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Our good friend and shipmate Horst Wichek has refreshed my memory that we were in Santo Domingo from Sept 13th to Sept 16th, 1963. I agree with Dean Slone, that we had one heck of a liberty there! I do remember that many of the crew came back with "interesting souvenirs" of the visit..... unlike of the one above that I kept! (I'm sure glad I wasn't a corpsman then!). I remember when we first got there, it was a very poor country. Before entering a bar with some guys off the ship, I gave a begger a quarter. He bowed to me several times, mumbling thanks over and over, then stooped down and kissed my shoes! I also remember when the ship was at the pier, we would throw the kids change and the'y dive into the murky water and always came up with the coins! The ladies were another story that we will discuss at the reunion. I do recall we went there twice, the other dates escape me at the moment however. I remember the drinks were about 10 cents for a large rum and a little bit of coke! The cost of a good time was around $3, and between the drinks and the ladies, I spent all my money, probably went back to the ship and emptied out my coin collection, and maybe even borrowed $5 for $7 or whatever the going fee was? Was that Bruno Bishop or Dean Slone that was running the slush fund? I don't think you can be tried for any of these things after almost forty years, can you? I'm pretty sure my good friend Vic Martino was restricted during the visit, and was pretty disappointed he didn't go ashore, until the large numbers of guys kept turning up at sick bay for "Quell Ointment", or a miracle shot of penicillin. I remember seeing a shipmate in the restroom shaving all his pubic hair off, and I asked what in the world he was doing....he said he caught the crabs! I told him to go see the "doc" in sickbay. He did, and got sprayed with a can of insecticide! Ouch! (Probably a good case for a VA claim, as the chemicals are absorbed through the skin...
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