Ft. Knox Basic 64

[oldbrk42]

Going through basic in the spring of 64 we had a Chinese kid from Chi town (Chicago) and he would not take showers. Sgt. Oliver said we'd better get him cleaned up or else! We caught him and gave him a scrub brush and lye soap scrub down. The next time he saw us coming after him, he ran full bore out of the second floor fire escape, thru the 2 X 4 railing, to the ground and kept running. On the last day of basic, Sgt. Oliver had one of the late departers take him to the train station just to make sure he left. Miserable individual!

oldbrk42

[Ron James]

We had a guy like that in our unit in Korea, 1961, Hard worker, not unpleasant, but would not shower. Worked in the motor pool, clothes always filthy, smelled like a goat, even his Korean girlfriend was a skaent ( had to be, putting up with him ). I missed it as I was out charming the locals, but they gave him a GI shower. Didn't go smooth at all. He was a old country boy and he gave as good as he got. But , the next day there was some black eyes but he was clean and his his work uniform was clean ( they threw his old ones away ). Alas, it didn't last. I left country about then so I don't know how it ended. He really hated water. I never could under stand him, it had to be a mental thing?

[Griff Murphey]

Maybe not as bad as that, but we had a Dental Officer (LT, DC, USNR, right out of dental school class of 1974) on Okinawa in 3rd MarDiv with a bad attitude. The story was he took his USN commission in dental school then had a tremendous practice opportunity presented his senior year but could not get out of the Navy. He arrived on Okinawa with one uniform, the standard Naval Officer's dress blue or "Class A" jacket and tie uniform, and maybe two white shirts. Totally impractical on Okinawa except for maybe one week a year; no khakis and no utilities (fatigues). You had to get from Camp Hansen all the way down to Naha to get to a Navy uniform shop. Finally the CO put his foot down. "Mac" finally bought like two sets of Khakis, not nearly enough. He would get back to the BOQ after work and peel off his clothes onto the floor and change into civvie grunge, then he'd put the same uniform on the next day. We called him "accordion man" his uniform was so perpetually wrinkled. We had momma-sans who kept our uniforms in perfect condition and shoes and boots spit shined for $25 a month but "Mac" took every opportunity to look as crappy as he could. His dentistry was pretty poor as well. Didn't care, just serving out his time.

[Garden Valley]

Reminds me of a guy in boot camp who was a filthy, worthless piece of crap. I don't know how he ever got in the Corps. He had been dropped from a previous platoon for some never explained reason and we got saddled with him. He never put forth any effort to do anything and was the scourge of the platoon. One night some guys have him a blanket party but it had no effect on his attitude, effort, or hygiene. One evening after showers the Platoon Commander discovered he had not showered (actually had not done so for several days), his T shirt was near black color, and he stunk terribly. He called for the two House Mouses and another person to be their helper, told them to get their scrub brushes and take him to the showers and not to bring him back until he was clean. They were gone about 15 or 20 minutes and when they returned the scummy guy was clean and had a rough looking pink color all over him. Looked real cute, and no one cared how much it had hurt.