I was assigned to Electronics Technician school in 1961 after Navy boot camp. The training was scheduled for 38 weeks, and each week covered some specific aspect of electronics – the state of the art in the early 1960s.
Somewhere in the middle of that training was a week on vacuum tubes, which were soon to be obsoleted by transistors. That week’s instructor was a Chief Petty Officer whose temperament was a bit hot at times. I would ask dumb questions and he would give terse answers. Once, a question from me caused him to throw the piece of chalk which lived in his right hand against the wall, pieces flying everywhere.
On Friday, I made the highest grade in the class on the vacuum tubes test. Chief Whatsisname was so pissed!
I had to pass the weekly exam in order to advance to the next subject. Failing the exam meant re-taking the same subject next week, i.e. flunking. We called it getting your cherry broke. Mine never did get broken (insert your own joke here).
Sailors were issued 3 kinds of uniforms: Dress Blues, Dress Whites, and dungarees. In ET School we all wore dungarees. And a name badge. Instructors didn’t have to memorize student names, and they didn’t give 2 shits about first names – only last. My name badge probably said HYDE, GP (this was long before my name changed). The badge was part of my uniform.
Somewhere around Week 30 a few of us were sufficiently emboldened to personalize our name badges by drawing a red cherry prominently on the white badge. We all knew that unauthorized alteration of a Navy uniform was a punishable offense, but we did it and the powers that be (and there were many) let it slide. The cherry was a source of pride.
Some years later, I would step over the Navy’s behavior lines while thinking “What are they going to do – send me to Vietnam?” But that was later.
