I arrived at RTC in early November 1967.  The group I was with departed for San Diego from Los Angeles, and I was designated the "troop commander".  To this day I have no clue why I was selected for this dubious distinction.  There were 2 buses in our group and we stopped first at the MCRD to let the marine recruits off.  We then went to RTC where we were told to line up on numbers.  Then someone yelled "Where's the troop commander?"  I stepped forward and told him I was the troop commander and the guy said "Are all your men present?"  Seeing as how we had 2 buses and we had let some people off at the marine base, I basically drew a blank as to whether all "my men" were there, so I responded "I don't know".  After about a 2 minute stream of profanities the guy told me I better find out if all "my men" were present.  So began my 4 years of active duty.

After about a week of boot camp, mostly being issued clothes,  learning  how to tie our clothes to the clothesline using square knots, etc. our Company Commander had a heart to heart talk with us.  He told us he and his wife were splitting up and his car needed to be fixed and how broke he was, and could we help out.  So we "lent" him money.  Our CC was really a jerk and he was constantly pissed off about one thing or the other.  The day we moved from primary to secondary we also started our service week in the galley.  We packed up our stuff, marched over the bridge, hurriedly unpacked our things in our new barracks, then immediately went to work in the galley.  When we returned later that day, we found the barracks in a shambles, as the CC had done a barracks inspection.  Lockers were overturned and everything was a total mess.  I understood the need for inspections, but this was just totally stupid. He  borrowed money from us again after giving us another one of his cock and bull stories. The CC was also physically abusive to a lot of the recruits.  All in all he was a bad guy.

One day  we were coming back from either firefighting or the rifle range, and when  we got back to RTC someone came on the bus and told us not to get off.  They then arrested the CC and led him away.  A chief told us to form up and we were marched back to the barracks.  When we arrived we were told to grab our writing gear and give details about what had gone on since the beginning of boot camp, which we all gladly did.  After that, some were called in for interviews to line up witnesses for our CC's court martial; I was one of the people interviewed, but lucky for me I didn't make the final cut as a witness.  While this was going on we still had to get our boot training done with our new CC. I was told later that one of the recruits from our company, who had volunteered to be a 4050 chaser, had spilled the beans about the goings on at Company 655

After boot graduation I went home for a couple of weeks, then went to NTC for Basic Electricity and Electronics (BEEP) school.  While there I ran into one of the witnesses who was pretty depressed about still being in San Diego.  He told me that the CC had been busted and sent to the brig.

If nothing else, my experience at RTC was memorable.

I have omitted the name of the CC, as maybe (hopefully) he reformed himself and all of this is ancient history.