Boot Camp

Boot Camp at Farragut, Idaho in December and January 1942-43 was really on the frigid side of the thermometer. The snow was 4 feet deep and to be herded out onto the "grinder" at 4 AM was not very pleasant at all. The grinder was about 6 acres of packed snow that they marched us "boots" around on.

A day or two after arrival they lined us up in a cold hallway, naked to inspect our carcasses to see if we were fit for military duty. While we moved down the hall past all these inspectors some would jab big square point needles into us from both sides and pump "monkey puss and snake venom" into our veins. By the time they let us put our clothes back on we looked like a porcupine with all his quills pulled out. That poison caused me to develop the shingles all around my body at chest height.

Everyone had distemper and you'd just start to recover from one siege and then would come down with another. If you went to Sick Bay for doctoring they'd give you a white placebo pill, so a feller soon found out that sick bay was hopeless effort. We were divided up into groups of about 50 "boots" with a Chief Petty Officer over us. Ours was a young man about 23 years old. A clean cut fellow with a good character. He never asked or told us to do anything that he wouldn't do first. He would have been a good officer to follow into battle. To put us into shape we did calisthenics, which is hyperactive exercise. Doing that in the cold early morning with a case of distemper, is hard on the body.

At 6 AM they lined us up for chow and at 7 AM we reported on the grinder to find out what the days training would be. Sometimes we'd go down on the lake where there were life boats. But we couldn't go for a boat ride because the top 4 feet of water was solid (ice). There was also an obstacle course which they put us through every few days. I could do pretty good on it but some of the boys had a hard time. In the 6 weeks of boot training we had 2 days off. I borrowed some snow shoes and went off through the forest a couple miles. That was my first try on snow shoes so I was quite awkward. But it was a beautiful winter wonder-land that I was to think back on and dream about for the next several years as we moved from one tropical island to the next in the prosecution of the war.