MY LIFE AND TIMES IN THE NAVY!
 
 
   
 

My name is Nick and this is the story of my life and times in the Navy. In the summer of 1964, I was a young punk who had just graduated from high school in my hometown of Fort Dodge, Iowa. At that time, I had no real plans for the future. I bummed around for a couple of months but I still couldn't make up my mind about what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. Then one morning, I saw a small ad in our local paper about joining the U.S. Navy. It mentioned that the Navy would teach you a good trade and offer opportunities for travel and advancement. That sounded pretty darn good to me so I paid a visit to my friendly local Navy recruiter. He wasted no time to brainwash me and get me to sign up that very day. A month or so later, I was numbly saying goodby to my family and heading for San Diego by train and bus for my "boot" training. It took almost 3 days to get there. My group from Iowa arrived at the training center about 10 at night. As soon as we got off the bus, some big ol' Navy guy, who had to have been the "Son of Satan", started screaming some crazy and totally incomprehensible orders at us. All of us poor recruits were all scared out of our minds! Little did we know what unspeakable horrors the Navy had in store for us for the next fun filled 11 weeks, ha ha. You Navy veterans reading this know exactly what I'm talking about. 

I remember being in a complete daze for the first couple of weeks in our Recruit Company 536. That period of time was a blur of neverending frantic activity which was hard to understand at first. Being blasted out of a nice warm rack at 4 in the morning by a crazed sailor beating on a garbage can lid was not easy to get used to, trust me. Our much "beloved" Company Commander, Ned Smiley GMG1, ran us boots ragged from morning to night. His last name was just the opposite of what he usually had on his face! I think he might have smiled a bit when he was torturing us though. Running here and marching there was the rule of the day. Inspections, getting screamed at constantly, bad food, blisters etc. were all part of the game too. I remember one day when it must have been at least 150 degrees in the shade. We were hot and tired and we were messing up our marching drills pretty badly. He was pissed and so he made us start doing some punishment exercises. He snarled sweetly "Hit the deck and give me pushups, MANY of them!". Then he casually strolled off, whistling a merry tune, to get a nice cool drink from the water fountain while we were burning our hands on the hot asphalt doing pushups. We were all dying of thirst and he was deliberately taking his time sipping that water to drive us crazy, heh heh! After what seemed an eternity of going through this hellish nightmare, boot graduation day arrived at long last and we finally became full-fledged swabbies. What a relief!

   
 
  
 
    
 
You swabbies who survived boot camp in San Diego will fondly recall all the fun you had aboard your first ship, the USS Recruit TDE-1! Click the thumbs above to bring those great memories back!
 
I soon learned that my first duty station would be the fleet repair ship, the USS Jason AR-8. But first, I went back home on a much needed 2 week leave. Those days quickly flew by and, on Christmas Day of 1964, I was on my way back to San Diego to meet the Jason. I made my way to the Navy piers and went looking for my new home. Some sailor pointed it out to me and I was flabbergasted and amazed at how big it looked. That lasted until I saw my first aircraft carrier a few days later, heh heh. I reported aboard and was assigned a bunk and was placed in the "snipe" division working in the ship's company IC shop. My main job was working on and fixing sound powered phones and speakers. Two weeks after coming aboard, I found out that we were going out on the first of my many WestPac cruises. This was exciting to me because going to sea was one of the reasons I joined the Navy in the first place. All the old salts told me I would get sick as a dog out at sea. Surprisingly, other than a very slight queasiness the first day out, I never did get sick like some of the other new guys. For some reason, I got my sea legs real quick and, for the rest of my Navy career, I never experienced any real sea sickness even in the roughest waters. I was lucky, I guess. My lead PO advised me to never fight the rolling of the ship. He told me to just go with the roll. That always seemed to work for me. Our first port was Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. We had a nice couple of days there and then got underway for Okinawa. We spent 2 action packed weeks there and then onto Yokosuka, Japan. It was winter and cold but a few shots of hot sake always warmed the innards, heh heh. A week or so later, we left for my first visit to Hong Kong. Magnificent and very fascinating city! It was fun to explore the streets and back alleys to see what I could find. After a week, we got underway for our primary destination of Subic Bay, The Republic of the Philippines. We were to be the main repair ship in the area and stay there for about 3 months. This meant a lot of hard days and nights of work for the crew. At least, we had the town of Olongapo to let off steam in while on liberty. The old salts aboard the Jason told me about what to expect in town but I wasn't fully prepared for the crazy carnival that was Olongapo in the wild and wooly mid '60s. For a small town boy from Iowa, this was pure culture shock, heh heh. I'll never forget that "fragrant" aroma while crossing the famous "Shit" River to go into town. I'll never forget fighting through those millions of shoeshine boys trying to hustle me and everybody else. I'll never forget the bright lights and the musical sounds coming from the incredible number of bars on Magsaysay Drive. I'll never forget those little brown-skinned Filipina beauties who worked in them and who always sweetly asked "buy me drink, sailor?". I'll never forget drinking incredible amounts of ice-cold San Miguel beer during those hot and steamy days and nights in the P.I. I'll never forget drinking potent pitchers of Mojos which would always knock you to your knees real quick. I'll never forget eating LOTS of dried fish, pancit (noodles) and fried rice. I'll never forget riding up and down Magsaysay Drive in those colorful jeepneys with crazy kamikaze jeepney drivers at the wheel. I'll never forget chowing down on that famous "monkey meat on a stick" every night on my way back to the ship after an evening's festivities. I'll never forget riding and fighting in the "cattle cars" going back to the piers. I'll never forget many, many other memories too numerous to mention here without writing a book. Nowdays, when I think back to those days, I get a smile on my face that my wife will never fully understand, heh heh. You Olongapo sailors know exactly what I'm talking about, ha ha!

In September of 1965, I finally got my orders to report back to San Diego for my Electrician's "A" school. I hated to leave the old tub but orders are orders. I flew back to the states from Clark Air Force Base and checked in at the training center. I got trained as an Electrician's Mate, graduated and got my orders for my next duty station, the USS Falgout DER-324 which was a converted destroyer escort now doing duty as a radar picket ship. But first, I took a 2 weeks leave to visit the family, who by this time was in Los Angeles. In early January of 1966, I hopped a plane back to the Philippines to meet a ship which would take me out to the Falgout which was on Market Time patrol off of Viet Nam at the time. We met the Falgout in late January and that started my almost 3 years aboard that old rustbucket.

I worked out of the electrician's shop doing electrical repair work of all kinds. It proved to be great training for my later civilian life. I spent a lot of time in the engine rooms working on the switchboards and generators. It was hot and dirty work but I guess somebody had to do it, heh heh. We spent a lot of time in Viet Nam but made many visits to exotic ports like Hong Kong, Subic Bay, Yokosuka, Bangkok, Manila, Singapore, Kaohsiung and Taipei. My favorite port was Brisbane, Australia which was my last port of call before I got out of the Navy. Even though being overseas was fun, it was always great to get back to our homeport of Pearl Harbor.

Those 3 years on the Falgout passed quickly and before I knew it, my enlistment was up. I left the Falgout in early October of 1968 and headed for Treasure Island, near San Francisco, to get mustered out. After a week there, I finally got my separation papers and I was a FREE man!! I then headed down to Los Angeles to start my civilian life. After a couple of months of leisure time, my money finally ran out and I had to get a job. Using my Navy training, I was able to land a job with the local phone company, Pacific Bell, where I spent the next 25 years. In the meantime, I got married to Elizabeth, the love of my life. We've been married for 35 happy years. In late 1994, the company offered some great early retirement incentives and I took it with no hesitation at all. They threw a couple of big bags of gold at me and I happily rode off into the sunset to retirement at the age of 48. These last few years have been great ones. I always think about my Navy days and am proud and glad that I took 4 years out of my life to do my duty. It was a great experience and my memories of it will always live with me. To all who read this, smooth sailing to you and may the winds of fortune always blow your way.