Blog

My faithful readers of my myriad adventures, growing up in Sarasota, I hope, will allow me to reflect back to a time period that I think, helped to shape my "whole being.”

In 1948 the military draft was still very active, enlisting the young men of the community into the U.S. Army. Three years after the end of World War II things were still touch and go "over there" in Europe.

Myself, Leslie Rice & Carrol ("Fritzy") Koch decided our draft numbers were coming up and we didn't want to march all over Europe, so we enlisted into the U.S. Coast Guard in August of 1948.

While in basic training in Cape May, New Jersey we three wrote such letters of praise home that soon seven of our SHS classmates enlisted in the Coast Guard.

The recruiting poster promised "Action, Security, Education, Travel".  Some of my action and travel I wrote about in my blog for April 8, 2009. I found today's snapshot of the JRF 5A, Grumman Goose in one of my photograph albums. We remained over night and refueled at a former R.C.A.F amphibian outpost near Bella Bella, British Columbia. There were no landing strips so we had to make water landings and take-offs. Fortunately we had no mechanical problems and I was able to maintain radio contact with our base at Port Angeles, Washington.   Life was/is good.