In 1965 after attending a year in reserve meetings on and about the Roncador  I was TAD assigned to Long Beach  while they found me to a boat.  The first night I spent in the transit barracks for sailors being mustered out.  That night when lights went out I heard drunken happy sailors coming in.  I heard an especially drunk  group say that Long Beach was the f---ing best liberty port in the whole f---ing Navy.  I cringed with the thought of that being true.

While waiting for a boat in '66 my first orders I received on a  a Friday afternoon had me going to survival training, riverboat school, and then Da Nang for riverboat patrol.  Luckily in my year of meetings I had "volunteered" to do boot camp and sub school during regular school's summer vacation.  When I questioned my orders they pulled my file and I saw SG which the clerk said signified Sub Graduate.  The told me the orders were assigned in San Diego, and Monday morning they'd check if an error had been made.  Worst weekend I had ever had, but Monday morning those orders were cancelled after a weekend of sweating bullets.  In a couple of weeks I got my orders to report to Oahu to the Pickerel.  I really wanted San Diego, but I was overjoyed to not be on a riverboat, and I had some familiarity with the Pickerel because of the television program Silent Service.