Van Dam Served At Naval Base In California
Pictured: Marv Van Dam worked in the bake shop and the yeoman’s office while in the navy.
By Jill Fennema –
Marv Van Dam, the son of Henry and Eva (Van Ruler) Van Dam, received his draft notice in October 1965. Marv had two full siblings and four half-siblings. He never knew his mother, because Eva passed away when he was only 20 months old. His father later married Annie Middeldorpf.
Marv was drafted into the United States Navy, at the age of 20. Both his older brothers had also served. Henry (Jack) had served in Florida during the Cuban missile crisis. Harold had served at Ft. Hood, Texas.
Marv was sent to the San Diego Naval Training Center. It had been a beautiful fall back in Minnesota, so California seemed quite hot to him.
Marv did not find navy bootcamp to be difficult. He said most of what they did was marching. They did learn how to swim but, he said, “That was kind of a joke.” Even after passing bootcamp, Marv could not swim and he still can’t to this day!“I floated around the pool and that was enough to pass the swimming test,” he said.
One of the people that Marv met in the navy was Ron Feucht from Hills. They had both been drafted at the same time. Ron worked in a different mess hall on a different part of the base. Ron met a nurse when he was bringing food from the mess hall to the sick bay and they ended up getting together – but that’s a story for a different day. Ron also met a guy who gave him a car. That came in handy for Marv later.
Prior to Marv’s group taking on this work, it would take all day to fingerprint six units – 600 guys. His group – which included all draftees – could process 600 men in a morning. The new recruits would be interviewed and those interviews had to be documented. Because they finished their fingerprinting in the morning, Marv and the other five were able to document the interviews in the afternoon.
“The fact that we were all draftees and knew how to work made a difference in how quickly we could get the work done,” Marv said.
One time while he was working in the yeoman’s office, a fellow Chandler resident came through – Al Prins. Marv’s aunt, Minnie Ver Hoek, had written him a letter and told him that Prins was heading to the navy training center in San Diego and to keep an eye out for him. Marv kept an eye on the rosters of new recruits and one day Al came through his office.
Marv commented that it was really great to see someone from back home and be able to talk even for just a few minutes.
He did this yeoman work for over a year and then was transferred to the main office where people had to come when they were transferring in or off the base.
This office was open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Marv’s job was to stamp the paperwork for navy soldiers who were transferring into one of the navy schools on base. When someone arrived in the middle of the night, his job was to issue them a bundle with a pillow and a blanket and note the fact that he had done so.
For his work on the base, Marv was paid about $80 a month. Because he didn’t have a lot going on, he also signed up to work at the base library on evenings and weekends. His job was to sign out the books and take care of the records.
As a child, Marv had learned to love to read, so working at the library was great for him. He still loves to read and has a large collection of books.
Once he started working at the library, he could live off that pay, so he sent his military pay home to his grandmother, who deposited it for him. When he came home, he was able to buy a 1965 Pontiac GTO with the money he had saved.
