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.

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.

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.

Who We Are

By:  Garland Davis

During a discussion, on FaceBook, with some shipmates regarding political issues I made the following post: “Our benefits, Retirement Pensions, Cola Increases, Tri-Care, Veterans Administration medical care and disability benefits, and etc. are always top of my mind. I can waiver and compromise on other issues, but not those that we earned in some of the God Damnedest situations and conditions asked of a man. We laugh and tell the sea stories about the good times but there is nothing funny about the times between the good times.”

We spend time telling each other sea stories about the good times, about the liberties, about the drinks, about the girls, and about old shipmates.  I am going to take a while to talk about some of the bad times.

We didn’t realize the bad in recruit training.  We were numb most of the time.  Half proud of our uniforms and our newfound skills marching and learning of the Navy and, half regretting enlisting if this was what we faced for the next four years.

My first tour at NAS Lemoore was basically easy.  I don’t recall any really bad times there unless you count being a broke, seventeen-year-old Seaman living in the Barracks without any place to go even if I had the money.  The Station Library and Theatre were a godsend and got me through many idle hours in the barracks.

The day I reported to my first ship, I was stuck into a gear locker with a chipping hammer and shown how to use it.  I was to chip all the paint off the interior bulkheads while another, more fortunate, sailor was chipping on the external bulkheads.  Hearing protection?  I don’t think it existed in the “Old Navy.”  I figure I am fortunate to be able to hear myself fart.

There were things I didn’t understand.  Returning from emergency leave, I spent a couple of days at Treasure Island waiting for my ship. One night another sailor and I were issued 45 caliber pistols and assigned the duty of guarding a couple Dempster Dumpsters about two hundred yards apart.  That was the longest, coldest and loneliest night I can recall.

I remember many hours on more ships than I wish to list wearing an OBA,  carrying and dragging fire hoses, and humping a “Handy Billy” (How many of you remember those Mother Fuckers) and eductors up and down ladders.

I don’t know how many nights I spent trying to sleep when the AC was out and the ventilation seemed to be drawing from the uptakes.  The only thing you could hope was  the fartsack and mattress dried out before time to crawl back into the rack.  Then there were the fart odors from the dozens of others living in your bedroom.  All you could do was ignore the smell and add your contribution to the miasma.

Now seems to be a good time to bring up water hours.  Fucked up evaporators seemed to coincide with fucked up air conditioning.  Not only was I miserable, I was dirty, stinking miserable.  With water hours came no Laundry service, which eventually meant no clean clothes.  Everyone had almost terminal cases of crotch rot. Being a cook, I was one of the few, granted permission to take a shower every three days.  It had to be a fast shower, the Master at Arms was there with a stopwatch, ready to turn the water off.

With the Viet Nam war, the operational tempo picked up.  Ships, Carriers, Cruisers, Destroyers and the Auxiliaries routinely did ninety days or longer deployments off the coast of South Viet Nam,  providing gunfire support to the Army and Marines fighting ashore, or in the Gulf of Tonkin, escorting the Aircraft Carriers. Although I was a cook and baker, I agree with my shipmates that, often, due to sporadic availability, missed replenishments, and yes, incompetent cooks the food was, very often, extremely poor.  After a few weeks, meals became monotonous and sailors became unconscious of what was being served and just ate.

There were the all night General Quarters and moving in close ashore to engage an enemy battery or making three nightly runs into Haiphong to shoot up the shipping.  There was the sound of enemy artillery rounds exploding close aboard.  And the next day there was rearming to replace the rounds fired during the night and refueling to bring the bunkers back to one hundred percent.  And then, if the ship was fortunate, there would be the stores ship to replenish food and other consumables.  Luck might give a person a couple of hours sleep before going back on watch or preparing for the night’s General Quarters and doing it all over again.

There was the night we ran into Haiphong in company with USS Goldsborough.  They took a hit into the Chief Petty Officers Mess.  Repair three staging area was in the mess.  The locker leader, an HTC, and the phone talker were in the mess with the other members of the repair party staged in the passageway.  The Chief had taken the phones to allow the talker to go to the head.  The HTC, a drinking acquaintance, was the only casualty.  I feel bad that I cannot remember his name.

Z-Grams promulgated by Admiral Zumwalt, Chief of Naval Operations, to the Navy took a toll on the Command structure and the Chain of Command of many units.  All too often, the Z-gram detailed drastic changes to shipboard conditions, uniform and civilian clothes regulations and, personal appearance without any preparatory advice.  The lowest Seaman Recruit received the information regarding Zumwalt’s directives at the same time as the unit commanders did.  I remember a Seaman who moved his civilian wardrobe out of the locker club, stored them in his locker and left his uniforms on his bunk.  These were collected as gear adrift.  He was irate, waving the Z-gram around because it said that he could have civilian clothes aboard.  He was a pretty good Seaman up to that point but ended up with a less than honorable discharge.

The shooting ended in 1973 and the war in 1975.  The Carter administration, like the Obama administration, set out to pay for social programs at a cost to military funding.  Many ship’s names disappeared as they were decommissioned and little or no new construction was planned.  I remember unending weeks of in port time because there wasn’t money for fuel. I remember “Fast Cruises” sitting alongside with the gangway in pretending we were at sea.  I was on one ship that did half of a RefTra tied to the pier.  A tanker loaded with fuel, but none to get underway with.

During those years after Viet Nam, racial tensions in the country were high.  These tensions found their way into the fleet.  There were race riots and near race riots on a few ships.  Many good sailors of all races were lost to these problems.  The Navy turned the solution to many racial problems and a perceived abuse of alcohol over to contract psychologists and social engineers who had no conception of life in the Navy.  These “problem solvers” contributed to many failed Navy careers.

Uniforms were changing faster than one could keep track of.  I calculated at one time that with all the “new” and “grandfathered” working uniforms there was a fourteen-year period when I could not muster my whole division and require them to be in the same uniform.  I don’t know if the newer Navy has gotten any better.  From what I see on my infrequent trips to the base, they are still “churning” the seabag.

With 1979 and the Iran hostage crisis came endless Indian Ocean cruises.  There were few liberty ports near the operating areas, so most of the time was spent staying on station and running drills.  There were refueling and replenishments, but not the night long GQ’s of the Viet Nam war. The big exception to this was the flight deck on the carriers.  They launched and recovered aircraft night and day. The “Roof Rats” earned their Flight Deck Pay.

For the four, twenty, or thirty years of our Navy life, we stood duty.  Every third day, every fourth if we were lucky, we stayed aboard and stood watches maintaining the ship and standing ready for whatever was asked of us.  My Army and Air Force acquaintances have a hard time wrapping their heads around the concept of spending every third or fourth day working and then having to work a normal day.

Throughout the whole period, there was the monotony of being at sea or the extreme discomfort of rough weather or losing time with loved ones because of typhoon evasion.  And endless days of rolling and pitching.  I was never prone to seasickness, so I dodged that bullet.  I am sure those of you who did suffer were much more miserable than I was.

Then there were the separations from our families. I married when I had barely four years in the Navy.  During the next twenty-six years of Navy life, my wife and I were often separated due to deployments and the operating tempo of the Yokosuka-based forward deployed ships.  My wife kept track of the deployments and once told me that she calculated that we were apart for eleven of those twenty-six years, and she didn’t count duty days. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” was first published in Francis Davison’s Poetical Rhapsody in 1602, where the words appear as the first phrase of a poem in the edition.  Something made us work for more than fifty years.

Thirty years of a life that those who lived and worked ashore have no conception of nor ability to comprehend.  I was always told that a retired sailor didn’t live a long time.  I have concluded that a short life after retiring is a falsehood.  We are tough because we had to be and the old ships, the turbulent times, and some pretty bad conditions made us Mean Mother Fuckers who don’t quit.

With all this being said, I would willingly do it all over again if for nothing more than the companionship of the hundreds of shipmates who contributed to and shared the hard times and made the fun times.  My brief thirty years in the Navy was an adventurous and fulfilling time in my life.

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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.

Dead Broke

By: Garland Davis

I was sitting on the front porch with my uncle.  This was in the rural community of Western North Carolina where I grew up.  I don’t remember what job he had at the time.  He sharecropped or worked for other farmers.  He was a decent farrier and sometimes went over to Kentucky to work at the racehorse stables shoeing horses. Sitting there on the porch as evening approached, he said,” Here it is Saturday night.  I would shore like to go to town, but I’m dead broke!”

I was just a little boy and had no idea what being dead broke meant.  I knew that broke meant that something was damaged or didn’t work and I knew what dead meant.  I had seen dead animals when we killed the hogs every year. But I didn’t know what dead broke meant. So I asked, “What’s dead broke?”

“It means you ain’t got no money and no chance of getting any anytime soon,”  He replied.  “If’n a feller come down that road right there a sellin’ bonded whiskey for ten cents a bottle’ all’st I could do is holler, ‘Damn, that shore is cheap!’ I tell you boy, you can’t get any broker than that. That’s the bottom of the bucket busted.”

A few years later, I came to realize exactly what my uncle was talking about.  In my early years in the Navy, I was more often “Dead Broke” than not.

At around $96 a month base pay and sea pay, a red-blooded American Seaman can reach ‘dead broke’ status with little effort. Beer at the EM Club slop chute, Beer Nuts, and Slim Jims for supper, regularly, could wreck your personal finances rather quickly. One also had to fool money away buying soap, toothpaste and deodorant and stuff like that. Essentials like cigarettes and cigars had to be carefully budgeted for. I remember many nights when it was coffee and cigarettes or a cigar on the fantail staring at the lights of San Francisco because I was dead broke.

The fellows back home, the one’s I went to school with, were flipping burgers for two bucks an hour or loading freight cars at the tobacco company and hosiery mill for pretty good pay. I’ll bet they never missed out on a six pack of Schlitz or a bottle of whiskey and a wrestling match with their high school sweetheart in the back seat of their car down by the river on Friday night because all they could find in their pockets was lint.

But, as a young sailor, I learned to innovate. A Seaman learned ‘between paydays survival skills’… It was either become creative or become a self-abusing, tee-totaling berthing space hermit. I recall few of these in Vesuvius. Once the ship was in WestPac and I became aware of the delights ashore, I became a master of creative thinking and finagling the where-with-all to finance a liberty.  Especially in the newly discovered paradise known as Subic Bay.

I remember one weekend my Snipe Fireman running mate and I were shifting pocket lint back and forth when we hatched a great master plan. We scraped together more than twenty bucks, a veritable fortune to those of our lowly status. We hit up both the snipe and deck ape slush funds, the asshole Log Room Yeoman, who had gotten himself restricted, and the old fat Chief Yeoman who was sitting around waiting for someone to invent Viagra.  We had enough money for three or four cheap beers each at the club and ten bucks each to buy pesos with when we crossed the bridge.  We were quickly into our whites and caught a liberty boat shortly before noon on a Saturday morning. It was a short walk from the Fleet Landing to the EM Club and the start to a memorable liberty.

After a few beers at the club, we changed the twenty into Pesos at the first money changer outside the gate and were off to find female companionship and beer for the weekend.  Subic City and the Barrio were out of bounds in those days, but that was a problem that could be worked around. The prices there were much lower than Olangapo.  We boarded a jeepney for the Barrio where for a Peso you could hire a kid lookout to watch for the Shore Patrol and warn you if they were in town.

After arriving at a bar, we hired a lookout and then hooked up with a pair of young lovelies who had their own rooms. We struck a bargain with them for the weekend and laid in a stock of San Miguel at their place. This was all in the days before some innovative mama-san dreamed up the “bar fine” as a way to separate a sailor from his money.  All we had to do was pay the girls.

In those days, in the Barrio, ten pesos would buy more San Miguel in a Sari Sari store than you could drink in a couple of days. It was noon on Saturday, we were young, had cold beer, hot women, and didn’t have to be back aboard until the last liberty boat Sunday.  A little like how I imagine paradise to be.

After a weekend of San Miguel, Monkey Meat, and a lot of time in bed, we poured ourselves back across the Quarterdeck from the last liberty boat Sunday night with nothing in our pockets but lint. The ship was going to sea for a couple of weeks with a visit to Hong Kong before returning to Subic.  We had plans to save our money, stand by for other people in Hong Kong and be ready for our young lovelies when we returned to Subic.

I don’t think our plans worked out so well.  I remember liberty in Hong Kong and I remember being dead broke with payday over a week away on the subsequent visit to Subic. I do know we had promised our Honey-ko’s that we would see them on our return.  And we did.  There is no one more ingenious than a “dead broke” North American Blue Jacket trying to scrounge enough money for a liberty in Olongapo.

It was ninety-six bucks a month, sharing a non-air conditioned berthing space with one hundred fifteen other men, sagging bunks, stinking feet and clothes, worn out foul weather gear, old big gut heavy Chief Petty Officers, some real Asshole Officers, long hours and hard work and the company of your shipmates, some of the finest men that ever lived.

Oh, to be nineteen once again, twenty bucks in my pocket, and boarding a liberty boat in Subic Bay.

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.

Bangkok and Dom Perignon

By:  Garland Davis

I was talking with a friend a few days ago.  He was bitching about the price of beer. He was upset that it is almost a dollar a can retail.  I told him that I considered that cheap.  In a bar, it will cost five bucks and at the airport, you’ll have to take a second mortgage on your house to purchase a small draft in a fucking plastic cup.

That got me to thinking about the most expensive booze I ever drank.  I think it was 1979 or 1980.  Francis Hammond was following Midway around the South China Sea, screwing with the Soviets at their base at Cam Ranh Bay, Viet Nam.  The Soviets leased the old US base for a number of years after the fall of the South.

The Soviet Union requested that the Thai government permit one of their warships visit Bangkok.  The Thais were reluctant and asked the U.S. State Department to schedule a U.S. ship visit so they would have a reason to decline the Soviet request.

The Battle Group Commander had each of the escort ships make a close aboard pass by the carrier.  I guess Francis Hammond looked the best and we were given the honor of an unexpected seven-day port visit to Bangkok. We only had three days to make the ship as presentable as possible before the transit up the river to Bangkok.  The XO took advantage of every waking minute of each sailor’s day to make sure there wasn’t a corner, ladder back, urinal, or mess deck cup that wasn’t scrubbed and then scrubbed again.

The trip up river was harrowing because there were electric lines across the river and the navigators had differing measures of their height above the water.  There was concern that we couldn’t make it under one particular span.  Actually, there wasn’t anything to worry about.  We made it by a good two feet.  I think the navigator and the CO both probably had to change skivvies after that transit.

We tied up in an area of Bangkok called Klong Toey. Home to Bangkok’s major port and largest wet market.

NOTE (From Wikipedia-.Khlong Toei (also Klong Toey, Thai: คลองเตย) is a district in central Bangkok, long known for its slum). END NOTE

A slum, a place where a sailor could feel at home.   Arrival was taken up by the greeting of dignitaries, embassy reps, and the money changers.  I was busy with the victualler, getting stores ordered and deliveries scheduled.  The Chief Engineer and Supply Officer were arranging, through representatives from the U.S. Naval Attaché’s, office for water, fuel, and garbage services.  Members of the crew not involved in these evolutions were, at the behest of the XO, searching for errant unclean areas and objects.

We had been in the port couple of days.  All necessary stores were loaded and the XO’s last minute cleaning tasks completed.  The amateurs were showing the effects of Bangkok liberty and some were happy to have a duty day to recover. The only evolution left for me was serious liberty.

A group of we Chiefs booked rooms at a very nice hotel, threw our AWOL bags into the rooms changed into shorts, and repaired to the pool area for some cool, soothing libations in the form of Kloster and Singha beer while waiting for dark and Soi Cowboy and Patpong Road to come alive.  As the afternoon progressed we were joined by some other Chiefs, the A-Gang Warrant, and the Mustang Main Propulsion Assistant.  A couple of the cooler junior officers were also accepted into the group.

Now you can imagine; with the combination of sailors, beer, and a swimming pool somebody is going to get fucking wet.  That’s right! Everyone got thrown into the pool at least once.  The Chief Radioman comes strolling into the pool area wearing pants, shirt, shoes and escorting a young woman.  Now you know that boy is going swimming! We were manhandling him toward the pool and he was fighting yelling, “No, No! I can’t fucking swim.”  I remember saying, “All sailors can swim,” as we tossed him, clothes and all into the pool.

He couldn’t fucking swim! The asshole is out there drowning and we are laughing, thinking that he is clowning around.  I realized that it was for real and went in to help.  A couple of others came in and we got him to the edge of the pool.  I was telling him to breathe, “I’m not giving you mouth to mouth, I don’t want to kiss your ugly ass.” Fortunately, he was okay.

Shortly after the drowning incident, a group of bellmen and hotel employees started setting up a buffet line near us.  There was a huge ice bucket with a towel wrapped bottle in it.  One of the bellmen indicated that this was for us.  What the Fuck?

A Saudi Prince and his entourage were staying at the hotel.  There was a party of men in traditional Arab dress across the pool.  One of them rose and walked around the pool, came to us and said in a British accent straight from the playing fields of Eton, “The Prince was highly amused by your antics and offers these refreshments. Bon Appetit.”

We thanked him and told him to tell the Prince thank you.  I went to survey the buffet.  Caviar, shrimps, cold ham, cold beef, cold chicken, pate, breads, and stuff I didn’t recognize.  I folded the towel back on the bottle in the ice cooler; Dom Perignon, vintage 1976.  It was, as the champagne vintners say, a magnum.  As Asian Sailors say it was a “Fucking War Club.”  There was also a cooler of beer for anyone who didn’t like the bubbly.

There were young men and women to pour the drinks and serve the food.  I noticed as the bottle of Dom was emptied, another replaced it.  There were a total of five or six magnums, or war clubs, consumed that afternoon and well into the night.

As darkness fell the hotel concierge escorted a large group of pretty young ladies in to keep us company and the buffet and champagne were once again replenished.  (Evidently the Prince sent them.  He must have been very fucking amused!) To avoid making this story any longer, I’ll just tell you that a good time was had by all.  A great party and a hell of a liberty I will long remember.

The next day, out of curiosity, I checked the wine list.  Dom Perignon wasn’t on it.  I asked the Concierge about Dom Perignon.  He showed me a separate wine list that was reserved for “Special Guests.”  A magnum of Dom Perignon 76 was US $1,400.  I figure that between the Dom, the food, and the girls the cost of that afternoon was between US $20,000 and $25,000.

After thinking about it, I realized that amount of money to that Saudi Prince was less significant than these few coins I have in my pocket.

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.

Arms and Lights and Flags

By:  Garland Davis

I.

My grandfather could talk with his arms and lights and flags.

I asked him why.

He said it was the sailor’s way through time.

I begged him to teach me how.

I worked so hard at school to learn.

And the letters and words finally came.

Now I too can talk with my arms.

It makes him laugh, easy in himself.

That is what grandsons do.

It would be many years before I found his maps and log books.

Mildewed and stained.  Strange names and places.

Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, Tarawa, Iwo Jima, Okinawa.

The final log entry, “War over; Surrender, Tokyo bay; Going home.”

II.

I would go to the Navy, as my grandfather did,

I would talk with my arms and lights and flags.

I would be as my grandfather, visit strange places with strange names.

III

Electronic waves have made the ability to talk with one’s arms obsolete.

Now I talk with the radio and plot courses and names on an electric map.

There is no longer the need to talk with arms and lights and flags.

I imagine my grandfather’s spirit standing alone on the signal bridge.

Semaphore flags clutched in his hand.

Tears slowly running from his eyes.

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.