I left for the Navy and the USS Oriskany
in 1969. I came back for a short while, about a month, in 1976, after my
second enlistment. I had every intention of getting out of the Navy but
I could not find a job that paid enough for me to get an apartment and
live on my own. So, back I went to the Navy and the USS Longbeach.
When I decided to go home after my second enlistment, I really didn't know how much I would miss the sea life. It was a hard life, there was danger every where you turned; but I felt I had a purpose, there was a reason for me to be there, I was respected as a part of a team working for all of America. Life in Illinois seemed less fulfilling than the life I had at sea. So, I went back and I have no regrets.
Most
of the places I called "home" in my younger years have changed so much,
I probably would not recognize them today and in many of those places,
the memories have faded with the changes. When you move around a lot, a
move tends to turn a home into just a place you used to live. But there
is one "home" that has resisted that change to being just a place, a home that
although I miss it, I can never go back to.
That's
because it isn't a "place" its a feeling inside of me, a feeling from
my soul. That "feeling" is made up of many different things. Its working
my butt off for 3 or 4 days with no sleep, when I did sleep it was in
my workspace or battle-station in a rickety old chair, kicked back on a
workbench with my feet propped up on a stool; it's living on coffee and
mid-rats for months at a time; Its bracing for incoming rounds; its
standing inspection in the blazing heat on the flight-deck of a carrier;
its underway replenishment working parties and 24 hour flight ops; its
trying to make your way from one workspace to another during a cat 4
hurricane. Then just when I felt myself wilting to the deck from
exhaustion, not caring about anything, a friend shoves a cup of coffee
in my hand offers me a cigarette and tells me to take a break on the
fantail.
The fantail is a special place on a ship. Especially at night when the stars are out. Its quiet, so quiet you can hear the silence of the sea.
The fantail is for thinking and dreaming, sometimes they are both the
same. The fantail rejuvenates you like nothing else, after about 10
minutes I was always ready to jump into the chaos of the next
catastrophe.
Shipboard
life is different from every thing else, it can't be explained, it can
only be experienced and once experienced, it never leaves you. You hate
it because of the endless work, hard and rough times but you also love
it with a love that can not be explained, it can only be felt. Sometimes
I think that if I was asked, I'd go back but I know that would be
wrong. At my age, I would not be able to keep up with the younger
sailors, I would be a burden and I just could not do that to a shipmate.
Nothing can compare with being on a warship headed for enemy lines. ...
And you haven't lived until you've lived through a WestPac Liberty.
President John F. Kennedy at the commissioning ceremony of the USS Oriskany said:
"I
can imagine no more rewarding a career. And any man who may be asked in
this century what he did to make his life worthwhile, I think can
respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, 'I served in the
United States Navy'."
I agree.
