Boot camp has come to an end and our orders are on the bulletin board. Everyone knows exactly what kind of ship there going on except me and a ship mate who has the same orders as me. It says we will report to Boston Massachusetts and report to AGB5 the name of the ship is the Staten island, not one person knew what agb5 stood for. Finaly a chief petty officer told us it is a jeep carrier, and goes to korea every month, and is one of the most dangerous ships in the fleet, he got my attention. I left san diego it was in the nineties, we landed in boston it was ten degrees. We were told to report to the Chandler’it was a ship that was not in service anymore it was for housing sailors waiting for repairs on the ship they were assigned, my case it was A G B 5. About an hour had passed and a officer came by and called all the men assigned to the Staten Island to come outside and line up. My god three hundred and fifty sailors lined up. Welcome men all personal report to pier 9 for duty at six a m he also informed us our ship was an icebreaker, and a g b 5 was airinautical glacier breaker. Oh well at least it’s not a jeep carrier. I won’t be going to korea in an icebreaker. As we approached our ship in the morning it was about the same length as a destroyer, but wider. As it turns out we had loaned this ship to the russians, believe me they are not very educated in cleanliness. The cleanup begins, becasue of the extreme change of weather, from california to boston i awake with the flu. It keeps me in bed for several days. Now to make matters worse i have an abscess tooth. I finally heal up. Just getting out of boot camp you get all the crappy jobs. The russians had kept goats, sheep and chickens and god knows what else all of them kept in the foward head After several weeks of scrapping and painting we are getting close to leaving, i have made a friend’s and one guy named Henry god he was a funny guy. The toilet on the chandler was a long trouth with seating for about twenty seats for those going number two and water would constantly stream down one end and exit down the other, Henry lit a news paper on fire and as it went under each mans but they would jump up or your butt world get burned. Finaly all the crap from the animals the russians had left are freshly painted. We ran a little behind schedule ask there is still much work to be done, will be done when we’re out to sea. As our ship leaves the dock,it rolls even in the harbor. The bottom of the ship is shaped like a football, i am feeling a little soon were full speed ahead in the atlantic ocean headed for a radar station in the arctic, the nameof the station is called Alert. It is the first-time that and icebreaker would try to go that close north. The ship is heading north at a top speed of fourteen knots. The sea is very rough, it is so bad you have to change all the things you do. Walking, eating, sleeping it was wierd. We are approaching greenland, and we get to spend a little time here. There is mail waiting for us. A shipmateof ours apparently got a dearjohn letter. Later on in the cruise he jumped over the stern of the ship in the middle of the night taking his life in the chilling icey arctic sea. He was on watch. The guy who his releif,informed the officer on deck and the decision was made to not turn around, the water would take his life in minutes and it was night time. My mail was all happy. A good friend of mine always wrote to me quite often we had read the book Gods little acres which was one of the first really explicit sex novel in the late forties. We read it in the sixth grade. One chapter the lead character in book his name was will and when the lady he was dating finally submited to him she said take me willl say no words just take me. So jim and i at the end of each letter draw a nasty little picture that we called take me pictures they always would be of anything from a naked old man saying some nasty remark. We proudly called them take me pictures. I remember oneof the pictures jim had sent me was a guy naked and everything exaggerated saying to his basketball coach let me go in coach i have hair under my arms. Always with our pattened logo take me. It could be of any thing nasty but had to be funny. Jim was a master at it. I miss reading take me pictures.