky First Class Boatswain’s Mate, with numerous red hash marks on his left sleeve, ordered us in a loud and authoritative voice to line up on a white line. “Listen up, you smart-assed, New York, sons of bitches, you belong to me for the next few hours and if you wise off, I’m going to kick your smart-asses. Is that clear?” The silence was met with another burst from his loud voice, “Did you smart-assed, New Yorkers hear what I just said? Tell me now in loud voices that, yes, sir, I heard you loud and clear.” “Yes, sir. I heard you loud and clear!” We shouted. We all looked around at each other in unison, each of us with the same thought – life is going to be different from this day forward. We were formed into separate Companies of sixty-four men and marched off in our new ill-fitting uniforms to our barracks. Given my Naval Reserve service, I was designated “Boatswain’s Mate of the Watch,” given temporary Petty Officer’s stripes to sew on my jumper, and the responsibility to assign members of the Company to stand watch during the night. In the coming days we were tested, probed, and injected. Unfortunately, I had an adverse reaction to the numerous shots we received and landed in the hospital for over a week. Boots were not given any breaks. Dressed in hospital-issued pajamas and a bathrobe, I was given a crash course in using a buffing machine. I calculated that I polished a few miles of corridors during my one-week stay. Fortunately, a Hospital Corpsman stopped me one morning. “You look familiar. Where’re you from?” “Woodside.” He remembered me from playing in the undeveloped lots close to his house. He got me relieved from the buffing duty and arranged for my discharge from the hospital. Given the length of my hospital stay, I was reassigned to a new company. Almost all the men in my new Company were also from New York City. Occupying the adjacent bottom bunk was James Florio, a bright, friendly, determined, and spunky high school dropout from Brooklyn. Florio found the same solid direction that I did in the Navy and would become an officer, a Member of Congress, and the Governor of New Jersey. It was only when I returned from Boot Camp leave, and was assigned to the Outgoing Unit (OGU), that I learned where I would be going and what I would be doing. Most of the guys in OGU were assigned to the three Atlantic Fleet battleships, the Iowa, New Jersey, and the Wisconsin. For me it was Class A Radio School in San Diego where I would finish first in my class, and then on to Imperial Beach and CT School, where I also led the class and was a night school instructor. It was a great and rewarding experience, Guam, Okinawa, Naples, Italy and Scarborough, England, where I served with intelligent, dedicated, and superior individuals. Those wonderful years formed a solid foundation for the rest of my life.