I joined the army in 1967 and went through basic at Fort Lewis, Washington.

We were told what to bring and one of those things was shower shoes. I had an old pair of shower shoes so I packed them. At the PX, we were given a list of the things we needed for the locker inspection. I picked up what I needed.

Since my shower shoes were worn out I purchased a new pair. At first inspection we all hid our extra stuff in our laundry bags. We did not fool our Drill Sargent, because the first thing he did was dump our laundry bags out and I now was the proud owner of two pairs of shower shoes. I was ordered to take an entrenching tool and go under the barracks and dig a hole 6 ft. x 6 ft. x 6 ft. and bury them. I had 3 days to do it, during my “spare time”.

A couple of guys took pity on me and pulled scoop shovels out of the furnace room and we had the hole dug in a couple of hours. For the next couple of days we used this hole as our hide out to smoke cigarettes and write letters.

When the Drill Sargent came to inspect it on the third day, he ordered me to stand at attention in the hole and if all he could see was the top of my head then it would pass inspection. I had a slight problem there, because by that time the sand had dried out and some of it had caved in, so to pass inspection, I knelt down. It passed inspection. He could only see the top of my head.

I did not have to fill it back in because one of the other recruits got in trouble and got that pleasure.