VALENCIA, SPAIN

25 January, 1990.

(Aerial view of the port complex at Valencia, Spain. It is nice to be at the pier, instead of anchored out).

It was a very nice day to pull into Spain. I was stuck on the ship all day and it must have been important to keep me there, but I have no recollection of what it might have been.

Got a late morning start after late night conference with Moose and Toad and watching “The Sound Of Music.” After the bizarre last line period, we had a good case of Channel Fever.

Now unfortunately alarm-less since I threw the clock across the stateroom and into a bulkhead, I awoke late. In fact, the only thing that dragged me out of the rack was a TARPS meeting at 1030 in TFCC that had my interest. We had a nice SMILEX; the problem with this thing is the same as it is with everything else. People have to talk to each other to make things happen.

You would think that a bunch of professionals all trapped inside the same 1000-foot long Tuna Can wouldn’t have a problem with that but alas not the case. It is a perpetual problem, one we beat down and comes back with appalling regularity. We all agree to be better and more communicative people and adjourn the meeting in a record 37 minutes.

Then I wandered down to Mission Planning and made a desultory start on the Mid-cruise Intelligence report. Something was wrong with the picture, so I went up on the Roof looked at the azure sky and the harbor.

It was a gorgeous day. I made a determined effort and beat back the agoraphobia that seems to set in after a couple weeks inside the Can, and decided to go for a jog. Got ready to run at 1400; listened to loud rock music in the room to build up my latent adrenaline. Then down to the quarterdeck and down the long skinny brow- the scaffold that rises from the pier up to the Quarterdeck on the hangar bay level.

The brows are all always different in each port, since they belong to the port service where we tie up. This one had stairs covered with planks and distinct quiver when you walk down. I started my rusty muscle machine up and slowly moved off past the FID and around the corner and into Spain. It is a nice run up town, almost an hour long.

Valencia is a pretty town, in a broken down, funky kind of Spanish way. An active rehabilitation program is underway on some belle epoch warehouses, apparently built for a turn-of-the-century Exposition. The concrete features appropriate nautical embellishments and bas relief. It is quite pretty and the contrast between the untouched and completed buildings is remarkable.

I jog uptown for 25 minutes before turning around after glancing at the watch; that will make this just shy of an hour and that will be plenty for the first run in a while. The port area is an eclectic mix of jumbled grey buildings, broken concrete and empty holes where trees should have been. People are walking everywhere and frantic traffic. There are already FID sailors in all the sidewalk cafes and I wave as I go by.

I get back to the ship in good spirits and with a good sweat going. I take a non-Navy shower, walking naked as a jaybird down the passageway and get changed for liberty since it is starting to push 1800. The Liberty meter is running and I want to get moving.

I stride purposefully to CAG SIX Admin to look for playmates, but to no avail. Moose and Toad are still in khakis, looking blankly at the TV, which is showing the eighteenth rerun of No Way Out. Granted the beginning is pretty exhilarating I can’t believe it. They are going to wait until 1900 to go out with the Deputy; I can see that it isn’t going to happen, not on schedule anyway, and I wanted to see something else of the town in a bit of daylight. Accordingly,

Lutt-man and I walked away from the Staff, which appears to be suffering the same acute agoraphobia I felt earlier.

We bounce off the ship on the springy planks of the towering brow and meet a bunch of the Kitties, so named for the Felix The Cat mascot with the bomb in his hands that has marked VF-31 since World War Two, We grab a map from the USO trailer and we are rocking and rolling away from the ship in a cab. A split hour later in anarchic traffic and we are safely ensconced in a little cerveceria off the Calle Hernan Cortez, sipping a rich Spanish lager or four. This is the life!

Later, dinner with DCAG….almost. Instead, we wind up with a crowd of VF-11 bubbas- “The Lead Zippers”- in an outdoor cafe. We try to call home but lose the battle with a Spanish Telephone. We can’t crack the code. It is back to the ship in order to take an early flight physical.

26 January.

Flight physicals at 0730 should be illegal. I can barely see the vision machine, much less what is on line nine.

Doc Flynn squeezes me in later to complete the physical, complete with the most memorable of all experiences, the examination of the prostate gland by digital manipulation of the lower colon from the inside. Yuck. I say “it’s OK, Doc, just so long as I don’t feel both your hands on my shoulders…”.

I pass and get my up chit enabling me to go flying for the rest of the cruise.

Back to CVIC to work on the Midｩcruise report which I have to complete today in order to go to Rota tomorrow. I bustle around and get my orders and wire details together. I sent two OPNOTES to John H at Rota and added Josh, the E-2 Steeljaw AI to the traveling team. It is now Lutt-man, Josh and myself going as what is known as the “Commander, Task Force 60 Strategic Studies Group.” It is a grand title, but Admiral “Sweetpea” Allen likes the way we think, and it makes his staff look like they are thinking about things.

I finish the report at 1600. Hand that in and go for a shorter jog of about thirty minutes. There are hundreds of Spanish nationals lined up down on the pier trying to get tours of the Ship. Some dirty urchins try to get me to do something but I don’t understand.

Dinner with DCAG for real this night and it is wonderful. W e have one of the best paella’s ever, elegant dining; CAG is expansive; wine flows and we have a wonderful elegant meal. Lutt-man is confined to bed trying to beat a cold so he can go to Rota tomorrow. Chop and Doc want to see a little of the town later and so DCAG gives Doc Flynn the car. We bomb around town till about 0400in the morning and see all the usual suspects.

A wonderful
time is had by all.

We observe a disco where I discover to my surprise that no one dances with anyone anymore. In fact, everyone is simply dancing with themselves, twitching in place like they were afflicted with Saint Vitas Dance, like the Billy Idol song. I surrender and just start doing the Frug next to our table. The last song of the night is from Lou Reed, deep and resonant in the cavernous darkness of the disco.

I will have to sleep on the airplane tomorrow.

26 January.

Which features the airplane from Hell, featuring an endless C-130 ride on nylon jump seats hung from aluminum scaffolding. First stop on the flight to Rota is Barcelona; which is in the wrong direction by one hour. We stand around on the ramp of a Spanish airbase with no airplanes for an hour and a half, watching the Spanish troops watching us. The lavatory facilities are novel; the urinal in the back of the airplane isn’t connected to anything except a tube that runs to the bottom of the airplane and out into the slipstream.

A larger and larger puddle is forming there and I am hoping no one mistakes it for hydraulic fluid….which I understand mechanics often determine by smell or taste.

An hour and a half later, we find out that the MEDEVAC which we stopped to pick up has been trucked to Valencia. We have wasted our time and it looks like we are not going to get to Rota on time and I am supposed to brief at 1600…

We saddle up the airplane and they bring the starter cart on line. The crew chief indicates we have to deliver two guys to Hyere, France. We have now traveled about three hundred miles in the wrong direction, we are starving, deaf and stiff from the sling seats on the slow turbo-prop. The craft is appropriately named the “Sky Pig.”

We enjoy French bread,jambon avec frommage sandwiches (Josh is the only one who brought francs on a flight within Spain!) and after we get thrown out of the Operations Building, which a sergeant informs us is for French citizens only, I see my old CVW-5 buddy Andrew (Don’t call me Andy) M.

He is now flying for VR-22, the Navy logistics support squadron for Europe. We have some history- we went through Intel School at Denver and did the Midway experience with me as an Air Intelligence officer before getting his wings. The last time I saw him was in Japan. It’s a small Fleet.

Then three hours of agony flying into Rota before we can start to process our orders, make calls, go to the BOQ, check-in and wonder what the hell we are going to do.

John H shows up at the BOQ and whisks us away to Puerto to meet the gang. John looks great. Shore duty in Spain seems to agree with him, or maybe it is the young woman he asked to marry him.

We meet the gang and tapa hop like crazy through Puerto. There is sumptuous fresh tuna, lemon and bread and plenty of rich tawny Sherry. Captain Dru and his wife Judy were very nice and relaxed. John’s new wife Natalie is wonderful; she is very young, very cute and smart as a whip. She is a child of The Bases: her dad was Army and she is an American who has never lived in the United States. That boggled my mind, and she is very European in her outlook.

There was a moment of excitement as she loses her engagement ring at one of the restaurants; miraculously it is found on the floor. A potential major bummer is averted.

We dance some Spanish folk dance at a local club. Lutt-man says he never saw a Sevillana done with a bunny hop before.

We finish the evening speaking pigeon-German at The Hannen Bar- a German place- at 0200 and then go back to work. The town is still jumping.

When do these people sleep?

(The Hannen Bar in Puerto by daylight. I was in no condition to try night-time imagery).

Vic

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
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