: I joined the Navy in May of 1956, went to Boot Camp and then to T.I.to join class of Electrnics School. They came to our Barracks recruiting and I fell in love. I have many happy memories of the time in the Toon.It was great to have someone to talk to, hang out with, Toon practices,piling on the bus to head out to a Parade in some Bay City.The people in the towns where we had the Parades treated us real good.We had our own Barracks, no clean-up duty in the other Barracks.We had a great Officer for a Sponser, who really looked out after us. Our Drill Master was named Spokes.I also remember a ex-member who came by to visit us named Joker. Believe he had a girl friend in the area.Also remember a Toon member named Spikes. I was a member of the drill team in 1958-59, while attending Radar "A" School. Some of my most enjoyable memories of my Navy enlistment are from being a member of the drill team. I have a few still photos of the team marching in parades around the Bay Area and I have a short film. It was taken by a cousin of mine, who lived in San Leandro. He made the film during a parade in that town. I managed to get the film transferred to DVD but the quality is not all that great. Still, it did preserve my wonderful memories of being on the drill team.
I arrived on T.I. bound for ET A School in April, 1956 and joined the toon shortly thereafter, which allowed me to march the entire 1956 summer parade season. The summer was topped off by winning the CA State Military Drill Team Championship held in Santa Clara. My future wife, Deanna Smith was marched at the time with the Los Senoritas, mostly from Gilroy, CA. I have some pictures from an old Brownie camera and a picture of the awarding of the Championship Trophy by the based commander. At that time I was marching at position 1-1 and made Team Card before graduating in early November. I came back and marched with the toon a couple of times in 1957, including the St. Patrick's Day Parade in SFO. Coming back from that parade to Gilroy is when I proposed. Life is good.