Daily Socotra

28 August 2006

Beer Call

Times are hard for the Navy. The ground war in Iraq is drawing all the loose change from the Department of Defense. The Army is going to have to replace all its vehicles, out of schedule, and that is just one of the unforeseen costs of managing a determined insurgency.

The Air Force is hurting as well, but I will not waste a lot of sympathy on them. It was their choice, after all, to spend their treasure on the F-22 miracle fighter, instead of practical transports and aerial refueling platforms, and a replacement for the ugly but efficient A-10 Warthog ground attack jet.

The Navy is a victim in the search for relevance, never mind the fact that it was the carriers in the northern Arabian Sea that carried the day-to-day effort in the Afghan war, or helped with the door-kicking at the beginning of what we call Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

The Navy accounts are being raided to pay for the ground war, the money that should go to the measured replacement of a global blue-water fleet whose ships are intended to last a generation or more. The Admiral are under incredible pressure, and making hard choices to preserve a modicum of a modern fleet.

The old ships- boats to those of us from the aviation community- are phenomenally expense to maintain in working order. The biggest of them are naturally the most expensive. My first ship, CV-41 MIDWAY, was an aircraft carrier commissioned at the end of WWII, for example, and steamed through the first Gulf War. She was a fifty-year investment, and her successors are expected to have service lives approximating that.

A half century of service. Almost unimaginable, for a machine composed of thousands of different systems.

They wear out, and like used automobiles, are just that much more expensive to fix. Sooner or later, something must be done with them, and the answer is to put them in some state of preservation against a future need. That is likewise an expensive proposition, and at some point there is a tipping point at which they cannot be brought back, regardless of the desire.

And still they cost money, rusting at the pier. Even scrapping them was a money-losing proposition.

Some ships are saved as memorials, but that means finding private sources that can maintain them at least well enough for tourists and old sailors to walk on their decks and marvel at what it took to operate a battleship or an airfield at sea. Not many groups are well resourced enough to carry it off, and the last thing the Department of the Navy needs is an ex-warship disintegrating into an eyesore in the spotlight of public view.

So, the questions became urgent and binary. The ships have to go, cost too much to scrap. Only enough private interest to save a few of them. So what to do with the rest?

The answer was elegant, and solved the problem. The ships could be sunk at sea, and used to create artificial reefs. The payoff for the Navy was immediate. Once underwater, they ceased to be money-sumps and became money-makers. On the bottom, they became bulwarks against the rising number of storms, and attracted scuba divers and marine life. Some of the smaller boats have already become home to a variety of fish, including some endangered species like the red snapper.

There were some environmental problems that had to be overcome, some toxic materials that were good enough for the sailors but harmful for the fish. But those objections have been overcome of late, and proud old ships like the Oriskany and the Belleau Wood have gone to their watery graves of late.

Now the Navy is considering the next round of cost reductions, and I was startled to see the name of another old friend on the list for disposal.

“First In Defense,” is what we called her, abbreviated as “the FID,” although naturally we called her a lot of other things. She was my home for a couple years at the very end of the Cold War.

She is actually the USS James V. Forestall , the first super aircraft carrier, commissioned in 1955, when the world looked a lot different. She is 1,086 ft long from the jet shop after below the round-down all the way to the tip of the twin ramps that caught the bridles of the aircraft she hurtled into the heavens. I won't trouble you with the inter-service rivalry that delayed the introduction of the might FID, the first super-carrier.

That was supposed to be the USS United States , and that ship was scuttled in the design phase by the brand-new Air Force, which calmly explained to anyone who would listen that Air Power could deliver nuclear or conventional ordnance to any point on the planet, and thus navies and armies were quite obsolete.

That led to the mutiny of the Navy against the new Department of Defense. The Navy was still smarting from its demotion from a Cabinet –rank department to being a component of the new Department of Defense. Since anyone will tell you that there has never been a mutiny on a U.S. Naval ship, the Revolt of the Admirals is called just that, as the Vietnam-era riots on the aircraft carriers are known by euphemisms.

That is the way everyone would prefer it to be.

Anyone who slurs the new Department of Homeland Security would be well advised to follow the history of the newly-formed Department of Defense. If it is alleged to be a functional organization now, it is only through dramatic intervention over the first fifty-five years of its existence.

Or you might ask Secretary Rumsfeld how his “transformation” initiatives are going today.

The FID was named for the first Secretary of Defense, James V. Forrestal, an interesting man who was at a number of crossroads in the building of the superpower state that the United States became after the rest of the world was laid to waste in the fires of WWII.

He was responsible for building fleet that won its part of the great war, and was elevated to be Secretary of the Navy at its conclusion. His selection as first SECDEF was the compromise to placate the Admirals and made the practical creation of the Department of Defense possible among the Services that continued the great struggle, this time between themselves.

Living and deploying on the ship named in his honor had its interesting moments. My home was a oddly constructed compartment on the third level above the hangar bay. The outboard bulkhead was part of the graceful outward curve that married the hull to the flight deck. The modular bunk-bed that I shared with the Supply Officer were quite vertical, and the furnishing of the ship to human requirements led to all manner of nooks and crannies that were covered with sheet-metal panels.

One afternoon, I was inspecting the nooks for places to store materials that were not in strict accordance with naval regulation, never mind what. I viewed it as a sort of civic duty, keeping my personal life separate from that of the fleet. I had a screwdriver and a rivet gun, and the bells and announcements that echoed from Forrestal's 1MC sound system was safety on the other side of the door.

I found a triangular patch of metal that joined the bulkhead to my standing locker. It looked promising as a place of concealment, particularly since it was secured with metal screws, and there were no rivets to prize off to gain access. I unscrewed five of the fasteners and the plate came off easily.

I was surprised to discover that I was not the first to remove it. In the dim light of the compartment I discovered dozens of cans, neatly stacked for easy retrieval. I reached in and took one out into the light. The top was covered with years of black grime. The bottom of the can was still fresh and new.

It was a can of Budweiser. I peered at the top of the can. It was secured with a pull-top opener, which went out of production in the early 1970s, or around the time of the Vietnam War.

I held it, marveling that some officer had concealed this case of beer against thirst, and transferred or been killed before it could be used for its intended purpose. This case of beer could have belonged to someone lost in the great fire that swept the ship's flight deck, detonating ordnance meant for the Vietnamese. The conflagration killed over a hundred FID pilots and crew.

The relationship between alcohol and sailor is well known. The less well-known aspect is how the formal ban on alcohol at sea has been addressed. In peacetime it is quite strict. In wartime, there are other rules that apply. I once heard it best expressed by a fighter pilot, who growled: “If they expect me to fly at night and land on this bobbing bit of steel, I expect to have a scotch when I get there.”

It is said that the dimensions of the little safe in the officer's folding desk where we kept our valuables was dictated by the square shape of the Johnny Walker bottle. But I don't know that for a fact, except to know that they fit with military precision.

Strict prohibition is one of those things that returned with the end of Vietnam, but it was a gradual process, faster on some ships than others.

The can of beer was thus a holy relic. I carefully replaced it, black side up, and refastened the panel to the bulkhead. Some things should not be trifled with. This belonged to the ghosts of this living ship.

Since the Iranians first provoked the United States in 1979, the ships have been steaming much longer than they once did, and the port visits have become few and far between. My personal record out of site of land was 93 days, with more than a hundred between ports. Other ships, particularly the nuclear powered ones have gone much longer.

The navy, in one of those perverse military acts of kindness, stipulated that after 45 days at sea, the crew could be issued two cans of luke-warm beer to enjoy on the flight deck. Like a USO show flown aboard with beautiful women, a “Beer Call” tantalized without fulfilling.

Forrestal was decommissioned just three years after my last cruise on her, and I have every confidence that the triangular panel, and the ancient case of beer it conceals it still intact. Even If they decide to sink her as an artificial reef, they will remove most of the toxic substances when they strip the ship.

I would like to think that the triangular patch will remain inviolate.

I am certainly not going to tell anyone precisely where it is located. When they blow the charges that knock the bottom out of her, the Budweiser will go down with the ship.