Hard way to get to Boot Camp

By: Dan Gibson

Six of us flew from Kansas City in the Spring of 1962 on our way to S.D. MCRD. Our flight took us to Los Angeles and we had tickets in our package to catch a bus from there to San Diego. However, we got on the wrong bus and ended up at the Greyhound bus station in downtown L.A. We didn’t know what to do so I looked up the Marine Corps in the phone book and called the number. I explained our problem to the guy who answered and he said he would send someone to give us a ride to MCRD. What they sent was a Navy Shore Patrol paddy wagon! The the Navy cops shoved us in there and drove us to the receiving barracks. The optics were terrible. The D.I.s must have assumed we had gone AWOL and were captured and brought there. It was a very bad start.