Comments

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  Jim Decota September 29, 2011 at 2:22pm

  Steve, it's a capture from using Bing maps in the "Bird's Eye View". Just type in Liberty Station, San Diego and zoom in! If you use google maps and street view, you can drive around the chapel. But, that's as far as that goes. I used the street view and drove around NTC(limited). I didn't even realize where I was at times. I was sitting righ next to where my old barracks used to stand and didn't know it!
  
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  Steve Lund September 29, 2011 at 1:57pm

  Jim thanks very much for posting this photograph. May I ask where you found it?
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  Jim Decota September 19, 2011 at 5:07pm

  It is amazing Steve how little value there is to history! Most of us remember things this way!

  

  Now, so little is left! Everything to the left of the yellow line has been given to the City of San Diego as a park! The chapel(upper left) is now a museum.

  No more Navy Corps Schools left! Now they train at a combined base in Texas!
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  Steve Lund September 19, 2011 at 3:50pm

  Went through in 1977. Visited the site in 2006 and was amazed at the changes. The barracks and watch area are like an archeological (sic) site. I saw a few of the lamp posts were there but the rest of the place was buried. The new school is far more advanced then what we had. On arrival day we had to serve lunch to a bunch of M.D.'s. I don't know if this was by design (probably). At graduation we had to sing Anchors Away (through gritted teeth). Lt Commander Richards was our lead clinical instructor. A fantastic teacher dedicated to her skills, teaching, and the Navy. All the Anchors Way stuff was probably her idea. God bless her!
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  Jim Decota May 26, 2011 at 10:54pm

  Ernest, It's amazing how, just like high school yearbooks every class has people who look like others in a different class! Even though I was at Balboa 4 years after you, that guy in the front row with the glasses looks just like an HM3 Rickey Blackwell that was our Asst Company Commander!

    Everyone, I need a little help here! In restoring sick bay on the USS Slater I have come upon a question I don't have a definitive answer for. I am rebuilding the log desk and cabinet in the picture. You'll notice on the back splash there are several rubber stamps. There looks to be 10 or 12 of them. I am going to have replicas made by a company that has their old(1940's) patterns. Any suggestions on what the stamps would have been? I am guessing at a couple like "cleared for duty"!

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  Ernest H Bradley May 24, 2011 at 9:44am

  I've posted the picture of my graduating class at HCS Balboa Hospital Dec 1968, maybe someone will recognize themselves.
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  Adrian Hernandez May 24, 2011 at 12:42am

   

  Thanks Michael, it was an honor to serve in the Navy's Medical Corps with the men and women whose sole purpose is to provide the best care for our country's Armed Forces.  Anywhere in the world, any time.

  Semper Fi
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  Michael J Sanchez May 23, 2011 at 11:29pm

  Like Staff Sergeant Walker (2nd Platoon Sgt, Golf 2/4) used to say, "Doc, ya gotta love it!"
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  Michael J Sanchez May 23, 2011 at 11:28pm

  Hey Doc Adrian, I sure DO recall that hill=humping class with the litters.  Busted my young butt, too, but it was summer camp compared to the real deal in the field with the Marines, years later.  You went into the meat grinder right after Tet?  What were you thinking?  Just kidding, but I'm glad to God that you made it through that dark time.

  I'm saluting all of you Docs who went in country during the 'Nam.  Proud to have been in the Hospital Corps with such caliber of men as you guys and gals.

  Semper Fi and Oo-friggin'-RAH

   

  mjs
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  Adrian Hernandez May 23, 2011 at 11:22pm

   

  I attended HCS at Balboa Naval Hospital San Diego in  April of '68.  I seem to recall that toward the end of our training that we had to carry someone on a litter, (not a stokes), up a steep rocky dirt hill, going up in teams.  Four bearers and a patient on a litter made up a team.  I can't remember if it was one team going up the hill at a time, or several.  Anyway, the hill was near the east gate off Pershing Dr.  

  The one day outside class was held in a tent near the base of it.  I believe the class was on types of trauma that a corpsman would see on a battle field.  They had a dummy that mimicked  an array of traumatic injuries and squirted fake blood. 

   Naturally, some in our class lost their footing and slid down the hill.  And minor lacerations and abrasions were the real injuries of that day.  When our team of litter bearers finally got to the top we just collapsed from exhaustion.  

    What a crazy class that was.  Anybody remember that?  Looking back on that day makes me laugh about it now.  But we sure weren't laughing then.  Well, maybe at first we were.  But then quickly not.  HA!