USNS Sultan – Considered ‘not too bad’ compared to the worst.
USNS Breckinridge – one to be avoided. Take an extension if you have to so’s to get a different troopship. No shuttleboard on this one.
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Back in the day GIs made it their business to find out about the troopship scheduling, which ship they would be going aboard, and how to jimmy the travel schedule to avoid the worst ones. The two above were my homes for roughly 60 days enroute to Korea and coming home.
Vietnam or Korea – Flip a Coin
Neither of these was a picnic, considering each carried between 1500 and 2500 seasick GIs. Sometimes those lower decks were enough to make a person vomit just from the odor. Or huddled on deck with several hundred other guys, top of a swell a guy at the rail hurls and as the ship falls with the wave his puke hangs above his head an hour or so before a thousand horrified eyes.
And 500 more GIs try to reach the rail in time for the next swell.
Below decks every corner held dice games, every stairwell a 24/7 penny-per-point gin game, or rummy 500 game. And occasional poker. No shuffleboard, no whiskey, no female companionship. But there were some nice stops at Honolulu, Sasebo, Yokuska.
If there’s any motivation to cut down on the number of wars this country gets itself into, one way to do it would be to start hauling the GIs around in troopships again. Cut down on the frivolous volunteerism.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 