Being an Asshole

By Garland Davis

A certain shipmate of mine who once waved flags for a living whom I OCCASIONALLY cyber bully will tell you that I am an asshole. He pretty much has me pegged. I have always been something of a clown since I learned to talk. That happened when I was in the sixth grade. In my early childhood, I stammered. It was embarrassing so I just wouldn’t talk. My sixth-grade teacher kept me after school for a half hour every day and worked on drills that helped me overcome the stammer. No one has been able to shut me up since.

People often ask why, after thirty years in the Navy, I never advanced to Senior or Master Chief. The only thing I can say is that I often opened my mouth when I should have remained silent. I’ll tell you, one of the worst things you can do as a Chief is tell a senior Captain that he is wrong in an Officer and Chiefs meeting and have subsequent events prove that you are right. I’m sure some Captains would forgive you, but this one didn’t. He made a comment in my evaluations that I was rated number seventeen in a CPO Mess of fourteen Chiefs. My Foodservice Division had been runner up for the Ney Award which he completely failed to mention. Revenge is a bitch.

After I retired, I worked as a mid-level executive for Burger King for a while. I really wanted to work for McDonald’s but they refused to offer me a job. Their reasoning; they already had one fucking clown, they didn’t need another!

Clowning around almost caused me physical injury or possibly even death. It went something like this:

I went into a shit-kicking bar on Magsaysay in Olongapo and bumped into a group of snipes from my ship. I sat down with them and started sucking the nectar from an icy cold San Miguel when this young lovely pulled a chair next to mine, took me by the arm and said, “Hello.”

“Hello,” I replied and then ignored her.

Finally, she pulled my arm and asked, “You don’t like me?”

“I like you fine. You’re pretty girl.” And then I ignored her some more.

“Whassa matter with you? You don’t want to talk to me.”

“Oh, yeah, I want to ask you a question, but I am shy.”

“You can ask me.” She said

Me, “Are you wearing panties?’

She slapped my arm and said, “Why you ask me that?”

“Because I am interested in you and would like to know you and about you.”

She started smiling, took my arm and pulled herself closer to me. She whispered to me, “Yes I am wearing panties,” with a smile.

“What color are they?

She slaps my arm and pulls her chair away. By this time the others at the table were watching and listening to our interchange. So, I went back to ignoring her.

She slid her chair back beside me and took my arm again and said, “They are pink.”

“Got any holes in them?”

“Whassa matter with you? Why all you want to talk about is panties? No there no holes in my panties.”

“Then if they don’t have holes, how did you get your fucking legs in them?” At that, everyone around the table cracked up. The laughter was loud and long. The girl left the table and went to the bar.

She returned with a knife in her hand. I don’t know what she was saying in Tagalog but I am pretty sure she wasn’t extolling my better qualities. A couple of waiters were wrestling her for the knife as I unassed that joint.

The night before I left Reeves and Subic for the last time, my cooks planned a little party for me at a bar on Magsaysay. I arrived a little late. I had been detained at the CPO club by a bunch of San Miguels. I went to their table and sat in the chair they had for me. As the waiter delivered a frosty cold one, this woman, who was over the hill ugly sat down by me and took my arm.

I started looking under the table and under the chairs. Finally, someone asked, “Did you lose something Chief, what are you looking for?”

“The shovel they dug this bitch up with!”

And of course, everyone laughed.

There was a metal tray sitting on the table that was used to deliver drinks. That old broad hit me on the head with it. You know, sometimes my ears still ring.

I’ve never had to work at being an asshole, it somehow came naturally.

Dungaree Shirts

By Garland Davis

A couple year ago I bought a chambray shirt very like the dungaree shirts I once wore. My wife folded it away and put it in the shirt drawer. It slowly worked its way to the bottom of the drawer. Since I am now an old fart and don’t care what impression I make, the shirt on top is the one I wear. If it doesn’t match anything else I am wearing, I don’t really give a shit.

My wife pulled the chambray shirt out this morning and asked if I wanted to keep it since I didn’t wear it anymore. Of course, I told her to keep it, I had never worn it.

I was going up to the bank this morning and decided to wear it. As I slipped my arms into the sleeves it brought back memories of the thousands of times I had donned similar shirts. The old fart in the mirror in the new dungaree shirt was not the young sailor in the old, faded, paper thin shirt I remembered. When those days run into our thoughts, we are usually clad in dungarees as well we should, we spent most of those years of our life in that uniform. We spent far more time in dungarees than in any other uniform.

I guess the first “real salty” sailor I saw was the Deck Force Leading Seaman in Vesuvius. He retired from the Navy as a BM3. He did his entire twenty years in ammunition ships and oilers. He was a sea going sailor in a faded to almost white Kleenex soft shirt. I loved dungaree shirts when they got like that.

Many of us tried to hurry the process with both the shirts and trousers by dragging them in the wake of the ship for a short while. Too long and the salt water would fray them to rags. The brown baggers would soak them in hot water and Clorox in the bathtub to quickly fade them. I’ll admit that I did that myself.

Sea stores dungarees were baggy and the shirts were all long sleeved. But they were cheap. The sailor who really cared about the appearance of his dungarees transitioned from issue to Seafarer pants and shirts. The shirts could be purchased in both short and long-sleeved varieties. Issue shirts came only in long sleeves.

Dungarees were a “working uniform.” By the end of the day most sailors, with the exception office staff, twidgets and others, looked like “Joe Shit the Ragman.” Most working sailors had “steamers” for underway and dirty jobs and squared away dungarees and white hats for inport.

Dungaree shirts had two pockets. The most one carried was a pen and a pack of cigarettes. It was important to keep the pockets buttoned. If not, when you bent over to pick up something your smokes would fall into a mop bucket or into the bilges.

I wonder if today’s sailors, with their “Blueberry,” “Woodland, Camo uniforms and their coverall “Poopy Suits” will feel the same nostalgia and pride that we do for our dungarees.

You know someday when I reach that Silver Cruiser tied up at the Golden Pier the uniform will be Seafarer dungarees and a faded, almost white soft as Kleenex chambray shirt.

Nah, as much as I loved a sharp faded, starched, and pressed dungaree uniform, I love a faded, starched, and pressed set of Wash Khaki just a little more.

As an aside, a question that has bothered me for a long time. Does the Navy deliberately design uniforms to make the women’s asses look big or are their asses just naturally that big?

Jokes and Sea Stories

By: Garland Davis

Sailors are jokers. Especially off color, no make that the grossest jokes and stories one can come up with.

Some of my shipmates call me the Asia Sailor Bard. Now I’m no Shakespeare, but I can spin a bullshit story. They usually start with “This ain’t no shit.” or “Now this is a no shitter.” They are all true. Some of the facts may be bent or slightly disremembered. Then again, they may be as the sub-title of this blog says, “Crap, true or not that has wandered through my mind.”

Back in the day, you know, before computers, closed circuit television, and pocket telephones with more games than a dog has fleas sailors played real games. There was Pinochle, Hearts, Spades, Acey-Duecy, Cribbage (I am still considered the World Champion cribbage player, Acey-Deucy Champ also for that matter) and other games. Or else they would gather around a mess deck table, drink stale coffee or tepid bug juice, smoke cigarettes and tell stories and jokes.

Somebody would start one with, “Hey Davy, did you hear the one about the LBFM and the drunk BT who couldn’t get it up?”

And that would trigger, “Hey that reminds me of the girl and the bartender…”

And then, “The farmer’s daughter and the circus clown…”

And on and on…

Then someone would start with, “Hey that reminds me of the pretty boy Radioman on the old Dicky B. Anderson who was chased all over Keelung by the bar hog who fell in love with him. He couldn’t stand her and was trying to avoid her and we all kept telling her where he was. She broke into his hotel room while he was entertaining another girl. He was busy laying pipe when the cat fight started with one of the participants bare ass naked. I tell you it was a sight to see.”

“Hey Davy, you baking cinnamon buns tonight? If you are, leave the raisins out. I can’t tell ‘em from the cockroaches.” I got the mid. If you have any rejects just send them down to the engine room. Us BT’s will take care of them for you.”

“The raisins are the soft ones, the cockroaches are crunchier.”

I’m not sure how things operate in our new, gentler, more diverse Navy. I’m not sure, but I get the feeling that a GS with a BT mentality signs his death certificate when he comes into the mess deck and prepares himself a cup from the Keurig machine and doctors it up with some Mocha Latte Flavored Coffee Mate and says, “Excuse me girls, did any of you Mother Fuckers hear the one about the LBFM who could pick up a stack of one-peso coins and give you ten centavo coins in change?”

He would be counseled, DRB’d (Disciplinary Review Board), and probably sent off to a term in mental rehab.

In our new Navy, training is conducted using CCTV, computers and a thing called YouTube (for some reason one of the other websites with You in the title can’t be accessed with government computers). I remember the days when training went like this;

The Chief Gunner’s Mate comes in, obviously sick and hungover, carrying a 45-caliber pistol and said, “Any of you assholes seen one of these? Shut up back there stewburner, I’m the only one who gets to talk here.”

“45 pistol… Holds eight rounds… Clip goes in this way… Pull slide back… Depress slide release… This will chamber the first round. This is the safety. If the safety is off and you squeeze the trigger… Loud fucking noise… Round comes out here and goes in the direction this tube is pointed and goes until it is interrupted by some object. It leaves a big fucking hole in said object.”

“Any fucking questions?”

“Good, that ends the lecture on the 45. Don’t shoot each other. Anybody heard any good jokes while we wait for liberty call?”

To today’s gentle and diverse sailors who read some of the crap that wanders through my mind, we old Asia Sailors must look like a group of unprofessional clowns. But we really weren’t, not at all. We were great at what we did. We didn’t live in Bachelor Enlisted Quarters ashore. Our hull numbers were our addresses and where we lived unless we were temporarily shacked up with some sweetie. Riding the old worn out iron out in Westpac was a full-time job. We knew our jobs… We knew our ships… We loved those old ships and wore their names on our right shoulders with pride

We laughed… We kept those ships operational and at sea. We faced the storms and dangers and afterward laughed as if it was nothing. We fought the Vietnam War and helped win the Cold War. And there was always a joke or a sea story to bring a smile or laugh.

Look at the way sailors pass jokes on Facebook and Navy websites. I hope sailors never lose the ability to joke and laugh. I hope there are still can-do guys and, I guess, gals in dirty whatever passes for dungarees these days still riding haze gray steel out on the Far Pacific Rim who come into the mess decks, draw a cup and say…

“Hey, did you hear the one about the old Boatswain’s mate and the Admiral’s widow?” And it goes on from there…

Parkinson’s Disease and Dill Pickles

By: Garland Davis

Parkinson’s and Dill Pickles don’t have a damn thing in common except beer.

Most of you who read the crap I write know that I have Parkinson’s disease. It is a progressive disease that usually manifests itself after age sixty and becomes progressively worse as one ages. There is no cure and it is basically a death sentence. The brain stops producing a neurotransmitter, in the central nervous system, that is necessary for conscious control of muscular movements. Most muscles that are controlled unconsciously are not affected, i.e., respiration and heartbeat. There are a number of suspected causes of Parkinson’s: genetic, environmental, exposure to certain chemicals, i.e., dioxin (Agent Orange), head trauma, i.e., Mohammed Ali, early onset PD, i.e., Michael J. Fox.

I said most muscles “unconsciously” controlled are not affected. One exception is peristalsis. Peristalsis is a gentle muscular movement of the digestive system that moves food through the digestive system from the esophagus through the exit door. As the disease progresses taking a crap becomes both a chore and a distinct pleasure. A good laxative becomes your friend. The doctor gave me some stool softeners and told me to drink more water. I told him that I didn’t have a problem pissing. With my prostate problems, I had to piss too often already.

Most medical research is focused on slowing the progression of the condition rather than a cure. Although there is some research on biometric markers that would enable doctors to identify those people most likely to manifest the disease.

I subscribe to a number of medical newsletters, always on the lookout for new research and newly developed or discovered medications that may ease some of the symptoms and complications of the disease. I grasp at any straw that may bring relief. Consequently, I take a plethora of supplements and vitamins. About the only things I wouldn’t try are eating chicken, seafood or liver and practicing homosexual sex. I’m up for anything else that will help. (Oh yeah, except snakes and spiders too.)

Now to get to the reason I told you all this interesting crap. Most of the literature tells me that Parkinson’s patients shouldn’t drink. It is a muscle disorder. Basically a person loses control of their muscles. Arms and legs don’t do as directed and just lie there and tremble or they just freeze. That is usually when I fall on my ass. The medical literature tells me that as the disease progresses a person will experience falls. I can attest to this. I have fallen down and then fell three more times just trying to get up.

The Doctors and Movement Disorders specialists warn against drinking alcoholic beverages. The prevailing wisdom says, “If you have PD, you are going to fall. If you have PD and drink, you are going to fall harder and more frequently.” I can attest to this, as can many of my shipmates, who were there when I made a spectacle of myself by falling ass and tea kettle over a table and a half dozen chairs at the second Asia Sailor’s reunion in Branson. This resulted in a number of my shipmates acting as an “Honor Guard” to escort me to my accommodations. That is one of the features offered at our reunions. A number of us have had Honor Guard escorts to our rooms. I also took advantage of an escort at the latest reunion.

After a few spectacular falls, I finally came to the realization that it is time for me to “Hang Up My Cup.” You know, abstain from imbibing intoxicating liquids. I won’t really miss it. Well, I will miss the beer. Love me some beer. And Crown; oh yeah, Captain Morgan; don’t forget Pusser’s; gin, love me some gin, although it makes me crazier than a shithouse rat; beer, love that light beer; wine, you cannot enjoy Italian food without wine; an occasional Jack; did I mention beer?

So I made the decision to join the ranks of the teetotalers. I am dry country. Jut coffee, water and milk for me. The strongest thing that will pass my lips will be diet Dr. Pepper. I quit smoking, I can do this.

Now I am not a religious person. I have friends who believe in a savior and an afterlife, others who believe that we are recycled or reincarnated, and others who believe that this is it and there is nothing but blackness beyond this life. I always figure that we all will find out one day. Those in the first group often point to events that can only be described as “miraculous” as proof that a divine power controls everything.

Yesterday, my shipmate Jerry Juliana and some others posted an article to FaceBook that details wonderful new research that shows Parkinson’s patients may benefit from drinking beer. I immediately did a “Tim Tebow”, I took a knee in appreciation. As the article states there are elements in hops (let’s hear it for the hops!) that may delay or reverse the progression of the disease. The obvious fallacy in their research was use of the word moderation. I follow the philosophy that “if a little is good, then a lot is better.” So I bought a modest amount of beer to begin my new medicinal routine. I am now the proud owner of ten thirty packs of Bud Light.

I do have some reservations. I read an article once that said smoking marijuana helped with the bradykinesia (shaking). So I scored a baggie from the local stoner and fashioned a cute little pipe from some copper tubing and other fittings. I packed it with a bud and fired her up.

Now, I cannot say that it helped with the Parkinson’s but it temporarily solved my dislike of dill pickles. Now, there is a place for dill pickles, preferably alongside a delicious Pastrami on Rye with a side of potato salad or coleslaw. Now, I love pastrami sandwiches! I would crawl naked over Salena Gomez’ nude body for a good pastrami on rye. That’s right, you can always make out with Salena, but it is extremely hard to find a good pastrami sandwich.

To make a short story longer, I spent forty-eight hours that afternoon watching the movie “The Comancheros” on TV while eating a half gallon jar of dill pickles. I could have fixed something else to eat but I was paranoid about missing any of the movie. I even considered using the pickle jar when I had to pee. I forgot that I had DVR’d the movie and could pause it anytime I liked. When the commercial came on, I would run to the head and piss for an hour or two and then run back to my recliner, convinced that I had missed half the movie because it had taken so long to piss only to find the bears still extolling the qualities of Charmin asswipe.

But to get back to the beer. Damn, my wife says seven-thirty in the morning is not the time to drink beer. I tried to explain that it wasn’t drinking, it was medicating. She said in moderation, there’s that word again, two or three beers before bed. I asked if she meant three beers before sleep. She said yes. I feel better now, I usually take a nap in the morning and a nap in the afternoon. Now I am trying to figure a way to sneak another nap into my daily routine.

What does she know about medicine? I know much more about medical matters than her. I spent much of my childhood studying medicine and anatomy with the girl who lived down the road.

But I have a plan, I tell my wife that I am a participant in a study to document the effect of drinking beer on my PD. All I have to do is keep track of the number of beers that I drink and the effect it has on my PD symptoms.

You know she just ain’t buying it.

FedEx brought a rush package last night. It was frozen pastrami that I ordered from a New York deli. Maybe I can talk her into making me a Pastrami sandwich. Everyone knows that you cannot eat a pastrami sandwich without dill pickles.

And beer!

Fifty-Two Years (August 31, 2017)

By: Garland Davis

When we were children and watching a western movie and the girl came charging by in a runaway buckboard and our hero took after her on his trusty steed and rescued the girl just before the buckboard plunged over the cliff that happened to be there in the middle of a flat prairie and she batted her big eyes at him, you knew the mushy crap was about to start. You wondered what was wrong with cowboy heroes. Why did they always get sidetracked from chasing the bad guys by girls and mushy stuff?

This one will be mushy stuff. I have permission.

All stories of young love begin when two people meet. There are fireworks. Possibly angels singing. Bluebirds singing and that kind of movie crap. I met her in the Billet Office for Bayside Courts in Yokohama Japan. The Navy Housing Activity at Yokohama was comprised of four officers, fifty-six enlisted and a contingent of Japanese civilians that maintained and administered the more than three thousand Navy Housing units that provided quarters for Naval Personnel in the Kanto Area of Japan.

There were no barracks for enlisted. One building of an old Army BOQ complex was devoted to housing single enlisted sailors. She worked in the Billet Office and assigned me to a room. Room? WTF! Officers lived in rooms. Sailors lived in open bay barracks. But there it was a room. She explained to me that maid service was available for ten dollars a payday. The maids would clean your room and do your laundry. When I got to the room, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. The maid assigned to me helped me unpack and placed everything in the closets. Where she wanted them.

I quickly fell into a routine of awakening, dressing, going to the NEX cafeteria for breakfast (There was no enlisted galley), and then to work at the Commissary Store. We worked Tuesday thru Saturday and were not required to stand any duty days. At approximately 1630 my shipmates and I would stroll across the street to the Yokohama Seaside Club and take advantage of the ten cents Happy Hour. About 1900 or so we would take a cab to Bayside Courts shift into civilian clothes and head for the Zebra Club downtown for a couple and then on to China Town for an evening comprised of drinks and mushy stuff.

From the day in July when I arrived there until shortly before the Navy day celebration in October, I lived this idyllic sailor’s life. The command announced a date for the Navy Day Ball at the Seaside Club. Each member was permitted to bring a guest. A group of us were in a room at Bayside drinking beer when the subject of dates for the Navy Day Ball arose. Different bar girls were suggested.

I told them, “I am going to ask the girl who works at the Billet Office.”

“Not a chance Stewburner. She won’t date sailors. Believe me many have tried and no one has been successful.” Was the consensus.

I had just enough beer, so I said, “I’ll show you just wait and see.” And off to the billeting office, I went.

I walked in, she came to the counter and asked how she could help me. I told her, “I came to invite you to the Navy Day Ball as my guest.”

She said, “Okay.” She gave me directions where I could meet her.

I went back to the room with a shit eating grin on my face, opened a cold one, and sat down.

“Struck out, huh? I knew you would. She won’t go out with sailors.”

I said, “I have to pick her up at six thirty Friday evening.”

Of course, I got the, “What did you do, lick your eyebrows? What do you have that nobody else does?”

I picked her up for our date. We had a good time. Over the next few weeks, we became inseparable.

Fifty-one years ago today that young Japanese girl and I, both of us barely out of our teens, caught the train at Yokohama Central Station for Tokyo. It was to be our wedding day. There was no preacher or organist, no best man or bridesmaid. There was just a busy office in the American Embassy Annex and a Japanese government office.

I was carrying an envelope of papers that had begun six months before as a single sheet of paper asking the U.S. Navy for permission to marry a Japanese National. The envelope contained the results of physical examinations and background investigations. Also included were interviews with a Legal Officer, counseling interviews with Chaplains and English translations of my fiancé’s birth records and copies of the investigations of her family and background. And finally a letter from Commander Naval Forces, Japan granting approval of my request.

A clerk at the counter took the papers separated those he needed and returned the remainder to me. After a time, we were given forms in Japanese and directed to take them to a Japanese government office to register our marriage and then return to the embassy. This took some time because Japanese bureaucrats love properly completed forms and placing numerous rubber stamps on them. By mid-afternoon, we were back at the embassy annex and returned the properly stamped and annotated forms to the clerk.

We waited for a time with another couple and finally were called to the counter. The other serviceman and I were directed to stand at the counter with our brides behind us. A number of forms were placed on the counter and we were instructed to sign them. A gentleman came from an inner office and introduced himself as a U.S. Consulate Officer. He instructed us prospective husbands to raise our right hands and said, “Do you swear that everything you have signed is the truth to the best of your knowledge, so help you, God?” We both replied, “Yes.” He said, “Congratulations,” shook our hands and left. The clerk gave us our marriage certificates and congratulated us.

There were no vows, no “I do’s.” Just simply completing paperwork and registering the fact with the Japanese government. I often joke that I dropped my pen, bent over to pick it up and when I stood up, the gentleman shook my hand and said, “Congratulations.”

It has been a tumultuous fifty-one years. There was the Viet Nam War, twenty-six more years of the Navy, lengthy separations and, not a lot of money during the early years. Like most couples, we had to adjust to each other. Now we are aging and dealing with my Parkinson’s disease. I guess you can say that after fifty-two years, we have succeeded.

Looking back, I wouldn’t have it any differently. She is my best friend, and I love her with all my being. As the poets say, “She completes me.”

Today is our fifty-first anniversary.

Hurricane/Typhoon

By: Garland Davis

From Wikipedia: A typhoon is a mature tropical cyclone that develops in the northwestern part of the Pacific Ocean between 180° and 100°E. This region is referred to as the northwest Pacific basin. For organizational purposes, the northern Pacific Ocean is divided into three regions: the eastern (North America to 140°W), central (140°W to 180°), and western (180° to 100°E). Identical phenomena in the eastern north Pacific are called hurricanes, with tropical cyclones moving into the western Pacific re-designated as typhoons.

The Hurricane Season for the Hawaiian Islands runs from June first through November. There are, on average, four Central Pacific hurricanes each year and three named tropical storms. So far this year, we have had fourteen hurricanes. Only the first one did any damage and then only to the Big Island of Hawaii. Number fifteen, another tropical storm is forming in the Eastern Pacific and is expected to be at hurricane strength by the time it crosses into the central area later this week.

Having served twenty-five years afloat in, mostly, the Western Pacific, I probably saw more hurricanes/typhoons than most people, but I have only experienced two hurricanes ashore, Hurricane Hazel, as a child, and hurricane Iniki in Hawaii after I retired.

Growing up in the Piedmont region of North Carolina the worst threat from the Atlantic Hurricanes was some increased rainfall. There was little to no threat from the higher winds. On October 15, 1954, Hurricane became the, once in a century, exception. Hazel made landfall at Long beach, N.C., a community of Oak Island as a category four hurricane with winds exceeding 140 miles per hour. After landfall it tracked inland, and battering winds cut a wide swath northward toward Raleigh.

I remember Hazel well. I was in the sixth grade. It was raining as we ran for the school bus. And it kept raining. By the time we arrived at school, the parking lot was flooded by a few inches and the side ditches of the roads were over flowing. The principle was at the bus stop informing the drivers to take everyone home. School had been canceled because of the weather. As we went back through the low point below Baux Mountain, we could see the creek was already over flowing.

My brother and I arrived home soaking wet. We lived on a dirt road and the bus driver refused to take us to the house. He didn’t want to risk getting stuck. It was only a mile to our house. We had to walk and were completely soaked with my brother crying by the time we made it home. There were other kids on our road, but we had the furthest to go. It rained for the next two days. When the weather cleared up, the Yadkin River looked like the Missississippi River and the creek behind the house was lapping at the lower level of the barn where the stalls were, a hundred yards from it’s normal banks. We moved the cows, goats and the mule into the garage and the shed. The aftermath of the flooding clearly showed the power of water.

I cannot begin to count the number of typhoons that I have experienced. The Navy, when possible, sends ships to sea, when a typhoon or hurricane is imminent. A ship needs sea room to maneuver. Every mariner’s worst nightmare is to be caught on a lee shore during a storm.

I was serving in USS Mahopac, an Ocean Going Tug. We left Vung Tau, Viet Nam in the fall of 1968 with a huge square-ended floating crane in tow. We were bound for Sasebo, Japan. Our best towing speed was about three knots (80 miles per day). The trip would take about thirty days. A few days into the trip, we learned that we were in the path of a typhoon. We couldn’t run because of the drag of the tow and we could not abandon it. We had to ride it out.

Once the storm hit we could barely make turns (revolutions of the screw) for two knots. The towing motor reel that contained the towing wire would pay out wire when the strain was too heavy and take it back noisily when there was slack. If all the wire was taken off the spool it could result in damage to the motor and the ship and loss of the tow. Two knots were barely enough to maintain steerage way, keep the bow of the ship into the wind and seas and not severely overtax the towing equipment. We could not see the tow, it was lost in the rain. The only reason we knew it was there was the tension on the tow cable.

Water was washing over the signal bridge (the highest deck on the ship). We were taking up to forty-five degree rolls. The crew was extremely seasick. There were about six of us, out of a crew of forty-four that weren’t sick. The Captain, SM1, 2 EN1’s and an ICFN and I. The CO, the SM1 and I manned the bridge throughout that night, while the engineers kept the diesels running. I was helmsman for over twelve hours that night. Conditions started easing when morning came. I went to the galley to prepare some food and we started kicking guys out of their racks and getting them moving around again.

After about seventy-two hours of these conditions, the weather cleared and we sorted ourselves out and took inventory. We lost that radar antenna and mast, the ships boat, and anything that wasn’t bolted down. The exhaust stack from the engine room was bent aft at a slight angle. All electrical navigation was knocked out.

During the storm, the Navigator could only guess as to our position. When the he was able to get a position, he discovered that we were almost one hundred eighty astern of our last known position before the storm. The tow had towed us from a position north of Da Nang, South Viet Nam to a position NNE of Cape St Jacques, the southern tip of Viet Nam. I rode out many other storms, but this one was the worst.

I have been asked if I was afraid when the Morton came under fire during the waning days of the Viet Nam war. I tell them no. I got over being afraid during a storm one night in the South China Sea.

Hurricane or Typhoon, it doesn’t matter what the hell you call them.