Not sure about class clowns, But there were 4 of us who got orders to ITASS from A school. Harry Jones, Yogi Lynstrom, Lee Birch, and myserlf. Orders were to the USS Van Voorhis DE1028, via schools in Norfolk and New London Conn....Nobody had any idea what we would be doing.....

What year would that have been? When I was leaving NavFac Midway in 1973 and getting the re-enlistment speech from the CO, I requested to be sent back to my first NavFac at Coos head Oregon. I was told I could possibly be sent to ITASS instead. Didn't want any part of that after three NavFacs, so it was civilian life for my next duty station.

Nick; I remember while at "O" school in April of 1970, being shown a picture of a destroyer, and one of my instructors saying "if you flunk out of this course you'll be learning to use a chipping hammer aboard one of these". Call it an inspirational pep talk or whatever you may, it sure did motivate me. I don't know of any one in the class that didn't make the grade but I would venture a guess there were some that didn't make the cut. I wonder if they were required to repeat the course similar to the boot camp experience.

Yeah, I remember chief Tribble giving our class the same speech after the first week's exam. I missed a couple of class one week, and had to attend night classes for awhile, which wasn't really too bad, considering after class, we closed down the EM club several nights with our instructor. A different type of motivation I guess you could call it.