Camp Pendleton
Bobby Cooper came down from Camp Pendleton and suggested that we go to Tijuana. I liked the idea, and we took a bus from San Diego to San Ysidro and walked across the border. We went into the Convoy Club and ordered whisky and watched the whores. Bobby talked about the Corps, and I made a few disparaging remarks about the Navy. We got drunk and some whores tried to hustle us, but we refused them saying that we didn't have any money. We were both lonely and two thousand miles away from Spencer, and we spoke of the good old times we had in Spencer when we were kids. Bobby told me that he went AWOL once when a sergeant started to pick on him. He said that he hitchhiked to Cheyenne, Wyoming and watched the Frontier Days Rodeo and when he left town, a state trooper picked him up and took him to jail.
When he got back to Pendleton, his skipper sentenced him to thirty days in the brig. In the brig, the turnkeys called him a 'chicken-shit maggot" and they beat him up. Bobby said that he never wanted to go back to that hell again. We continued to pour down the whisky and when we left the Convoy Club we were as drunk as we could be without passing out. We bought two large sombreros and we wrapped our arms around each other and headed to the border singing Christmas songs. Some Mexicans passed and made remarks and Bobby threw off his hat and hit one of the Mexicans in the back of the head. The fight broke out, and we were throwing punches all over the place, and the Shore Patrol came and arrested Bobby and me. We sobered in the drunk tank and escorts from Pendleton came and took Bobby away and escorts from Miramar came and took me back to base. Bobby was sentenced to six months of hard labor and I got thirty days.