''The Elsie item'' - USS Landing Craft Infantry National Association

(Every day, a large truck with a working party was sent in forthis.)"What are you talking about, we have you down as AWOL," he exclaimed, "You have already missed one ship!" About this time the Captain's Yeoman came in and handed eachof us three long sheets of paper which contained five libertypasses on each sheet, signed by the Captain."The Captain said for you to fill out the dates and times to suityourselves." Said the Yeoman.WOW, had we fallen into a real deal!Well, after the first month, Mosher got tired of it all and cameback to the base. I have never seen him since.Now, if you knew Washington and Union Station during the waryou remember that just across the street there were some largeHotels. One of them was a WAVE barracks and the other was aUSO. I lived at the USO for a while I think it was about SOc anight but finally I moved into a rooming house across thestreet. I had met this beautiful WAVE and of course they wouldnot allow us in the USO rooms together and certainly not in theWAVE Hotel.But I had my defense ready! "The Captain knows about it and he gave me all these libertychits to fill out myself," I told him, " I still have a whole sheetleft." at which time I showed him the sheet I had left.He grabbed it out of my hand and looked at it and said, "You come with me." We got in his pickup truck and went down to the Captain's Of­fice. When we got there he handed the Captain the rest of my liberty chits and asked him if he knew anything about it. The Captain looked at them and then me and said I was correct, that it was just as I had explained it. The Captain then looked at me and said, "But these liberty passes are only to be made out one a day not one a week!" This went on for about two months and I was living it up. Thenone day one of the truck drivers said to me,"Ain't your name Talbert""Yes", I replied."Well," he said, " they are looking for you back at the base."So the next day I went back to the base, as I had some laundryto do anyway. When I went through the gate, I handed my IDcard to the Sentry. He looked at it and said,"Holy Cow, you come with me!"The Captain examined the liberty chits again "But it sure doesn't say that on these passes." Turning to the Lieutenant he said "I can't see anything so ter­rible has happened here, take this man back to his barracks, wait for him to pack all his gear and then take him down to his ship." The Lieutenant said, "Aye, Aye Sir" I snapped to attention, said "Thank you sir." and turned to leave. Going out the door I looked at the Captain. He looked at me and smiled and at the same time tapping the side of his head with his fore finger, as if to say, We went into the gatehouse and the sentry yelled"You put one over on us this time!" "Lieutenant, look who I've got." and handed my ID to the Lieutenant.He looked at me and said,Now you can see why I say Solomon's was a great duty station. Jim Talbert Flotilla 22 Staff "Where in the hell have you been?""Working on the baggage detail in DC," I told him.19