Month: February 2011

The old prop plane lands a little rough and taxis to a small Quonset hut with a small white sign saying” Chitose”. Not a whole lot to see just a few people standing around a 3/4 ton Army truck. No dancing girls, No band, No nothing. IJust the way we were sitting I was the first off the plane. I will explain how this will prove to be inportant later on. I can remember much but I dont think there was any other Army guys on the plane . The Chitose airport was not where we were going. We were going to Kuma(Bear) station, the 508th, and it was a few miles away. Carts, bicycles, mud and a light haze was all I remembered on the ride to post. Everyone was pretty nice as we checked in. Some hazing but nothing like at other places I had been. I went down the to office to sign in. I handed my orders and such to the company clerk and he started to process me in. The he looks up and says” Hey How did you get here?, we need a 059s and a 058s not a damn 980. ” OH no. This is the moment of truth. “Oh Well He says ” Damn Army is always messing something up. Welcome to Chitose” I DID IT. YES. From the Silver Dollar in Temple Texas to Chitose Japan. I was home free. Only one slight problem, I was here for 2 years I think at this time I had about 32 to 34 months left in the Army. I was assigned to a 4 man room. BY Army standers it was very good. A big Bonus was that we had Japanese Nationals that were employed by us. They took so much out of your pay each month to pay fro their services. It was not too much around 20 dollars or so, I never really thought much about it. I just paid it. There were used as” House Boys” and to work in the Kitchen and on the post to do general labor. Being “House Boy” was not a demeaning term or a bad job. Basically Each house boy had 2 room or so and their job was to keep our rooms clean, take care of our Uniforms, shoes shined and keep our locker ready for inspection. They were good guys and we used to buy them things from the PX to help them out. They knew everything. Their friends worked over at the Officers Quarters so they knew when any type of surprise inspections or Bull s,it was coming down. Very very neat not having to fool with you uniform and such. Get up in the AM or when ever you had to go to work and there was all your gear laid out and ready to go. Very Very Good. A word on how how the pay thing worked. Back in the 60s you had Pay call. Everyone fell out in the street and lined up by squads. The XO and the First Sargent was the pay masters. I guess the XO was paymaster and the First the Sarge was his helper . Pay day was usually in the day room. As the Sarge called your name, you came to attention walked in front of the XO and saluted. ” PFC McGoo reporting for pay, Sir!” You signed your pay voucher and the XO counted out your money. In Cash!! yep No checks no bank drafts, good old cash. After you were paid you had to pass some card tables set up. House boy table Laundry table. EM club table. If you had bought chits from them. Looking back I guess it was some kind of racket going on but no one cared. Hell not having KP and having someone to clean your room , shine your shoe, etc was a very good deal. I never saw anything out of order but I never looked either. Different story when I went to Korea. More on that later.

If you ran low on money during the month you could buy “Chits” at the EM clund If you were a PFC you could buy unto 30 dollars in Chits. They looked like the old food stamps. A small booklet with tickets you tore off and cashed. They only came in 5 dollar books. Cigarettes were 90 cents a carton for Camels, Lucky Strikes, Filters and Pall Malls were 1.00 a carton. I think the Em club charged 15 cents a pack. You could buy whiskey and mixed drinks for 25 cents a drink. Happy hour drinks were 10 cents. Once a month they nickle night where every thing was 5 cents. Drinking and smoking was not taboo. You could not go to work drunk but if you had been drinking it was no big deal. We smoked at work. I did not smoke so I may not be up to speed on all the smoking rules. But I can not think of any other than No smoking in bed and that was a very serious offense. MPC stands for Military pay certificate. You could not have “Green Backs” or “Real Money. We were paid and used something that looked a lot like Monopoly Money. It was changed every year or so as to help curb blacking marketing. So when you went off base you had to change your money into Yen. It was 360 yen to a dollar. That was pretty good and it made you money go a little further. A Large Beer was 100 yen when I first arrived when I left 2 years later they were 300 yen. Ramin was 100 yen a bowl. It was the real deal and it was very very good. Each of us had our favorite place to go. To sum up the money thing, On post was MPC and down town was Yen. There was no bank, at least I never found it, and most money matter could be handled at the EM club or the Office. You could not buy a bottle of whiskey unless you were E5 or above. Of course a soon as you got off post you could buy all you want for 2 or 3 dollars a jug.