Barry Hastings: Coming of age with the Coast Guard in the ’50s

By Barry Hastings

In mid-September, 1955,1 turned 17 when a friend (who’d hit the mark a month or so earlier) and I took a ride to Battle Creek. We planned to join the U.S. Navy Reserve.

When we got to the building where recruiting offices were located, the Navy office was closed (there was a note with a short excuse tacked on the door). We decided to hang out for a bit, and began walking the hallway, trying to decide what to do. (As things eventually worked out, I grew to appreciate their absence.) My purpose was to learn to be a seaman.

Up (or down) the hallway (I was soon to learn it was a passageway, nautically speaking) a bit, we came to another door. Through glass in the upper part of the door, we could see sailors working at desks. Hanging next to the door was a large, brightly-colored poster – a beautiful white ship smashing through a Targe wave, white spray flying against a background of dark blue/green foaming water. The lighter blue sky was filled with gliding, swooping gulls

In the foreground was a young, healthy, and happy-looking Bos’n’s Mate second class, smiling broadly, and wearing a crisp summer white uniform. The words, “Join the United States Coast Guard’ ran, from side-to-side, across bottom of the pitch. We bit (swallowed hook, line and sinker), and joined the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.

A couple of months later (bored beyond tears with school), at our monthly Reserve meeting, and despite being five months from graduation, I took the plunge, dropped the Reserve, joined the Regulars. On Dec. 26, ’55, my Dad and I climbed into his Chevy, and began the long drive (in those pre-Expressway times) to Detroit.

My Mom (bless her heart) was crying. My Dad, steadfast. My youngest brother (wearing Pop’s old Worls War II Army cap) gave me a snappy military salute. I was pleased as a pig in merde.

The next morning, Dec. 27, 1955, was cold — wintery, and cold. We had breakfast at the downtown hotel where we stayed, then into the Chevy, and off to the federal building for preliminary physical exam, many forms, a couple of tests (getting into the Coast Guard, with only some 42,000 enlisted members, was not a given then, and is not now, either). Fortunately, I was somewhat brighter than my high school grade-point average indicated, and was very well read (already a historian — my later, and life-long calling).

At about 6 p.m., about 25 of us, all ^“sworn-in,” were boarding a Pennsylvania Railroad Pullman car, destination Cape May, N.J., and the East Coast U.S.C.G. Training Center, near the mouth of the Delaware River. Our route was through Canada, across a RR bridge to Buffalo,N.Y., down across New York, into Jersey, and down the beautiful Jersey shore.

During the late evening, a black PRR porter came through the sleeper telling us we wouldn’t see much fun, and no beer, for three months, and despite our under-age status, brought us a couple of cases of Goebel’s beer. He reminded us to stay in the sleeper, and keep noise levels to a minimum. We did as he asked, finished the beer, and went to bed.

Sometime in the dark before dawn, I awoke to realization the train was not moving. I pulled my curtain open, and looking out, realized we were sitting still on a railroad bridge crossing the Niagara River toward Buffalo. A different porter, passing through the Pullman, saw my lamp burning, asked if I’d like some coffee. I said yes before he could get the query out.

I’d been drinking coffee since the last couple of years of World War II, when my mom brewed a pot every morning before going to her defense job at the Piston Ring (Hastings Manufacturing). There she spent 10/12 hours a day on a punch-press, turning-out small metallic clips that held belts of machine-gun bullets together (my own “Rosie the Riveter”). What coffee she didn’t drink, I did.

When the coffee pot arrived, I broke open a fresh pack of Camel shorties (ahhh, coffee and a tasty smoke), and watched the wintery sun begin lighting the Eastern sky. (I’ve always enjoyed watching the dawn of day, and even now, in my later 70s, am up and about every day between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m., though I have to admit that after catching the news, I sometimes catch a nice warm cat, and return to my nest. Being accustomed to “rising and shining” early was a BIG help in boot camp.

Boot Camp, in those days, was thirteen weeks long. Coming out of it (if you came out of it), you were a much different person than before, in almost every way — stronger, wiser, disciplined, knowing the basics of seamanship, and oh-so-proud of that CG shield on the uniform. Within 20 minutes of pulling-in to Cape May station, we were in trucks heading for a whole new system of life at U.S. Coast Guard Training Station, Cape May, NJ. Out of the trucks and on the ground, a reasonably polite Seaman 1^st class pushed and shouted us into something akin to a straight line, and marched us off to collect (what seemed like) 300 pounds of gear.

There were Boondockers (work boots), dress shoes, dress blues, undress blues, whites, skivvies, socks, textbooks, web belts, watch-caps, white hats, duffel bag, topped off by a ten + pound U.S. Rifle, Caliber .30, M-l, coated and packed with Cosmoline preservative, related cleaning and maintenance gear, and bayonet w/case. There was also a copy of the “Blue Jacket’s Manual” (still have it) to answer most of your questions on general or seamanship matters. The rest of the first day is lost to my memory, except for my utter exhaustion at “Taps.”

There’s no sense in going into the tedious part(s) of boot camp. Everyone who’s been in the navy, the Fightin’ CooGoo, or any branch of the military, remembers it all too clearly — the rest can never know (and I’m sorry for them, though glad I don’t ever have to go through it again). It’s where I learned about cooperation, communication, teamwork. The leadership skills developed then, helped me through nearly 40 years coaching successful softball teams, as well as earlier, with the banking and finance areas in which I worked for many years before deciding on college, grad school, and a return to my first love… history.

I am still, always have been, will always be, grateful to the U.S. Coast Guard, and proud of my service with them — America’s oldest continuous sea­going service, working to keep our nation safe since 1790.

Semper Paratus