Thinking About Promotions

I’m not sure where Frank Stevens is as he continues what amounts to a five page letter to his older brother Ed and his wife on July 15, 1945. The Battle of Okinawa lasted until about mid-June, and of what I could find online regarding Frank’s vessel’s history, the USS LCI(R)-707 remains in the area until June 30, 1945. After that, wherever he is, he now has enough time on his hands to snag a typewriter and let his mind run out on paper—lots of paper.

As much as Frank talks about coming home in his letters to his parents, William and Agnes Tully Stevens, he still has that competitive element in his spirit. After leaving his training station in the Virgin Islands over a year before, Frank has risen from Pharmacist’s Mate Third Class, to Second Class by the time he was received on board the LCI(L) 707 on July 20, 1944. At his next promotion, Frank makes First Class (T) effective December of that same year.

There is further room to grow, judging by this clip from his letter. The Navy career ladder for Pharmacist’s Mate includes a post—evidently a coveted post, in Frank’s eyes—labeled as Chief. But it is apparently not to be, at least for Frank and for the foreseeable future.

  

            Now that that is off my mind I’ll get on with the rest of this so called letter. I’m afraid that it will be quite some time before I make Chief, as a new letter came out lately and it states that no time will be waived between 1^st and chief, burns me up as it was in the bag for the 1^st of august, the group Medical Officer and I are big buddies and talk the same language.