Great Lakes Naval Training Center - September - October 1968

Every evening we had to hand wash our skivvies (undwear) worn during the day. This was accomplished inside the barracks washroom and to dry the clothes there was a 'HOT' room.

This room had clothes lines and each recruit would hang their clothes in this room and they would be dry by the next morning.

Our drill instructor was very animated about anytime leaving our locker the drawer was to be LOCKED with our issued combination padlock.

One evening, after we were all busy washing and hanging our laundry and returning to our assigned bunk/locker area, we noticed ALL unlocked padlocks were placed outside (COLD) hanging on the outdoor clothes line. There were probably 70 or 80 all identical looking locks that were locked on that line!

There we were, in our skivvies, in the COLD outdoors trying our memorized combinations on those locks until we found the one that would open!!!

After that evening there were no more unlocked lockers left unattended!!!!