LOL, I am sure my Marine brethren are out there rolling their eyes at me...”Great Lakes...Pah!”
Well, it was the only Boot Camp I ever knew, and I did work hard to get through it. (That is part of why I have so much admiration for Marines-anyone who goes through Marine Boot Camp gets default respect from me!)
In retrospect, I always found that reference to “Happy Hour” really funny, even though I did end up going there one evening for a transgression that wasn’t my fault.
Happy Hour was extra PT, usually an hour or two of PT run by sadistic and ill-tempered Petty Officers who likely hated being there at night, and miscreants like me from ours and other training companies at Great Lakes congregated there with our rifles to do the requisite running, leg lifts, pushups, you name it. All of us had made some mistake, being out of step in formation too often, not making your bunk right, failing some course, things like that.
Me? I was the Recruit Laundry Petty Officer for my training company, and when we had an inspection, one of the things the inspector would do is go to the stacks of laundry bags to ensure they were filled with clean laundry coming in (OK) not dirty laundry that had missed some deadline for pickup.
Well, the Petty Officer walked over, opened a random bag, and pulled out a sweat stained utility blouse. Points off on inspection.
My Company Commander, TM1 Mackelprang, a short guy who bore a superficial resemblance to Charles Bronson complete with the pencil thin moustache, walked over to me and said to me in a low, even voice as I gaped (knowing I had no dirty laundry in that pile) “Boy, you’re going to Happy Hour.”
It turned out some sh*tbird had a dirty blouse in his locker, and not knowing what to do with it, simply stuffed it into a bag in the clean laundry pile to make it disappear, and that was the one bag the guy opened to examine, and that guy’s blouse was the one on top.
Boy, was I pissed at the unfairness of it, and later, when I realized what had happened I went after the guy whose name was on the front of that blouse. Fortunately, I was held back by sympathetic guys with cooler heads who knew a fight wasn’t going to improve anything for me.
But hey...I did get to experience “Happy Hour”, and had a lesson in command: When you have responsibility and something goes wrong, it is always your fault. End of story.
Not a bad lesson to take away.
I was at Goodfellow Airbase for part of my training. I think it was for six or so months. We had a GI party to get ready for an inspection and one of my roomates was out partying. When he came back I punched him in the mouth. He ran out crying and told one of the platoon leaders. The next day Captain called me in to his office and asked me what happened so I told him. He laughed and told me that the next time do it in the shower with no witnesses. It cost me six more months in San Angelo, Texas though, because I broke my righting hand. I had to wait until it healed, start over where I was. All my friends I went through basic and Russian language school left me behind. I was kind of a jackass I guess. To this day that guy probably hates my guts.