.This is a picture of a rack of “Spruance”-class Destroyers (Destroyers are lovingly referred to as “Tin Cans”, in Navy parlance), probably mid-’80’s, and probably San Diego…
I remember the first night I walked the piers at 32nd Street Naval Base, San Diego… A cold, drizzly night, December 1978.
I was 18, fresh out of Quartermaster School, and had arrived just before dark, with a few hours to kill waiting for a bus to take me to the airport to catch my own ship in Japan…After a few beers at the Enlisted Club, I thought I’d go stroll around a bit…
The Destroyer berths were a mere 50 yards away, alight and jammed with dozens of nested Spru-Cans… Like hulking, sleek leopards, they almost seemed to have breath, quietly hissing steam …Each with its close-set pair of red eyes of the Aircraft Warning Lights glowing at the mast-tops, far above in the night…
Then, “Ding-ding…ding-ding!”…four bells cracked out into the cold and the drowsy beasts all shouted at once: “TAPS! TAPS! Lights out…Maintain silence about the decks…The smoking lamp is out in all berthing spaces…Taps.”…
The St Crispin’s Day speech is a part of William Shakespeare’s history play Henry V, Act IV Scene iii (3) 18–67. On the eve of the Battle of Agincourt, which fell on Saint Crispin’s Day, Henry V urges his men, who were vastly outnumbered by the French, to recall how the English had previously inflicted great defeats upon the French.
“Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb’red. This story shall the good man teach his son; And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be rememberèd— We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition; And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day
One has never known the quiet solitude of a sunrise at sea until one has had the opportunity to actually experience this spectacle.
A lone warship, silently gliding in calm waters, there to uphold the freedom and safety of all that we so cherish.
Bear in mind, please, that for those who continuously man these mighty vessels 24/7, 365 days a year, that the innumerable days at sea on deployments to oceans far from home come with a price.
There is no McDonalds, no Walmart, no 7-11 for a Slurpee.
There are watches to be stood, training to be accomplished while off watch, surprise fire drills and General Quarters, life aboard a Navy ship never stops. There is, when underway, no such thing as a day off.
For the personnel of all of our branches of the Armed Forces who, on a daily basis, live their lives in in a comparable schedule for the sake of their loved ones and and that of all Americans, I do believe a salute and a good ol’ high five is definitely in order.
As trite as it sometime sounds, “Thank you for serving!”
Halfway Night: the halfway point of deployment, usually celebrated with the best meal, Lobster tail and prime rib or NY strip steak and festivities to raise money for the sub’s recreation fund, such as Pie in the Eye. Whipped cream pies are auctioned off and thrown at a favorite crew member, officers included. Halfway Night is a time for the crew to let down their hair and break through the barrier between officers and enlisted.
2. Traditions:
You aren’t really an initiated sailor until you’re a Shellback. A Shellback has crossed the equator on a Navy ship. A Pollywog hasn’t. If you’re a Pollywog when you cross the equator, you’ll have to be initiated. It’s all in fun and the ceremonies used to be pretty gross, but they’ve been toned down. Basically the biggest guy on crew becomes King Neptune for the day, regaled with crown and scepter, and Pollywogs have to do his bidding…which may or may not include sucking a cherry out of King Neptune’s belly button. Becoming a Shellback is a Navy tradition.
3. Submarines make their own oxygen.
Submarines have 1 or 2 oxygen generators that break water molecules into their oxygen and hydrogen atoms. Submarines also store oxygen in oxygen banks for an emergency in case both oxygen generators go down, or if the submarine sinks and loses power, they can bleed oxygen from the banks.
4. Submariners go for social swims!
When the Captain surfaces the submarine for a Steel Beach Picnic, he’ll usually authorize a Swim Call too. Break out the sunglasses, because a bevy of submariners will head topside to catch some rays and dive into the water. One note: they’re always on the lookout for sharks, so they’ll post an extra lookout in the Bridge with a rifle. The joke is: he’s not there to shoot the shark, just the farthest guy out, so the rest can make it back.
5. The toilets may explode if you aren’t careful. A submarine has to discharge its sanitary tanks every so often. On the older classes, they pressurize the sanitary tanks and blow them overboard. This is critical: you don’t want to flush a toilet while a tank is being blown overboard. The toilets are flushed by opening a ball valve that lets the toilet contents flow down into the tank, but if you open the ball valve while the tank is pressurized—the toilets can explode….
6. Crews get creative about leaving the family for months at a time.
There’s a lot to be done before Sailors depart for deployment. The simplest part is packing. The harder part is making arrangements for everything while gone. Sailors will write letters to their wives that they can open once a week, or notes to be hidden around the house. They also can’t forget the special holidays they’ll miss, so they have to pre-order the Valentine’s and Mother’s Day flowers, and buy and wrap the birthday and Christmas gifts and can’t forget the cards either.
7. Exercise on a sub: more regular than you’d think.
A crew member will typically work out after coming off watch or before going on. Each submarine jams whatever it can fit: one or two stationary bikes, maybe a rowing machine, sometimes a treadmill. Some of the subs that have more room have a universal-style weight machine, and a lot of submarines will have a work bench with adjustable dumb bells. You can also get a decent run in, 17 laps around an SSBN’s Missile Compartment Upper Level is one mile.
8. The food prep is heavy (literally).
A typical list of all the packed food for a submarine trip includes:
22,000 eggs
800 pounds of butter
500 pounds of coffee
Due to space limitations, many items are baked aboard. There’s a night baker assigned to bake the bread needed for sandwiches and toast, along with dinner rolls, hamburger and hoagie buns, and all the pastries, cakes, and cookies.
9. Some submarines have more powerful warheads than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Ballistic missile submarines can carry up to 24 missiles, which have up to 8 nuclear warheads each. Each can be about 25 times more powerful than what was dropped on Hiroshima, so imagine the destructive power of a single Trident ballistic missile submarine launched towards North Korea.
10. The size of submarines is not what you thought
.The US Navy’s submarines are nothing like the small, grimy diesel submarines you see in movies. For example, the USS Ohio class (Trident) submarines are almost 2 football fields long, 7 stories tall from keel to sail, and wide as a three lane highway.
Coming up on 29 years since I made my way down the gangplank for the last time.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, set foot upon the pier, stopped and stared at that impressive hunk of gray steel, gazing slowly from stem to stern.
She was my home away from home, protective barrier to all those who I came to call brothers, if not family.
She offered me protection to not only the elements, but to those who would try to offend us. She offered me sustenance, warmth, consolation, and demanded of me in return diligence, hard work, sleepless nights, discipline, all of which I gave to her without a second thought.
She taught me how to grow up, how to make decisions that would impact others without putting others in peril. She taught me to savor the sunsets and moonless, star filled nights on a vast sea, and the frenetic pulse of unreps and drills of all types at any given hour, day or night.
She took me to foreign lands, some that most would only dream of visiting, some that others would rather not go. She taught me the idea of diversity, that all are created equal, no matter their position in life.
She was a US Navy warship, sleek and proud. And I, as a Navy sailor, will forever carry the pride I have to have served upon her.
It has been a while since I have told a BT2 story. Many of my readers have been asking for more of his exploits. Mostly, other BTs. So here goes.
It was one of the ships we served in during the sixties and the Vietnam thing. We had been double toured on the gunline and were looking forward to some Subic liberty. The current skipper was a Bible Thumper who felt that Subic was a little too risqué and asked for a port call to Hong Kong instead. I guess no one had ever explained Wanchai or the Roof Tops to him.
BT2 was pissed because we had to steam at anchor instead of tying up to a pier and taking services from the beach. He had duty the first day, and I loaded stores and spent the afternoon and night in the Bakeshop baking enough desserts so I could take a couple of days off.
I was in the mess decks having coffee shortly after breakfast when BT2 came down from turning the duty over to his relief. He said, “The next boat is in forty-five minutes. That’s enough time to shit, shower, and shave. I’ve got my blues under my mattress, pressed and ready to go. Meet you on the Quarterdeck. First stop: Pinky’s. I want to get a stencil on my left arm to balance the one I got on my right arm the last time. Oh, by the way, that new fireman, the one they call Bigfoot, the boy who has the biggest Gawdamn feet I’ve ever seen on a human being, is coming with us. I promised to show him the ropes and where he can get some pussy off Suzie Wong.”
“Every other hooker in Hong Kong calls herself Suzie Wong. “I said.
“I know that, but he don’t. The boy can dream, can’t he?” he asked as he headed to Snipes berthing.
About forty minutes later, we met on the Quarterdeck. He was trailed by the biggest, most ungainly-looking Redneck I had ever seen. Bt2 said, “Bigfoot, this is the Stewburner. He is a pretty good Doughhead if you can keep him sober. Be careful if you eat any of the bread he bakes. One night, I caught him rubbing two slices of bread on his dick and singing ‘Grow, grow, with Langendorf bread.’ Stewburner, this is Bigfoot.
I looked. The only person I ever saw with feet that big was a basketball player named O’Neal.
We caught the one lunged liberty boat with the Chinese kids staring at us from under the forward deck and the mother cooking on the charcoal brazier while Papa piloted the craft. It was the family Rice Bowl.
We made Fenwick and, of course, stopped at the China Fleet Club for a beer that turned into six. From there, we stumbled over to Pinky’s tattoo parlor, where BT2 got a Woody Woodpecker stencil on his left arm. Since then, numerous times, the asshole has asked respectful women and some disrespectful ones, “You want to see my pecker? Before they lose it and slap the shit out of him, he lifts his sleeve to show them Woody.
When we left there, Bigfoot was hobbling along on his heels. BT2 had told him that sailors had a pig tattooed on their left foot and a chicken on their right foot. Sailors believed this would prevent them from drowning. He failed to tell him that the tattoos were supposed to be on top of the feet and had them tattooed on the bottoms of his feet. I guess all the free beer the tattoo parlor was providing numbed his feet. He tried to get Bigfoot to tattoo his dick, but the boy was reluctant. He felt it might mess up his assignation with Suzie later in the evening.
To make a short story longer, we had met a Radarman and an ET from the ship while at Pinky’s. They convinced us to go with them to the Hilton. There was a fashion show, and the ET was sweet on one of the models.
We ended up at a bar somewhere on one of the upper decks of the Hilton. We were drinking beer and watching the girl’s parade in the colorful dresses when BT2 discovered that every time the dressing room door opened, it revealed models in various conditions of undress. So, we all kind of moved our chairs around where we could see the door each time a model entered or exited the dressing room.
Now they didn’t ask us to leave. The waiter just brought the check and informed us that the bar was closed. We all chipped in and paid the exorbitant bill and commenced to unass the place. I heard a commotion and looked back to see what was happening. Two Chinese waiters were trying to take the table away from the Bt2 and the RD.
BT2 said, “The damn bill was so high, we thought we had bought the fucking table!”
They gave them the table and we left. Wanchai and all the Suzie Wong’s awaited!
A Navy Captain took over as the Commanding Officer of Naval Station, Pearl Harbor on a Friday.
The following Monday, the Captain decided to take a walking tour of his new base.
When he exited out of his building, he noticed two Sailors that appeared to be “guarding” a bench in front of the building.
The Captain walked over to the two Seamen and asked them why they were “guarding” the bench.
One of the Seamen answered…”We don’t know sir. The previous Commanding Officer told us to, so we are guarding it! We believe it’s some sort of base tradition”
The Captain a little puzzled, went back to his office to call his predecessor to ask him why he wanted Sailors to guard this particular bench.
The previous Captain stated over the phone…”I don’t know. The previous Captain had Sailors guarding the bench…so I kept the tradition”.
The Captain more confused about this “tradition”, did some research…
The Captain went back another 4 Commanding Officers when he found a now 100 year old retired Admiral.
The Captain called the Admiral and asked him…”Excuse me sir. I am Captain Kennedy, the Commanding Officer of Naval Station Pearl Harbor…there’s two Sailors assigned to “guard” a bench outside my office…I heard you started this tradition…can you tell me why sir?!”
There was a long pause…then the Admiral slowly said…”What? Is the paint is still wet?!?”
And that my friends is how traditions gets started!
The Seabees went up a waterway named Duc Tap and built a beautiful Riverine Support Base. I tried to find the Duc Tap waterway on a map once. The only place it existed was in the jungle among the myriad of channels in the Mekong Delta.
There were two piers. The Seabees situated a barge with a machine shop alongside one dock. They constructed an air-conditioned barracks sufficient to permanently house personnel and the members of the boat crews. Also erected was a galley and mess hall with up-to-date equipment, a storage building, and cold storage for ample food items in an attached building. The Seabees completed a power and generator station across from the pier. They razed the jungle for a quarter of a mile outside the concertina wire perimeter. The South Vietnamese Army detailed a company of ARVN (Army of Viet Nam) troops to provide security from the Viet Cong guerillas. An excellent little base.
The permanent cadre of the base consisted of a Navy Lieutenant as OIC, an Ensign as his assistant, a Chief Engineman, about twenty Enginemen, Shipfitters, and Machinist mates. They were there to repair engines and boats as well as operate the power plant. There were three cooks, a couple of Storekeepers, a Corpsman, and a yeoman.
As I said, it was an excellent little base. The problem; no one ever assigned any Swift Boats or PBR’s to the Duc Tap Riverine Support Facility, better known to those stationed there as Duck or Duct Tape. All we had was a Mike boat to use for supply runs and to bring the paymaster in every two weeks.
Lieutenant Gerald Farnsworth was from Old New England society and money. He was a tall, handsome individual and turned many female eyes dressed in a white uniform. A word from an uncle to a Massachusetts Senator resulted in assignment to the USS Constitution after OCS. After a year there, another nudge had him assigned as a White House Aide. He cut quite the picture serving drinks and canapes to LBJ’s guests in a sparkling set of Choker Whites in the Whitehouse or Khaki while ensuring the barbeque was done on time while in Texas with the president’s party.
The influential uncle passed away but not before ensuring the Selection Board deep-selected Gerald for Lieutenant. Newly promoted Lieutenant Farnsworth was ordered to Department Head School to prepare him for duty as a shipboard Weapons Officer or Chief Engineer. Once the school learned that he had no experience other than as a bartender or waiter, they dropped him from the school and recommended the Navy find a shore billet for him or separate him from the service. He was offered the OIC slot in Vietnam. He accepted, hoping that a stellar war zone performance would put him back on the road to a successful Navy career.
He discovered an affinity and almost savant ability to solve crossword puzzles and create them during his training at the Naval Amphibious Base Coronado, California, and the Language School at Monterrey, California. By the time he left for the war zone, he was creating puzzles for a newspaper syndicate and earning a substantial amount of money. A Naval career with sparkling white uniforms was no longer as important. The Navy denied an effort to resign his commission, and he accepted the idea of a year in Vietnam. In his luggage shipped to Nam were hundreds of blank crossword grids.
Ensign Anthony Jacobs, the AOIC, was from Minnesota via Berkeley, where he had studied Literature, Marijuana, and Antiwar propaganda. His father refused to pay for Graduate School after he took a bachelor’s degree. Dad, a veteran of Korea, let him know that he was disappointed and embarrassed that his son was trying to avoid service. His college draft deferment ended, and he was on the shortlist to be drafted into the Army as a mud-slogging private. A classmate urged him to apply for a Naval Commission. That way, he could continue his anonymous antiwar writings from inside the American War Machine. He almost deserted to Canada when he received his orders to Vietnam, but the same classmate convinced him that he would be on a secure base, living in comfort, and would be even more valuable writing from inside the war. Besides, the grass in Nam was reputed to be many levels above what was available in the Bay Area. This same classmate took Jacobs’ anti-war articles and published them as the author, and is now a renowned left-wing Democrat Senator from California.
There was a building designated as the theatre/conference room. Ensign Jacobs traded the projector to a Marine patrol for a fart sack full of marijuana buds and Thai sticks laced with opium. The Jarheads took the weed from a group of Vietnamese Nguyen’s after a firefight where they had mistakenly ambushed a group of innocent dope smugglers thinking they were Victor Charlie. The theatre building was to become the base Club.
Chief Engineman Rodney Spears was a shore duty drunk. Serving aboard ship, he worked hard and ran an effective workforce while at sea. While inport, he partied heartily. His Petty Officers kept the crew effective and covered for the Chief. His orders to the Naval Air Station Imperial Beach, where the billet of Chief Master at Arms and the Chief of Police, were his downfall. The base never got underway, and there were no loyal Petty Officers to cover for him. He lasted less than two weeks. The base CO was ready to discharge him as unfit to serve. The Chief broke down and begged to be permitted to do another year to complete a twenty-year retirement. The CO agreed if he would finish an alcohol rehab program and serve his final year in Vietnam. The Chief had no choice and gutted his way through the rehab program. Upon his arrival in Vietnam, he discovered a beer called Thirty-Three. A fog settled on Chief Spears that would envelop him for the following year. The only thing that inspired Chief during his year at Duck Tape was creating a club where he could while away his days with his beloved Thirty-Three.
Chief wanted a club. He felt that any base should have a club. He pulled himself out of his alcohol-fueled daze. He studied the instructions discovering that a Commanding Officer or Officer in Charge may establish a club and receive an initial issue of potable beverages at no cost. Earnings from the club must pay for subsequent issues of hooch. The chief stayed sober long enough to complete the paperwork to establish the club, forged the LT’s signature, and sent it in. Within a week, a message came to send our Mike boat to the supply facility to pick up the potables issue. The vessel returned with enough liquor and beer to keep us pickled for the whole year. Chief was disappointed that there was no Thirty Three in the issue. He found that the Vietnamese soldiers had sufficient Thirty-Three to meet his needs. They were willing to provide the beer for a carton of smokes a week. Chief happily accepted the job as Club Manager, and with a few Nguyen’s to do, the work sank back into his haze.
NOTE”: One of the more common names in Viet is Nguyen. It became custom to call all Viets Nguyen. It is pronounced “Win.” Yell “Win; it’s the cops, run,” in a crowd of Vietnamese, and you have a good chance of being mangled in the stampede. Stand a hundred Vietnamese in ranks and yell, “Nguyen fall out,” there will only be three left. ENDNOTE
The Doc, a Gunner’s Mate, and me, a Commissaryman (cook), were the only First Class Petty Officers. I was the senior of the Petty Officers. There was a Second Class and six other Machinist Mates to operate the power plant and oversee maintenance on the air conditioning systems and cold storage plants and the substantial ice-making facility in a room off the galley. All other personnel ranged from PO2 down to Seamen and Firemen mostly Enginemen, Shipfitters, Pipefitters, and Gunners Mates.
For some reason, we had access to the supply system and food stores for a base of 100 people, repair parts and fuel for the diesel was delivered periodically, and the paymaster arrived on time every two weeks with the cash to pay all of us. Having little or no need for money, most of us let our pay accumulate on the books.
Every time someone went to the LT with a question or concern, he would tell them, “I am busy. Ask Ensign What’s his name. Don’t come to me unless it is important.”
The Ensign crouched over the yeoman’s Selectric typewriter would send them to the Chief, and of course, the Chief would refer them to me. That is how I became de facto commander of the Duck Tape Riverine Facility.
Captain, as far as I could make out, Nguyen Something Nguyen was the commander of the ARVN security force. His uncle, Major General Nguyen, had secured the position for him along with the authorization to draw rations for a battalion from the American supply system. He provided the extra food to his cousin Nguyen, who was the local Viet Cong unit leader. The Cong didn’t attack the base, and he didn’t patrol against them. It was what you would call a symbiotic relationship.
Once a month, the Charlie Nguyen would have his troops drop a few mortar rounds outside the wire, and Captain Nguyen’s troops would fire their 50’s into the jungle and report they successfully repulsed an attack on the base.
Captain Nguyen’s primary focus became keeping the quarter-mile perimeter area clear of vegetation. When it showed signs of encroaching on the fire zone, he would beat Lieutenants Nguyen and Nguyen; they would beat Master Sergeant Nguyen. He would whip the other Sergeants and Corporals who abused the lower-ranked Nguyen’s and got them out there with sling blades and scythes to hack the encroaching weeds back. At one time, I had the SK order a John Deere riding lawn mower to make it easier on the lower-ranked Nguyen’s. Once it arrived, Captain Nguyen commandeered the mower and spent many happy hours mowing the fire zone while smoking C-Ration cigarettes and drinking the Chief’s Thirty-Three. Perhaps it was a prophecy that Captain Nguyen would own the largest yard care company in Southern California one day?
With no boats to service, there was little work for the sailors. I busied myself and the other two cooks with meals and accounting for stores used. One morning, I went into the galley to find two Nguyen’s cooking breakfast and my two cooks watching.
“What’s going on,” I asked.
CS3 Bruce said, “Captain Nguyen’s cousin Nguyen arranged for cooks’ helpers. All we have to do is give them some chow. We got more shit than we can use, and if we don’t clear out some of that frozen, we ain’t going to have room for the next delivery.” That had been worrying me. We only had thirty people but were receiving rations for a hundred.
I soon discovered that every sailor had his own Nguyen doing what little work the sailor did.
I went looking for this cousin who was providing all the Vietnamese help. I found him in the Galley office. He explained in excellent English that he was there to help me. In other words, he was offering to become my Nguyen. We settled on a price in C-Rations and frozen meats for the services of all the Nguyen’s. He told me that his cousin, Captain Nguyen, had told him I was running the base.
There was an officer’s shower and head and an Enlisted shower and head. Each unit consisted of two fifty-five-gallon drums mounted above the shower stall. Each morning, these were filled with fresh water and heated in the broiling sun to a comfortable temperature for showering by evening. The LT and the Chief used the officer’s shower. From the color of the Ensigns T-shirt and the smell in his hooch, it was clear that he seldom used this facility. The toilets were outhouse-style seats on a raised platform where the waste fell into a half drum below. The worst job a sailor could have was burning shit. There were two drums for each toilet. The empty one replaced the used one, and fuel oil was poured in with the shit and ignited. The Nguyen’s also took over this job, but instead of burning the shit, they hauled it away to fertilize their crops.
The Ensign was so constipated from smoking the opium-laced Thai sticks that the only time he shit was when Doc dosed him with Kaufman’s horse laxative. He screamed, trying to pass turds as hard as the stones used to construct the Pyramids, which rattled into the steel drums with the sound of throwing stones onto a tin roof
One morning I was roused by yelling from the galley. CS3 Bruce was screaming at his Nguyen. It seems the Vietnamese had added Nuoc Nam, a smelly fish sauce, to something he was preparing. “I told you, no fucking Nuoc Nam in the food. Don’t Nuoc Nam any fucking thing!” I told my Nguyen, whom I will refer to as Nguyen1 for the rest of this narrative, to say to the Nguyen cooks no Nuoc Nam. I later learned why Bruce was so upset; he had pissed in the jar of Nuoc Nam the night before.
After Vietnam, CS3 Bruce left the Navy, attended Culinary Arts School, and became famous as the celebrity chef who hosts the Food Network program on Vietnamese Cuisine called “Nuoc Nam No Hands.”
The barracks, designed for a hundred plus persons, were almost empty. The noise of about thirty Nguyen’s moving bunks and building walls rousted out of my bunk by about thirty Nguyen’s moving the bunks and starting to build walls. I found Win1 and asked him what the fuck was happening. He said, “We are building rooms, so sailors will have privacy after we bring wives for you. I am building your room on the side of the galley, so you have more privacy. You are getting a special wife, my youngest daughter.”
“Wives! What the fuck, we don’t have wives!” I blustered.
“Sailors ask me about visiting the nearby village to find girls—that dangerous. I think better each sailor has own girls. Pretty soon will have thirty pretty girls. I bring them here when the sailor’s rooms are ready. Feed girls and cost just little extra C-Rations. Girls will clean hooch, wash clothes, and sleeping with sailor.”
After a couple of months had passed, I would compare Duck Tape to the fictitious San Pablo of Sand Pebbles fame. Every sailor had a Nguyen to do his bidding and a pretty young thing to help him through the nights. Captain Nguyen had moved the perimeter out far enough to create a well-manicured soccer field/football field inside the boundary. The sailors either played football, drank, and played poker.
Win1 became obsessed with poker games and started playing himself. He rapidly developed into an excellent poker player. Years later, he would become a celebrity in the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour in Las Vegas, winning millions of dollars. In Vegas, he met and became obsessed with a big-titted blonde who loved his winnings. A match truly made in heaven. BTW, it turns out that Nguyen1 was the identical cousin who led the Viet Cong in that area. After the Americans left Vietnam, he was ratted out to the communists and fled with his family in a fishing boat. The destroyer I was serving in rescued him and the other occupants of the sinking hulk, including Nguyen1’s daughter and my “wife” from Duck Tape.
The Selection Board chose me for advancement to Chief. Chief Spears sobered up long enough to conduct a one Chief initiation of me. We all wore green utilities, so I had to worry about collar devices and a hat device. Spears loaned me his extras until I was able to get some from the NEX catalog.
As the year wore on, I began to worry about what would happen when our reliefs were ordered in and discovered we had been fucking off for a year and misappropriating government material as well as having indigenous personnel living on the base. I could see Courts Martials for all of us. I trained some of the Nguyens to keep the accounts and do the paperwork. I scared Rodney enough by telling him that higher authority’s knowledge of the past year’s events jeopardized his retirement. If the club accounts weren’t correct, he could face a court-martial. He started supervising the club Nguyen’s to keep the records accurate.
The YN had kept the correspondence up and submitted the required reports. The LT would sign anything I took to him as long as I didn’t bother him with details.
As the last month approached, and we began getting notifications of replacements ordered in, I told Nguyen1 that all Nguyen’s including “wives” would have to leave the base. The barracks must be restored to their original condition. Seeing the wisdom of my argument, he reluctantly complied. I ginned up a message to Riverine Forces Command telling them that Duc Tap Riverine Facility was fully operational and boats could be assigned. Within a week, three PBR’s, a Swift boat, and two Monitors were operating out of the base.
I stole all of the Ensigns opium laced Thai sticks and weaned him off his Opium addiction. I scared the shit out of the Lt and him by telling them in detail what could happen to them because of their wholesale dereliction of duty during their year at Duc Tap. The reliefs slowly began to arrive, and guys began leaving.
Unbelievably, Chief Spears “wife” had dried him out. He turned everything over to his relief and left with the girl in tow. She was pregnant, and he could marry her and eventually get her an Immigrant’s Visa to the states. They were living in the New Orleans area and were both killed by Hurricane Katrina. Their daughter is a Neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins.
The LT is a college professor in New England teaching English. He is known as the premier writer of Crossword puzzles in the United States. When his father died, he inherited more money than the crew of a Heavy Cruiser can spend in a Subic Bay seventy-two hour liberty.
The Ensign returned to Berkeley, where he pursued a graduate degree for one semester and then sunk into the hard drug community of San Francisco and was found dead in an alley of an overdose.
I completed twenty years and retired in Hawaii with my wife, Nguyen1’s daughter, and our twin girls.
Duck Tape was a place and time that shouldn’t have happened and couldn’t have happened in a sane world. But there was nothing rational about Vietnam or that war.
![350+ Park Bench Pictures [HQ] | Download Free Images & Stock Photos on Unsplash](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1583296404918-ce173911e719?ixid=MnwxMjA3fDB8MHxzZWFyY2h8MXx8cGFyayUyMGJlbmNofGVufDB8fDB8fA%3D%3D&ixlib=rb-1.2.1&w=1000&q=80)
Tales of an Asia Sailor 