The Transit

Every Navy ship, every Naval unit, had a Family-Gram, a monthly newspaper, magazine or printed piece of paper that told the folks at home what their son, daughter, husband, boyfriend, as well as other Naval units were doing while on deployment.                Seventy-One was no different. Today, the Internet and emails, Snapchat, fill this responsibility, but someone still has to write and take photographs. In Vietnam-era we were called Navy Journalists. Today, they are Media Specialists.

     There were seven editions of The Transit in 1967. The first was produced and printed in the States, in February, at the end of the Battalion’s training period, just prior to deployment to Vietnam. The other six editions were written and photographed in-country, but produced at the Stars and Stripes Unit Publication Center in Tokyo, Japan.

     As Editor, my job was not only to write stories and make photographs, but as the graphic designer, I laid out the ‘paper, planned where stories and photos would fit to tell the Battalion’s story. It took me a week each month to get the newspaper typeset and printed in Tokyo. That left only three weeks back in-country to gather up enough stories for the next edition. I didn’t have to write it all, the XO and CO each wrote a column for each issue, as did the Chaplin, and my buddy Wally Skop, who wrote a sports column. John Murphy, a 50-ish Seabee who worked on Civic Action projects out in the villages, also contributed stories.

     With my stories approved by the XO, I flew to DaNang on a chopper to get a Marine Cornel at MACV to authorize the material for publication. An all night flight from DaNang got me to Japan, for an hour’s training ride into Tokyo to Stars and Strips bnuilrdimng. It took me a full 24 hours. I’d spend three days moving chunks of lead type around laying out each page, and while the 'paper was waiting to be printed,  I went shopping for the crew back in Chu Lai. I took a day or two to fly back with a pallet of newspapers and boxers full of gear the crew had offered.  

     The Transit won a series of awards: best unit letter press newspaper in the services. The monthly was used at the Defense Information School as an example of exceptional editorial and graphic design.

     Editing and producing The Transit was my graduate degree in Journalism, and set me up for my next career.     

Copies of  The Transit - 1967

Click on any front page above and below to see an enlarged copy.

I have photographed the pages of all seven editions of The Transit.

Click on one of the front pages below to see a larger version.

Complete editions of each month are available as a PDF in Dropbox. The files are way too large to attach to an email.

Send me an email requesting a specific issue and I will get back to you.

     The copies of The Transit include those I brought back with me and a set of edition that Gerry "Peter" Peterson's mom kept, and I borrowed.