MY PREP SCHOOL?

I was discharged from the US Navy "on points" after WW II at Camp Shoemaker, California on December 16, 1945. When the War ended you were awarded so many points for each month of service and twice that amount for each month of overseas service. We were issued our discharges, our Form 214's, a "ruptured duck," our pay due, and $300 in mustering out pay. The "mustering out pay" was supposed to help you out in making your transition into civilian life. Very few had readjustment problems, compared to those "mustered out" after Nam. We never heard of drugs among the troops, that I believe came with Vietnam. Was this due to the country's commitment to the War? Could be.

To my knowledge I was not asked during the "mustering out" process whether I wanted to stay in the US Navy Reserves. Apparently some were, because I later encountered those who stayed on "Inactive Reserve". If I had had someone to advise me I might have opted to stay in the Inactive Reserves. It would have added to my retirement pay. Oh, well, that is just another of those subtle benefits that were denied those of us Americans "of color." Like I learned later, "In time of war, we Hispanics are, in this Country, Americans, at election time we are Spanish Americans, and when we look for a job we are Dirty Mexicans." Perhaps I should note at this point that my birth certificate states that both my father and my mother were "white." What does that mean anyway? More on that subject later.

At any rate I hitch-hiked from Camp Shoemaker to Albuquerque and beat the train that I would have taken. I even had Government provided tickets. I wonder what I did with them? In those days if you got on the Highway in uniform with your "ruptured duck" on your chest and stuck out your thumb you got a ride before you fully stretched out your hand. Not quite so easy after Korea, and you better not try it after Nam.

I'll Have To Give This Lemon A Paint Job!

After I got home to Peñasco I went to Taos and discovered that there was a car, a 1939 Ford Coupe, for sale at the Levi Alcon Service Station for $300.00, the exact amount I had gotten in mustering out pay. I still had the check at home. Cars were very scarce as production had been curtailed during the War. I told Levi that I wanted the car and would he let me take it to Peñasco so that I could bring my check. He said, "Ok, but if you take the car, you've bought it. You can not bring it back." I was so naive and honest that I said yes. The car barely made it up the US Hill to Peñasco and back, but true to my word, I signed over the check. I learned two lessons that day, the first, never buy a pig in the poke, and second, a little sawdust in a straight-stick transmission can make a car run just fine at least for a short distance. Minnie Vásquez did something to the car, probably changed the sawdust in the transmission, and it ran for a few months more. I walked away from it when I got my appointment to West Point in 1947. I wonder who picked it up from in front of Casa de Ramon at New Mexico Highlands University?

I am getting ahead of my story because I went to New Mexico School of Mines in January of 1946, that was what NM Institute of Technology was called in those days. As I indicated in another essay I loaded up on every course in math that I could. This was my reaction after having been rejected for the Navy's V-5 Program before I enlisted in the Navy.

But then in the summer of 1946 I went to Highlands University because your darling Mother was supposed to go there, but instead she went to Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado that summer. Well I loaded up on Math and Science courses but neglected English and Social Sciences. So that was my Prep School for West Point. Whereas my very first roommate, Dave Phillips had prepped at Bullis, you pronounce it, Bullith. Or was it Sully's? At Bullis, as well as at Sully's, they learned all about the West Point tradition, the hazing system, the academic system and most important how to avoid getting demerits. Dave had already memorized the Plebe Bible. I did not even know there was one.

Oh well, who could have advised me. I made it somehow, anyway.

Much later I learned that most of my classmates at West Point had been to some kind of Prep School; perhaps the best was the United States Military Academy Preparatory School at Stewart Field, Newburg, New York. Most had at least a year of College, some at Yale, and several even had a College degree.

It turned out that my semester at School of Mines and two terms at Highlands had to serve not only as remedial, (I had not been to school for five years since graduating from Peñasco High School in 1941.) but also as a Prep School of sorts.

My sunny disposition got me through the first eight weeks, known as Beast Barracks at West Point. I did accumulate a few demerits, .... ok, .... more than a few, to walk off in the fall.

(Add from Conduct? Irv Hammer?)

Read On! Enjoy!