In the winter of 1945 America was busy sending people back to civilian life. Every means of transportation was packed. Here I was in Tacoma (next door to Seattle) and wanted to go to Southern California. They said ah ha! we will send Chuck on a cruise down the Coast and take some of the load off the trains and roads.
A group of us boarded a small boat at Tacoma and rode it down the Puget Sound to Seattle. There we were put on a troop ship (my last one!) which took us out to the Pacific. Then we went down the coast of Washington and up the Columbia River to Portland. We tied up to the dock to spend the night. The deck of our ship was at the same level as the dock. Several of us stepped over to the dock and went to town for the evening. When we returned several hours later the tide had risen. The deck of the ship was 15 to 20 higher that the dock. We had to climbed some steps and go through the scrutiny of an officer. I thought that we were in trouble. But the officer just shook his head and waved us aboard.
The next day we sailed to San Francisco. We were to stay here for two days. I had a problem. Jackie, my bride, was 230 miles away in San Luis Obispo. I had to decide if I should sit in a troopship or go visit Jackie. I decided to go visit Jackie. After all, I had not seen her since our wedding on June 3, 1944. I can not remember how I got to San Luis Obispo, but Jackie's Mom and Step Dad drove us back to San Francisco. It was a pleasant interlude in my trip down the West Coast.
We sailed on to San Pedro and Fort MacArthur. At the Fort I was processed out of the Army.
There you have it, in 25 blog posts, the story of my Army career. All of my training, except for a little on Oahu and Guadalcanal, was in California. The rest of my service was in the Pacific. I really was not involved in terrible fighting, but I got close enough as the bullets in my legs attest.
Here is a link to a list of my Army trips presented in an earlier blog. Army Trips
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