The Barracks Thief
By Paul Davis
It had been a busy time on the USS Kitty Hawk as the aircraft carrier launched and recovered aircraft on a moonless night on “Yankee Station” in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China sea off the coast of North Vietnam in 1971.
I had just been relieved from my watch at midnight in the Radio Communication Division’s Message Processing Center. While on Yankee Station, we were on eight on/eight off watches, and as the days and nights flew by, we lost track of time.
On this night, as our aircraft performed combat sorties against the North Vietnamese and faced anti-aircraft fire and surface to air missiles, called SAMs or “telephone poles,” the atmosphere was hectic in the message center as we maintained communication with the combat pilots and processed a great number of highly classified message traffic and intelligence reports in “real time.”
I headed to the ship’s galley where they were serving “MIDRATS,” midnight rations. The ship’s cooks offered hot dogs, hamburgers, grilled cheese, and French fries to the sailors, airmen and Marines coming off watch, and for those who wanted a late-night snack.
The more than 5,500 men ate fairly well on the Kitty Hawk, and although I had a fine full dinner eight hours earlier, I stood in line with my tray and took a cheeseburger, a grilled cheese sandwich and some French fries. I laid my tray on a table and took a glass and filled it with a red Kool-Aid like drink that the sailors called “bug juice.”
I sat at the table and as I took a bite from my grilled cheese, I heard someone call my name.
I looked up and saw George Goforth from North Carolina. He was in my Boot Camp company more than a year prior at the Recruit Training Center at the Great Lakes, Ill naval base near Chicago.
Goforth hadn’t changed much. He was about five years older than my 18 years. He still had his close-cropped Boot Camp style haircut, and he was still stocky with a hard face that looked like it was carved from the side of a mountain.
Although I hated Goforth in Boot Camp, I let bygones be bygones. I smiled with a mouth full of my sandwich, and I waved for him to sit across from me.
Goforth sat with his tray of food and told me he worked in the radar division. I said I was in the radio communications division.
"So, you a radioman?"
"No," I replied. "I'm more of an admin security guy than a communication tech guy."
Goforth and I enjoyed our MIDRATs, and we spoke more about our jobs on the carrier, the great liberty in Olongapo in the Philippines, and the good and the bad ole days of Boot Camp.
I last saw Goforth on our last day of Boot Camp when we received our orders. As I had enlisted in the Navy when I was 17 in 1970 for two years under the “McNamara’s 100,000” program, which was Defense Secretary Robert McNamera’s program to recruit young men who prior to the Vietnam War would not have been accepted into the armed forces.
We were Vietnam cannon fodder, as one sailor explained it to me. The program was also known as “McNamara’s Misfits,” or “McNamara’s Morons.”
As a two-year enlisted recruit, I was unable to attend a Navy “A” school after Boot Camp, where one was trained in technical skills and then advanced in a Navy occupational specialty, known as “ratings.”
That was fine by me, as I was anxious to go to Vietnam. I had applied to be assigned to a Navy Swift Boat, officially called a Patrol Craft Fast (PCF). The Swift Boats patrolled the Vietnam coastlines and waterways.
I was attracted to Swift Boats as I enjoyed “McHale’s Navy,” a TV comedy series that portrayed piratical and comedic sailors on a WWII PT boat, as well as the film “PT 109,” the patrol boat that President John Kennedy had served on in WWII. And I was especially influenced by John Ford’s classic WWII film about PT boats in the Philippines, “They Were Expendable.”
But as a 17-year-old high school dropout, I was subject to what was deemed the “Needs of the Navy,” so instead of being assigned to a 50-foot long Swift Boat, I was assigned to a 1,068.9-foot-long supercarrier. Goforth, with his four-year enlistment, I recall, received orders to go to radar “A” school.
At the Great Lakes Boot Camp in February of 1970, our company commander, a stout and gruff Boatswain Mate 1st Class Petty Officer named Schmidt, selected four recruits to be “Recruit Petty Officers.” I had no issue with Jenkins, a tall, skinny, bespectacled 26-year-old, being selected as the leading petty officer, as he was the only college graduate in a recruit company of high school graduates and high school dropouts. But I did sort of resent Schmidt selecting Goforth as a recruit petty officer, as I thought he was dumb.
Schmidt, for some reason, seemed to like Goforth, and he immediately showed his displeasure with me. Although I was a good recruit in terms of classroom study, marching and PT, Schmidt did not like my questioning instructions and my sarcastic asides. He was not amused, and he often called me a smart ass.
One day outside of Schmidt’s office, Goforth told me that I had to stand the midnight security watch, where for four hours I stood at parade rest with an M-1 carbine rifle (unloaded) and guarded the barracks as the other recruits slept in their racks.
I complained that I had the midnight watch only the other day, so with a good many recruits in our company, why did he again assign the late-night watch to me?
“Cause I said so,” Goforth said. “I do the watch bill.”
I suggested he do a better and fairer job of it, when I heard Schmidt bellow out, “Listen to the man, Davis!”
Goforth gave me his best shit-eating grin.
I recalled that on our very first weekly written test, Schmidt went ape shit as more than half of the recruit company failed, including Goforth.
Under my breath, I told Goforth, “Enjoy being a recruit petty officer here, because in the fleet, you have to take tests to become a real petty officer, and I suspect you are too fucking dumb to pass a written test.”
Goforth walked away without a word.
“Yes, go forth, Goforth,” I called after him.
On top of the intense and tiring training we were subjected to, we had a bit of drama in the barracks as several recruits’ money and other items of value were reported stolen.
It appeared that our barracks thief had lock-picking skills.
After the third reported theft, Schmidt held muster and told the assembled recruits to be sure to lock up their valuables and watch out for each other.
“There is nothing lower than a barracks thief,” Schmidt said with a disgusted look. “If I catch anyone stealing, I’ll bust his ass right outta the Navy.”
The barracks thief was a major topic of discussion on our down time, but one night a black, muscular, six-foot-tall recruit named Robert James was discussing boxing with me. He was speaking about the great Rocky Marciano and Joe Louis bout. James said he had been competing for the Golden Gloves in his hometown of Cleveland when he feared his draft notice was imminent.
“I fight anybody in the ring,” James said. “But I ain’t fightin’ no Viet Cong in no jungle, so I up and joined this here Navy.”
We laughed.
“You was a boxer too, right?” James asked.
“I boxed at the South Philly Boy’s Club. Strictly a low-rent amateur,” I replied.
“What you lookin’ at, boy,” James said looking over my shoulder.
I turned around. Goforth turned and walked away.
“We ought to use Goforth as a punching bag,” James said with a laugh.
“The thought occurred,” I said.
A few days later I entered the barracks and saw Alfred Dinkins, a short and stocky 20-year-old recruit from Baltimore, bent over and rooting through another recruit’s locker.
I crept up behind Dinkins, and I kicked him square in the ass. He screamed and tumbled across the deck.
“Davis! You on report!” I hear Goforth shout behind me.
“Dinkins was rooting through Martin’s locker. He’s our barracks thief,” I said.
“I bent down to tie my shoelace and Davis kicked me,” Dinkins said in protest.
Goforth took me and Dinkins into Schmidt’s office.
I stood at attention in front of Schmidt’s desk, alongside Goforth and Dinkins.
Goforth spoke first. He told Schmidt that he saw me kick Dinkins. I spoke next, explaining that I caught Dinkins in Martin’s locker. Dinkins then denied that he was looking in Martin’s locker.
“Goforth, go get Martin,” Schmidt ordered.
Goforth came back to the office some five minutes later with Martin in tow. Schmidt asked Martin if his locker was locked or unlocked.
“It was unlocked, Sir. But I only went to the head for a minute.”
“Are you missing anything?”
“No, Sir, I checked.”
“He would be missing something if I hadn’t kicked Dinkins in the ass,” I said.
“Shut up, Davis,” Shmidt bellowed.
“Didn’t I tell you pukes to keep your lockers secure?”
“Yes, Sir,” Martin said sheepishly.
“Martin and Dinkins, you are dismissed.”
After they left the office, Schmidt rose from his chair and looked hard at me.
“Davis, I should put you on report for assault,” Schmidt said. “But instead, I want you to give me ten laps around the grinder. Goforth, escort Davis out to the grinder.”
Goforth handed me a 12-pound M-1, and we went out to the grinder, a cement parade ground the size of a football field.
Holding the M-1 over my head, I began to run around the grinder as Goforth stood to the side with a smug, shit-eating grin - the dumb bastard!
Sometime later, we were given our first “liberty” and allowed to leave the base. Most of the recruits talked about going to Milwaukee. But being a big city boy, I chose to go to Chicago, and I went by myself.
Like the Great Lakes Boot Camp, Chicago was cold. Dressed in my “crackerjack" Navy-blue uniform, white hat (called a dixie cup) and a Navy-blue pea coat, I walked around Chicago. As an aspiring crime writer and student of crime, I boarded a tour bus that offered a tour of Chicago’s gangland history.
The tour bus drove past the site of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, where in 1929, seven men from the bootlegging North Side Gang were mowed down from tommy guns, reportedly ordered by Al Capone. The garage was long gone and, in its place now stood a building.
Likewise, the site of the Biograph Theater, where in 1934, the FBI gunned down the infamous bank robber John Dillinger after he was betrayed by the “woman in red.” The bus stopped and the tour guide pointed to a nondescript building.
Not only was the bus tour rather boring, but the tour guide also got several of his facts wrong. I spoke up and corrected him the first time and I received a dirty look from the guide for my trouble. I stayed quiet when he erred again and again, as I was worried that he would throw me off the bus.
After my disappointing tour, I resumed walking around the famous Loop in the center of downtown Chicago, and I bundled up my pea coat to ward off the frigid winds coming off Lake Michigan.
I walked by a pretty blonde girl in bell bottom jeans and a fluffy coat. I smiled at her. Most girls at that time would not look or talk to sailors or soldiers in the street, so I was taken aback when she smiled at me and asked me if I were in the Navy.
I told her I was from Philadelphia, and I lied and said I was 25. She said her name was Carol and she was 21 and she was from a small town in Illinois. She said she was a business student attending DePaul University and she shared an apartment with another female student.
I asked to buy her lunch, and she agreed and suggested a small place Just up the street. We had a good meal and a good conversation and afterwards she invited me to her apartment where she said she had wine and pot. She noted that her roommate had gone home for the week.
We drank, smoked pot and kissed on the couch. We then moved to the bedroom.
A couple of hours later I asked if I could use her shower. I showered and dressed in my uniform.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes,” I said. “I have to be back at the base before midnight.”
She reached for her notebook and pen, and she wrote down her name, telephone number and address and gave it to me. I took the note and kissed her.
“This was fun. Thanks for inviting me here.”
“I’m glad I meet you,” she said. “I hope to see you again.”
“I’ll call.”
Back at the barracks, we all heard the news that Schnidt had caught Dinkins in his office. Schmidt made Dinkins empty his pockets and Dinkins pulled out Schmidt’s brass money clip with a good bit of cash. Schmidt called the Naval Investigative Service and civilian special agents from the base came over and took Dinkins into custody.
We later learned that Dinkins had been a burglar in Baltimore, and a judge gave him the option of joining the military or going to prison. He chose the Navy, where as a "McNamara Misfit," he continued to ply his criminal pursuits.
I felt vindicated, having earlier accused Dinkins of being the barracks thief, but neither Goforth nor Schmidt said a word to me. After discussing the fate of our barracks thief, most of the recruits spoke of their liberty. It appeared that I was one of the few recruits to have met a girl on liberty.
I felt good about Dinkins getting caught and my liberty with Carol, and I sat on my rack smiling to myself.
“Davis, you got the midnight watch,” I heard Goforth say, ruining my moment of happiness.
© 2025 Paul Davis
