TRANSCRIBED FROM THE ROGERS DEMOCRAT JANUARY 17, 1918 P. 2
Great Lakes, Ill., Dec. 29th.
Dear Sister:
You asked me to tell you what I do. Here is the day's program:
I get out of my hammock at 5:00 a.m., tie it up navy style, wash my face, black my shoes, fix up my clothing and clean up my barracks until 7. Go to breakfast then, and after that just fool around until 7:45. Then I start to work. I really get started at 8. Now I can't tell you much about my work but we ask the recruits such questions as
"Watcher name?"
"How old are you?"
"What education have you? and such truck as that. See? And I do it all day long. Can handle 700 a day I reckon.
I ought to get thru at 4:30 but on the job I have now I work until six o’clock. After that I come back home and get supper and fool around until 9:00. After that time I may be in bed, if not I’m getting there for the “Jimmy legs,” the Master-at-Arms, is looking for those fellows who are not asleep. After that I just kinda sleep until 5 the next morning, when I rise and repeat the chorus softly.
Of course there are some variations. I may fool around at the Y.M.C.A., or write letters here at the barracks, or ashore in Waukegan. There are lots of things to do but mostly I just "fool around" the barracks for it is expensive to go ashore and takes lots of money even if you are just "fooling around."
On certain evenings there's a big bunch of sailors drilling up at the Administration building, officers, and on other nights movies and vaudeville at the Industrial building. They say "Go if you want to; it don't cost you anything. Stay if you want to; you don't have to go, but if you do want to see it well, you ain't crippled, are you?"
Funny how they do things here? If they want a house built, they have auto trucks bring the lumber all at once. Then they put 10, or 100, or 500 men, just as many men as they take a notion to; could make it 10,000 if they wanted to. The men lay the foundation, put up the frame, and the first thing you know, there is a house. If they want a bridge built, it's the same way. No matter what they want, they get it.
If they want news from anywhere in the world, they get it. How, I don't know, but they have a funny contraption about 600 feet high, a pair of iron towers, and a flock of wires strung between them. It is called an "aerial." We get our news fresh from London, Washington, Paris, Petrograd, San Francisco, Pekin, Bucharest, Cape Town, Manilla, Hong Kong, Madrid, Gibraltar, St. Louis, New Orleans, and three or four other little country towns in this vicinity only a few hours old. Wireless? That's it: I couldn't think of the name before.
If they want a show here they make one of their own. If they want to send men away, they send them away by the trainload. When they order "eats," they order by the car load instead of by the case or the dozen. But the grandest sight is to see a bunch go out on liberty. You know there are several men here, and the law permits the captain to grant the men liberty ever so often for a few hours. Somehow the railroad and the electric road know when a bunch is to leave and are ready for them. The best place to watch them is at the main gate. When the orderly opens the gate you take a look up the road and see the men coming "all dressed up and going somewhere." Thousands of them; not pushing nor crowding, but marching four abreast with the company commander giving, "Hep! Hep! Hep!" You think you never saw so many men. And they are not even talking. But that is while they are inside. Just wait until they get out. They break rank, and whoop, and holler like a lot of school kids.
But wait until it is getting late in the afternoon. Say it's time for the flag to be taken down at night. Watch these fellows and you'll see that they didn't forget all they had learned the minute they got inside. They are still whooping and yelling like wild Indians, and running all over. The very minute they start to take the flag down, the band begins to play "The Star Spangled Banner," and altho half a mile away they can hear it. Do they pay any attention? Do they hear it? You bet they hear it. Every mouth shuts, every foot stops, every right hand goes to the cap in a military salute, all facing the music, and there they stand like statues until the music has ceased. Whadye think of that?
Now look what I've done. Used up the last sheet of my tablet and that's a pretty good sign it's time to quit.
NOTES: This letter was written by David A. Grammar to his sister Jennie Grammar of Garfield, Arkansas. He enlisted in April and at one time served as a yeoman on the SS Essex. He was writing from the Naval Training Station at Great Lakes, Illinois.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD
Great Lakes, Ill., Dec. 29th.
Dear Sister:
You asked me to tell you what I do. Here is the day's program:
I get out of my hammock at 5:00 a.m., tie it up navy style, wash my face, black my shoes, fix up my clothing and clean up my barracks until 7. Go to breakfast then, and after that just fool around until 7:45. Then I start to work. I really get started at 8. Now I can't tell you much about my work but we ask the recruits such questions as
"Watcher name?"
"How old are you?"
"What education have you? and such truck as that. See? And I do it all day long. Can handle 700 a day I reckon.
I ought to get thru at 4:30 but on the job I have now I work until six o’clock. After that I come back home and get supper and fool around until 9:00. After that time I may be in bed, if not I’m getting there for the “Jimmy legs,” the Master-at-Arms, is looking for those fellows who are not asleep. After that I just kinda sleep until 5 the next morning, when I rise and repeat the chorus softly.
Of course there are some variations. I may fool around at the Y.M.C.A., or write letters here at the barracks, or ashore in Waukegan. There are lots of things to do but mostly I just "fool around" the barracks for it is expensive to go ashore and takes lots of money even if you are just "fooling around."
On certain evenings there's a big bunch of sailors drilling up at the Administration building, officers, and on other nights movies and vaudeville at the Industrial building. They say "Go if you want to; it don't cost you anything. Stay if you want to; you don't have to go, but if you do want to see it well, you ain't crippled, are you?"
Funny how they do things here? If they want a house built, they have auto trucks bring the lumber all at once. Then they put 10, or 100, or 500 men, just as many men as they take a notion to; could make it 10,000 if they wanted to. The men lay the foundation, put up the frame, and the first thing you know, there is a house. If they want a bridge built, it's the same way. No matter what they want, they get it.
If they want news from anywhere in the world, they get it. How, I don't know, but they have a funny contraption about 600 feet high, a pair of iron towers, and a flock of wires strung between them. It is called an "aerial." We get our news fresh from London, Washington, Paris, Petrograd, San Francisco, Pekin, Bucharest, Cape Town, Manilla, Hong Kong, Madrid, Gibraltar, St. Louis, New Orleans, and three or four other little country towns in this vicinity only a few hours old. Wireless? That's it: I couldn't think of the name before.
If they want a show here they make one of their own. If they want to send men away, they send them away by the trainload. When they order "eats," they order by the car load instead of by the case or the dozen. But the grandest sight is to see a bunch go out on liberty. You know there are several men here, and the law permits the captain to grant the men liberty ever so often for a few hours. Somehow the railroad and the electric road know when a bunch is to leave and are ready for them. The best place to watch them is at the main gate. When the orderly opens the gate you take a look up the road and see the men coming "all dressed up and going somewhere." Thousands of them; not pushing nor crowding, but marching four abreast with the company commander giving, "Hep! Hep! Hep!" You think you never saw so many men. And they are not even talking. But that is while they are inside. Just wait until they get out. They break rank, and whoop, and holler like a lot of school kids.
But wait until it is getting late in the afternoon. Say it's time for the flag to be taken down at night. Watch these fellows and you'll see that they didn't forget all they had learned the minute they got inside. They are still whooping and yelling like wild Indians, and running all over. The very minute they start to take the flag down, the band begins to play "The Star Spangled Banner," and altho half a mile away they can hear it. Do they pay any attention? Do they hear it? You bet they hear it. Every mouth shuts, every foot stops, every right hand goes to the cap in a military salute, all facing the music, and there they stand like statues until the music has ceased. Whadye think of that?
Now look what I've done. Used up the last sheet of my tablet and that's a pretty good sign it's time to quit.
NOTES: This letter was written by David A. Grammar to his sister Jennie Grammar of Garfield, Arkansas. He enlisted in April and at one time served as a yeoman on the SS Essex. He was writing from the Naval Training Station at Great Lakes, Illinois.
TRANSCRIBED BY LAEL HARROD