S/Sgt Hites’s photo of the Truman Annex brought back memories of how I ended up in the Corps.
I was born and raised in Key West and I’m a 5th generation “Conch” (Native Islander). My mothers’ family where a long line of fisherman, shrimpers, sponge divers and so on. If it came from the ocean they did it.
My Dad was from Dennison, Texas and enlisted it the Corps to get off of the farm. Dad was wounded at Guadalcanal and latter at Tarawa. His wounds from Tarawa would send him to the Naval Hospital at Key West where he met my Mom who was working as a nurse. When my Dad’s wounds healed he was sent to the Marine Barracks where he stood guard duty until the war ended.
As a little kid my friends and I would follow the Marines running in formation along the island perimeter but they were too fast for us to last very long. As I got older we would stay with them a few steps behind the formation and we would tell ourselves that we would someday become Marines.
One morning my brother and I got up early to run with the formation and we were told by Marine sentry’s that the beach was off limits, it was the first day of the Cuban missile crisis.
As time went on we would bring the Marines on duty fresh coconuts, conch fritters and boletes.
The year 1965 would change my life forever. The draft board was breathing down my neck and I wasn’t about to go into the Army or any other branch of the service, not so much because my Dad was a Marine, but because of what I had seen and done thru the years at the Marine Barracks.
Major Black did my enlistment since the nearest recruiting office was 250 miles away in Miami, Florida.
A few days latter I was a young maggot on is way to Paris Island and the next twenty- five years would be an adventure of a lifetime.
Today I am an old retired Marine, retired high school teacher living in Amarillo Texas… how things change.
Pleasant Memories of Key West
Hey Skipper!!! I thoroughly enjoyed your brief biography and about how you came to join the Corps.
Sometimes I think that I must have been a sailor in a previous life, because there I two places that I have always wanted to visit.
The first is the The Azores, which happened to come to fruition while returning to CONUS from Exercise Jade Tiger in Oman in 1982. Our C-141 aircraft developed some kind of problem and we landed at Lajes AFB for repairs before proceeding trans-Atlantic. We were on the ground for about two days and were treated like royalty. We only numbered about fifty or so, officers and senior enlisted from the staff of USCentCom. The best part was a bus tour around the island of Terceira with a native guide. Something I’ll never forget.
Of course, the second is Key West. Although I lived in Florida while assigned to RDJTF/USCentCom, I never seemed to find the time to make the drive. We traveled so much in that assignment that I just wanted to be home when were not on the road. One of my favorite books, which I read at a very young age, is The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, and I always wanted to see where he lived. I can just imagine the joy of being raised a “Conch” and living on the island. The closest I cane was Kaneohe, Hawaii, and I guess it wasn’t all that bad.
Semper Fi!!! Top Pro
Marine Barracks Key West was great duty til Cuban Crisis arrived. “Running Guard” was the order of the day-4 on-4 standby and back on continuously for days and more. By the way I was probably the worst “Duty Music” to ever carry a bugle!!!
Every run formation pt outside the gate and have a bunch of kids following?
Hell I probably sold you some Key Lime pie or conch fritters…
My first Duty Station . Marine Barracks Key West . Arriving 10/8 / 64 departed 12/ 65 for Vietnam. Have many great memories of the Marines I served with in my time in the Corp.
Semper Fi
Sgt.John W. Norman
64/68
Every run formation pt outside the gate and have a bunch of kids following? I was probably one of them. I enlisted 1 April 65.. (Don’t laugh….caught enough hell in booth camp)
Hell I probably sold you some Key Lime pie or conch fritters…