Submitted by Tom Leasure

During my final stages of adolescents, and after high school, I found myself having no direction in life, no job, no college and of course no money. Just a lost soul not knowing what was to become of myself. My only certainly in life at this time was the draft was on my tail. So, I decided to join the Navy and see the world.

It was August of 1965 when Great Lakes Navel Station (boot camp) became my new home for eight weeks. The direction in life I was lacking soon became a reality. Standing at attention, reciting general orders, learning proper military dress, marching, rank symbolizing and other Navy core values were pounded into me daily.

Life after VP-50, as you can see, I’m still hanging around with vintage movie stars. Picture taken in La Paz, Mexico in 1978 with the “Duke

The wandering thoughts of my mind were quickly eliminated, and my life finally had new meaning. It seemed like a long eight weeks, but graduation finally came, and a short leave was extended to me prior to reporting to my duty station, Patron Fifty, NAS Sangley Point, Philippines, in a yeoman classification.

During my leave, I attended a family reunion and got to meet one of my favorite movie stars. (see photo) The pretty girl in the picture is my first cousin who became Henry Fonda’s fifth and final wife. They met on a commercial flight when she was a stewardess. I found Mr. Fonda to be a very nice and a down to earth person. I also was able to visit him and his wife at their home in Bel Air California with a shipmate of mine (who happens to be the editor of this newsletter). My cousin called to Henry to get out of the pool, you have company. Mr. Fonda was extremely cordial, offered us some Red Eric beer and we all discussed his upcoming movie he just completed with Lucile Ball. (We did not discuss Jane).

Getting back to my story. Leave was finally over, and I flew from San Francisco to the Philippines via a C-130, with stop offs at Hawaii, Wake and Guam. To this day, I still get confused over the international dateline. Too late in life to figure it out.

As a yeoman, my duties included Admin, Personnel, Legal and Public Affairs. I must admit, I had good duty. After 0800 muster, my very fist duty was to pour the CO his coffee of which at the time was H.R. Purdy. His XO was Commander Kidd. The coffee pouring really paid off for me, as I remember the time when the CO signed an overnight liberty pass for me, of which I was not entitled to at the time. Somehow my chief found out and he chewed my rear for jumping the chain of command. The chief and I both knew he couldn’t do anything about it because the CO signed the pass, so I just got the chewing.

Working in public affairs, I was fortunate to get around the Philippines. One time a LT and I flew in a helicopter to Corregidor Island where we hiked up a steep hill, climbed a tower in order to spot different types of aircraft. Some sort of training exercise, I guess. I’m the one with the binoculars, but couldn’t see a damn thing, while the officer was spotting and identifying aircraft with his naked eye. Maybe that’s why he’s an officer and I was just a seaman.

Then there was the time when we flew south to Porta Princessa. Why, I don’t recall. All I remember is getting “toasted” drinking wine with some Monks.

Another experience I’ll never forget was when some of us squadron personnel attended a Xmas party at a Leper colony. I think it was north of Manilla up in the hills someplace. It was not a pretty sight, but the people were overjoyed to see us, especially the kids.

As a legal yeoman, I had to attend all captain’s masses. After receiving write-up reports at my desk on squadron personnel, I had to match the offense to the specific UCMJ article. Captains mass usually consisted of the sailor accused, his chief, me as yeoman and of course the CO. After I read off the UCMJ article, the CO would ask the plead from the sailor, then the CO would ask the chief “what type of sailor is this man”. If the sailor was 4.0 and did not have any prior write-ups, he would get off with a stern warning, if not, usually a reduction of pay and/or rate would be administered. Even I couldn’t wait to get out of this setting. The CO even scared me.

Not being an aircrewman, I still was able to experience flying in the seaplanes at times. When I got bored of all the paperwork, I was fortunate to talk the officer I worked for into flying with him and his crew. I remember one time our aircraft going into a nosedive and thought we were going down. Some type of training exercise, but it still scared the hell out of me.

I could go on and on with my sea stories, but I must quit somewhere. All in all, I found my Naval enlistment fascinating as well as educational. Just being able to see how people in other countries live and knowing their culture was quite an experience. It was also a growing up period of time for me of which I’ll never forget.

I feel proud to have served in the Navy and being a VP-50 squadron personnel. Thank you, VP-50, for a lifetime of memories.”