| Fifties Frog Magazine | Vol. 2 |
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Pg 5 |
Stateside Fandango for Team Three
—by Phillip E. Carrico |
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Team Three was safely back in Coronado in
June of 1952 when the following action occurred. My discharge was coming in early
June and my lady friend and I had decided to get married at that time. I
had made arrangements with the Base Chaplain for the event to
take place in the Base Chapel at NAB,
Coronado. The day came and the place was packed with my bride to be 's civilian friends and family. To my surprise, when I looked around, almost all of Team 3 was in attendance, all bright eyed, clean shaven , shoes shined and mostly sober. After the ceremony, my new father in law, who was an old salt from WWIL, invited all my teammates to his home for the reception. I cringed a little because these guys had all just returned from a stressful tour of combat in Korea. Their psychological mind set was still "Live for today, for tomorrow you may die!" and I was not sure they were house-broken enough yet to be placed in a tea garden sitting among gentle civilians. Anyway everyone arrived at my in-laws' home in El Cajon, a suburb of San Diego and the party started. It was not long before I saw my father in law opening the bar. I went to him and protested. I said, "Oh, you don't know these guys-if they get liquored up you are going to have s_ _ t come down all over this place." He said, "don't worry Phil, these boys are the Navy's best-they can hold their liquor." Well I just gave up. My wife and I finished packing the car and got our of there before any thing drastic happened. We were going to honeymoon in Texas, visit my family and back to San Diego where I was going to attend college. [ top ] |
When we got back we heard
all the gory
details. Seems it didn't take long for my
father in law to see what I'd been talking
about. Team members began hassling
anything in skirts, trying to fight the
husbands and downing hard liquor like it was
strawberry soda. When they found the bar had closed, they invaded downtown El Cajon like storm troopers. Three bars in the little town were quickly reduced to shambles. The local law could not handle the action, so called in reinforcements from three different surrounding cities. Finally a company of Marine MP's from Camp Pendleton arrived with buses and took the now laid out drunk team members to the hoosgow. I'm sure the team members do not remember much of what happened but the city of El Cajon remembers too well. Editors Note: Those were the days, my friend.
It suffices to say that in our modern United
States Navy, such is no longer the case. There
are severe reactions to such behavior. As
many frogs know, liquor is quicker but
devastating to many. A number of terrific frogs
were lost because of it. Today's Navy now has
excellent counseling programs to avert
excessive use of not only drugs but liquor as
well. — CARRICO [ top ]
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