Marine Corps Ball 1967

My first and only Marine Corps Ball was in Malta, during a 1967 Mediterranean Sea Cruise aboard the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt CVA 42. Due to the FDR being almost 1000 Ft. long we had to anchor out at every port of call. At one point we were anchored out in Malta, and a big storm came up causing the FDR to depart, stranding the lucky people on liberty. I was one of the two Marines on liberty that day, myself and Sgt. David McAnall. It was like a vacation, we stayed in a hotel for five days while the ship was gone. We were lucky to meet an American girl whose father was an oil worker in North Africa. She had two friends that were Maltese. I still have the cuff links one of them gave me, I don't remember his name. The other one was a beautiful young school teacher named Sally Moreno. She was 23, I was 20 at the time. The Maltese people are Italian by ancestry, so they speak Italian, and English. Malta was a former British Colony. read more

Boot Camp Sea Stories-Believe it or don’t

I've read so many sea stories about bootcamp that I have to share a few now and then.

When I enlisted in about the mid-seventies, out of six-seven other high-school buddy enlistees, only one other brave, misguided soul and myself boarded the bus to Will Rogers airport, (via AFEES in downtown OKC), eventually landing about 10:30 p.m. in San Diego, then on to receiving at MCRD. read more