Re: OFF TOPIC -Hanoi Jane anti-war bus tour

That's really interesting, Barb! I guess that people who don't know how to swim joining the Navy isn't as unusual as I thought it was. Did you get over your fear of heights by doing that?

Anne (always wanted to climb back down the ladder after planning to jump off the high board but was always forced to jump...did it more than once, too; guess I was a slow learner!)


Barbara Carlson wrote:
As a Red Cross volunteer and Water Safety Instructor in Newport, Rhode Island we helped teach Survival Swimming to the Navy Recruits, many of which could not swim and had never been in the ocean before! We taught in a big pool and there was a platform about 25 or 30 feet high that they had to jump off into the water with a life vest on--those were the days of cork life vests and if you didn't hold them down properly you could knock yourself out or even break your neck! I was a young, and good looking (ah those days are gone forever) teenager and so they made me do the demonstration figuring if a teenage girl could do it the men couldn't refuse! Of course I am afraid of heights, but couldn't refuse. We would be in the water as safeties. We actually had a couple of guys who apparently fainted or were knocked out, but nobody got seriously hurt. It was really kind of fun to do. I was 17 or 18 at the time. In return for our help the Red Cross got to use the pool for classes one night a week where I taught. This would have been about 1949 and 1950.

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