The TRANSLANT is over. The deployment begins.

TOULON, 15-19 November 1989

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 means 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 people, 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 default to 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.

“Jimmy” 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 boeuf. Later, ambling back along the waterfront to the Fleet landing, we saw all manner of extraordinary sights. One of my finest young AI’s 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 that 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 beneath. 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 to the ship is long, chilly and damp. But still, one thing you can always say is that a chilly damp time ashore is always better than a warm dry one underway.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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