The following is a memory Harold from the set of ÒToo Late the HeroÓ which was filmed on base during 1969. --AM

I remember playing poker with Michael Caine during lunch. We'd all sit around in our underwear, so the costumes wouldn't get messed up. Drink iced San Miguel, eat fish and rice out of newspaper cones, swim off the funky old PI Navy PT boat they had tied up there, and play poker for pennies. Caine would come out and play and drink and cuss and spit with us.

Then there was the fire.  A bunch of Marines or sailors who were extras were playing poker or with themselves in one of the set houses and knocked over a kerosene lantern. FOOOF! The whole set was on fire. The director was wandering around with a drink in his hand lookig dazed. Everybody was running and yelling. Some of us grabbed the 3" hose off the water truck on the set and ran up to the heart of the blaze, Being young and stupid, I was at the nozzle when they turned on the water. The hose stiffened up, we all braced ourselves, the fire roared and I opened the nozzle. Out rushed a stream of water at about the volume of a good beer piss. This was time to retreat. We did. The whole set burned, but they shot around that and rebuilt it in a couple of days. The Michael Caine story either impresses the hell out of people or they look at you like you're Bubba Gump.

Harold Moorehead, GDHS '71

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My last 2 years of high school were spent at George Dewey H.S. I actually was relatively happy to be there, being a shy kid in big from big California, clique-ish schools. I've lost track of most of my friends from those days, but the memories are vivid. Just a slice...1967, driving through the jungle road to the hospital with girlfriends and into the Marine camp which was usually empty. This time the carrier had brought a load of fresh meat headed for Viet Nam. We were...uh..surprised...to see a multitude of young men around the Quonset huts there, most of whom swarmed our car, yelling, jumping on the car, shaking it, etc. I'm thinking the doors were locked, or we would have been extricated! We just kept driving, scared and excited. Only later did it occur to me that those guys were soon to meet death, or worse. Soon after, I was able to talk to my brother in the Army in Qui Nhon from the San Miguel MARS station. Almost eerie when I recall it. But for a 15 year old, I was talking to my bro on the radio.(Dan is alive and well.) I sent him the Berkeley Barb and LA Free Press after I returned to CA. I marched in antiwar protests at San Diego State. I did everything I never did in high school. Subic was a peaceful oasis for me in many ways. Maybe it was just my innocence. But it was absolutely beautiful in it's lush tropical wonder. (I wish I'd learned to Scuba dive there!) It was small town familiarity that suited me. I remember Ms Royer, my Spanish teacher, who learned Tagalog, to the surprise of her fellow jeepney passengers who would comment to each other about her astonishing appearance in their native tongue. And Mrs Rekdahl, who taught "problems of democracy" (politically correct for the late 60's) and who planted seeds of interest in the "global community". I remember being excused from phys ed classes because I had an excuse from the dermatologist at Clark AFB; I had severe acne on my chest and shoulders that would be exacerbated by excessive perspiration. Thanks, Doc! Now if I can get through these hot flashes, I'll be home free! So many memories, I really could write a book! I hope some of my classmates will make it to the reunion...or at least E-mail me!

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Having graduated from a state-side high school in June of 1966, I was looking forward to attending the University of the Philippines with the likes of Ron Cantone (Pam Hopper's husband), Bobo Santos(Mickie and Stevie's) brother and a few other select dependants from Subic Bay. Although I was removed somewhat from the daily events of George Dewey High (not being a student) I was not left out on that wild day in March when the wrestling team traveled to Manila, (site of our university), to battle a private, American high school located there. Heading up Dewey's ranks was a young 17 year old, who not only had never been defeated as a wrestler stateside, but was entering this match undefeated (all by pins) also. His name was Paul Barresi, and if I'm not mistaken, his record still stands at George Dewey High as one of Herculean effort in competitive sports. A record that was never rivaled by any other athlete in GDHS's history.

Regards
Tom Barresi
Subic Bay Naval Station 1966-1969.

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Having gotten off the airplane at Clark Air Base just in time to hear about the Beatles being "chased" out of the country by angry fans; I knew this July 4th in the year 1966, was going to be like no other. I had just graduated high school a month earlier, and having some trouble getting into a stateside college; my Dad,( a civilian employee at Subic Bay), recommended I go to the University of the Philippines, located in Manila. For the next 3 years my life would be that of a teenager gone completely "amuck". From 25 cent beers off-base, to cocktails at the O'club, to legalized marijuana at school, as well as a limitless supply of "Ladies of the Night", in town; all contributed to making my stay here (in the P.I.) a veritable "arena of debauchery". School was hours from any real "supervision",and my main "reality check" was the famed "Victory Liner". A huge wooden bus ,into which you boarded her by climbing in any one of her open windows. She had the ability (Japanese Diesel) to make the 60 mile trip between Manila and Subic in a humid and dusty, 5 hours flat; while you,sitting among live chickens and goats, passed the time explaining to the "locals" why you could'nt buy them rubber shoes at the PX.

While studying in Manila(actually Quezon City), a truly wondrous thing happened to me. Speaking a little Tagalog, I chose to travel alone, everywhere I went. By doing so I wasn't "typed" as a typical "Joe", and I got to meet several of the Filipino population in a more candid manner,over the years. As I slowly assimilated into their culture, I found the true Filipina woman to be not only beautiful, but painfully shy. Very respectful of her parents, this Asian gem, was quite unlike anyone I had ever experienced in the bar town... Olongapo. The men on the other hand, although forceful if necessary, were very pleasurable to be around. They would do anything for you, and treated me, with a great deal of respect.This was a major step forward in my view, when compared to the circus-like atmospheres of Olongapo, and the bars outside Clark Air Base. I loved the Philippines, but then again, I got to see it from a different vantage point than most...as a visiting student and not that of a soldier.

Regards, Tom Barresi 1966-1969
Subic Bay, University of the Philippines.

• From 1966-69 a total of 6 Subic Bay Dependents Attended The University at Quezon City.
• I drafted the International House Charter in 1966 (of the college) and am told, it is still in effect today.
• Although we were a forgotten bunch from Subic, in the height of the Marcos Regime, we represented our country with complete distinction...except me!
  
  

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November 2, 2000

I arrived in Subic Bay June 22 1963. My father's submarine, the USS Perch, had been home ported from San Diego to Subic Bay earlier that year. The Perch was a troop carrying sub, the only one in the Navy, and was being prepared for duty off the coast of Viet Nam. He was Chief of the Boat. I was at Subic Bay for two years, graduating with the class of ‘65. I left for college at the University of Wisconsin - Madison in Sept 1965. I have never been back to the Philippines. I had always wanted to get back there and see the old haunts with all the good memories.

My first introduction to the Philippines was ridding the Navy bus from Clark AFB (where our plane had landed) to Subic Bay. The lush green jungle contrasted sharply with the brown hills I had known the past couple of year around San Diego. The rice paddies, bamboo and thatched huts, the water buffalo were new. All right off the pages of National Geographic. The first cultural shock (for a 16 year old guy) was the woman standing on the side of the road in a red skirt and nothing else above the waist!

I learned to sail at Subic. My family had arrived there at the beginning of summer vacation, so I didn't know any of the kids my age, and didn't have any opportunity to get to know them through school. I came across a schedule of summer activities that had been set up for the dependent kids. One of the activities was sailing lessons, so I signed up. Bill Paulin (‘65) was the instructor for that class, and he taught me well. I went on to be an instructor myself the next summer. This served me well, for when I went to college at the U of Wisconsin - Madison I became a sailing instructor with the university sailing club. The campus is on the shore of a 15 sq. mile lake and as a consequence has the largest sailing club of any US university.

Bob VanCleef (‘64) was a frequent sailing partner. Special Services had converted a 30 foot lifeboat into a ketch rigged sailboat. Bob had dubbed it the USS Eacherbox. (I didn't get the sexual innuendo in that name until later.) One day a group of us kids were out sailing in this boat when Bob tried to hike out over the windward side. He tied one end of a short rope around the main mast, formed a loop and put the loop around his waist. He then stood on the gunwale on the high side and leaned out. But the rope was tied only a short way up the mast so when he leaned out over the high side of the boat, the rope slipped down from around his waist to around his knees. This of course provided no support for him as he was leaning overboard, so into the drink he went! This was a good excuse to perform a man overboard drill without the captain. We threw out a life preserver to him and came around to pick him up. There was always a bit of difficulty getting back into this fairly large boat because of the high freeboard, about three feet. We didn't have any type of boarding ladder so the best he could do was reach up, grab the gunwale and have some of the crew help haul him up and in. He didn't try hiking out like that again.

We would take a dozen or so of us kids out to Grande Island in that boat. We would explore the old pre WWII fortifications. There was a concrete skeleton of a two story building set a ways back from the beach. I has always thought of it as the old admin building. There was an underground concrete bunker back up in the hills. It was totally dark inside, with only a small bit of light filtering in from the entrance. There was a lot of large jumbled pieces of concrete filling up the interior space. We would carefully crawl over these pieces in the dark. We seemed to never remember to bring a flashlight along when we went to Grande Island. Thinking back it is a wonder that we didn't get bitten by a snake that probably inhabited the dark rubble.

Coming back from Grande Island we would usually make a stop at the liberty boat pier that was just west of the officer's club. This was because it would take a good hour more to get back to the small boat landing and put the boat away. So if it was late in the day and someone had to be back home earlier we dropped them off there. The officers club had big floor to ceiling windows that looked over the bay. So when we docked at the pier we felt we had to look sharp and maneuver well since we were being observed by all the officers sitting inside. One time when we came up to that pier there was only one guy that had to be left off. So we elected not to really stop or dock, but just to sail by the pier close enough so he could jump ashore. As I recall there was a good wind that day with some swell too, and that influenced our decision to just swing by and not dock. The boat was going at a good clip as we sailed parallel to the shore past the end of the pier. The guy was standing in the bow and jumped ashore with no problem. We were all watching him to make sure that he got on the pier OK. But just about the time that he landed on the pier there was a loud crack of breaking wood! My first thought was that we had rammed the pier and holed the boat. But what had happened was that we had forgotten to pull in one of the long oars that were with the boat from when it was a life boat. The three inch in diameter oar shaft had snapped off when it hit the end of the pier. So much for grace and good seamanship in front of the officer's club! The USS Eacherbox was hauled out for repairs before I left Subic. It was sitting on a trailer in the small boat repair shope on base. Bob VanCleef and I would go over to the shop every once in a while to see if any work was being done on in. There never was. We would talk to the shop foreman and he would assure us that he would get working on it when he had time. When I left Subic late in 1965 the boat still was sitting in the shop unrepaired. My thought is that it never saw the water again.

Another "man overboard" incident happened when I was sailing with Kathy Reeves (‘65). There were just the two of us alone in a small sailboat. She was lounging in her bikini on the foredeck getting a suntan. I was aft manning the tiller and tending the sails. We either hit a wave, or I tacked, or she just rolled over the wrong way, but all of a sudden she was in the water. I came about and sailed back beside her. The sailboat would not stay in irons and this added to the difficulty of Kathy getting back aboard. Trying to get a wet and suntan lotion slathered, slippery bikini clad woman into a small sailboat while it was bouncing around out in Subic Bay was a challenge to modesty. Let me tell you it was for sure getting hands and arms and legs all over each other in places that we normally would not. But we prevailed! (Getting Kathy aboard, that is.)

I also leaned to drive at Subic. There were classes down at the east end of main side, almost out to the San Miguel gate. We had Filipino instructors. And this amazed me, considering how the general Filipino population drove out in Olongapo! But I got my licence with no problems. I also learned to water ski at the beach off the end of Cubi Point.

My family had a pink and white Dodge that we had shipped over to Subic at Navy expense. (Everyone had cars and household appliances shipped over to Subic. When you rotated to your next duty station there were local Filipino brokers that would come in and buy all your old used household items, including your car. They would pay cash.) I can remember driving at night across the big open landfill area the was between the high school and the passenger ship pier. It was just a one lane gravel track with lots of weeds and grass overgrowing it. The next morning my father notice the front of the car and grill had dry grass clinging all over it. He asked in an off hand manner where I had been the night before. So I told him I was exploring driving shortcuts around the base. That seemed to sit OK with him.

There weren't many places that you could go to "park" at Subic, it was a military base with a war going on. There were Filipino guards and MPs all over the place, particularly at night. I kind of blame that for my retarded development in this area. But I am currently and fervently trying to make up for this lack in my early life. I think I now have a handle on this.

The main library was on the corner of the building that had the roller skating rink in it. (I have always thought that a wood floored roller skating rink was out of place on a military base in the tropics, but I guess someone thought it was a great idea at one time.) When I would walk into the library it was always very cold. I guess they had to keep it real cool and dry to prevent the books from mildewing. Or perhaps the head librarian just wanted to luxuriate in excessive (and free to her) air conditioning. That is where I discovered science fiction, particularly Robert A. Heinlein's book Have Spacesuit Will Travel. I have been a SF reader ever since. Even to the extent that Heinlein's book Stranger in a Strange Land forms the basis of some of my personal philosophy and spirituality.

We all had to have ration cards for certain items that we bought at the PX. Cigarettes commanded a high price on the local black market and were rationed. Other things were shoes, and of all things, playing cards. The story as I heard it was that all packs of playing cards had to be imported to the Philippines, there were no local manufacturers of them. Thus they were heavily taxed and in short supply in the local economy.

I remember Ricky Trummer (‘66) as a cheerleader with her younger sister (about 10 years younger) dressed up in a miniature cheerleader costume. Her younger sister was the "mascot" of the cheerleader team. I thought that was cute, and also admired Ricky because she was including her younger sibling in the activities. I am sorry to see her listed in the memoriam section. I remember her as being outgoing, active and friendly.

Every family had a house maid. They would clean the house, do laundry and cook. I could put a shirt in the dirty clothing pile in the morning and it would be cleaned and ironed by afternoon. They would also shop for local produce in Olongapo, but could not go into the base commissary to buy other food stuffs. Our house maid's name was Paunya. I think we paid her 21 pesos a week. A peso was worth about a twenty-five cents back then if I recall. That was the maximum we could pay her, the rate being set by base regulations. (We also had a yard boy that came one day a week. His name was Ramon and we paid him $1 a day.) Paunya was a land owner, she would always mention her coconut trees that apparently produced some income for her. She had a good friend that worked as a maid a couple of housed away . Her name was Anna and she was a trained pharmacist. They would fill in for each other if one wasn't felling well or wanted a couple of days off.

We could rent a car and driver from special services for about $20 a day. Several times four of us kids rented a car (and driver) and went to Manila. That was great to have freedom in a large capital city. There was an IMAX theater with a 180 degree screen. I can remember seeing the film Its a Wild Wild Wild West. There were restaurants where you could get good pizza. Manila was a great place, a big city with all the excitement and amenities that us Americans took for granted and Olongapo lacked. What sticks in my mind were the gray uniformed police standing on street corners with submachine guns slung over there shoulders. With a car and driver we never had to worry about getting lost, finding a parking place or where someplace was. All we had to do was tell the driver where we wanted to go and he would take us there. We would tell him when to pick us up, and when that time came, there would be the car sitting on the street waiting for us. Talk about hassle free transportation in the big city.

On one of these trips I asked our Filipino driver what he did when he wasn't being a chauffeur. He said he was an airline pilot and that he worked as a driver to get money so he could finance more training and upgrade his pilot rating. The idea that came across loud and clear was that there were a lot of under employed Filipinos working on the base. They could make more money doing menial jobs for Americans than they could doing professional jobs in the local economy.

Scrip was use for money on base. It looked like Monopoly play money and was printed in all the coin denominations and for the small bills. You were not allowed to use American currency on base or in the local economy. This was to keep the black market under control, since the Filipinos were not supposed to have this scrip or US currency. One weekday when we were in class there was an announcement that the base main gate was closed and that all scrip was to be converted to regular US currency. All of us students that had any scrip that we wanted converted went down to the office, turned it in and got a receipt. Later that day we got our US currency back. The story I heard was that there were several black market money changers in Olongapo that were holding thousands of dollars in scrip that they could not convert and that were worthless after the main gate opened later that day. I saved a couple scrip bills and still have them.

The story was that the local fishermen would steal bombs from the US military. These would either be duds from training ranges or stacked up on pallets outside at ammo storage facilities. They would roll them down to the water and then sling them under their bangka boats. They would take the bombs ashore at some out of the way place and saw them up with hacksaws to recover the explosive from inside. They would use the explosives for fishing by setting a charge off under water and stunning the fish, which would then float to the surface and could be picked up. The story goes that every once in a while there would be an explosion as they were sawing up the bomb. This was an early example of weeding out the gene pool.

Us dependant kids had the best of both worlds when it came to travel in the area. The military personal (particularly the fleet enlisted men) were restricted to the main drag of Olongapo. This was for their own protection so they wouldn't wander off drunk into some dark ally and get rolled. And it was also to protect the locals from having drunks wandering into their yards. Us dependants didn't have to abide by these military rules since we were civilians. I enjoyed that. I could pass for a young sailor on leave if I wanted to, but then when I wanted to go off the main drag the MPs would just check my ID, warn me to take care of myself, and then let me wander the back streets of Olongapo.

The bus system on base was great. If I recall they ran every half hour. They had a time clock with a paper recording disk by the driver. I guess the pen trace on the paper disk recorded the time and the speed of the bus. The central transfer point was by the base exchange. Us kids could get anywhere on base within half an hour, and it was all free. I lived a couple of houses away from the main road on the first cross street in our housing area. I could jump off the bus at the first stop, run home for a bite to eat or pick up something, and then catch the same bus as it went back down to main side. I always thought we were fortunate to live by the entrance to the housing area. I could look out from our back porch and see the buses winding there way up the hill. You could hear them before you could see them. They were driven hard by the Filipino drivers, and going up and down the hills to the housing areas and Cubi top side added to the stress on the poor buses. There was always five or ten of them in the repair area down on the base. The policy was that Americans got on first and got the seats, and then the Filipinos got on. If there wasn't room on the bus, the Filipinos had to get off to make room for Americans.

Movies were a great source of entertainment. A new batch of first run films would come out every week. The schedule of where each film was shown was published in a two or three sheet local "newspaper" that was delivered to each housing unit. (This "newspaper" also gave the times of ship arrivals and departures and other general announcements.) There was a covered outdoor theater in each of the housing areas and on the base. The movies were free, you just had to show up. The house maids could show up and watch the movies, too, but only if they were accompanied by a military dependant. The usual scenario was that they would be babysitting the kids and taking them to the movie. So the maids would actively recruit kids to go with them to the theater if they wanted to see a particular film. And again, if seating was in short supply, the Filipinos stood and the Americans sat. The films would be rotated among the seven theaters each day so if you REALLY liked a particular film, you could watch it every night for a week. Cubi Point had a conventional indoor auditorium type theater, and I think they had matinee showings there. The national anthem was played before the showing of every film and we all stood up and were quiet.

The family housing units (and most all other newer buildings at Subic) were made of concrete. This was to thwart the ubiquitous termites. Anything wood left in contact with the ground would be quickly infested. The closets all had sliding wood doors on them, and with heaters near the bottom of the closets to ward off the dampness and the resulting mildew. The heaters were metal cans about six inches long that screwed into porcelain light bulb sockets mounted on the wall of the closet near the bottom. There was a heavy wire mesh cage around the heater to protect clothes from getting scorched by contact with the heater, and also the prevent the clothes from catching fire. The windows in the housing units had louvered glass panes in them. They were great at letting in lots of air. But when a typhoon came through with high winds, the windows let in a lot of rain, too! Part of our typhoon preparation was to move all furniture away from the windows and set out a mop and bucket.

During the rainy season the frogs would migrate across the roads in the housing area. You would run over them with the car, there were so many of them that you couldn't help but run over them. You could hear a little thump/crunch when you did.

I can remember decorating the GDHS gymnasium/ cafeteria all afternoon with hundreds of paper snow flakes. Kathy Reeves (‘65) helped me. It must have been for some "winter" theme dance. We went home that evening, got dressed up for the dance and then went to the dance "together". It was kind of date that wasn't really a date, we just showed up together. That was the way things got done on the social level when neither of us young shy kids took the initiative in a relationship.

There was a story that one night the MPs found Miss Scharmen (the English teacher) up in a tree on the main base. She had a bit to much to drink. They escorted her back to her quarters. Another memory I have of Miss Scharmen is that she said that when she was in college she had sat around the student union drinking beer and solving all the world's problems. That sounded great to me! And since I was planning on going to college that was exactly what I wanted to do too when I got there.

Then there was the time someone put a lubricated condom on the doorknob of one to classroom doors. It was one of the rooms that faced the back slope that went up to the jungle. That condom was the talk of the school all morning. Condoms were a taboo subject back in the mid-sixties.

Food plentiful and cheap at Subic. The Spanish Gate Cafeteria had just been built. They had pastries that had the consistency of and tasted like bread sprinkled with sugar. The doughnuts you could get in the local economy were about the same. I guess the Filipino bakers just didn't have the hang of how to do sweets well. You could order decorated cakes for special occasions, like birthdays. They were fairly tasteless with what seemed to be pure whipped shorting for frosting. We would go down to the Chief's Club on Saturday evening for dinner. There would be family entertainment, tinikling, and a movie. On each table there would be a battery operated light that you would turn on if you wanted service during the movie. Or you could hold up a lit cigarette lighter. All the kids got free Shirley Temple drinks made with pineapple juice, grenadine and 7-UP.

At home our house maid produced wrapped fried bananas and fried rice with spam (I still make it that way with spam). Out in Olongapo the street venders had barbecued monkey paws on little charcoal grills. I never saw anyone buy, let alone eat, one of these. I suspect that they were a novelty item to be eaten on a dare by drunken sailors. The blutes (boiled chicken embryos in the shell) were sold as fast food at the bus terminal. Never ate one of these either, I wasn't quite that adventuresome. Potato chips came in a #10 can, they were actually shoe string potatoes. The bags of regular flat potato chips just would not stand up to the humidity. When friends would come to visit from Manila they would want Cheerios and hot dogs. They couldn't get this American food on the local economy in Manila. The reconstituted frozen skim milk is memorable. I gave up drinking milk because of it. When I got back to the states at Hickem HI, the first thing I ordered was a glass of regular milk.

When I got back to state side I was impressed at all the old people that were walking around. Living on a military base all the people were young able- bodied. They were not a cross section of the general US population.

I have a large (2 by 3 foot) photograph of a Subic Bay sunset hanging on the wall of my bedroom at the foot of my bed. Tall jungle trees are silhouetted against the magnificent golds and deep blues of the sky, the bay glints up between the trees. It reminds me daily of the great and wonderful times I experienced at Subic Bay. And the deep velvet black of the sky at night with the stars unwinking. I took the photo from the back porch of our house, so I know exactly what I am looking at every time I see the photograph.

Growing up and living overseas was a valuable asset to me for the rest of my life. When I got to college in Wisconsin, I would meet people my age that have never even been out to the state! I had graduated from HS half way around the globe and they had never been more than 200 miles from home in the same time.

As I type each paragraph of this memory document, more memories of the wonderful time at Subic Bay come bubbling up in my mind. There has to be a practical end. After seven pages I'll call it quits. Perhaps I'll do another memory document later, and that one can run a lot longer.

Richard Whitnable
GDHS class of 1965

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