It was around 2 a.m. when Chief Petty Officer J. R. Mastronardi, who was in charge of our training, turned on the lights in our barracks and rousted us out of our racks. Then he began calling out names, 12 or 15, including mine. He ordered us to dress, get two rifles, tie them together, and fall in on the grinder, double time.
He was angry.
Every night we washed the uniform we had worn that day or, at least, we were supposed to. And tied our clothes to clothes lines with square knots, with the fly of our pants always pointing toward the camp nearby where Marine recruits trained.
[You get it don’t you? Pee on the Marines.]
Mastronardi had gone down the line feeling each uniform. Ours, he said, were dry. He concluded that we had hung our uniforms on the line without washing them.
But I had washed my uniform, and I told him so. I think he knew he had made a mistake, but it didn’t matter. He ordered us, me included, to do manual of arms drills over and over – and over — until men began collapsing on the grinder.
* * *
A few days later one of my shipmates said, “Stith, you’re in trouble. You didn’t lock up your change, you left some on a shelf in your locker and Mastronardi found it.”
The Navy was dead serious about a rule requiring recruits to lock up their money because they didn’t want sailors stealing from one another. The officers and petty officers in charge of our training could not ignore a theft, however small, but they did not want to waste time on a penny-ante matter.
So lock up your money. Or else.
Mentally, I braced. This was trouble. But Mastronardi, who was in charge of our company, never said a word to me. Not one word.
Payback.
NOTE: Every time I polish my shoes I think of that guy. Because of him I give special attention to the backs, making sure they are as shiny as the fronts, shinier maybe. That was the only thing I learned in boot camp that I retained for life. Mastronardi hammered it into our heads: “A man who won’t shine the back of his shoes won’t wipe his [bottom].”
Coming Friday: Donna, Will You Please Be Quiet!