By: Garland Davis

On an August Night, I seek

a place on deck to watch

the annual lights from the Perseids.

Surprised each time

by the brilliance of fireworks

as the lights arch across the sky

Their fire is not to fear,

but fear this warship

moving westward toward war.

August finds us here

under a rain of falling stars

lonely far from home.

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A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

This is a rewrite of the lyrics to the Bellamy Brothers’ song Old Hippie by my good friend and shipmate David McAllister.

Old Sailor

By:  David “Mac” McAllister

(Song sung to the tune of the Bellamy Bros. Old Hippie)

He turned sixty-five last Sunday

Now his hair has turned to Gray

He sailed with the U.S. Navy

Away Back in the old days

Now he tends a little garden in the backyard by the fence

Consuming beer and whiskey nowadays in self defense

He gets out there in the twilight zone

When the bullshit makes no sense

He hangs out with his old shipmates

Cause the new Navy leaves him cold

Nothin’ looks the same to him

I guess he’s just too fuckin’ old

So he dreams at night of WestPac, and all the things he tried

How the liberty made him happy while the sea time got him dry

Yeah, he thinks about it a lot these days

And he’s not afraid to cry

He’s an old sailor and he don’t know what to do

He hangs onto the old

Cause he just can’t hack the new

He’s and old sailor…still living by his wit

He don’t wanna offend nobody

But if he does, he don’t give a shit

He remembers in the sixties, while everyone else was hip,

He was shootin’ up Vietnam, from some ol’ rusty ship

Learning to become a man while he was still a boy

In spite of all the tragedies, he can still find some joy

While others cut and run to hide

He chose to serve with pride

He’s an old sailor and he don’t know what to do

He hangs onto the old

Cause he just can’t hack the new

He’s and old sailor…still living by his wit

He don’t wanna offend nobody

But if he does, he don’t give a shit

You can find him at the VFW, or the American Legion Halls

He’ll be thinkin’ while he’s drinkin’

Of the days when sailors had some balls

Now it’s breathalyzers, PC, diversity and gays

It ain’t no friggin’ wonder that he’s stuck in his old ways

All he can do is sit and watch

As his species fades away

He’s an old sailor and he don’t know what to do

He hangs onto the old

Cause he just can’t hack the new

He’s and old sailor…still living by his wit

He don’t wanna offend nobody

But if he does, he don’t give a shit

David “Mac” McAllister a native of California, now resides in the Ozark Mountains of Southwest Mo. Having served in Asia for the majority of his 24 year Navy career, he now divides his time as an over the road trucker, volunteer for local veteran repatriation events and as an Asia Sailor Westpac’rs Association board member and reunion coordinator. In his spare time he enjoys writing about his experiences in Westpac and sharing them online with his Shipmates.

Good Hearted Woman

by: Garland Davis

To paraphrase Willie and Waylon:  ♫She’s a good hearted woman in love with a sea-going man♫

Much has been written about the Navy.  About the men, the ships, battles, piers, WestPac, bars, hookers and heaven knows what else.  Asiatic sailors spend an inordinate amount of time reflecting on and telling tales about all these things.  But, we don’t talk a helluva a lot about those who really loved us.  The girls we married. Loving a crazy-assed WestPac sailor took a Good Hearted woman.  They are and will always remain among the greatest of God’s creations.

I know you have all seen them waiting on the pier whenever the ship returned to homeport, be it 0200, cold or wet, they would be waiting.  Rain…Snow… Hell, alligators could have been falling from the sky and they would have been there.  Waiting for what?  Waiting for an unshaven, smelly, raggedy-assed idiot who hadn’t showered for three days because of busted evaporators and limited fresh water, hauling a sack of dirty laundry and reeking of sweat and fuel oil.

Those girls couldn’t wait to embrace the smelly guys who poured off the gray behemoth that had just tethered to the pier or out board in the nest. Many holding babies their sailors had never seen in one arm and trying to keep track of a three-year-old waving a sign that says “Welcome Home Daddy.” She was an angel in a sun dress she had made or bought from the mark-down rack at the Navy Exchange. She waited with a smile that dimmed the sun. These girls welcomed their sailors when they came home and stood on that same pier with tears streaming down their faces when the ship left.

Sit back and think about it.  That lady in the kitchen doing the dishes was once the, barely out of her teens, girl who married a crazy assed Third Class North American Bluejacket.  All he had to offer was E-4 pay and a few bucks sea pay, poor housing in even poorer neighborhoods, long separations and duty every third or fourth day.  She put up with him when he showed up late with a couple of shipmates and two cases of beer.  She made them sandwiches and made sure they were up and on their way the next morning.

Later when you were at sea, trying to keep up with the carrier in heavy seas, she was at parent-teacher meetings, school plays, science fairs, little league games, and dental appointments; without you.  She carried them to the emergency room when they were sick and or hurt met with the principle when they got in trouble.  She did it all without you when it would have been really great to have you there.  When you got orders to Hawaii, she arranged for packing household goods and transporting the dogs all while you were at sea.

They should be eligible for sainthood. Think about it…they married guys who spent a good part of their time away from them.  They had to play second fiddle to another lady that he had a love/hate relationship with.  That lady was hard steel and gray and demanded much of him.

She dined on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before the allotment check came in.    She made homemade Christmas and birthday gifts for the kids.  Home permanents because the beauty shop cost too much.  Unable to visit her Mom and Dad for years because there just wasn’t money for travel.

Dude, do you know what a lucky bastard you are.  Do you know what it takes for a woman to put up with the bullshit sandwich that a sailor’s wife is handed?  Yet they were strong.

Yes, they were special ladies who loved us.  Welcome home with her arms around your neck.  Hell, with the fuel oil smell and the sack of dirty laundry, you couldn’t have paid someone to hold you like that who didn’t love you.  They actually ordered see-through pajamas and nighties that would make a stripper blush.  Just to welcome you home.

They were our angels.  Always will be.  There should be a statue alongside the “Lonely Sailor” statue of a beautiful young girl in a J. C. Penny’s bargain dress, holding a toddler in one arm and other reaching out to her sailor.

This is for the ladies.  God bless you.  You supported us, you loved us, and you put up with us.  We were crazy.  Had to be to live the life and do the things we did.  You were the sanity in our world.  You are recognized and honored by all of us who stood topside and watched you as we entered and left port.

Your life was hard; it was a hell of a lot rougher than any starry-eyed girl should have to deal with. Your sacrifices and personal hardships will be rewarded in the memories that all faithful and loyal women accumulate and in the deep regard and respect by which you are held by the men who stood on deck and regarded your bargain basement dress as a garment worn by an angel.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

John

By:  Garland Davis

I was five years old when I first met John.

In 1949, my dad bought a ninety-acre farm north of Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  The house consisted of a living room, kitchen, a large bedroom downstairs and a huge unfinished attic above.  We moved into the house in the autumn of ’49.  It had no electricity, no running water or indoor plumbing.  The power company refused to run electricity from the main line, (about a mile away) until the following spring. There was a well below the back porch.  Water was lifted out of the well by a bucket on a rope using a windlass and pulley system.  The privy (also known as the outhouse, the shit house, etc.) was located about a hundred yards behind the house.  There was a fireplace on each end of the house and my grandmother’s wood burning cook stove to provide heat.

We lived that winter in conditions that would be considered primitive by today’s standards.  We used the fireplaces for heat and kerosene lamps and lanterns for light. The winter of ’49 was an extremely cold one.  At times I believed we would freeze to death.  That house was so cold that a glass of water would freeze over on the night stand.  The following spring, my dad and uncles learned that the main room of the house was made of logs and had been covered by oak boards.  During 1950, electricity, running water and an indoor toilet and bath were installed in the house and the attic was converted to three upstairs rooms.  A wood or coal burning stove was installed in the living room and the cook stove reigned in the kitchen.

There was another house on the farm.  It was a very small, one room log cabin.  It had a spring for water, an outhouse and a fireplace. John lived there.  John was an elderly Negro man.  When my dad bought the farm, one of the conditions of the purchase was that John would be permitted to live there as long as he lived or as long as he wished.

The farm had an allotment of ten to twelve acres for tobacco.  The allotment fluctuated yearly. There was a government agency that mandated the allowable acreage of tobacco that could be grown.  This was supposed to control the market price of tobacco.  My dad had no desire to farm tobacco and leased this acreage to “share croppers.”

John lived by working for my dad, the sharecropper, or other farmers in the area.  He had a one horse wagon and a mule that he used for transportation.  He had a garden and sold the produce in the colored section of Winston-Salem from his wagon.  He also sold catfish and carp that he caught in the creeks and the river. John was especially busy during hog killing time; he would help with the work for the intestines and feet.  He cleaned these and peddled them in town.

John was always available to help my dad with the chickens. There were eight houses of eight thousand chickens each.  My dad bought them as chicks; we fed them for eight or nine weeks and then shipped them to the meat packers.  John also helped my mother with the garden.  There were over thirty acres of woods on the place and the cutting and hauling of firewood was a yearly ritual. In 1951, dad and my uncles built a one room cement block building near John’s cabin and helped him move into it.  Over the years, John used the logs of the old cabin for firewood.

My dad was of the opinion that boys should have work to do to prevent them from getting into mischief.  I spent many days working alongside John with whatever job my dad had us doing.  John kept me working by reminding me, “Mister Buster (my childhood nickname) if’n you don’t git that done.  Yo Daddy gone take his belt to yo bottom.”  I also learned many things from John by watching him.  I learned how to forge a mule shoe.  I learned to make elderberry and dandelion wine.  I learned how to plow with a mule-drawn plow and how to drive a mule-drawn wagon.  My dad had about fifty bee hives and I learned beekeeping from John.

On Saturday evening, John would hitch his mule to his wagon, put on a white shirt and his best overalls and go to town. On Sundays, after my Mom and Dad were finished with the newspaper and after John had returned from church, I would take the paper to him and he would have me read the funnies to him.  He especially liked the Uncle Remus’ B’rer Rabbit strip.

I was thirteen when my father suddenly died.  John was a godsend to my mother during those trying times.  He took care of the work while she arranged to sell the chickens and rent the chicken houses to another farmer.  After she sold the bees to my uncle, about the only work left was to tend the garden, haul wood, and milk the cows.

By early ’58, John was moving slowly and could no longer do heavy work.  My mother asked me one morning if I would walk over and check on John, he hadn’t come to milk the cows.  I walked over, knocked on the door and when I got no answer, went in.  John was still in his bed; he had died in his sleep. I ran back to the house and told my mother.  She sent me over to the colored preacher’s house to tell him.  The congregation of his church collected John and prepared his funeral.

I wanted to attend John’s funeral but was told that it wasn’t fitting for white people to be going to a colored person’s funeral because colored people worshiped differently than whites. I guess the same applied to white peoples’ funerals.  I remember seeing John across the cemetery at my daddy’s funeral, but he was not part of the actual funeral party.

(I have substituted “Colored People” throughout this narrative for the word that was commonly used when referring to John’s race.)

I once asked John his age. He said, “Mister Buster, I don’t rightly know. I remembers we was owned by Mister Glenn and I was a little young’un and jist started workin’ with the hosses and mules.  I remembers Mister Glenn whoopen’ tha othas  ‘cause they was celebratin’ when Mister Lincoln wrote his paper sayin’ we was free.  I determined that at the time he died, John was between one hundred and one hundred two years old.

I grew up in an age and a society where the races were segregated and a family where bigotry was rife.  I learned early from a man who had once been the property of another man that we all have value.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

The Way It Was

By:  Garland Davis

This is one from the heart. Not that you probably give a shit or have any reason to, but this is the opinion of an ex-Asia Sailor who paid his dues out on the Pacific Rim riding the old worn out haze gray steel of the Seventh Fleet during a couple of wars.

One was a “cold” war keeping the commie Russians at bay and the other was a “hot” war to keep the commie Vietnamese in the north. It is the ‘two cents worth’ of an old stewburner who was once afforded membership in, what he considers, the finest organization ever assembled…The United States Navy.

I learned respect for a heritage and a tradition established by generations before me all the way back to the British Royal Navy.  I came to realize that I am a part of that which is the history of the U.S. Navy.

When I enlisted in the Navy every incoming sailor was given two books. This is Your Navy, by Theodore Roscoe and a Blue Jackets Manual

The former was published by the U.S. Naval Institute to provide each incoming prospective bluejacket a single volume history of the Navy. It was written in the style of a yarn, a salty language adventure.  The latter was a rudimentary “how to” course in becoming a sailor.

These two books and mail from home were the only permitted reading while in boot camp. Being a prolific reader, I consumed and then re-read both books a number of times during the eleven weeks I was at RTC San Diego.  Somewhere along the way, both were lost.  I have a couple of Blue Jackets Manuals, but not the one I was issued.  I don’t even know if This is Your Navy is still in print.

The history of the Navy is a legacy that we inherited and is ours to pass, unsullied to future sailors. That is an obligation, a sacred duty to ourselves, our Navy, and our country.

The uniform, the one referred to as a “Crackerjack suit” by the uninformed and uninitiated is our badge.  That uniform in earlier forms is easily recognized by sailors today as the one worn by Civil War sailors…And every succeeding generation of North American Bluejacket since.

The U.S. Navy uniform is unique. First, no other service has maintained the continuity of their dress uniform. The thirteen-button low-neck jumper blues predate anything worn by our sister services. The Navy uniform is a symbol, recognized and respected by every sailor in the world.

The Navy Dress Blue Uniform lends itself to individual expression. Many sailors took eccentric liberties in the way they decorated and wore their beloved “Dress Canvas.” Many in authority turned a blind eye to the liberties taken in the wearing of the uniform.

The white hat was an integral part of the uniform.  I was early enough into the Navy to have been issued a flat hat and had the opportunity to wear it once during a port call at Vancouver in Canada.  The white hat presented the sailor with a number of ways to display his individuality.  It could be rolled.  It could be worn with “wings.” You chose the way you preferred and just did it because sailors had always done it.

The neckerchief was another way to show your individuality.  Some sailors meticulously took a dime and painstakingly rolled their neckerchiefs until they looked like a yard’s worth of garden hose.  Lazy fuckers, like myself, would take their neckerchief to some shop on the Honch or out in Wanchai and have it rolled into a “greasy snake.” Pressed flat, it looked great and was light enough to blow all over hell in a light wind. Some tied the knot in their neckerchief regulation style at the bottom of the ‘V’ of their jumper collar.  I always liked a high knot a couple of inches above the ‘V’.

The thirteen button blue melton bell bottom trousers had a small pocket for a pocket watch.  By the time, I enlisted in 1961 it had become a Zippo pocket.  You tucked your cigarettes in your sock and folded your wallet over the waistband of the trousers under your jumper.  Every bar girl, hooker, and pickpocket knew the exact location. A real set of thirteen-button blues had no belt loops. Instead, there were a series of eyelets right above the terminal point of your ass crack called ‘gussets’ and you had a shipmate lace them up and square knot them to your size. It was ‘Navy’… Old Navy… Back then, being ‘Old Navy’ was damned important.

The only thing that went into your jumper pocket was your liberty card and I.D. card.  Anything else and it looked like shit. If you wore whites, reaching in your pocket for stuff would get it dirty.  Hong Kong tailored blue jumpers were usually made with inside pockets for securing liberty funds.  Hong Kong was the place to have the cuffs of your blues decorated.  Called liberty cuffs, the inside if the cuffs were embroidered with colorful pictures so that when you rolled the cuffs back they were visible.  I had dragons on my cuffs.

So you decked yourself out in dress canvas. You rolled across your quarterdeck… Requested permission to leave the ship… Popped a snappy salute to the colors aft and you were off to terrorize the female population.  You were a member of the greatest Navy in history and you looked like an American bluejacket. Because that is what you were.

You were what every saltwater sailing son of a bitch longed to be.  In the early 1960’s we all knew in our hearts that it would always be this way.  It was the greatest uniform of all the services of all the countries. No one would ever be so fucking stupid as to let that uniform go. We knew that our sons and grandsons would someday wear that symbol or our Navy.

At the time it was called Indo-China, nobody knew where it was. No one gave a fuck, but it was to change our lives and our Navy.  Nobody had ever heard of Elmo Zumwalt. In 1970, President Nixon nominated him, over much more senior Admirals, to become Chief of Naval Operations.  He was the forward thinker who invented saltwater mediocrity and the political correctness bullshit.  He issued Z-grams that relaxed grooming standards; permitted civilian clothing aboard ship and became the harbinger of myriad uniform changes to come.

Somewhere along the way, somebody decided thirteen button blues were outdated and for decades since have changed the uniforms to the point that a sailor now resembles a Marine.  Seldom are dress uniforms seen.  Now it is Aquaflage instead of dungarees and civilian clothes ashore instead of sharp sailors with pride in their Navy, their ship, and themselves.

I don’t know what reading material is issued in boot camp these days, probably some bullshit about how to be politically correct, and not to make sexual advances to your male or female shipmates.

They trashed the dear and meaningful for a bunch of superficial, meaningless horseshit and called it progress… Shame on the bastards.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

“Coffee, Nectar of the Gods…er…Chief Petty Officers”

By:  Garland Davis

If asked, “How do you take your coffee?” I reply. “Seriously, very seriously.”

The coffee plant, discovered in Ethiopia in the 11th Century, has a white blossom that smells like jasmine and a red, cherry-like fruit. At that time, the leaves of the so-called “magical fruit” were boiled in water and the resulting concoction was thought to have medicinal properties. As the fame of the coffee plant spread to other lands, its centuries-long voyage was about to begin.

Istanbul was introduced to coffee in 1555 during the reign of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent by Özdemir Pasha, the Ottoman Governor of Yemen, who had grown to love the drink while stationed in that Country. In the Ottoman palace a new method of drinking coffee was discovered: the cherry seeds, later called beans, were roasted over a fire, finely ground and then slowly cooked with water on the ashes of a charcoal fire. With its new brewing method and aroma, coffee’s renown soon spread even further afield.

Over the next century coffee spread throughout the countries of Europe. England first became acquainted with coffee in 1637 when a Turk introduced the drink to Oxford. It quickly became popular among students and teachers who established the “Oxford Coffee Club.” The first commercial coffeehouse in Oxford opened in 1650 and was called the “Angel.”

In 1652, the first coffeehouse was opened in London. Using his extensive knowledge of how to prepare and brew Turkish Coffee, the Greek owner introduced his friends and clients to its peerless Taste.

By 1660, London’s coffeehouses had become an integral part of its social culture. The general public dubbed coffeehouses “Penny Universities” as they were patronized by writers, artists, poets, lawyers, politicians, and philosophers. London’s coffeehouses offered customers a great deal more than piping hot cups of coffee: the entrance fee of one penny allowed them to benefit from the intellectual conversation that surrounded them. It is believed that William Shakespeare conceptualized and wrote plays in the coffee houses of Strafford upon Avon.

Many coffeehouses of London placed a brass box bearing the words “To Insure Promptness” where patrons could leave a coin in payment for the services rendered by the coffee wenches.  That is where our current term “TIP” and the practice of “Tipping” originated.

Coffee reached North America in 1668. The first coffeehouse in New York, “The King’s Arms”, opened in 1696.

Coffeehouses of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, as in London, were frequented by students and intellectuals.

In 1714, the Dutch presented Louis XIV with a coffee sapling from their plantations on Java. The sapling was planted in the royal Jardin des Plantes in Paris.

In 1723, a French mariner took a sapling from the Jardin des Plantes to the island of Martinique. From here, the coffee plant spread to other Caribbean islands, as well as to Central and South America.

In 1727, a Portuguese sailor carried coffee saplings to Brazil from French Guyana. Today, Brazil is the number one producer of coffee in the world, accounting for 35% of global coffee production. By the mid-nineteenth century, coffee had become one of the most important commodities in world trade.

After the “Boston Tea Party” the drinking of tea by the colonists fell out of favor. Coffee grew in popularity throughout the colonies and later the fledgling states.  During the American Civil War, the blockade of Southern ports created an extreme shortage of coffee.  Numerous substitutes were attempted, primarily toasted corn, toasted barely and the ground root of the chicory plant.  Many in the deep south developed a taste for chicory and still mix chicory root with coffee.

Coffee was mostly drunk by the officers in the early American Navy.  The sailors preferred their beer and rum rations.  It slowly became more popular as a morning drink throughout the Navy.

The practice of coffee being made available twenty-four hours per day was established as a Naval tradition at the Battle of Manila Bay when Commodore George Dewey ordered the fleet to keep the galley fires lit to make coffee available throughout the battle.

Early versions of the Navy Cook Book required that the coffee be made only so strong as to see the bottom of the cup. This was to prevent the sailors from becoming overly stimulated.  It later became customary to make and drink coffee strong enough to “float a marlinspike.” Coffee became the favored beverage of sailors until the invention of Drink, Instant, Strawberry, Artificially Sweetened better known as red “Bug Juice.”  There were also Lemon (yellow Bug Juice), Lime (green bug juice), Orange (orange bug juice), and Grape (you guessed it, purple bug juice) flavors available.  It was not uncommon to hear a sailor answer, “Red,” to the question, “What flavor bug juice do they have today.” But bug juice is another story for telling at another time.

Coffee not only became the at-sea beverage of choice, the cans of coffee grounds raised the practice of barter (Cum Shaw to the Asia Sailor) to an art practiced by some of the canniest bluejackets afloat.  Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if some sailor didn’t have the SRF in Yokosuka build him an entire ship. I have a brass ash tray that was produced by the Foundry at said SRF.  My boss traded coffee for it and presented it to me after winning the 1982 and 1983 Ney Awards as Leading MS in Midway.

Being the Chief Cook and Baker, I was also the custodian of the ship’s supply of coffee grounds.  I could always tell when my shipmates were going to hit me up for a can.  They would be extra nice to me for a few days before. Of course, I always acted as if it would place a financial burden on the General Mess, but after listening to them tell me of all the glorious products they were going to get for a mere twenty pounds of coffee, I would relent and give in.  Of course, I always kept a stock of coffee already charged as used just for these instances.  In preparation for an extended availability while in Midway, I had over two thousand pounds of coffee charged off.  I would surmise this isn’t done in our new kinder and  gentler Navy.

During stores on loads and working parties made up by sailors from all divisions, it became a game for me to make sure all the coffee made it to the storeroom with my fellow Chiefs urging their troops on the working party to misplace a case of coffee (two twenty pound cans). Coffee wasn’t the only items popular for pilfering.  Aforesaid bug juice was popular, it would take the tarnish off brass and shine deck plates.  Wonder what it did to our stomachs. And snipes would take anything edible, even dehydrated mashed potatoes. But again, coffee is the story.

I remember when the Navy made Coffee, Powdered Instant available.  We tried it on one of the ships I was in. (The Food Service Officer claimed to prefer instant coffee.)  To placate him I ordered a case.  I took a jar into the CPO Mess.  Those of us who tried it figured you could make a better beverage with the detritus gathered at evening sweepers.  The jar sat by the coffee pot for a couple of days and then disappeared, I presume into the shitcan.  The Food Service Officer took a jar, paid for by the Wardroom Mess.  Two years later when I transferred, the were ten jars of the original twelve still on the books.

As for decaffeinated coffee, it is one of four items that I consider substitutes for the real thing.  The other three are non-alcoholic beer, skim milk, and masturbation.  Not even worth consideration.

Having retired some twenty-six years ago, I am not sure which direction coffee has taken in the Navy and aboard ship.  With the rise of the specialty coffee stores and shops offering Expressos and other foo-foo, exotic made up drinks, I would not be surprised to see an espresso coffee maker in the Wardrooms and General Messes and, I hate to say it, even the CPO Mess.  As for me, I’ll take my coffee hot, black, and strong enough to float that marlinspike.

Why Sailors Miss  Ships

By Garland Davis

When the General Quarters klaxon sounds, whether for fire, taking on water, collision, crash on the flight deck, or preparing to engage the North Vietnamese on a run into Haiphong port, the adrenaline kicks in.  They say that when you are faced with a life or death situation, your training takes over and you don’t really think about what you are doing.  It all becomes muscle memory.  You are on autopilot.

It’s true, to a degree.  Training is just a safely repeatable replacement for near death experiences.

I remember a helicopter crash on the flight deck of an FF I was serving in.  The flight deck fire party had the situation in hand, but almost by the time the general alarm was finished we were crowding each other running fire hoses through hatches and doors to the flight deck and main deck.  Did I stop to think, I will have my galley crew breakout and run a fire hose to help?  No, the ship was in danger, my training took over and I reacted automatically.

In his book, “Outliers,” Malcolm Gladwell makes the case that becoming an expert at a skill requires 10,000 hours of practice.  Perhaps that is true, but one fire at sea or near death experience has a similar effect to those 10,000 hours, ingraining in your memory every action, no matter how small, that kept you alive.

And when any portion of that experience is recreated, the smell of smoke within the ship, the sound of artillery rounds alongside, the sound of machine gun bullets against the steel, the unthinking responses that save your life are triggered automatically as if they were forged by 10,000 hours of practice.

The hormones released by highly stressful situations instruct the brain to imprint those memories more deeply. We can thank evolution for that trick.  The pre-historic man who could best remember how he escaped an attack by a saber-toothed tiger had a better shot at surviving the next one.

Time seems to slow down in a car crash or when you are getting mugged or any casualty situation, at sea, with no one to call for help.  The adrenaline boost to your system triggers your brain into hyperactive memory storage.  Your mind and senses go into overdrive, absorbing every sensory detail with almost superhuman lucidity.

Because of this, an event that might only last a split second occupies as much mental storage space as a week or a month. Years later you can recall details, feelings, colors, smells, and sounds more vividly than you can remember this morning’s breakfast.

After decades you remember with perfect clarity every aspect of the event.  I remember being in the galley baking cinnamon rolls as the shells were exploding in the water and air around the ship.  I remember the Super Arboc firing chaff into the air to confuse the enemy fire control radars and the two gun mounts periodically going to “rapid continuous” fire. Forty-four years later I can smell the cinnamon and butter of the baking pastries.

This hyper-alertness often extends for a time after the actual experience.  For hours or days after the experience life just seems better. After returning to safety and even after returning home from a hectic and stressful deployment life just seems better.

You want to talk and re-talk it with your shipmates who experienced it with you.  You seem to live harder and truer than you ever have before.  The liberties were more intense, the drinks colder, the girls lovelier and yes, it felt good.  You felt so alive.  I remember thinking, “I wish I could live my whole life like this.”

It is the inability to ever match the excitement and stress of living that you achieved at sea and in war. It’s the letdown of having it end, you survived and you worry that a normal civilian life is just a slow letdown and a fade away.

Ask any sailor to tell you the worst experiences of their lives and they will tell you it was life aboard the ships, underway, and the war.

Now here is the confusing part.  When you ask them to tell you the best experiences of their lives, they’ll usually tell you it was life aboard the ships, underway, and the war.

This is why it is nearly impossible to talk to someone who wasn’t there, didn’t live it, and cannot understand.  That is why we talk among ourselves and rarely try to explain to civilians how we lived our lives and fought our wars.

High school classes schedule reunions about every ten years until there is no one left who cares.  Sailors and ships seem to hold reunions almost annually.  We go through the time between reunions living in two worlds.  One, the world of little excitement, of civilians and, the monotonous, never changing, nine-to-five job. The second world is in our minds and in our memories, once again looking into a westward sunset over a placid sea.  With the reunions you meet once again with the best men you will ever know and consider yourself fortunate to just be one of them.

You drink the beer and tell the stories reliving the worst and best experiences of your life.  You laugh with them at the stories you don’t remember being so funny at the time, and you shed a tear for those who have sailed over the horizon.

That my friends is PTSD or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and I am afraid we are all afflicted.

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A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer and August Cole

A review of the Novel:

By: Garland Davis

I just finished reading this book. My assessment of the novel.

The book is written in a manner reminiscent of Tom Clancy and W.E.B. Griffin.  With each chapter telling the events of differing protagonists all leading to the conclusion.  This method of writing tells the story of each character in a manner that supports the overall plot and story.  Clancy often left the reader hanging by not finishing a particular character’s storyline.  The writers here also leave some of the character stories untold.

Of all the books I have read since I caught the reading bug at age six or seven, this is only the second work of fiction that I have seen with footnotes or as the authors label them “end notes.”  The other was State of Fear by Michael Crichton. The reader  almost constantly has to refer to the endnotes to establish continuity between the present and the time the events in the book occurred.

The story line of the book is World War Three in the near future.  The authors never really define the exact decade.  It could almost be classified as a futuristic Science Fiction novel.  A Chinese/Russian alliance eliminates American resources in Space and attacks and occupies the Hawaiian Islands due to their superior technological abilities.  Out modern communications, radar, and other sensor technological innovations have all been hacked by the Chinese.  They manage to locate and destroy all Pacific Fleet Nuclear Submarines and almost the entire Pacific Surface Fleet.

The only ships free of Chinese hacks are those in the Ghost Fleet at Suisun including the USS Zumwalt.  A program is developed to recommission these ships and a fleet of disparate ships is assembled on the west coast while an east coast fleet transits the northwest passage opened by an Ice Breaker owned by the Country the was once Iceland.  The only non-nuclear Submarine is a Polish Diesel Boat.

In the meantime, U.S. service personnel and civilians conduct insurgency operations against the Chinese occupying Oahu.

A fleet of Auxiliaries, an LPH, and a Guided Missile Cruiser cobbled together from the Reserve fleet and led by the USS Zumwalt defeat a Chinese/Russian fleet of four carriers and other capital ships and with embarked Marines retake the island of Oahu and accept Chinese surrender.

None of the characters seemed to sleep and all were taking issued “Stims” or stimulated drugs to perform their jobs.

One passage of the book that appealed to me and I quote a female Marine Major, “Longboard, this is Nemesis, you are cleared hot…and may all our enemies die screaming.”

My final assessment of the book.  I will never get back the time I spent reading it.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.

Liberty Boat

By:  Garland Davis

The sailor sits at the head of the pier,

A desolate wayfarer lost and alone,

Forsaken, forlorn, no shipmates to toast,

Outcast, destitute, far from ship and home.

Why does he sit there, clouds around him?

Secluded, outcast no ship for a home,

But arise and look seaward for a glimpse of gray,

He’ll find welcome there, no longer sad and alone.

The light catches the masts, signal flags flying,

From the ship comes, a ride to rest and home,

No longer does he feel a lonesome feeling

The liberty boat comes to take a sailor home.

To follow Tales of an Asia Sailor and get e-mail notifications of new posts, click on the three white lines in the red rectangle above, then click on the follow button.

A native of North Carolina, Garland Davis has lived in Hawaii since 1987. He always had a penchant for writing but did not seriously pursue it until recently. He is a graduate of Hawaii Pacific University, where he majored in Business Management. Garland is a thirty-year Navy retiree and service-connected Disabled Veteran.