Each draft was called in in turn. A C.P.O. would come to the door and bawl, "All right, all New York draft in," and they'd waltz in while we waited and wondered how soon before we could sleep.
After a while they called Baltimore, and we went inside, turned over our papers, and were sent to an adjoining room to receive the Navy hair-cut.
Say, talk about speed! Liberty motors have got nothing on those four barbers. You no sooner sat down than--snip-snip-snip--and--"Next!" Then you signed your name, but what the barber wanted with all our autographs I never have been able to make out. Perhaps he figures some of us may become great heroes and he'll sell the signatures for a young fortune some day.
In the adjoining room we removed our clothes so that they could be disinfected and sent home. Then we took a shower. At times the water was very warm, then suddenly it would get cold as ice. They certainly believed in variety being the spice of life.
We were vaccinated next, a long line of us. And some were so scared they just curled up and fainted. But I got through and went in for my medical exam. If you don't pass it right there you are rejected, but if you only have depressed arches, or, say, stooping shoulders, they let you through. They know navy life will fix that O. K. Just do setting up exercises for a few months and you'll gain a ton!
Then we were measured for our uniforms and they were handed out to us: two suits of winter underwear, two pair of woollen socks, a navy sweater, a blue dress uniform and two white undress uniforms, shoes, hairbrush, clothes, "kiyi," which, in plain English, is a clothes brush, shoe cleaning gear, needle and thread and thimble, six pocket handkerchiefs, a neckerchief, a pocket knife, two white hats, a watch cap and a flat hat. Then you get your bedding: a mattress, two pair of blankets, your hammock and your duffle-bag. Believe me, the mattress looked good to me. I could see myself drifting off into slumber in a gently swaying hammock. . . .
They marched us to a Detention Barracks. You are not supposed to leave there until you get permission, in case someone breaks out with smallpox or yellow fever.
Everything was complete in the barracks. Meals were cooked in a regular galley; there were showers, mess room and sleeping rooms. Very nifty!