@RTR...USN (ret) reminded us to think of the active duty service men and women in the coffee thread this Thanksgiving morning.. It made me remember my first Thanksgiving away from home..
I went to San Diego for boot camp and School, the base was RTC/NTC off Rosecrans blvd.. Walking distance to downtown for young sailors
, I was in my last month of training before getting orders to my ship,, and it was wednesday the night before Thanksgiving of 83..
I was in IMCO school learning morse code at the time and when the day ended we had a holiday weekend before us,
we lived in dorms with 4 to a room, one of my buddies was John from Texas, one named Carmen from Pittsburg, and Preacher from Georgia, Preacher went to the commissary and bought a bottle of Harwood bourbon, this was rot gut shit and only cost $4 for a fifth.. we started many nights like this but the cap came off the bottle and went in the trash and we passed it around taking shots out the bottle till it was gone,, about 5 minutes,,
We walked the 30 minutes to get to this bar that was near a sports arena, this was our fav bar, prolly a sports bar but had a good ratio of women and also they had a little kitchen that served a bad ass mushroom and swiss burger (late night).. we partied hard as usual, as luck would have it, Preacher and Carmen hooked up and John and I drew blanks so we decided to walk back to the base.. it was about 2am,,
there was a jack-in-the-box on the way so we went in to grab some burgers and fries, there were 4 sailors dressed in their blues in there, the fact that they were in blues meant that this was their first liberty after boot camp.. otherwise they would be in civies.. also the very short hair.. John was fucking with them and said something to the effect of whats up "boots",, well one of them said Fuck you.. Like I said, John was from Texas and liked to fight,, He was a good sized guy and had a very short fuse,, he had two of them knocked out on the ground before I knew what was happening,, the other two started to come in and I grabbed one and I pulled him out through the door and we went to the ground, John had the other still inside, I got up and was kicking my guy in the head (yeah I'll kick a mf'er when he's down).
I never saw it coming but all of the sudden it felt like a bus hit me and I was on my knees with blood dripping down my face, the next moment John was picking me up saying lets go the cops are coming.. We ran around a corner and there was a shipping company or something with a bunch of 18 wheeler trailers parked in the lot, we crawled under one trying to hide from the police who by now were searching the area with flashlights.. while under there, john said I cant believe he didnt knock you out.. I said who? he said some guys were walking up just as the shit went down and this one guy just came up and cold cocked my ass..
we thought the coast was clear so we crawled out and went around the corner right smack into two cops lol,, they put us in cuffs and took us to the shore patrol station on the base,, My cheek bone was busted under my left eye and they took me to the infirmary for stitches... kinda funny, I was laying next to the guy I had been kicking lol,, he said, was it worth it,, I said fuck yeah,, he laughed...
I woke up Thanksgiving morning with a headache, hangover, black eye, and a toothache believe it or not, and all that made me sick to my stomach that lasted all weekend,, My turkey dinner was a half a turkey sandwich from the mess hall and some broth.
The shore patrol released us and I didnt even have a captains mast.. those were the days my friends