Served 1947- July 1948

Miles Anderson enlisted into the army in nineteen forty-seven at the age of seventeen. Miles took infantry basic at Fort Ord and then was transferred to the 6th Army 63rd military police in San Francisco. 

Some of his duties there were guard duty on gates and guard duty on prisoners in the stockade. Some was cellblock duty on prisoners in the stockade, but most of it was after he was there for three months he was assigned under navy orders to the shore patrol in San Francisco. The most remembered experience was getting up early and standing for inspections in the morning. One experience that he enjoyed, but was lots of work was when a colonel from the 2nd infantry division would come and drill them. He had never marched under an officer that drilled men as well as he did. The drill instructor never made any mistakes so you just enjoyed marching when he was giving the command. 

Miles also enjoyed shore patrol on the beach. He would also walk a beat. To walk the beat they would send him with a navy chief. He had no jurisdiction over civilians, just service men. He just patrolled to keep them out of trouble and to help them. A lot of the times they were lost and were looking for the outfits they were assigned to. There was a lot of mischief they had to take care of. 

After that he got on the night shift as a desk sergeant. He would go to work at midnight and then he was in shore patrol until seven in the morning then he would go on a sweep of the city. He would hit the bus terminals, embarkation points, and transit places. He would watch for military personnel that were out of uniform or you could tell by how they watched you if they were doing wrong or right. He also picked up a lot of people that were AWOL, or deserted. The thing that surprised Miles the most and that was also a major disappointment was that you are mostly just a number, nobody really cares about you. 

 

Another thing that really surprised Miles was that there were so many ways to kill somebody in or out of uniform. Mostly what he did was that when he went down to the shore patrol with the over eleven guys and worked with the navy. They got there at seven p.m. and went out at eight. They walked a certain beat that went up one side and down the other for so many blocks. They watched for mostly the same thing, guys out of uniform, guys that were absent without leave or didn't have the proper pass for their company or unit, guys that were intoxicated and guys that were in trouble or had been in fights. They would bring them into shore patrol. If necessary they were arrested with a written arrest report and held either at the shore patrol or when morning come they would bring them back to their base or their ships and release them to their company commanders or their commanders. Sometimes the people they arrested would stand court-martial for serious offenses. Their punishments usually were two weeks in the stockade or a month in the company area. 

He never had to guard Germans or Japanese. The only prisoners he ever had to guard were Americans. Miles's equipment was a billy club, a .45 automatic, and a whistle. He had to work with the regular police a lot. He worked with a lot of different people from the navy and other branches. 

As long as Miles was there he had a Class A pass and so when he wasn't working he could do almost anything he wanted, but he had to be there when it was time for him to go on duty. You could only mess up once and then you were gone. Miles worked with people from all over the country because the ships that came in would have to provide some people for shore patrol. Because he worked with people from all over the country he made lots of friends and most of them were from the navy. 

One experience was one night they went out they picked up a marine that had been rolled (robbed) he had been beat up and had his pockets turned inside out and was robbed of every thing he had. Every time he tried to talk he had a wound in his throat that would spurt blood and he couldn't find out where he was from, what his name was or anything else, so Miles called an ambulance to come and get him. He asked the hospital if they found out any information about who he was and where he was from to tell him so he could finish his report, but they never did. One morning lieutenant commander Nickols called him down to shore patrol and that’s the worst tongue chewing he ever got in the service because the report was not complete. Miles never found out anything about the marine and evidently he had some pull from somewhere for that high of brass to get involved with it. Miles thinks that they figured that him and his fellow Military Police men were the ones that robbed him, since they had tried to help him all their stories were the same so they dropped it. He received an honorable discharge in July 1948.