1953

Ever since Dave Ferman was 8 years old at the start of World War II, he wanted to be a U.S. Marine. Like many of the little kids in his low-rent, blue-collar neighborhood, Dave idolized these fierce warriors and longed to wear their snazzy dress-blue uniform. Nine years later 75000, North Koreans soldiers quipped with Russian T-34 tanks and MiG-15 fighter planes invaded our ally, South Korea.

Hot to trot, Dave wanted to enlist in the Marines immediately after high school graduation, but by then he was recuperating from a football injury and could not enlist before February 1953 when 75 local studs enlisted en masse to form Boot Camp Platoon 118 at MCRD San Diego, California.

Dave's Cold War Warrior Trilogy comprises three related collections of stand-alone, true, sea stories that are interconnected and chronological. Beginning with this book, these personal memoirs are as follows.

1953—Making A Marine Grunt Warrior offers many glimpses into the rigorous world of Marine Boot Camp, three weeks of intense, precise challenges on the Rifle Range at Camp Mathews to qualify as a rifleman, the intense challenges of Drill Instructors’ (DI) School, around the clock duty as a working DI, and a tour as a Military Policeman (MP) introduce basic orientation to the U.S. Marine Corps.
1954—Making a Marine Pilot Warrior reveals the U.S. Navy’s dire predicament when their Pilot Training Program had to continue although the SNJ-Texan, their basic training aircraft, was dangerously overdue for replacement, and the personal consequences of that lethal situation.
1955—VAH-7: Secret Navy Atom Bomber Squadron was disguised as an air-to-air refueling unit operating in the Mediterranean Sea and the hostile Soviet surrogate countries in that theater. During the Cold War, 152 U.S. aircraft and their crews permanently disappeared behind the Iron Curtain. However, the gallant airmen of VAH-7 continued to fly those dangerous and essential data collection missions from June to late December of 1955.