New employees may often be found asleep in a ruined building a mile or so from the Yards. Said the man in the foreground,
"I'm a Texan. I got a construction job right away when I came here. I couldn't find me a room, so I slept in my jalopy at
first. Then I found this place, so I sold my car for $7.50 because the tires were shot. I used that money to eat on, and sent
my first check home to my babies. At night I just bummed around town - what else can you do? One night I had a little argument,
hurt my hand. I didn't go back to work, figuring my hand would be better in a few days. But it isn't." When the Labor-Management
Committee's investigator saw the hand, he drove the man to the Richmond Shipyards Field Hospital, where the doctors said,
"You brought this man in just in time. A few days longer, and he'd have lost his hand." Lack of cleanliness, lack of hot water
in proper living quarters nearly cost one able-bodied defense worker.