[Majie Purple]

Thanks for posing your train memory...As one of "the newer ones" i did "find it interesting! Sorry you never got to meet nor to know your GrandDadad. Sorry too am I to read of his being cruched between 2 trains...Tis a miracle he survived something like that...I'm sure you realize that too... Take care,

[LadyX]

Another story many have heard is when I entered the U.S.Marine Corps at the Naval Base in Jacksonville, Florida, 25 June 1952.
Going from the hotel to the base for the paperwork and physicals, I had made an unthinking error, using the bathroom before we left, never having had a real physical before!
We all were finished, with my exception...yep..I had to drink from the water fountain, pace, drink again - repeat - everyone glaring at me for the holdup, until FINALLY I could 'produce'..:)

They nonetheless entrusted the other 7 women to my care, giving me the train and meal tickets for the train ride from Jax to Yemassee, SC - the Florida East Coast Railway station nearest to Parris Island.

There we transferred to a "Super Deluxe Conveyance" - a steam engine with four WIDE OPEN cars and bench seats, to take us the 23 miles to Port Royal, near Parris Island!
You cannot imagine how hot and noisy it was; how loud the clacking wheels - the steam and grit blowing back on us - and of course, no a/c in SC's humid June heat...(

Debarking at Port Royal, we were met by our DIs and buses to take us to the base.
It was at that moment I first heard the um...term of endearment... from male recruits, waiting also...
HOORAY! BAMS!!

Which, freema, I hastily concluded *MUST* be interpreted as BeautifulAmerican Marines..:))