Evening star., 1942-09-06
BY JOE GROTEGUT,
Wide World.

Wide World.
ATHENS, Ga, Sept. 3.-Any fun
Is purely incidental in the sports
program at the Navy pre-hight
school here.
I know because I worked at sports
with the cadets for 3 hours and 40
minutes each day I was at the
school. But then these lads are
going to war, not to college.
The pre-flight course moves at
double time pace and SO did for
the 10 days I lived as a cadet to
get an inside view of what the Navy
is doing to fortify its future flyers
for a dangerous role in the deadly
game of war.
Once the new group OF cadets
with whom I entered the school
had cleared the induction process,
our regular routine unfolded like
this.
Reveille sounded over the loud
speaker system at am. (0600 in
the Navy, and that meant jump
ing out of bed, pulling the sheets
into pile to eliminate the easy
way of bed making and then get
ting the whole room shipshape-
sweeping the deck" for one thing.
For some battalisns the time for
this comes after the morning chow,
but in either case a lively march
Is put on to the mess hall.
Muster for the first period was
T.d6 that
usually meant 2 hours and 10 min
utes of Infantry drilling. just as
the sports engaged in vary from one
group to another at different times,
SO do the times of day for the va
rious activities change from week
to week.
Makes Army Life Look Easy.
We were told in advance that the
drills would make Army life seem
easy in comparison and marine
sergeant did his best to prove the
Navy right.
The Navy hates excuses, but I
still maintain that sergeant couldn't
have been giving commands in Eng
lish, thus accounting for his ex-
pressed opinion of my marching
ability.
One day when we didn't drill we
went on a sightseeing tour, osten-
sibly to get acquainted with the
various buildings on the University
of Georgia campus which now house
naval activities.
OF course, it was really a hike
intervals substituted as a relief from
drilling.
The hike took us all over the hilly
and expansive campus and to the
woods beyond, from which we ran
back instead of walking. For some
reason my platoon decided to move
up from its position near the rear
and passed the others, arriving at
our barracks short on breath out
long on perspiration and pride.
The second morning period for the
platoon, also covering 2 hours and
10 minutes, was divided into ttree
academic classes, the first OF which
provided instruction in essentials
OF naval service.
Among other things we were
taught to say AYE, aye, sir" when
given a command and to waste no
time in carrying out orders. The
meanings of expressions like pipe
down" and Bear a hand" seemed to
be picked up as we went along.
(They mean to shut up and hurry
up, IN case you didn't know.)
Winds Up AM. Courses.
The second class was in mathe-
matics, and the third was a secret
course in nomenclature and rec
ognition of ships and planes.
That wound up the morning pro-
gram, tame in comparison with the
afternoon activities but still sufi-
Client to work up healthy appetite
for noon chow.
Ihe afternoons got under way
with Is minutes of rapid-fire calls
themes to the accompaniment of
snarp military commands, grunts
and groans.
The rest of this period, Of the
same duration as the others, was
olVlded between gymnastics and
boxing instruction for the first week
OF my platoon's routine.
The gymnastics were easy-for
the first five minutes. That's when
we learned to do simple forward
and backward somersaults. Later
these were mixed in wildly with
standing-running and belly flops, the
dizzy result being called an agil-
ity drill.
Then medicine balls were placed
on the mats in a steadily mount
ing pile over which we were ey-
pected to leap to our hands and
somersault. There seems to be M
limit for some of the cadets. There
was for me.
All this came on the first day of
our gym instructions which later in
cluded rope and shelf climbing
Rope climbing wasn't so hard if YOU
knew how to use your feet as well
as your hands without burnine
either, but getting onto shelf vel
beyond the standing reach of YOU,
upstretched hands is something else
Getting Down Easy at Least.
First you chin yourself, then hook
an arm over the ledge, throw one
leg aboard and roll and pull the res
of the way, which should put Vol
on top with great sigh of relief
Getting down is much easier-yor
simply start off headfirst and enc
up in skin-the-cat fashion.
Boxing classes started off with
demonstrations of jabs, hooks ane
other punches, which were first usee
on shadow opponents. Then 70,
used them on classmate who kney
what was coming and parried. Thi
was followed by two rounds in which
he didn't know and neither did you
The final period before dinner wa
devoted to sports competition be
tween the various squadrons o
cadets who successfully passed thei
swimming and physical fitness tests
] was on sub squad for swimmin
snd would have been destined TO
the weak squad later if the officer
agreed with me that I needed SOM
additional physical development
At the end of this hour and a hal