Beaufort Part II

Well I sent an email to the Russian woman explaining I would like to slow things down and could she delay her visit till next year. She didn't respond to my statements yet. I had another one sided email from her this morning that reflected the fact that she didn't / couldn't read my email. I was surfing the web yesterday investigating all the possible scams that Russian Woman pull so I'm even more cautious now.

I also get to do a different job here at work. This means I actually get to do some work here, for a change. This might impact how much I write here since tennis usually follows work and I might forget to do an entry here and there.

Beaufort....

A month or so later we had another two Marines show up for duty in the Electric shop and by this time one of the Sgts had left for good. The first's name was Lcpl Ankrom from W. Virginia. He didn't have an accent and was a stocky Blonde guy who looked like a stereotypical jock type. The other guys name was Lcpl Garland who was another stocky dark haired guy who was married when he arrived. He also looked like another hard-ass jock type. I didn't really get along with these two because of their jock mentality. I was quickly becoming the senior guy as the old guys started leaving. Sproal also left during this time period leaving me the senior Lcpl in the shop. We also had a sister shop "Comm/Nav" that was under the Avionics umbrella. At first I didn't interact with these guys much but eventually became friends with a few of them.

In my first year we only had a few deployments, I believe the first one all of the new guys went on was in the 4th quarter of 1990. Alot of these deployments start to blur together so bear with me. I do remember one deployment we had to Oceana, VA that I had to room with a couple of Comm/Nav guys who I remain friends with to this day. John G. Fay III was one of these guys. When I first met him he was very Anal and a neat freek. I came into the room after a hard days work and he was in there Ironing everything that he had in his duffle bag. This included some of his magazines that arrived recently in the mail. Everything was neatly stacked in his wall locker. I remember getting ready for bed jumping in bed with the light still on. I covered my head with the blanket to help darken the room so I can sleep. I thought maybe he would get the hint and discontinue his ironing. He worked on night crew there and got out early so he was in no hurry to go to bed. As the minutes went on the anger grew, I started to lose it when he started stacking clothes on top of me instead of his neatly made bed. Since he was this buff guy and I'm non-confrontational I decided my first move should be to kick the clothes off me. After a few times he got the hint.

Also in this timeframe we had a deployment to Yuma, AZ. This was in mid 1991 and they stuck us in a run down barracks that had four people to a room. One of these four was Priest, my roommate back in Beaufort. Priest was a 6' Black man that was built like an offensive lineman in football. He always had trouble keeping his weight in check. He would wear rubber suits while biking and all that stuff just to take his weight off. The first thing we did when we arrived there was to go rent a refrigerator. I don't know how I got suckered into it but I ended up being one of the two guys carrying it back to the room. Priest proceeded to buy a bunch of alcohol to include some rum and mixers. The three guys i was rooming with spent the late afternoon talking and getting liquored up and left me all on my own, as I didn't drink. Well this was the infamous time / place where I started my quest to be a better drinker :) I mixed me a rum and mixer drink and polished it off. I then proceeded to go out to the E-Club. They let anyone drink there because we were so close to the Mexican border and they would rather us drink on base than in Mexico. Of course I got razzed as my roomates so me order a few drinks, as one gets pride in breaking in the "Innocent". Needless to say I got mildly drunk that night. One of the nights while we were there Priest was extremely drunk and decided he couldn't make it to the bathroom. First he headed for my wall locker and stubbed his toe, after realizing it wasn't a good spot he proceeded to the trash can to take a piss.

By this time my brother had been assigned to his own squadron. He was assigned to the ancient A-6 jet. I did manage to see him while I was in Oceana for his training and again at Cherry Point where he was permanently assigned.

That's enough info for today... I have some work to get done ;)