Three of us from North Dakota got off the train at Great Lakes Recruit Training Center on the morning of June 8, having been sworn in the day before in Fargo. We were met by other boots who were on their service week. They told us where to stand by company.

"Good luck. You're going to need it!" the one who told me where to go said.

I asked him why.

"When you meet your company commander, you'll know why," he said.

We went around to the various places as we were checked in. We were given a service number, told don't ever forget it and I haven't. We were taught the fine points of "sounding off" and the importance of memorizing the duties of a sentry. We were marched to the mess hall for the evening meal by Tom Jorgenson, the man who introduced himself as our company commander. He was a tall, wiry, bespectacled gunner's mate 1st class. His ribbons indicated that he was a World War II veteran.

We went to the barracks, and Jorgenson told us to line up by our bunks. He then proceeded down the line; each person in turn sounded off. He asked where we were from and various comments followed about the places of origin.

Finally, it was my turn to impress him. I drew up to my full height and it put me about 2 inches above him. Then my world started to change like I never expected.

"Where are you from, boy?" Jorgenson asked.

"North Dakota, sir," I said, proudly. He looked at me with piercing eyes.

"You're a puke!" he said. (Remember this is before PC took over.)

I responded as I'd been instructed earlier in the day with, "Yes, sir, I'm a puke."

The follow-up question was, where in North Dakota was I from?

My answer only got me in deeper.

"Devils Lake, sir," I said. He reached up and pulled his glasses off the bridge of his nose so he could look over the frame.

"You are a rotten, lousy puke!" he said.

"Yes, sir. I'm a rotten, lousy puke," I said.

Then he smiled and asked me if I knew certain folks from there. I told him I did. He said they had all gone into the Navy together in 1943 and he was the only one who stayed.

He asked me about two girls from my hometown. I told him, yes I knew them and that I'd gone to college with them.

"You call that Bible-thumping, pulpit-pounding institution on a hill a college?" he asked. The questioning continued for a while and then he asked me who my dad was. Everyone knew my dad because he ran the movies at the picture show.

Then came the ultimatum.

"No one from my hometown is going to make me look bad, do you understand?" he said. "Your bunk better be perfect. Your locker stowed properly all the time, not just on the days of inspection. Do you understand?"

I knew then it was going to be a long 14 weeks.

Satisfied that he'd terrorized me long enough, he moved on. Next to me was this big kid who had to say the same thing; he was from Devils Lake, too. Guess the company commander had said it all to me. Moving on, the next fellow also had to admit that he was from North Dakota, but quickly said that he was from Jamestown. That didn't buy him anything because that is where the Bible-thumping, pulpit-pounding institution on the hill is located.

I was left off the list of assignments that came out toward the end of boot camp. It seems that they were still trying to get me in for the necessary evaluation to attend Submarine School. But it looked like that wasn't going to happen, so the gunner marched me down to the folks that did the assigning.

"I want him to get a good job and not be a gunner's mate like me," he told them.

I ended up going to Sonar School in Key West, Fla., and after about a year on a destroyer, I was able to attend Sub School. That was the beginning of my 20-plus years in the U.S. Navy. I'll never forget Jorgenson and all that he did for me.