Recently a friend, MJ, brought up the notion of giving credit to all the people and especially the young men and women of the U.S. Navy that served at NPIC in the early days. I left in Sept. 1961 but while there I never worked so hard in my life. Like everyone else we worked everyday and then at days end we went back to work again as a duty section. We had 3 section duty and there was talk of going to Port and Starboard duty which would have been every other day and every other weekend. That may have just broke us.
As it was we worked well over 80 hours a week and we did most of it in the darkroom. Lunch time was so valuable to us. We would go out in the courtyard and soak up the rays from the sun.
It was therefore quite appropriate that our Christmas Card had a prison there with everyone in stripped uniforms. It felt like we were in a prison workshop. Here's a photo of me and Michaels holding up the NPIC seal in our jail house clothes.
To see the full card with names etc. follow this link.All this aside it was still a great time of growth and character building and I regret none of it. I think it helps knowing that we were all in the same boat, so to speak.
Well my friend MJ also alerted me to the fact that some of the hard work did not go unnoticed. For the work done during the Cuban Missile Crisis the Command got a Unit Commendation Award / Citation.
Here is Citation
To all those who served. Thank you for all your sacrifice and good hard work.
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