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November, 1989
Toulon 15-19 NOVEMBER, 2000L
I make a couple tactical errors leaving the boat. One: I go ashore with the Grownups. That means that the first liberty boat is out of the question. CAG and DCAG have many decisions to make; we have a detachment of people and airplanes on the ground at Hyeres for exercise work with the French. That weans we have maintenance troops to support, spare parts to transport and communications to establish.
Two: never go to a Staff dinner the first night in-port. We ride the launch past the moonlit white cliffs, past the breakwater and the fortress and finally to Fleet Landing. We exit the Utility-boat and walk across a vast parking lot to the old Port.
CAG's car is located at the Naval Base across the harbor, so we walk past the sidewalk cafes of the old port and around the corner to Naval Headquarters. In the parking lot lies the mystery Peugeot with the seeing eye keys. It is frankly a little high tech for us; there is some baffling mechanism in the keys themselves that open the door lock. It takes about ten minutes to figure it out. Very clever, these French carmakers. Then it is Mom and Dad and the kids on the town. We rocket along the main drag and down the coast until we are very nearly parallel to where the ship lies at anchor. We have a couple beers in a roadside bistro before discovering the cute restaurant the Deputy had selected was closed for the season. We wind up back in town, and select a nice little place with dark wood and brilliant white linen tablecloths.
Due to my superb command of the French Language, the table relies on me for near-simultaneous translation. "Vic" asks CAG, "What is this Citroen verte stuff? It appears to be some sort of upright small automobile, Sir" I explained. We all ordered the beef. Later, ambling back along the waterfront to the the Fleet landing, we saw all manner of extraordinary sights.
One of my finest young intelligence officers is passed out at a sidewalk cafe. I walk over and shake his shoulder hard. After a moment or two I get an opened eye which rolls around the orbit and closes again.
"It's OK, CAG. This man is in possession of the Nation's most sensitive military secrets. We can count on his discretion."
Along the street the whores beckon in their fur coats, opening them to reveal satin baby©dolls underneath.At length the dichotomy between the Grownup program and the
Children's program becomes overwhelming. CAG and DCAG head on to Fleet landing and the Kids go uptown to The Gut, where we drink till closing. Lutt-Man expounds on Notre Dame Football until 0400L over a warm glass of scotch. The boat home is long, chilly and damp. One thing you can always say is that a chilly damp time ashore is always better than a warm dry one underway.
16 NOV: Big Time hangover to greet the new day. The French beer is apparently powerful stuff, particularly for a recently de-toxed system. We simulate constructive effort in the morning, pretending to read the boards and discussing the remaining action agenda ashore.
The primary topic is how to decrypt the French National Phone system, which involves some sort of credit card device which is purchased for about F90 at Tobacco shops or bars. After that small hurdle- not to mention that all 5,000 of us are trying to call at the same time. We are determined to try. Gradually the impetus begins to burn through the mental fog. We assemble the strike team for Doc, Chop, Moose, Toad and Spy's Excellent Adventure. While not at all inebriated, I discover that I am again totally fluent in the skills of the French language. We wander the streets of Toulon for hours, dining from the carts and bakeries. We find a sandwich cart at the end of the Gut run by a toad-shaped woman who is working her magic on a rack of
French bread. She is producing baguettes avec frommage, saucisse et tomat. She makes what appears to be a standard submarine sandwich which she then throws into some sort of laundry press which squeezes the whole thing flat and melts the cheeze. Tres bien!We wind up in the Gut at a little 1950's Rock N' Roll Blue Suede Shoes theme bar across from the smashed sandwich cart. There are pictures of Elvis and Eddie Cochran all over the walls and it is delightfully sleezy. Later, we run into the Admiral's party near the waterfront.
Even Flag officers like to have a little fun; as the weather steadily degrades he makes the command decision to delay the Barge departure for an hour and invites the Excellent Adventure Crew to join him for executive transit back to the ship. We hasten to accept and get to see another couple clubs along the waterfront. On the barge ride back, the Admiral has the conn all the way. It is a rough ride and there is water down the hatch above us. Pleased to be back to the ship alive and in one peice, I climb the accom ladder to the fantail. I produce my ID card and start to walk away when one of the MAA's says "Please step over here, Sir, so we can frisk you."
I keep my cool even though I am seething inside. "Not a problem" I respond "lets just find a LCDR or above to do it."They don't, and jack me around. Twig, the P-3 pilot assigned to the ship for his disassociated sea tour, is the Officer of the deck.
They keep me waiting for about ten minutes. My anger is rising, but I struggle mightily to retain my composure. I won't take it out on the troops, who are just doing what they have been told to do, and a scene, naturally enough, will turn into what they call an "alcohol-related incident" these days. I cool my heels and heat my temper.
Finally Twig comes over and leans over. "Well, you know, you are right, Enlisted can't search Officers, but that is just the way it is. Shakey Jacobsen made a big deal out of this last cruise and he wound up as permanent Search Officer."
I couldn't take this as much other than a direct threat. So angry I couldn't see straight, I finally submit to the search by the MAA Master Chief. I feel degraded and violated. The issue wasn't being searched, mind you, it was who was doing the searching. This headlong plummet into equality cannot be conducive to good order and discipline.
This is outrageous. I'm so pissed I can barely see straight. I walk back up through the hangar bay with Moose, who hung back to observe the scene just in case things went to shit. He listened to the first installment of a long after-hours harangue in the stateroom. Mike Chase, Twig's relief and the son of RADM Chase was there and (for what it was worth) agreed.
I fall asleep wondering why Twig hadn't just done the pat down himself and saved everyone embarrassment and trouble? I decide I despise the little shit. I'm pushing 40 years old, a respected professional in my field, travelling with the Admiral's party and temporarily in mental possession of the Nation's most sensitive secrets.
What am I doing in this chain gang? I wonder how the Boys are back home?
17 NOV: Woke up about 0930 in the cool darkness. There was a low, lager-induced mental fog hanging over my rack. I felt I should do something constructive. Massive hangover with significant reality-association problems. Went to work with the sense impending doom that usually accompanies that post party letdown. Cast my mind back over the events of the night before and decided it could have been a lot worse; I could have let my anger get out of control. Made up a list of things to do ashore as soon as I got there.
I wanted to buy some moutard- that hot stuff that brought tears to the CAG's eyes at dinner the first night in- and a funky French Naval insignia. The device has a head on view of an aircraft carrier head on superimposed on what appears to be the international symbol for "don't." I want to buy it to wear in mission planning and claim it means "No Ship's Company."
I read the message boards and felt miserable for a couple hours. Scooter called and laid some DCAG tasking on me. I went through target files and collated kneeboard cards for about half the targets we are going to fly against. We don't have to worry about Morocco now; exercise AFRICAN EAGLE went down the tubes with the Summit announcement and our participation in the circus that will go along with it. Apparently we violated the delicate sensibilities of the Host Nationals by the pulling the Services out of the exercise one by one. First, USAFE reduced some sorties and cancelled some DACT. The Marines pulled out of the overland phase.
The last straw was FID's schedule change which reduced our role to a couple days in late November prior to racing for Malta and the usual ominous-but-over-the-horizon presence we do so well. Nothing is too good for the President, of course, and despite the general sorrow of the missed training opportunities we were going to get a nice replacement deal. The Admiral requested four days in Palma to substitute for the two days in Tangiers.
That looked wonderful; now, however, the President's people were saying he might want his Air Demonstration (remember: no bombs. We don't want to look warlike!) before the Saltwater Get Together. So, schedule is up in the air again, we don't know what we are going to do. Palma maybe, Malaga maybe. Marseilles seems intact and my
leave is approved. I see Moose out in the passageway and he recommends that I brief DCAG on the scene on the fantail last night. I rap on the door and get ready to take a blast. My fine sensibilities don't seem quite as clean cut as they did last night, and I am thinking maybe I should have sold my priciples down the river and gone along sheep-like with the program. It still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The Deputy yells out for me to come in
and I tell my tale of anguish and the Deputy laughs. "So you were the one. That was quite a topic at the Morning Meeting. The Ship was saying some Airwing Officer wouldn't cooperate with the MAA's."
Naturally, they had twisted the story around. They presented it as a refusal to be searched, which it never was. I stood still for that and simply asked for my rights to be searched by a fellow officer of the appropriate grade.
Thankfully, the Deputy strongly echoed the choice I made. In fact, he said that there
were only two people on the ship qualified to search him and he would freeze in hell before anyone else did it. This could be an ugly issue before we are done. I will not submit the next time. Ate lunch down in Wardroom Two; fried fish, wax beans and possibly the worst macaroni and cheese I have ever tasted.
I sat with Skipper Dussman and a couple of his VF-31 guys. The liberty stories were great and featured the Skipper drinking some sort of ritual liquor whose attraction was a large coiled snake in the bottle. He said it didn't taste so good. I'm pleased we didn't wind up in that club.
After food and some more paper work I started to rally and thought that going ashore with my laundry for some baguettes avec frommage et saucisses sounded pretty good. It was with deep disappointment that I heard the XO come up over the 1MC and announce that boating was cancelled due to generally shitty weather.
Wind down the deck of about fifty knots; rain, whitecaps. They couldn't get the liberty boats alongside the camel. The tried all afternoon and finally gave up and cancelled liberty altogether about 1800. Totally wasted day. I intended to get a good workout. I changed, went up to the flight deck and started doing the circuit. Coming back up from the stern I was leaning into the wind and moving about twelve inches with each stride. Too hard. I stopped and went down to get my jump rope. The rack looked so comfortable that I succumbed and laid down just for a moment.
I woke up after dinner. I couldn't bring myself to go down and feed again so I brewed a cup o'noodles and ate a can of tuna. I wished I had some of that explosive moutard, but maybe I'll be able to take care of that tomorrow. At least I have been able to catch up on some shuteye and there will be no hangover tomorrow. I've got to get my laundry done. SixthFlt briefings on Sunday and back to sea on Monday.
18 NOV: Shaping up to be another lost day. First liberty boat called away at 0600L; I heard it in the darkness and felt optimistic that there would be a chance to get ashore. I want to talk to home and see how the Boys are doing. Scooter laid on a OPS O meeting to plan for the next nine day line period before Palma. I get up, shower and trundle up to Mission Planning to read the boards and start getting things ready for the nine o'clock meeting. I am on my third cup of coffee when I hear the announcement that boating is suspended again.
I sigh. Now the hours stretch ahead with no prospect of relief. No mail. The OPS O meeting revealed another schedule change- this one putting us in Palma for nine days and changing the Presidential Air Show to the 1st of December from the 4th.
The Marseilles portcall was undisturbed. We beat the schedule around for an hour or so, making plans to cope with the various exercises. We would start with the Three Star visit by the 6TH Fleet commander, VADM Williams, on the 20th, an opposed ASW breakout on the same day, bombing and low levels on Sardinia, then participation in a French national air defense exercise called Harmonie Sud-Est. We would provide aggressor services for their Air Force and get to fly a few low level hops. After the meeting broke I puttered around the office, killing time until lunch. Then the phone rang and Lutt-man and I were summoned to CAG's stateroom for an impromptu Staff Meeting. We had most of a quorum and launched into the second schedule change of the morning. This one featured trimming the nine days in Palma to three and driving us direct from Malta to Naples for four days. This meeting lingered for about forty minutes (CAG: "Grog, you couldn't have a five minute meeting if your feet were on burning coals.")Then a burger in Wardroom One and I wandered down to my stateroom. I turned on the TV and picked up a paperback. The Michigan-Illinois game came on and I put down the book and curled up to watch....
The next thing I knew Moose was fumbling with the lock on my door so he could retrieve the coat he had left two days before. It looked like the boats were running again. I looked at my watch and saw it was just before three. I threw on my clothes and followed Moose down the ladder to the hangar bay. We were joined by Toad, Lutt-man and Mark. This was going to be Mark's first real trip ashore. We all had to make calls home, and who knows, maybe even a beer. The Liberty line stretched back from the fantail, around the Jet Shop and back into the Hangar Bay. It looked like it was going to take a while to get off the ship. When we did, we found a partly cloudy day with whitecaps and crisp breeze. It was exhileratingto be outside. The U©boat ride was wild and featured crazy Frenchmen on windsurfers zigging across the wake between us and the carrier.
When we got to Fleet Landing we passed Twig and a couple Ship's Company guys headed the other way. I saw him and gave him anumber two glower. He said "Are you still talking to me?" I said "No" and walked on. We ambled down the waterfront to the park near the Naval Headquarters. A battery of public phones surrounded a circular snack stand. We bought Telecartes from the Tabac across the street. Around the corner was the coin shop that had the strange insignia in the window. I purchased two of them via the total immersion method, making up words for "aircraft carrier."
What Isaid probably meant "flying boat" (bateau©avion) but it didn't seem to matter. My experience thus far has been that simple efforts to communicate in French reap tremendous benefits.
It is an interesting process. I start out in French, they play along, and when we get to a point where it is too hard they provide the English necessary to complete the transaction and then we gracefully go back to the elementary level of French I can handle. We had a couple beers in the park and waited patiently in line at the payphones.
If the girls at home knew how hard this was!
I finally get my turn after about forty minutes and deposit my card in the slot. Just getting a phone doesn't mean you are in there; with only a limited number of lines available you can try for an hour to get through to the AT&T USA Direct operator. I'm in luck. I get through and start to talk. As we exchange pleasantries, I look at the sandwich stand 30 feet away, where a Toulonaise gent angrily stalks up to the counter and begins to berate the girl working there.
The Boys to come to the phone as the Frenchman drags the girl out and begins to slap her viciously across the face. She defends herself by spitting in his face, and he responds by kicking her in the shins. So the Boys come on the phone and I am talking cheerfully and wondering if I should hang up and do something. Other French people are standing back, New York style, as the conflict migrates into the lunch stand. The woman is fumbling with something under the counter and my eyes widen as I wonder if she is going to come up with one of the long, sharp bread knives.
The conversation with America is getting increasingly surreal. Finally the Frenchman gives the woman a last savage cuff and strides off cross the park. About then the units give out on my telecarte and so ends one of the weirdest calls of my life. I get depressed and miss my kids so much. The little guys sounded so good. I miss them so.
Our whole little band seemed to be feeling the same way, and besides, the floor show was over. We headed up the board-walk for a couple lagers. I discover to my pleasure that I am indeed fully fluent again and can understand all manner of things going on around me. We wind up once more in the Gut, this time with CAG and company. We have a wonderful time talking to the working girls and carrying on.
CAG exercises adult leadership in the nick of time and we depart at a reasonable hour; sometimes it is good to follow the King. We get back to the boat at a reasonable hour and turn up the rock and roll in the room. This action produces an irate Scooter who sputters and rants for a while. We agree to turn down the tunes. I think he isn't sleeping very well.This French stuff is great.
19 Nov. This is a business day. Woke up at six, got down to the office to get ready for business. Read the boards. Discovered there was a major meeting in the space at 1030. Sat in on the CAPT's pre-sail.
The minutiae of this thing is bewildering. When to bring the ship's boats out of the water; when the last ferry will run; how to get the EOD divers under the hull to practice (I hope) looking for bombs. The Chief Engineer and his endless problems keeping this huge piece of steel mobile. How many boilers to bring on the line and the Navigator's problems in getting the ship pointed in the right direction and down to the launch point for the first event. When the COD aircraft will remove the last of the detachment personnel from Hyeres and when the mail shifts from Rota to Naples.
How do we get the milk on the pier out to the ship, who gets it if we don't, what about the Make a Wish kid, dying of cancer in England, whose greatest dream is to sit in the cockpit of an F©14 and watch flight ops. CAPT Thomassy will give the family his cabin that night and have dinner with the boy and his folks. That is just this meeting on this day and a gist of about half the meeting. Most complicated business in the world.
Then the 6th Flt reps show up and the world disintegrates. I knew I wasn't going ashore today, but I had no idea how busy things were going to get. This account was up and untouched on my computer screen for fourteen hours as we re-planned and re-briefed
two contingency targets to CAG, began a massive field day and clean up of CVIC to get ready for the great visitation the next day. It is 0015L as I write and I have yet to print this so I can get it out in the mail to Jane. It is too late and too hard. I have to hang this up and get some sleep. A major Flag brief, semi-inspection and seven cycles of flight ops tomorrow.
The wildest rumor of the day, though, and one which I still am pondering is one that started down in the Flag Mess at dinner. RADM Allen likes a freewheeling discussion and one item that reportedly came up was what the outcome of the Bush-Gorbachev Saltwater Summit was going to be. My line throughout the wild collapse of the Communist system in East Europe is that w are finally seeing the end of the war that our fathers fought.
World War II is finally coming to an end; the end of our century's Hundred Year's War; an exclamation mark at the end of the greatest butchery our species has yet accomplished.
Someone said: "Suppose Bush is talking to Gorby, and Gorb says, hey George, I can give you real Peace in our time. I can secure your place in the historical record and make both our people really safe for the first time since the Bomb was born. But I need your help to fend off the old-guard. If you lose me, you lose your chance at Peace. What I need from you Georgie, is a demonstration of your commitment. You must give me something concrete to take home from this meeting. Remove your aircraft carrier from the MED..."
Just a thought, mind you, but things are kinda crazy these days. That is the only thing I wouldn't mind screwing up the visit to Marseilles.
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