Letters to his parents from our classmate, Buck Locke, who had

My dad died in 2001 and we sold the family home 2006 and moved my mom to Daphne, outside Mobile, Al.  In clearing out the house we found lots of letters that my parents saved.  I have just gotten around to reading some of them and the following is an edited sample of my time in the Navy.

--Buck Locke           

June 20, 1957  I’m going up to Rose’s next weekend.  Dean Edward Rose who sleeps next to me here in the barracks.  He has been in my class since I started school back in October.  I hadn’t thought when I said “Rose” what it would sound like.  Because that is what I had always called him just as he calls me "Locke."   Understand?  Anyway it really broke him up because I couldn’t resist reading it to him. 

Buck's Note:  My mom had written wanting to know if I was serious about Rose!

This is my 36^th week of school.  Long time, no?  I won’t have as good an average out of this as the other school for I missed a lot of stuff the first week when I was sick.  I wrote an 81.  Second week 85.  Third week 89 and this week 92. With all the electronics I’m getting I should be able to get out of the navy and open my own Radar Repair Shop. 

What you all should do is go out in the neighborhood and collect all the Mk 25 radars, Stable Elements, computers and Mark 5 Target Designation equipment and I’ll fix it when I get there.  The above mentioned is worth over a million dollars but I couldn’t fix a $30 radio.

Ed. Note:  Did you catch the word "computers" in this letter written in 1957?  The Navy introduced young seamen to some fancy, cutting edge stuff.  Computers, as we know them, weren't on the scene for another 2 decades.

The more I see of this ‘rock’ (Oahu) the more evident it becomes that it has some of the most beautiful scenery I’ve seen.  But as San Diego was so is this; overcrowded with white hats, eager to go someplace, do something - but nothing.  For the tourist with money swank hotels along the beach, beautiful women; anything his, or her, hearts desires.  For the sailor, one of the guardians of our democracy – we have  scenery.  Although nature alone is perfect and wonderful to behold, day after day of beauty brings it down to the commonplace and goes unnoticed.    

The sun just peeping, barely creeping above the summit of the mountains; its edges poking bony fingers at the rising sun, and with the aid of the heavy white clouds seem to be trying to push it back down into the sea it’s trying to escape.  (whew is that poetic or not?).  The different shades of green against the sides as patches of clouds drift across, their shadows turning the trees a darker green than where the sun strikes, making a crazy patchwork blanket of green that is ever changing its design.

Then just as a small child playing in mud drags his fingers through it making grooves; it is as if a giant hand was drawn down vertically, with the fingers spread wide creating the canyons and valleys of the hillsides that begin in the foothills and stretch to its pinnacles.  Imagine this standing on the fantail of a ship looking out across the bay of Pearl Harbor; then build upon a slightly rising plain that after four or five miles juts steeply suddenly up.  Rising and falling, jagged against the horizon.

CLICK ON BUCK'S PICTURES

Buck aboard USS Fletcher

Buck aboard USS Fletcher

U. S. S. Fletcher website:

        http://www.ussfletcher.org/

History of U. S. S. Fletcher (DD445), Military History site:

        http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/usnsh-f/dd445.htm

Medal of Honor for U. S. S. Fletcher sailor:

        http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/pers-us/uspers-b/e-biglow.htm

USS Fletcher in Sydney, Australia

In Pearl Harbor

Dockside in Pearl Harbor

Refueling at sea