In The Navy

Background Music Announcer: Welcome to The Podcast to be Named Later, where we explore the world a conversation at a time. Sit back and enjoy. Here are your hosts, Chris and Kelly. Kelly: Hey everyone, welcome to another edition of the podcast to be named later. My co-host, Chris is off again today but I happen to have his father here and in Chris's honor before we get into the main topic of the podcast. Kelly: Asked if you remember back to our first edition, Chris talked about his first play in high school football. Kelly: I'd love to have his dad, my brother Craig tell us his version of Chris first play for the varsity team Craig. Kelly: Welcome to the podcast. Craig: Well, thank you Kelly, appreciate that. Craig: As far as Chris first play, yeah, I used to go to his practices all the time and of course on Friday nights when they played I did my due diligence and duty in the snack bar area. Craig: And so when the first playoff came, game game came. Craig: I was over there. Craig: You know selling burgers and Cokes and the game was over. Craig: And I saw Chris walking across the field and the closer he got I noticed that there was chalk. Craig: All over his uniform and. Craig: And when he got closer to me, he was grinning from ear to ear, and he looked at me and he smiled. Craig: And he just said Dad, dad, I got rocked and you know, I smiled back and we laughed and it was a pretty good introduction to varsity football at the high school level. Kelly: That's great, great story. Kelly: I asked Craig to come on the podcast because he's had a rich and diverse life, but he started out with something that I've always found interesting as his brother. Kelly: Kind of followed in our father's footsteps and was in the Navy for four years as a young man. Kelly: So let's let's jump right in Craig out to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and I know there must have been some nights kind of. Kelly: It's one of those nights that I can only dream about. Kelly: What was it like? Kelly: I'm one of those beautiful nights when you're out at sea on a ship. Craig: Well, I'll be honest with you, Kelly, that is actually one of the moments that. Craig: Always made me love the aspect of sailing. Craig: Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong century I I think I would have loved it back in the old. Craig: Days, you know. Craig: You know with the. Craig: With the sales and stuff like that, because all those nights, right? Craig: The there's areas of the ocean that the water is as smooth as a sheet of glass. Craig: No ripples, no nothing, and the moon or reflect off of that and all you hear is the waves. Craig: You know, breaking against the power, the. Craig: Uh, from my ship we had the ability to go up to the bow and we could actually look right over the edge and during the daytime we would watch the dolphins and porpoises play tag with the bow of the ship. Craig: But to your question at night that to me Kelly was. Craig: Was complete. Craig: You've got a. Craig: Moon shining the stars. Craig: There's no ambient light whatsoever. Craig: The the ship at night we do not use white lights out there. Craig: White lights are blinding and the the ship is lit up like a Christmas tree. Craig: It's all in red. Craig: You can see just fine in red lights, and so again, there's no ambient light, just crystal clear skies. Craig: In calm waters, you couldn't ask for anything more. Kelly: Sounds great and I know you know, just the day before we are recording this podcast NASA released from the Webb telescope images, you know, dating back to. Kelly: Early times and far distances give us a little more on what are those stars like up there in the night. Kelly: If you know little pinpricks of light, but what do they really like? Kelly: What does it make you think of him? Kelly: What do you see? Craig: Well, we also had an advantage to that as well on board ship. Craig: Now of course you couldn't go up there every night. Craig: Uhm my command. Craig: We had what's called the signal deck, which is at the very top, and that's where the signal men are at. Craig: You know in the Navy you've got when shifts are apart. Craig: You know you can use Morse code with the blinker light. Craig: You also have the ability with Morse code if you will. Craig: With flags, you have two flags there, any one in each hand in different positions are letters of the alphabet, and that's at the very top to communicate, you know across the water. Craig: What they also had on that deck was what we referred to as the big eyes. Craig: This was a set of binoculars that were probably around 2 feet in length. Craig: And you could look at the moon with those binoculars and you could see the rocks around the crater on the moon. Craig: So you know what I would view that and and and whatever we could see. Craig: Sometimes we can see the planets, right? Craig: If they're in the right position and remember when we were over in, you know Vietnam, we were in, you know, the the opposite. Craig: Hemisphere so you know I was privileged to see all the constellations, but. Craig: What I thought about looking at that was I really did the universe. Craig: You know what's up there? Craig: I think it's naive to believe that we're the only planet with life on it. Craig: I really do. Craig: And I've often wondered, OK, how far does this go and what's beyond that? Craig: And so on and so forth. Craig: That's where my mind went when I was looking up there was I gonna see something darting across the sky. Craig: Was I gonna find something? Craig: On the moon. Craig: Either way, it was just to look and ponder, you know out there in the distance and just have that proverbial question in your mind. Craig: You know who are we and what are we doing here? Craig: That's what I felt. Kelly: Sounds really, you know, kind of profound and. Kelly: Interesting and probably humbling. Kelly: Let's jump back so to get out to the middle of the sea. Kelly: You might obviously gotta take a few steps. Kelly: It doesn't happen on the first day you were a young man. Kelly: 18 years old I believe 1718. Kelly: Made a choice to get into the Navy. Kelly: Our family at the time. Kelly: Living back in, you know, Wisconsin, relatively small town. Kelly: You'd lived in bigger cities, but kind of take us through. Kelly: What was that like on that first day? Kelly: You know, the last time you slept in your own bed? Kelly: And how you got out to wherever you were going to go, what what was going through your mind? Kelly: And what's that like on that first day when you transitioned from. Kelly: You know home sweet home if you will to you're now in the Navy. Craig: That was an interesting time. Craig: It actually begins the night before. Craig: Uh, at the time Vietnam was going on and so I took a bus from our little town fondulac down to Milwaukee. Craig: That's where the induction center was at. Craig: And I had gone with a couple of other guys from the area who were also joining the service. Craig: I mean you know the adoption center is for all branches, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. Craig: But but Craig: The Milwaukee or the the County Fair was going on the Milwaukee County Fair and the reason I bring this up is because Red Skelton and some people may or may not remember it. Craig: But he does a version of the Pledge of Allegiance. Craig: And he was actually on stage and we went to the fair. And we listened to that. And if you ever get a chance to listen to Red Skelton's version of the pleasures of allegiance, you'll understand. Craig: But so that that last night, if you will Kelly, we actually were in a hotel. Craig: But the next morning we got up, you know, and you know we were all happy and giddy and so on and so forth, you know? Craig: You really don't know what you're in for. Craig: And so we go to the induction center and. Craig: Yeah, they treat you, they treat you pretty good. Craig: You know, oh, come over here. Craig: Come over there and you know you. Craig: You go through all kinds of different testing, different doctors, different, you know things that you have to do. Craig: One of the things that was very profound for me was I was in this line. Craig: And the. Craig: The examiner was there and he's telling everybody, OK, I'm gonna have this book in front of me. Craig: I'm going to open this booked up and inside this book you're going to see these circles with all these different colored dots in it and inside those dots is a number. Craig: I need you to tell me what number you see. Craig: So I was back. Craig: I could only hear him, couldn't see it. Craig: But then I got close enough to. Kelly: Look at the book. Craig: And he opened it up. Craig: I didn't see a number. Craig: I'm like, well, maybe I'm at the wrong angle. Craig: You know I don't know. Craig: Well, we'll see when I get there. Craig: So I sat down and he said this and you know the same spiel. Craig: And he opened the book and no. Craig: No number, I went through the entire book except the last page. Craig: I saw a number there. Craig: That didn't stop anymore any wheels. Craig: And but all through this process they treated you very nice. Craig: You know, like he had the physical and so on and so forth, and and then when all this was done and he. Craig: You know you had your clothes all back on. Craig: I mean you don't walk around naked, but you know you, you're in your skivvies. Craig: They had you in a room and there was like a I don't know. Craig: He could have been a Colonel, Lieutenant Colonel. Craig: It really didn't matter, but it was an officer. Craig: And all these chairs were in there and flags of all the services and the American flag and everything like that. Craig: And then you know he started to speak and we were about to take the oath. Craig: So raise your right hand repeat after me. Craig: So we all rose our hand, you know, and. Craig: He talked and we. Craig: Repeated and so on and so forth. Craig: And as soon as. Craig: We were done. Craig: All bets were off. Craig: All of a sudden we were in the military. Craig: And it was 180 out. Here's your paperwork. You're going to walk down here. You're going to go do this. Craig: You're going to go over there. Craig: You're in charge of this group of people. Craig: You get them there when you get there. Craig: This is what you're gonna do. Craig: Oh crap. Kelly: I'm sure it was spoken at that comma voice level 2, right? Craig: So we went to get them. Craig: Oh yeah, Oh yeah, they they, were they. Craig: Were very nice about. Craig: And so anyway, what's what's funny? Craig: There's not. Craig: We get to Milwaukee. Craig: We go we, you know we go from the induction center we. Craig: Go to Billy Mitchell Field. Craig: Then you know we're all on the same aircraft in that, right? Craig: And we we go on, and so on. And we fly to San Diego. We get to San Diego middle of the night. I don't know. 910 eleven o'clock, whatever it was now remember, we've been at the induction center. Craig: All day, then we went to the airport and then we flew. Craig: We landed in San Diego and I know some of us. Craig: I think there were like five or six of us asked the guy in charge. Craig: Hey hey look can we stop? Craig: Let's get something to eat before we, you know, get out to the front. Craig: That's good, we didn't know. Craig: We just knew we were supposed to go see this guy. Craig: And not on all we gotta go we gotta go. Craig: Oh come on man and we wouldn't have him. Craig: Well then we got to the baggage claim area, right? Craig: Picked up our belongings as meek as they were because you were told not to. Craig: Bring, you know much of anything at all. Craig: And and then he went up to this Marine Sergeant. Craig: And he handed him the orders and wow. Craig: You talk about barking. Craig: This man let us know who was in charge and he marched us out to a bus that was headed next to the curb. Craig: And as you know, told us to park certain parts of our body in that seat and he didn't want to hear sound. Craig: Oh wow. Craig: Uh, so you know then finally we left. Craig: It was dark and. Craig: You know, for me it's like holy crap. Craig: This is real and we drove in the dark and we got to this place and it was the barracks on in in San Diego. Craig: It's called what it used to be. Craig: It was a combination base NTC RTC NTC stood. Craig: For Naval Training Center right, it had various schools that the Navy did when you got into the Navy and then the RTC was the Recruit Training Command that's going. Craig: In fact, they're both God now, but. Craig: I remember we got in there and it was pitch dark and we got in these rats and then. Craig: The next morning, you know at oh Dark 30 trash cans were thrown into in this room. Craig: To wake us up and they walked us to the chow hall in front of all the recruits that were there. Craig: You know we got our uniforms and everything like that. Craig: We got a company commander that was just a wonderful, wonderful man. Craig: If you follow my drift and it was on. Craig: Right so. Craig: Uhm, it was quite a change. Craig: Kelly from going like you said small Town USA to the induction center and then that morning you wake up at the Recruit Training Command and you're in the military for real. Kelly: Yeah, so we won't go through a day by day of. Kelly: I guess they would call it boot camp for you 2, right? Craig: Yeah, yeah it was. Craig: It was a boot camp. Craig: It was a 9 feet week boot camp but but there's something I. Craig: Think that's really important? Craig: Our company started out with roughly 6570 guys right and they had a training group. Craig: And we were we were a company and there were five or six companies that made a training group. Uh, my. My company was 269. Craig: There's certain things you never forget. Craig: And we had a company commander who had various. Craig: Things going on in his life. Craig: Let's just put it that way. Craig: But he was a stickler just an absolute stickler. Craig: He had us up at night doing this, doing that, right and. Craig: As a group. Craig: We realized that the only way we're going to keep this man off our back. Craig: Right, right rather indifferent. You know you gotta remember that was a different time. This is 1971. Craig: Uhm, we. Craig: Had to be the best. Craig: This company we went through a nine week training course. Craig: The first four weeks you were on what they called Squirrel Island. Craig: That's where they felt. Craig: You know you couldn't stand still, right? Craig: You you didn't acclimate yet and then your 5th week was your service week where you work in the galley and stuff. Craig: Like that and then your other weeks 678 and 9. Craig: You did training all through this, but 6789 you actually went out on the grinder after chow at night to practice for graduation. And during the day you attended classes. Craig: To sum this up. Craig: When our group graduated. Craig: Uhm, we took. Craig: Every single. Craig: Military award Craig: In weeks 6789 and we took every academic award in week 6789. Craig: We missed having a double meatball is what they called it by less than two points. Craig: Which would have been the highest that it had been achieved in a training group. Craig: We reached a point where we asked him to teach us how to March on weekends to split apart. Craig: Go at angles, go in obliques, and come back together. Craig: That's and that's that. Craig: It was very proud. Kelly: So you mentioned something there where you said at night you went out and I believe you said the grinder. Kelly: Yeah, you wanna tell our listeners what that is? Craig: Well, the grinder is the terminology. Craig: You know, the Navy always has a different name for everything. Craig: The grinder is. Kelly: Yeah, I call it the floor and they call it a deck. Craig: That's correct, you call it a ceiling. Craig: It's an overhead. Craig: You call it a wall, it's a bulkhead. Craig: You call it a drinking fountain. Craig: They call it a scuttlebutt. Craig: That is the term for a drinking fountain onboard, ship a scuttlebutt. Craig: But at night, the grinder is nothing more than the blacktop. Craig: It's a big concrete field, right? Craig: And that's where you all do the practicing. Craig: You know, and so you learn how to March, how to do the 16 count manual, how to break apart, and how to go back together again, right? Craig: And there's people that are grading you. Craig: That's where the military awards come into play. Craig: They look at every single guy. Imagine like I say 60 to 70 guys doing a 16 count manual with an old M1 rifle, right? Craig: And and utilizing that and then marching in all the steps and all the distances between you and and how this all goes about. Craig: And then you practice when you pass in review as you March, you passed the the viewing stand. Craig: You know where the captain of the training base is at. Craig: You know you need. Craig: You look to him and and he looks out at you and you know gives you a salute during graduation. Craig: So you're out there at night, so I'm just saying because during the day you're attending classes, so bootcampers, and then you're grateful you're grateful when those lights go out at 9:00 o'clock. Kelly: So so you can. Kelly: Hit the rack in your time in boot camp. Kelly: What would you say was the the most physically demanding thing you? Kelly: Had to do. Craig: I would say the most physically demanding Kelly was just being able to do. Craig: Uhm, everything that was expected of you. Craig: You know all the marching, all The Walking. Craig: We also did you know we did the the obstacle course right? Craig: Just like you, you know, if you watched a movie, an officer and a gentleman, well, we had that too. Kelly: So as you probably know, there's a term for people such as me who don't see called audio description, where they kind of describe what's going on in the non talking parts of some movies. Kelly: But I don't know that that movie ever had it, so give us a little more on exactly what that obstacle course has and what it's like. Kelly: What do you see? Kelly: What's it look like? Kelly: And what's going on? Craig: Well, you're doing running. Craig: You know, if the majority of it is running, but you also have just like in football we had tires we had to go through, right? Craig: We had ropes. Craig: We went through right. Craig: We had we had we had to climb over walls. Craig: We had to walk along. Craig: You know bridges and stuff. Craig: Uh, you know, just the whole physical attribute in that you know. Craig: So climbing running, you know, going up ropes. Craig: You know, and coming back down, I'll tell you what. Craig: You know, you know, climbing up a rope and you know you gotta go up there and then come back down that guy or even try to get over walls and stuff. Craig: You know this is all physical stuff that you need to do, and you know and you went there and you know not everybody is in. Craig: You know very good shape, right? Craig: The the first four weeks. Craig: Were really physical. Craig: For that, you know, carrying the rifle, doing the calisthenics, doing all the marching, you know, doing all the running to get you in shape so that you were ready when week nine came and you were going to graduate. Craig: You were in tip top. Craig: Fashion, you know you. Craig: You just everything about it. Craig: You have certain limits on food you you know always come in. Craig: Sit, get the food. Craig: Sit down foods over let's go next thing you know so yeah, it was like I say the the the biggest thing. Craig: Like I say the different things you have to do on the. Craig: Horses, ropes and running, and the index dexterity of your feet and you know things of that nature, Kelly. Kelly: So you you're in boot camp or you want us? Kelly: Did you go on any ships or on the water at all in boot camp? Craig: I chuckle because I believe it's still there. Craig: I'm not sure, but. Craig: The Recruit Training Command in San Diego has been transformed into a housing area. Craig: Uhm, and but back in the days of the boot camp there was a wooden destroyer built that was there and odd Navy ships the name of the ship is always emblazed. Craig: I'll say it's in the back, but it's not called the back. Craig: It's called the stern or it's called, you know aft. Craig: They don't call it the back in the Navy, but the name is emblazed and this name was the USS never sail. Craig: But you went on there, and that's where you learn the terms. Craig: This is a debt. Craig: This is an overhead. Craig: This is a bulkhead, right? Craig: The big wheel that they use to steer the ship is not called a steering wheel. Craig: It's called the helm. Craig: Right, and so you learn all of these things. Craig: In conjunction with that, I'll I'll diverse for a minute. Craig: One of my first tasks when I actually got out to my ship. Craig: I I had to put a phone. Craig: Uh, in the ward room for the officers. Craig: And I went up there and I, you know, went into. Craig: And the executive officer of the ship was there having coffee. Craig: And I said, excuse me, Sir, I'm here to install the phone. Craig: He goes yes, go ahead. Craig: I said what wall would you like this phone put on? Craig: And he looked at me, and he said, that's a bulkhead, sailor. Craig: Yes, Sir. Craig: Very quickly you get back. Craig: You know what I'm saying? Craig: Uh, and and and that's important. Craig: You know you have to, you know, switch into the Navy lingo. Kelly: Yeah, so let's see whether it was on the neversail or and we'll talk. Kelly: We'll get to get kind of some of those ships you've been on, but I've been fortunate, I guess to. Kelly: Myself, walk around on a couple of ships that have, you know, been turned into museums and maybe you could talk more about this, I'm sure. Kelly: Uh, say the thing that's striking to me about ships. Kelly: There's a lot of things, but. Kelly: These are not exactly like pleasure palaces for walking. Kelly: There's pipes all over. Kelly: They're not really stairs, but ladders. Kelly: And oh, we need a wall here. Kelly: OK, well, this well we need a pipe to go there, it's. Kelly: You got a docket in. Kelly: It's only four feet. Kelly: Tell us a little more. Kelly: Just in general, like what are we talking about when you talk about these ships and what are they you know? Kelly: How would they compare, say, to something? Kelly: Most people are more used to like you know, walking down the hallway of a hotel or something. Craig: Oh there there there really is no comparison. Craig: Kelly none whatsoever. Craig: My shift. Craig: Yeah, you gotta. Craig: You gotta understand that it shifts a little different, right? Craig: We you know, there's destroyers and cruisers and and. Craig: Auxiliary ships, and then that's when I was on. And of course everybody knows the aircraft carriers. The ship that I was on was what we call an auxiliary ship. It's a oh, it's whole number was a oh 146 and so we had. Craig: So we carried fuel. Craig: 7,700,000 gallons is what we carried on this fleet oiler. Craig: And we carried anything from black oil, which is the old ships from yesteryear. Craig: Our Navy distill it. Craig: JP 5 JP 4 which is jet fuel. Craig: We also carry aviation gasoline as well as some diesel. Craig: And so the former deckhouse was obviously forward, and that's where the bridge was at. The radio room was at the captain's stateroom was up there, and there were two divisions up. There are lot of division. I'm sorry, that's where the radio men and the sonar men were there. Craig: And then in between was all our fuel tanks and then we had what we called the Afterdeck House, and that had two passengers, one port, 1 starboard and they went all the way to the back to to where the mess decks were at. Craig: So when you walk down those passageways, uhm, there were a few offices, and the chief supporters were along there, but they were a passageway. Craig: And you're right. Craig: There are hatches every so many feet and then we call them knee knockers, right? Craig: They they they're up about 10 to 12 inches and they close on the Hatch. Craig: The reason for that is these hatches. Craig: When the ship goes to concepted conditions, zebra, that's the most stringent. Craig: Every hatch, every porthole. Craig: Every everything is buttoned down when they say button down the hatches. Craig: That's what they're talking about. Craig: There's there's big polls on this, and they have what they call dogs and there's. Craig: 2468 of these things on every hatch, and this one big rod controls all eight. You shut that door. Craig: You pull that dog or pull that hatch or the lever and it's called dogging it down, and that's in condition zebra. Craig: But then you go down, you know the ladders? Craig: You're right, they're not stairs, they're ladders. Craig: And you go down there. Craig: And that's where all the compartments are at. Craig: You know, ANR was the one I was in. There were 75 guys in there. Three guys, two are at right, three racks all put together bottom, middle, top. Craig: 2 tables in there to play cards right, First Division, Second division and division machinist mates B division. Craig: You'll say you sleep with your division. Craig: The mesh decks were on the back. Kelly: Now when you say three guys to a rack, did you guys do? Kelly: I guess the term is what they call hot swapping. Craig: No, that that that's term that's primarily a term. Craig: It's utilized a lot. Craig: Kelly in the submarine. Craig: You know, we have what's called blue and gold cruise. Craig: Well, at least back in the day we did I, I, you know, and what that meant was you know, the sub goes on for six months. Craig: Right, and I'm sorry. Craig: Well they come back in and another crew goes out, but the hot racking is where you are and that's on Subs as well. Craig: My my definition was incorrect. Craig: That's where you share it. Craig: We didn't do that. Craig: No, Sir, we did not we, you, or had individual wraps. Craig: You know it's what you had. Craig: Sometimes you had to sleep. Craig: In a different area, you know if you were a. Craig: Newbie right, but. Craig: You were still individualized when I say 3 to a rack. Craig: It was a tier OK. Craig: One was one was right on the floor right on the floor like 8 inches off the floor and. Craig: That's where you went. Craig: The Middle Mack Middle Rack was the best one. Kelly: You've talked a few times about your ship and. Kelly: You started at boot camp. Kelly: You know eventually you got onto a ship. Kelly: What were you? Kelly: What was the name of your ship? Kelly: You told us the number and was. Kelly: Were you only on one ship throughout your career, or did you actually serve on multiple? Craig: No, I was only on one command during my tenure, but my chef was the USS Coalition. Craig: Lee and the cushley. Craig: At my time, the there were there were six of us. Craig: They were all fleet orders and they were called the Neosho class. Craig: The USS Neosho was actually a tanker that was there at. Craig: Pearl Harbor, when it was attacked. Craig: And these fleet Oilers. Craig: We had three on the West Coast, 3 on the East Coast. Craig: We were homeported on a Pearl and our sister ship every ship in the Navy has a sister ship and again now just allude that Navy vessels are referred to as her and she. Craig: And our sister ship was the USS Hassayampa, another river. Craig: Ah, and they were AO 145. Craig: As the command I was only on that, but. Craig: We were 683 feet long. Craig: We were 85 feet across and we were what you called a deep draft vessel. Our draft was 35 feet when we were full. Our ship was 35 feet underwater. Craig: You know, and and honor between our forward deckhouse and after deckhouse we had what's called. Craig: That we had grading. Craig: Right, and over that entire surface grading you could see down below and down below were all the tank tops and that was another deck down there and that was called the jungle deck. Craig: Right? Craig: 'cause all the pipes and everything was down there and the tops and stuff. Craig: But the main depth was a was a series of grading so if anything spilled or nothing it went down right below that, including the water from the ocean. Kelly: So you talked about your ship carrying 7,000,000 and a little more. Kelly: Gallons of fuel. Kelly: Right, a lot of fuel. Craig: Well, we were, uh. Kelly: How big are these tanks? Kelly: Could you reference it to something people may be familiar with? Craig: Well, the only thing I can tell you Kelly, is that if you got a command that's 683 feet long all right, that's the length of two football fields. Craig: And if I took the Afterdeck house, which also contained you know the after pump room and all the all the birthing area that I said I'm going to go ahead and take roughly about. Craig: Let's take 60 feet of that away and I'll take. I'll take 100 feet away between the two death houses. Alright, that still leaves. Craig: Maybe over 500 feet, all right, 500 feet in length and 85 feet across, and with a draft of 35 feet. And I can kindly give you an idea how big that is. Kelly: So I near ship I I near ship. Craig: React, go ahead yeah. Kelly: Do you remember when you got assigned and the first time you got on board and we're, you know, going to go off on your first deployment? Kelly: What was that first day there like? Craig: Well, that was, you know that was an interesting day. Craig: You know I had graduated from boot camp. Craig: I I got to go home and I was only 17 when I joined. Craig: And so I got to fly home for I don't know a couple of weeks. Craig: I think it was after boot camp. Craig: And it was in November, so I fly home and dress Blues right and I'll even dress Blues. Craig: And you know, it's 30 degrees outside in Wisconsin. Craig: I fly from Wisconsin to San Diego and then I fly from San Diego to Pearl Harbor. Craig: I land in Honolulu International Airport. Craig: Or you know, in you know mid afternoon. Craig: And it's 80 degrees outside and I'm wearing dress Blues and for those that don't know, dress Blues that are Navy issued are made out of wool. Craig: And so, and then I took a cab to Pearl Harbor and. Craig: I went to the main gate. Craig: And I said, you know, I'm trying to report aboard my command. Craig: I know here it's here in Pearl. Craig: Can you direct me, you know, to to where she has him? Craig: He directed me to Coysh. Craig: He was in the yards at that time, so I walked out and I see this, you know this. Craig: To me, this huge ship. Craig: And a big. Craig: Blazed 146 you know on the side of it. Craig: Wow, you know this. Craig: This is all real. Craig: You know this. Craig: This is my life now it's a 17. Craig: Kent and I walk aboard, you know, and. Craig: Before you go on board ship you, when you go on board ship and when you leave a ship Kelly and you first thing you do is you render honors to the flag and the flag when you're in port is attached to the fantail which is the. Craig: Back so when you come on board ship the first thing you do is you stand. Craig: If you're in uniform, you will stand at the top and you will turn to face half and salute the flag and then turn. Craig: You know, make a right turn and you will have the deck officer there and you'll ask you for permission to come aboard. Craig: Then when you leave the first thing you do is you again render honors to the flag before you leave that command. Craig: So anyway I got on boarded they you know they didn't know what to do with me. Craig: Was kind of the, you know. Craig: One thing in Hawaii, at least back then you know, look when you go in the Navy. Craig: It's a regular working day. Craig: You know you go to you, go to quarters in the morning. Craig: Which is they take roll. Craig: You find out the plan of the day from the officers and then you know turn 2 command shift work and everybody has things to do. Craig: Repairing this, putting this in, taking that out, whatever it happens to be, you know? Craig: Then you break for lunch, right? Craig: But in Hawaii, at that time the command worked on what they call tropical working hours because. Craig: With the temperatures and stuff so turn 2 committed, you know right around 7:30 and they worked straight through till 1:00 o'clock. Craig: And then you had lunch at 1:00 o'clock, but it was knock off shift work, so everybody was caught. Craig: Here's what I'm trying to do. Craig: There was still a skeleton crew there, always a skeleton crew. Craig: And but anyway, they just put me down in X division and. Craig: They said, hey? Craig: Go ahead and do what you want to do it. Craig: Come back tomorrow but. Craig: Be here at 7:00 o'clock. Craig: So OK. Craig: So I left the base and took a bus and went to downtown Honolulu. Craig: Hell and then went back to Pearl Harbor that first night. Craig: And I slept in my rack. Craig: That was interesting. Craig: And you're right, I had pipes right above my head. Kelly: So what was it like sleeping in that ship the first night? Craig: As young as I was and it was a very active day, that first night it was pretty easy. Craig: Kelly, it really was, you know, I was grateful to be up there and and you know, just you know. Craig: So hopped out for the night, you know, and then get up in the morning and you know, go shower up and get ready to go. Craig: You know to quarters and find out exactly what's going to take place. Right? Craig: You know for the next four years. Kelly: My life so it sounds like when you first got there, the ship was still. Kelly: You know, having work done and you weren't really going out for deployment. Kelly: What was what? Kelly: Was it like the first time you actually left Pearl Harbor and went out to the ocean blue? Craig: That was interesting. Craig: My first time doing that now now. Craig: What was what's interesting about that is that one of the first days I was there. Craig: Probably that very first day that next day I was there and I heard the Bell ring Ding Ding, Ding Ding and it said Coition we departed. Craig: Right, well I knew the name of the ship was coysh we ticklishly departing. Craig: You know, and again I'm a greenhorn, right? Craig: And and I I went and I looked at it. Craig: Well, where are we going? Craig: Well, what it was was the captain leaving his ship. Craig: I didn't find that out. Craig: Then I found it out later. Craig: But about a week and a half, two weeks later, we actually did leave. Craig: Well, we had an emergency. Craig: And so the ship had to leave, and so we left and the United States had just sold an old World War Two destroyer to Taiwan. Craig: And this destroyer had left San Diego. Craig: And the way I understood it now, you gotta remember. Craig: I'm only on this ship for a couple weeks at them by at best. Craig: And the. Craig: I've heard it was that you know the people on the ship could read the English and write, and so somebody had opened up the dump valve to their fuel tanks directly to the ocean and they were actually, you know, running out of fuel. Craig: They weren't going to have enough to even get to Pearl Harbor. Craig: So we had to leave. Craig: And I think it took us three or four days to get there. Craig: Uh, that's what I found out that I didn't get seasick. Craig: I got queasy for a couple of days till you get your sea legs and sea legs are real and it takes you a couple days to get your land legs. Craig: Back when you get back into the lamp. Craig: But nonetheless, three or four days go by and, and we hook up with this ship. Craig: Now, uh. Craig: And so I'm just there and I'm watching this now. Craig: When you're going to unwrap, and that's short for underway replenishment and that's the way the Navy does it. Craig: But we do not stop when you're going to refuel the ship. Craig: The oiler sets the course and the other command comes up alongside. Craig: Do a certain distance apart. Craig: We have Gunners mates on our ship. Craig: Their sole purpose is to shoot this shot line across. Craig: Get it on the ship. Craig: However, you gotta do it so they shoot a shotgun across with a little nylon line and then bigger, bigger, bigger until they're actually dragging over a one inch diameter steel cable. Craig: And this cable has a hook in it. Craig: And they take that, and they put this hook, and they've hooked it up to what's called the receiver. Craig: And it looks like a giant bucket. Craig: And they hooked that up there. Craig: Then the wedge operator on our command tightens up that cable 'cause we have big rigging weight all and so that that that wire you know is sitting that up you know. Craig: So I don't know 100 degree angle from the top down 130. Craig: Uhm, and then the probe is on there. Craig: White with rollers. Craig: And that probe comes flying down that with another cable attached to that to pull it back and forth and that slams into the bucket. Craig: And then they're supposed to lock it in place, right? Craig: And we actually establish ship to ship phone communication between the receiving station and the pumping station. Craig: There's a cable that goes across, and those phones are sound powered. Craig: They're nothing more than two tin cans in a string. Craig: That's how they. Craig: Well, what I'm getting at is these guys communicated in through the broken English and broken Taiwanese, if it, that's. Craig: We determined that they were ready for fuel. Craig: So valves are open, pumps are started. Craig: Almost instantaneously. Craig: The probe backed itself out of the. Craig: And this was an Old Navy destroyer as I said and its fuel was black oil and the port side aft got a nice bath in black oil and then all had to get cleaned up first and then we went back and did it again. Craig: So my first time out at sea Kelly was a. Craig: It was a very unique experience watching what the ship actually did and seeing a tremendous error take place right and and just banking that in my memory. Craig: At that time I did not have a duty station right when you're on board ship. Craig: You're assigned to a division, and you do certain things per your rate as to what you do like. Craig: I say you have Gunners, mates and radio men and sonar men. Craig: And boats mates, machinist, mates, torpedomen and so on and so forth. Craig: No I I became an ICM and that was my rate and that was called Interior Communications. Craig: Telephones and alarm systems throughout the ship. Craig: But as the ship goes and does things, you have your everyday work routines. Craig: But as we go into what we call under Waverley punishment mode, the all of a sudden you have. Craig: Those are called details, so the same guy goes to the hell. Craig: The same guys are up on the bridge. Craig: The same guys go down into the fire. Craig: Room into the boiler room and then we have guys that go out on station. Craig: You know where these stations are at. Craig: And I became a ship to ship phone talker on station 3. Craig: So when we established you know the ship came alongside us and once we establish communications, I got a guy 80 feet across from me in the water. Craig: I can see him. Craig: He can see me and we're talking like we're standing. Craig: You know, right next to each other. Craig: Hey, how you doing? Craig: Hey how you doing? Craig: You know so. Craig: So there's different details you do when you're on board ship. Craig: It isn't just you know everyday routine, it depends on what goes on. Craig: You know one of the things you never wanted to hear on board ship was fire, fire, fire. Craig: This is not a drill and and that didn't happen once, but. You know it. Craig: Was not a big deal we it was taken care of. Kelly: So I'm sure Craig there was a lot of work. Kelly: I mean, you're out there to work, but I'm sure like any anything people found times for recreation or other kind of unique events, I'm sure you had things like that happen in your naval career. Kelly: Could you tell us about one of those? Craig: Yeah, one of the ones that was pretty OK is the the coalition we when it was first built. Craig: Uh, you know it wasn't like a battleship. Craig: You know that has 1618 inch guns on it. We actually had three and a half inch twin mounts. That's we called twin mounts 3 1/2 inch caliber, you know? Craig: And we had two on the bound. Craig: Two of two pairs and four aft. Craig: Well later on, after Cushley was was built, they took the four aft out, so we still had these huge tubs there. Craig: They're called gun tubs. Craig: They're probably about I don't know. Craig: 1214 feet and I have it. Or maybe something like that and probably the better part of you know, six feet, five to six feet. Craig: I'd say now, and so there was a drain in there. Craig: Obviously for rainwater and whatever, and at times we used to plug those up. Craig: And we made swimming pools out of there. Craig: We pump up full of fresh water and we had pools and so one day that we had, uh, now I was on a on auxiliary oiler, and we had another ship come alongside us, that was an AR. Craig: Which was auxiliary refrigeration so they had. Craig: You know stores you know food in the Navy is called stores and they had dry goods, you know, and fresh goods and frozen goods. Craig: So where we had our fuel tanks, they had all these compartments. Craig: You know, in the middle was like a, you know, a big. Craig: Roadway if you will. Craig: So one day you know we're out there, refueled, and you know and and across our what MC which is our PA system. Craig: We hear this announcement, you know now here this the swimming pools located aft are closed until completion of the unwrap. Craig: And the. Craig: The guys at the other ship, I mean. Craig: They could hear this. Craig: And they're like what? Craig: You guys got swimming pools on there. Craig: Yeah, you see those gun Toms back there. Craig: We explained what we did. Right? Craig: Oh wow, that's gotta be cool. Craig: And you know, I mean, you're out there in the middle of the summer. Craig: It's hot and humid. Craig: We can go swimming. Craig: I mean you didn't swim you in the water. Craig: And so all of a sudden, you know, say, 510 minutes later we hear coming from them. Craig: Attention all hands the go Kart and grabass race will be postponed until the completion of the unwrapped, so that was kind of there. Craig: So we had a chuckle as well. Craig: I mean there is humor out there. Kelly: So it sounds like there is some, you know, little rivalry and fun out there too. Craig: Oh absolutely, there is absolutely one other quick story. Craig: If you will. Craig: I I don't know if people and you know we have what we call a high line and that is a rope, a 3 inch Manila line that goes between two ships and then we put a chair on there with rollers and that's called the boats and chair. Craig: Now these ships are doing 815 to 18 knots. They're 80 feet apart and we will actually put somebody in that chair and take them from ship to ship. And for some reason whenever we would have a marine. Craig: In there you know we, we didn't seem to pull back on that rope quick enough when the ships rolled into each other and that wave kind of broke a little higher. Craig: They had a tendency to get wet. Kelly: Nowadays people pay money for that and they call it ziplining. Craig: Yeah exactly, yeah we did it for free, but The thing is that. Craig: There were 50 men. Craig: On each land of that three in its Manila line. Craig: No machinery involved in all machines fail, people don't. Craig: And the men were there 50 guys on each side of that that held that line, and one of my jobs when we did that was to listen to the boats and and yell at the men to lay back or slack off on that high line as the ships you know rolled back and forth. Craig: You know from each other. Craig: Coming closer and farther apart. Kelly: So yeah, so Speaking of rolling back and forth. Kelly: Uhm, you talked about OK. Your ship is full of the 7,000,000 gallons of fuel and then it's you know gotta. Kelly: Draft 35 feet. Craig: Right? Kelly: At at some point you know you've given up all that oil. Kelly: What was it like then to ride on that ship? Craig: We actually did that. Craig: Oh, we had left Japan. Craig: Tebedo you know in the Pacific they're called typhoons in Atlantic, they're called hurricanes. Craig: We had left Japan to outrun a typhoon. Craig: We didn't make it and we were riding high. Craig: And we got bounced around, you know, like a pinball? Craig: So in very short order, we took on seawater. Craig: We actually opened our tanks up and we took on ballast to put us down in the water and so for the next. Craig: Ohh, I'd say probably it's because it took two weeks to steam back, so I would say the better part of let's say a week, maybe 8 days. Craig: We sat low but then. Craig: We pumped ourselves out in them last three days. Craig: We rode high in the water. Craig: It was interesting. Craig: We we didn't wobble much, but to be that high up on the water the water, particularly when we got to the top. Craig: You know we had a a brown. Craig: Which is like the the gangway, the walkway, and we had some stairs to go down. Craig: It was quite high, to say the least. Craig: All that all that under the water was sticking straight up, you know? So the additional 35 feet or so you know that we had to traverse down a stairway to get there. That's like that's like a three story building. Kelly: Well, Craig, much like the ship after you've kind of run out of fuel, their hourglass here is kind of getting to be. Kelly: Near empty and we've kind of just scratched the surface of some of your naval career. Kelly: I want to thank you for your time on this episode and we'll learn about a lot more of your naval career and what you saw out there experienced and what it's like in another episode. Kelly: I want to thank you again. Kelly: For being here and thank all of our listeners to this edition of the podcast to be named later. Craig: Kelly, I appreciate you asking me to be on and thank you very much for having me.