Raising A Soul Surfer by Rick Bundschuh, Cheri Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

4-F knees, feet and eyesight. After the test, Tom was conducted to a locker room where everything he had on besides his undies were stripped off and stashed away. Paperwork in hand, he was told to follow the white line to the physical evaluation station. Tom looked down at his knotty knees and gnarled feet and trudged along without complaining.
    What he didn’t know was how great the military’s appetite for new troops had grown and that the acceptable physical standards were dropping rapidly. Tom passed the physical with flying colors and was told he had three months of freedom before he belonged wholly and irrevocably to the United States Armed Forces.
    Right about then, Tom paid attention to the war his nation was wrestling with. As his time on the outside dwindled, he dreaded being stuck crawling neck-deep in jungle mud as a grunt—avoiding land mines, snipers, booby traps; lying in foxholes; catching malaria. You name it—he knew he didn’t want any part of it.
    Tom’s swim coach turned out to be a commander in the Navy Reserves, and he graciously used his connections to help Tom get an enlistment into the Navy. This is an example of when “who you know” counts at a turning point in your life.
    At the end of his three months, he reported to Lakehurst Naval Air Station in New Jersey, for boot camp, and boy did he get a rude awakening.

    The life of a surfer has its own sort of regimentation, its own discipline and endurance. But the military regimentation, discipline and tests of endurance are a far cry from the self-imposed life of a dedicated surfer. Being yelled at by drill sergeants; called every name in the book and all the ones not in the book; being forced to march, stand, wake, eat, dig holes, fill holes, at any time, with no seeming rhyme or reason—all were a bit of an adjustment for Tom. He still laughs about being “leader of the pack” to do punitive pushups.
    Boot camp spit him out, and soon after, Tom got his orders. Only four months after his California Dreamin’ surf trip, Tomfound himself heading back to California, to North Island Naval Station in San Diego, where he was assigned to the Navy destroyer
USS Hanson
.
    Because he could type well, Tom ended up with the opportunity to work in and be in charge of the ship’s post office—a particularly enviable job in the days before electronic media, because a letter or package from home was the only way that family and friends could communicate with their loved ones at sea. The postmaster was appreciated by the crew, so much so that Tom was often given little gifts by happy sailors out of the care packages he delivered—homemade cookies, dried fruit and then some.
    While most of the time the ship’s postman was treated like a good fellow by most of the crew, there was one petty officer who resented the fact that Tom, a wet-behind-the-ears kid, had pulled such light duty. He took every chance to harass Tom until one day it came to a head. The two men found themselves in a “smoker”—an officially sanctioned boxing match where enlisted men could settle their grievances by pure force.
    The officer was bigger and more experienced than Tom, but Tom’s father was a true fighting Irishman who’d won many bouts in his youth, including a national championship at age 12. He passed on a few of his fatherly fighting tips to his son, and after years of surfing, Tom was in better shape. He eventually knocked the other guy down and finished the fight. But that only made things worse. Ego bruised, the officer’s grudge burned fiercer.
    Tom decided that there was a better way to fight back, and since direct action hadn’t worked, this time he’d try something non-confrontational but effective. Every time the mail came in for Tom to sort, he quietly hid anything destined for the petty officer in the ship’s safe—which only he and the captain had access to.
    Every mail call, the officer watched as everyone else got letters and packages from home