All Hands, Set the Special Sea Story Detail! Set Condition TINS!
In the yard for repairs and upgrades, about 1970.
Eight O'clock reports are done, the movie stinks, and I've got the duty. It's too
early to lie in my rack and inspect the light green painted insulation on the pipes
above me, but I'm not in the mood to do any work either. I might as well go and
make "the call".
I check with the CDO, he agrees that the security of the western world will not be
seriously threatened if I make a trip down the pier. I stop and talk with the
quarterdeck watch a while as I leave, they're even more bored than I am. There is
no flag flying from the fantail, since it's long past evening colors, but as I go down
the brow I nod to the empty staff out of habit.
Once on the pier my slight military bearing disappears completely and I put my
hands in the pockets of my foul weather jacket. It is of course strictly against the
rules to wear such gear off the ship. This prohibition makes it all the more
delicious to flaunt a garment with a hull number stenciled across the back. To say
that I swagger down the pier would be an exaggeration, but I am very proud of
looking like a disreputable destroyer sailor.
Even in the yard, water in all its forms dominates the Naval world. As the river
water gently laps against the pier pilings, cooling and flushing water splashes
noisily from the scuppers and drains of the ships around me. Their steam vents
hiss continuously, and the resultant clouds combine with the harsh mercury vapor
lights to cast spooky shadows against the concrete block walls of the shipyard
buildings. I can just barely hear the crunch of my shoes on the ever-present sand
blasting grit that covers every surface of the yard.
As I reach the phone booth, I reflect that sometimes it's easier to be at sea, totally
cut off from your family. When you can't see land, the world recedes to a memory
and you can simply postpone your thoughts of home. When you're only an area
code away, though, you can't ignore the reality of separation. A phone booth can
be a lonely place indeed.
Soon the familiar voice is on the line, and all the standard phrases go back and
forth: How's the baby?...No, I don't know how long....Yes, I know Christmas is
coming....No, it won't be that long....No, don't wake him up....Are you doing
OK?....Did you get the furnace fixed?.... Someday........
It would perhaps be better if our families were like mooring lines, stowed in the
locker until we have the time and opportunity to deal with them. But when you
leave for six months, your kid will be six months older when you get back, a
mathematical certainty which nevertheless always seems to be a surprise.
After I hang up, I have my usual second thoughts. Is it better to call and feel bad,
or to feel bad because I haven't called? Can I ever admit to her, or to myself, that
I actually kind of like what I'm doing? Am I nuts?
I pull up the collar on my jacket for the walk back, and it feels good. Uncle Sam
may screw up from time to time, but he does know how to buy clothes. I briefly
remember visiting college a year after I graduated, attending a cocktail party
resplendent in choker whites. Yes, I was definitely cool. Nothing else in the
history of the world can compare with choker whites. Even that single gold stripe
looked good, despite the scorn and abuse it normally brings in the Fleet.
Returning down the pier, I encounter the ship bow on. The white hull numbers
almost glow in the dark, but I know they will almost disappear in rust after we
splash salt water on them for a few weeks. I remember watching that enormous
pointed mass of steel as it was buried under tons of green water, rising up time and
again, throwing spray everywhere. I remember taking rolls in a storm, when
everybody on the bridge wanted to watch the inclinometer mounted on the rear
bulkhead, but nobody wanted to be seen watching the inclinometer mounted on the
rear bulkhead. I remember that sometimes all eight million pounds of ship changes
direction because I tell it to. I think about the thirty or forty guys that work for
me, and I for them. I remember the red glow of the bridge at night and the green
glow of CIC all the time, and the almost musical chants as commands and reports
go back and forth. I remember standing on the port bridge wing during the
midwatch, looking back up at the fluttering Stars and Stripes. Stained by stack
gases and a bit worn from weeks at sea, it's still my favorite flag.
Yes, I do like it. And yes, I guess I am nuts.
All Hands! Secure from Special Sea Stories Detail! Set the Normal SMN Watch!
And that's a true story.
Bob McKellar
