April 17, 2020
United States Navy Supply Corps, Looking Back, Looking Ahead
It was Christmas 1955 when a fraternity brother who was a Navy ensign returned to Columbia, Missouri, where I was a soon-tograduate Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps midshipman. The college friend told me about an officer on his destroyer who had an office with safes, paid and fed the crew, kept the budget, ordered the ship’s supplies, sold uniforms, ran a retail shop called a “Ships Store” that sold cigarettes for a dollar a carton, and did not stand midwatches on the bridge in the dead of night.