The pic is of me shaking
hands with Captain Rex Warner (Nancy's dad) following my
commission as an ensign in USNR, October 1967, in front of
the Naval Armory on the UNC campus. Capt. Warner was the
CO (Professor of Naval Science) of the NROTC unit. My first
orders were to an LST out of San Diego, but good ole Capt.
Warner called BUPERS and soon I had new orders to report
to the USS Somers (DDG-34), a guided missile destroyer, being
retrofitted in the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard south of
San Francisco. It had been DD-947 but was being refitted
with ASROC (an ASW missile) and a Tartar surface to air anti-aircraft
missile battery. I was to be the assistant combat information
officer and electronic countermeasures officer. We were on
base when Martin Luther King was gunned down and the marines
had to set up a defensive perimeter where the base met the
ghetto of Hunters Point. The blacks were rioting and firing
into the base.
By May 1968 we had settled into our homeport at the Naval Base
in Long Beach, CA. We shared the base with a minesweeper squadron.
We had a CO and an exec who were both jerks, the exec eventually
being my younger brother's CO, 7 years later. We enjoyed a
year of visiting fun ports like Portland, OR, Bremerton, WA,
Honolulu, HI. The summer of '69 we were in San Diego for refresher
training with a new CO and exec (both great guys) to prepare
for 6 month deployment to Viet Nam. November '69 we departed
Long Beach with two other WWII vintage destroyers, stopping
in Pearl Harbor for a few days, Midway Island to refuel, then
one of the destroyers went northwest to Japan and we went southwest
to the Phillipines, via Guam for refueling. We skirted a typhoon
and I gained a new and sobering appreciation for the power
of nature. The destroyer that went to Japan almost sank as
one of the forward 5 inch 38 gun mounts was ripped off the
bow by the force of the waves breaking over its bow.
After arrival in the big US naval base at Subic Bay, the Phillipines,
we were then sent to Sasebo Japan for Christmas. We stopped
for a few days at the naval base in Naha, Okinawa, which was
adjacent to the big air force base at Kadena. Saw a couple
SR-71 spy planes take off and that was awe inspiring as these
things were the deadliest looking things I ever saw fly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SR-71_Blackbird
After Christmas we went to Hong Kong for a week, then finally
to Yankee Station in the Tonkin Gulf off the coast of North
Viet Nam. We spent 40 days steaming with USS Midway (aircraft
carrier) for plane guard and anti-aircraft purposes. The US
had just resumed bombing of the North so we witnessed many
strike launches from the Midway. We then returned to Subic
Bay for two weeks before we returned to Yankee Station in the
Gulf for another 40 day assignment. This time we steamed with
the USS Constellation and once we were diverted further north
to join a light cruiser. We were called to general quarters
and steamed inside the 12 mile limit of North Viet Nam. Nothing
happened so we both steamed away. To this day I believe some
Admiral on the cruiser was trying to get himself a Navy Cross
by luring Migs out to attack us, then us shooting them down
with our missiles.
After a week in Subic Bay we went down the coast to Manila
and joined a SEATO organization fleet to run an exercise
steaming across the south China sea to Bangkok, Thailand.
The June before, one of our destroyers had been cut in half
by an Australian
aircraft carrier in a similar exercise. Our ship was designated as the commanding
ship for anti submarine defense, which made us responsible
for ordering all destroyer maneuvers for the eight destroyers
steaming together during the night of anti-submarine exercises.
By now I was the Combat Information Center Officer, as well
as a qualified Officer of the Deck (Fleet Steaming), so my
boss took the first watch from 1800 to 2400, being the individual
who ordered all the screen maneuvers changing the positions
of the destroyers relative to each other as well as the aircraft
carrier, which was, by the way, the HMS Melbourne. I came
to the bridge and relieved him from 2400 to 0600. I've never
been so wide awake during those hours of the day.
We eventually went back to Subic Bay to prepare for a May transit
home to the US. I had a good friend who was a radar intercept
officer in an F-4 squadron on the USS Constellation, and they
were transitting back with us, so I asked my exec if I could
ride back on the Constellation since my ship was training new
Officers of the Deck and I was getting out of the Navy in June.
He said sure, so my friend and I stocked his refridgerator
in his stateroom with 16 cases of beer for a 14 day transit
to the states. While alcohol is prohibited on navy ships, the
aviators were treated differently, so as long as we didn't
advertise what we were doing to the rest of the ship's crew,
we were left alone. Two days out of San Diego, the helo flew
me to my ship and lowered me onto the fantail, and our ship
headed northeast to Long Beach.
I was discharged from active duty in July and headed back
to Chicago to start business school in the fall.
