Service Record Post Part 2
  Naval Air Station Duties

In part one of this series, after competing “A” school, the orders came through assigning me to the Naval Missile Center Command located at Point Mugu Naval Air Station near Oxnard, California. In June 1962, I reported for duty at Point Mugu NAS to be attached to the Naval Missile Center, but that had to wait until (as new NAS reports will testify) I was attached to the Naval Air Station Command to be washed through the usual menial chores duty of a new report.

My first assignment was to be attached to “Compartment (Coop) Cleaners” in the barracks on the Naval base. Of course this involved “swabbing decks” and general clean up of the areas where the station personnel resided. It was totally unrewarding save for the acquired skills of running a mop, a floor buffer and a broom. I still treasure those skills even to this time in my life, and use them in our daily maintenance of Casa Casandro here in Arizona.

After a few weeks of “coop cleaning,” I got an assignment to the base “Security Infantry” whose purpose was to augment the Naval Station’s Security force. Upon reporting to the barracks where about sixty of us had been assigned, we were indoctrinated to our new billets as security force members.

The Security Infantry program started out with a daily routine of calisthenics followed by compartment cleaning, training exercises (with M1 Garand Rifles) and other interesting classes with topics such as survival of a nuclear attack, dealing with biological warfare and protection from chemical weapons.

We all were made available to the base security force as gate sentinels, Colors Crew (Flag raising and lowering), post watches (guarding the perimeters of the NAS 24/7) and so forth. We were on a “port/starboard” duty cycle, with one day on duty and one day off and a 48 hour liberty pass every other weekend.

We served the security force for a total of two months after which we were to be assigned to one of the several departments of the Naval Missile Center. Our experience with the Security Infantry had many benefits including live time on the firing range with introduction to M1 Garand, Browning Automatic Rifles and Handguns (1911 .45ACP). The time in Security Infantry was of great value to me, such as to be equivalent to advanced basic training (boot camp).

When my tour as a Security Infantryman completed, I got myself assigned to the Targets and Drones Department of the Naval Missile Center. More about how that came about in the next part of this series.

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