HAIFA, ISRAEL: INTIFADA FOLLIES
œœ 11 © 17 MAR 90

11 MAR:

Among the Believers. We dropped the hook at 0730 in the
roadstead off Haifa. I was up, bright as a penny, for the Ops
Meeting in CVIC. I was already resigned to the inevitable delays
in getting off the ship; what with the exercises coming up I knew
that my potential playmates from the Operational side of the
house were going to be buried at least neck deep in draft
«±ª«messages all day.

Accordingly, the hairs only stood up a moderate distance on the
back of my neck when I heard the boatswain’s whistle and the
electrifying words: “Liberty Call, Liberty Call for Officers and
Chief Petty Officers.” That went down about 0830, a remarkably
progressive event after the sequential buffoonery of the boating
in Alexandria. Still, the meetings unfolded with the inexorable
force of inertia. There is a ton of stuff to do, almost
surpassing comprehension. The Med portion of the deployment will
end with a rising crescendo of pandemonium. Mark and Lutt©man
are snowed in, and we have to build the concept brief for CAG to
pitch to the Admiral tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I can’t get
started on graphics production until the grownups decide what
they want to say, so there is nothing for me to do until late
afternoon at the earliest.

I stroll back over to Planning and alert the duty section to the
fact that Tasking will be inbound at some point. Between that and
lunch there isn’t any more I can do for a while, so I am in bed
for a nap by 1300. I sleep hard until 1430, when Doc Feeks raps
on the door demanding a playmate and wingie to hit the Beach
with. I look up for a moment and decide that an Intelligence Duty
Officer and two duty Intelligence specialists are probably
adequate to the task of typing up five graphics. I call Mark and
Lutt and inform them that the sirens of the Holy Land have
overcome me and that I will be ashore until further notice.

Ten minutes later we are walking down the hangar bay and notice
that the liberty line snakes all the way back amidships. This
does not bode well; by the time we exercise our Officer
Prerogative and reach the fantail we see why things are balled
up. One of the contract ferry boats is an enormous ungainly ship
with a flat bottom and two towering decks. He is parallel to the
fantail camel and is swinging through about fifteen degrees of
roll in nearly calm seas. They cannot disembark the ten
passengers they have on board. We watch with increasing
skepticism for a half hour until the watershed occurs and a first
class Petty Officer slips while trying to leap to the camel and
disappears between the barge and the wildly rocking ferry.

I turn away because I know I am about to see one of those
horrible industrial accidents in which a frail human body is‹j‹«ºº«crushed to jelly between two huge and utterly unyielding plates
of steel. Against all hope, the boat is leaning out against its
lines and does not crash against the camel on this cycle and the
sailor is pulled out unscathed. This is the second incident in
attempting to board the boat (dislocated ankle, earlier in the
day) and that is enough for the Officer of the Deck and the large
ferry is summarily banished. After an hour of boating follies we
are finally embarked on a little ferry, equally ungainly but with
a ‘vee’ hull which does not swing so wildly.

We head in toward the harbor and the City which crawls up the
steep slopes of MT Carmel. It is overcast and the wind is brisk.
I am chilly in my sweater. The old arab town is clustered below,
low and straggling along the coast. On the crest thrust the
skyscrapers of Israel and the Dan Panorama and the Dan Carmel
Hotels. We round the new breakwall and pass the ships of commerce
and the low silhouettes of the missile boats. Turrets crown the
quays facing the sea.

Fleet Landing is in the dockyard district. The first impression
is of a quiet industrial backwater, and nothing changes that.

Beers at Gil’s place.

Dan Panorama at the top of the hill. What a view! The Gang’s all
here…at least the Fighter Guys are…Brownie, what a piece of
work!

Cab to shopping mall to look for toys. We can’t find an open bar
later. The only places are near the Fleet landing, so Doc Feeks
and myself wind up sampling the local pleasures. The bartender is
a hefty Moroccan with blue eyes, 48, and she lifts her shirt to
show us her grandmother breasts. Turns out she was a French Colon
who got the boot when decolonization brought the Muslims to
power. Everybody here has got a story. She has two sons in the
IDF now. Everyone in this place has got a story. We disengage as
swiftly as possible and wander down the street to an open air
cart where we buy lamb kebabs on a stick which he throws into
pita bread with salad and sour yoghurt dressing. They taste
wonderful. We have a final beer with the Gamblers in the place
next door and head back to the ship.

12 Mar:

Up early and full of virtue. Doc Feeks has a crushing hangover
and stays in bed. Mark and I are the only alert action officers.
We need output from the 0900 meeting, general guidance on the
Missilex we have to plan for National Week in two weeks;
naturally, this is a major pain in the ass, because the messages
can’t be generated until we know whether the Admiral likes our
surveillance plan and concept of operations. This has all the
potential to be a major goat©rope, since among other minor‹f‹problems the area is in the middle of major shipping routes in
the central Med.

When the meeting is over, a bunch of tasking is issued. Nothing
for me, yet, since I can’t distill the messages for briefing
until they are written. Mark and Lutt©man are going to be snowed
under, but there is no particular reason for me to stick around.
Chop has been delegated to open up the Admin at the Tel Aviv
Hilton, so he will be leaving in a car about noon. I attach
myself to the raiding party, which will feature Toad, Doc Flynn,
CAGMO, Chop and myself. We are waiting on the fantail when Hof
Lewis and the Staff guys arrive to take the Admiral’s Barge into
town. Hof waves us on; I am glad I am wearing my sportcoat.
Boating has not improved much; the camel is still two feet too
high and the boat is rocking and rolling in the swell. We make it
aboard safely, though, and are deposited on the beach in cracker™jack fashion. We are trying to find DCAG’s car when the Senior
Shore Patrol rounds the corner and tells Doc his professional
services are required. One of the kids who run the Admirals barge
got thrown off the boat and has perhaps crushed a couple ribs.

Doc gets involved in his primary mission while we wait outside.
In the lobby of one of the harbor buildings, watching the young
black sailor writhing in agony on a Stoke’s Litter. This does not
bode well. We have to wait for Toad to arrive on the next boat,
so we go out the gate and have a Maccabi beer in the now™brilliant sunshine and watch the passing spectacle on the street.
Every race on the globe is represented in the passing throng.
Dark Yemeni’s walk and gesture with blonde Germans. There is a
tale in every face.

After a beer we walk back. Doc has to escort the injured sailor
to the hospital because the corpsman can’t be located. Toad has
arrived; we bundle into the Deputy’s car and blast up the beach
road toward Tel Aviv with Mr. Toad at the wheel.

I feel my head starting to nod, and the next thing I know I am
hearing the through my doze an intensely strange BBC program
about the topography of a woman’s body. It is related by males in
the most salacious terms. I come to consciousness as the
commentators are plodding up the mons venus. We are slightly lost
in Tel Aviv, looking for the beach and the Hilton. We are turned
around several times before we find the place. Checking into
CAG’s executive suite is a breeze. The lobby show is
extraordinary, well heeled men and women swirling through the
vast cavern, a piano tinkling softly in the background.

The view is magnificent from room 1009. Tall smokestack and
airfield to the north with strange military aircraft buzzing in
and out. An Israeli gunboat sits sentinel just beyond the line
of surfers at the wave break.
‹f‹åWe sortie immediately to stock the bar with frosty cold ones.

We enjoy a couple of these in the room while waiting for the
next car to arrive with our leadership. We go down to the lobby
to have a beer and see who shows up and sit with the Fighter guys
for a half hour and watch them make zone©five passes at two
pretty Canadians who are enjoying tea. I might have mentioned
this, but everyone has a story here. These stories© Yona and
Sharon, as it develops© are that big sister lived here for her
first eleven years and Baby Sharon has lived all her 22 years in
Canada. Their Father got them out of the country after the ’67
war. The family is still in Tel Aviv, and Yona has arrived to
attend a wedding the next day. Sharon is attending Hebrew
University for a year to get familiar with the country. We drift
back to the room as the fighters are cuing up for additional
attack runs.

As the clock swings inexorably to 1900 and no one else in sight
we decide to get our on the street and take a look at the city.
It is raining gently as we walk down the beach toward town.
Nothing is happening. We have a falafal in pita to keep our
strength up and bounce around aimlessly. There are many bars and
restaurants, but no one is in them. Someone comes up with the
intelligence that Israel’s version of Halloween has just gone a
few days before and consequently everyone is a bit partied out.
As the rain intensifies we are driven into a pleasant white
bistro with a student crowd where we enjoy tall draft Maccabis
and dine on a huge plate of french fries. There was a stunning
blonde waitress with whom Chop immediately fell in love. I am
confident she had a story but I didn’t hear it.

Later, in the lounge of the Hilton, Yona and Sharon have returned
and laugh through about 60 Air Wing Six target run©ins. Toad and
I cash it in about midnight with the lounge still rolling with
the echoes of the Thunder’s Squadron Song. CAGMO is on the phone
to the U.S. and has his wife call Jane to give her the number so
she can call the room. I talk to the her and the boys for about
twenty minutes. They sound great. I is almost over. After we
finish I walk back out on the balcony and smoke a cigarette with
Doc Feeks. The surf crashes into the seawall below and the sky
has cleared. I am so far away. Last call before I come home.

13 Mar:

We arise early and start to clear the cobwebs. I treat Doc Feeks
to a prophylactic Alka©Seltzer and read the Jerusalem Post. The
leadership crisis is percolating nicely; there may be a
Government later in the day and there may not. The issue is
negotiations with the PLO over the fate of the West Bank. This is
of some interest, as we are bound for the Capital that morning.

Our guide is Svi Ginzberg, a Polish©German©Sabra of 67 seasons.‹f‹He is a veteran of the anti©British Jewish underground during
WWII; a commissioned officer in the fighting in Jerusalem during
the 47©48 fighting. He wears a nine millimeter automatic
unobtrusively in his belt and drives a Mercedes Cab. He whisks us
out of the Hilton Parking Lot at precisely 1030. We hit the four™lane Rout One to Jerusalem and speed along as he regales us of
tales of the country to which he came in 1934. Every tree was
planted, he says, and the Jews have remade much of this place in
their own blood. We pass scenes of heavy fighting in ’47, and he
points them out with the authority that only a veteran can give.
We pass one of the British Police Forts which were turned over
to the Arab Legion and he describes the action around the place.

As we roll up the hills toward the City we pass the burned©out
hulks of Jewish convoys shelled by the Arab Legion. The twisted
metal has been painted with rustoleum and stones raised to
commemorate the dates of the destruction. We cross areas where
the old border ran and he speaks of the desperation of ’47 and
the triumph of ’67 when they were eliminated.

Fog at the Knesset Building; we can’t see a thing. When we get to
the walls of the Old City the fog has lifted. We are dropped at
the Jaffa Gate while he parks the car and we wander down through
the Arab quarter and the bazaar. Then into the Jewish quarter.
The Intifada; the PLO edict that all shops must close at 1300 to
spite the Israelis. They are, of course, cutting their own noses
to spite their conquerors. Some shopowners hiss from behind
closed doors. Toad and I buy camel whips from a turbaned arab.

We pass the excavations in the Jewish quarter. To the West wall
of the Temple Precinct. Into the newly excavated section of the
West Wall, where Svi is reprimanded by a young man for explaining
while Hasidim are swaying in prayer. As we leave, hands clapped
over the cardboard Yarmulkes, he says that normally Jewish prayer
is so loud that nobody would notice, except for the particular
prayer that these strangely clad devotees. He discusses the
peculiar laws that govern the life of what he calls the Religious
men. A good Jew, he says, cannot walk into the Temple Grounds on
the mount above us because they are prohibited from walking on
the Holy Soil of the Temple. Since no stone has been left
standing on another from the Second Temple, no man may know where
the sacred soil begins. The past here has an immediacy that
lives tangible around us. We peer into the Dome of the Rock. Svi
ushers us quickly past, although we could have removed our shoes
and gone in to see what may be the alter upon which Abraham had
laid his son for sacrifice.

I find out later why Svi, so even handed in his treatment of the
religions, has little interest in the places of the Moslem faith.
I ask him how many children he has, since he has spoken of his
grand daughter who is serving in the IDF now for her National
Service. ‹f‹å
“I have a daughter who is 42” he says. “My son was killed at
eight o’clock in the evening of the sixth of June 1983 in a tank
engagement with the Syrians. He lived for ten hours but never
roused from his coma.”

Like I say, everyone here has a story.

We walk down from the Temple Mount and to the Via Della Rosa. We
walk the stations of the cross from Station Three, where the
ancient Roman paving has been excavated and brought to the
surface. I kneel on the large uneven stones where Christ walked.
We follow the path slowly uphill to the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. This slightly shabby church was damaged in the last of
dozens of earthquakes and workmen bustle about with tools. A
cassocked priest talks animatedly on the telephone inside the
door. A crazy hodgepodge of Constantine and Crusader stones
outside. Inside, one of the sites of the True Cross, where I go
to my knees to touch the spot. We enter the Sepulcher itself,
where the accident of the line has me with the tomb of the Living
God with four Attack bubbas from VA©176. A greybeard Greek
Orthodox priest lights candles for us in exchange for Skipper
Rocco Montesano’s five dollar bill. I try hard for a devout feel
but it doesn’t come. It feels like Tijuana. The surreal is
increased by the Coptic Priest whose niche abuts the rear of the
Sepulcher. He hisses out of the darkness for alms.

Then out of the walled city, Arabs entreating us to visit the
shuttered shops. We buy a bagel from a street cart and wait for
Svi to pick us up. We are moderately surprised when he rushes up
on foot gesturing wildly. “The Intifada has hit me” he says. “I
am sorry, but they have broken my window with stones.”

I have the rock in question now, a piece of the old city wall,
ominous in its weight, heavy and three cornered. It has exploded
the glass all over the front of the car and lies silently next to
the gearshift amid the wreckage. Nothing is stolen; this is a
political stoning. Some youthful Arabs have targeted the cab
because of its Israeli license plates.

Svi drives off to make a police report and drops us to wait at
the King David Hotel. We enjoy a cold Maccabi beer in the elegant
lobby just this side of where the building collapsed from the
explosion of the bomb planted by young Menachim Begin.

We are just finishing when Svi returns and we pile into the car
for the trip to what may be the real Golgotha and what the Church
of England considers to be the real site of the Crucifixion and
REsurrection. It is a place of quiet beauty and peace. An Arab
cemetery now occupies the summit of Skull Rock, but we gaze from
the viewing place over the bus depot. We have our pictures taken
in front of the Tomb of the Living God.‹f‹å
Then rapidly through the Arab section outside the wall, real West
Bank touring, to the Garden of Gesthemene where the Lord was
denied and sweated Blood on the night the Romans came for him.
The olive trees here are nearly two thousand years old, and may
be the same that in their youth bore silent witness to the
rejection of Jesus. We enter the Basilica and I fall to my knees
at the rail and say the prayer that sustained me through the long
days of Eric’s illness said as a mantra of acceptance and hope.
“Thank You, God. Thy Will be Done.”

The hour is growing late, and there is perhaps 45 minutes of
daylight left. Although it is illegal and off limits to
Americans, Svi offers to drive us quickly to Bethlehem to visit
the Church of the Nativity. We think for perhaps a split second
before saying yes. As fast as thought we are on our way, crossing
quickly through the old border and into the West Bank again. We
are the last car in Manger Square and the Arab kids swarm over us
as we walk across the Square and into another crazy©quilt of a
church. The door is impossibly small, blocks placed within an
ancient arch to prevent the over©enthusiastic from riding their
horses into the church. Wooden covers in the flagstones are open
to reveal the intricate mosaics of the Church built by
Constantine.

We are nearly the last of the day into the Grotto of the
Nativity. We kneel again to the touch the spot where Mary Labored
amid the beasts of the field and where the Child was born. We are
off limits on the West Bank and we do not linger overlong. We
make a speedy exit across the Manger Square to get away from the
Arab children who grab at our jackets.

We speed away from the West Bank, back toward the coast and Tel
Aviv and the images of this day rolls through my head and I
futilely try to reconcile my awe and reverence and distaste and
disbelief. I cannot. As CAG says later, “If you ever figure it
out, James Robin, there are a couple million of us that would be
real interested.”

2000, 13 Mar. We pay off Svi, and arrive back at the Admin. The
Boys are here; Lutt©man and Mark and Moose. We start to party and
show our trinkets and breath our tales. We drink beer on the
balcony. We are near to giving up hope when CAG and DCAG arrive.
Another couple beers while they unwind and then CAG organizes the
strike on a restaurant that has treated him well before. The sign
over the door reads “Mandy’s Candy Store” but it seems to be
named The Little Ole Tel Aviv. I enjoy a Greek salad and the
Maccabi’s are tall and cold. The food is delicious; Lutt©man and
Chop violate any number of dietary laws with cheeseburgers and
spareribs.

I chat with the Deputy on the walk back to the Hotel. He is‹f‹excited because the orders are back on for EA to USCINCLANT. He
is leaving at the end of the week. He has been taking a fearful
ribbing all night, notably at the hands of the Lutt©man who
persists in reenacting the scene from TOPGUN when Maverick sings
“You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to Kelly McGinnis. After this,
things begin to accelerate.

We visit the room and then pay a call on the VF©31 Admin where
Link Collier and Neck Sisterhen are playing bluegrass on the
guitar and fiddle. We sing along for an hour or so and enjoy a
couple free Fighter Drinks. As midnight comes on, it seems a good
idea for CAG, Chop, Doc and myself to walk up the street and show
CAG the new love of Chop’s life. We have coffee and beer and CAG
confirms Chop’s excellent taste in Israelis.

Then a stop at a strange New Wave Israeli bar under the Hotel
Caravel, where the tunes are a bizarre collision of disco and
Middle Eastern Wailing. There is a lot of stuff going on here,
not all of it readily ascertainable without a scorecard. We
listen to two endless wailing songs with an excellent beat and
return to the Hotel, where the Helicopter guys insist on buying
us cognac from the Bar. Later, Ouzo comes in and invites us to
the Thunder Admin for a nightcap, where Doc Feeks attempts to
defy the laws of physics and tosses an apple and an orange from
the balcony in a bid to outdistance the olympic©sized pool ten
stories below. As we leave, the late shift of the Thunders rolls
in and jumps on top of those unfortunates who had the temerity to
try to go to sleep early. We close the door on a scene worthy of
the Inferno, with partially clad bodies writhing in the darkness.

Upon our arrival at our own Admin, we discover to our horror that
there is no available floor space. There are bodies everywhere,
the top mattress pulled off the double bed and unidentified Staff
Officers slumped in the two chairs and across the couch. Doc
suggests we go to breakfast, which isn’t being served yet, and
after a long talk with two young Israeli security guards winds us
up back downtown drinking red wine and dark sweet coffee in
glasses and eating what appears to be a cheese filled bagel and
soft boiled eggs and talking to some wonderful Yemenis. Not a
tourist trap; more beatnik Israeli. Student place, poetry, late
partiers. When we rise and return to the street is broad
daylight. We talk to our cabby© he has a story, too© about the
influence the United States is pressing on the current talks. We
are at poolside at 0800, where a couchette seems an excellent
place for a quick nap.

14 Mar:

By 1030 it is clear that what we need is a road trip to clear the
evil humors. Chop and CAGMO are going to look for diamonds, so
eight of us set off for Masada with CAG in the lead and Deputy on
the Wing. After some minor confusion in getting out of town we‹f‹find the four lane and blast off toward Jerusalem. I m
navigating and the maps we have do not have route numbers on
them, being more of the National Geographic persuasion than the
usual filling station map. I have plenty of information on the
map about the Dead Sea Scrolls but am hurting for the correct
turns. We detour around the capital and head for Jericho.

We roar through blasted nothingness. Bedouins living in tents.
Sheep grazing on thorns on the ridge lines. Badlands. Then off
the tabletop and we roll downhill, down through sea level, down
to the lowest spot on earth. Where some enterprising Israeli has
also pulled in a trailer, erected an awning. placed some chairs
and opened the Lowest Bar in the World.

Lutt©man cracks we should open a place with a basement and call
it The Scroll Lounge and really have the lowest place ever.

We stop at the marker and have our pictures taken. Then a right
turn on route one and we hug the shore of the Dead Sea, the water
brilliant blue, the barbed wire unweathered on the security
fence. Raw, wild, blasted country with an unearthly beauty. After
55 Kilometers we see an immense flat©topped mesa in the distance.
We are approaching Masada.

Up the cable car; from the summit the Roman siege lines and
Castra are as well marked as it the last 1900 years had never
happened. The ramp that they build to storm the city is there, as
is the spoil from which they worked. It is eerie and real and
tremendously moving. As we gaze down at the assault route I
confess to CAG that I find myself drawn more to the solders of
the 10TH Legion who invested the place than to the Zealots who
defended it. CAG smiles and says softly “I was ùINú the 10TH
Legion.”

The sun is brilliant and the breeze refreshing. Among other
wonders in a day filled with the extraordinary, I walk into the
oldest extant Synagogue, one that served this garrison in the
days of the Second Temple.

The tee©shirts say: “Masada shall not fall again.” F©16s roar by
on low©level training flights. This is a special and holy place.

DCAG has a flat on the highway haded back north; after some minor
excitement in trying to find our where the spare is hidden we
blast on. The ride back to Tel Aviv is long and I doze. When I
awake, I provide erroneous directions to the hotel but we make
it. We pack our bags on the run, as much has transpired in the
business world since we have been away. Mark’s wife Trish was
hospitalized with an emergency gall bladder operation; Scooter is
panicked about five new action items that the Staff has dreamed
up. We have to get back to work. The ride back up north to Haifa
takes an hour and fifteen minutes. We wheel into the port complex‹f‹and get the car parked.

The Senior Shore Patrol immediately buttonholes CAG, and begins
the litany of woe from the night before. CAG changes from Dad to
Commander. Boating is easy for a change and in the wink of an eye
we are Naval Officers again. Up in the office we discover no mail
and Deputy discovers his on©again orders are off again.

He is as low as I have seen him, and he wouldn’t have looked out
of place on a stool at the Scroll Lounge.

The events of the day have been catastrophic. The Conference on
the 16th is back to being on the 15th. There are eighty things to
do. This doesn’t look good. Maybe I will get off the ship again
and maybe I won’t. One thing is clear, however, this has been a
power tour for the ages. The other thing is that when the ship
pulls out of here, the next land on which I walk will be NAS
Cecil Field, Jacksonville Florida.

15 Mar:

A lost day. Up at 0630 to begin preparations for the Final
Planning Conference (I rather like the sound of that). We power
through a variety of issues dealing with our next exercise and
host a group of thirty©odd IDF officers. That goes on till 1300,
whereupon we lurch uncertainly into our next crisis. This one
deals with the dual carrier Battle group operations coming up
next week. Can’t wait, everything is changed, crash action.

I have my guys make up new charts and stand by for tasking. We
are still on the ship at 1600, nothing seems to be getting any
better, so I take a nap. I set the alarm for 1800 and when that
happens I blow it off and sleep until 2100. More action items,
Hof is out of his mind, the usual. I am down at Midrats where I
see Robert Pittman who has some major league bandaids across his
nose. I ask him how he got those and he replies casually that one
of his squadron mates tried to bite it off. I can see that this
has truly been a memorable inport period for everyone.

I secure about 0014. Israeli Air Field tour at 0730 tomorrow.
Great deal except the operations order specifies CNT Khakis,
ribbons and no flight jackets. It was freezing today; I don’t
know what we are supposed to do without coats. This is what you
get when the Naval Attache is a fucking Black Shoe.

16 MAR:

The day of the great Jacket flail begins early. Everyone is
nattily attired in CNTs and helmet bags, the bags containing
flight jackets. We stumble down to the Fantail precisely at 0730.
The group is a motley assortment of outergarments. VF©31 is
defiantly attired in green nylon jackets. A few guys who didn’t‹f‹get the word are wearing brown leather jackets. Those who have
complete sea©bags are sporting the geekish khaki windbreaker. The
Deputy, ever conscious of the letter and spirit of the
regulations is attired in a long black raincoat. The rest of us,
walking the fine line, wear no jacket at all but carry
suspiciously lumpy gymbags.

Thus was it ever, I suppose, but the intent of the instruction
to standardize resulted in no less than five variations of the
uniform.

Thankfully the day is balmy and the issue never gets to the front
burner. Still, we start the tour with bile rising in the back of
the throat. Boating is inexplicably delayed for a half hour;
there appears to be no known connection between the people who
make the announcements over the 1MC and the very same individuals
who could look over the end of the ship and notice that there
isn’t any boat there.

I could go on for a couple hours of ranting about the boating.
Lack of etiquette and decorum. Anarchy in the lines. The drunks,
the mismanagement, the horrible condition of the ship’s boats. It
is enough to drive you berserk each time you essay the journey
ashore. Here, with the swells high and the wind blowing,
virtually everyone has been arriving soaked because the canvas
covers have been ripped away. It looks like hell. I don’t know
what our guests think about all this.

Anyhow, we wound up on a Eurobus making the northward trip to
Ramat©David Air Field. We followed the signs to Nazareth, passing
the industrial suburbs of Haifa and passing into the rich green
country of he Kibbutzes. In between we saw pleasant homes perched
on the hills that could have been in California. We get to within
16KM of Nazareth. The hills in the distance under the beautiful
blue sky must be the Golan Heights. The turn to the base is not
marked. We follow a two lane for perhaps three kilometers and
arrive at the Security Checkpoint. We wait while things are
explained to the gate guards. I look out the window and watch a
cluster of national service kids trying to hitch rides home. The
bus in particularly entranced with a girl with a leonine mane of
blonde hair and an UZI sub machine gun. Apparently the troops are
billeted at home in order to keep costs down.

We pick up LT Danna, who is typical of PAO officers around the
world. She is pretty and her hair falls down over one eye. She is
accompanied by a young man whose purpose is undetermined, but I
presume it is security. DCAG mentions that no one is in charge
and Danna looks at him and says deadpan “I could tell that.” The
bus erupts with hoots.

We drive to the Club where we are served sweetened black coffee
and a lavish spread of breakfast pastries. This is followed by a‹f‹briefing from one of the XO’s of a F©16C squadron. He gives us a
history of the base. Built by the Brits in 1937. Supported Mid™East operations during the war. Evacuated by the Brits in 1947.
First Israeli Meteor jets in 1955. Combat ops in 67, 73 and 1983.
There is another war in there somewhere that I do not recall. The
Major recounts the kill numbers from all engagements and mentions
that the base was hit by Syrian SCUD missiles in 1973.

He mentions that this is a small place several times. Flight time
for him in his F©16C to overhead Amman, Jordan, is 3.5 minutes. 5
minutes to Damascus. He is less than forthcoming during the
question©and©answer session. DCAG asks him how many aircraft are
in his squadron. The XO clears his throat and looks to the back
of the room for guidance. Someone says something and the XO says
“Not enough.”

I turn around. The classification expert is the bus driver, who I
must presume is the Mossad representative. DCAG follows up his
question by asking the umber of pilots in the squadrons but the
XO says “About as many as the airplanes” and smiles.

This is clearly going nowhere, so I refrain from asking whether
U.S.©supplied satellite imagery is used by the strike planners
and how is the RF©4 photo©reconnaissance imagery processed and
can we meet with their Air Intelligence people?

They then show us some fantastic gun©camera footage of MIG kills
from 1983 which plays to rapt attention and then we are off to
the maintenance hangars. We look at some F©16C’s in SLDM and
some venerable F©4’s and note the engine canisters stored
outside that still say “property of USAF” on the side. Then we
pile back on the bus to the flight line and watch some routine
flight operations. We get to see a take off and landing by the F™16’s, a low fly©by and a section of Phantoms in the break. It is
clear as a bell, warm and a perfect delight to be outside. Danna
hands out some zappers, which we exchange for squadron and Air
Wing Six stickers and DCAG manages to get the fact that they have
13 pilots in the squadron out of the XO. They also fly about 15
hours a month.

Then the tour is over and we are back on the bus and rolling
through the pastoral valleys of northern Israel. The kibbutz
workers are in the fields and it is quite lovely, almost like
there were not SCUD missiles lurking on the next set of ridges
waiting to crash into the earth.

We arrive back at Fleet Landing at noon and are back on the ship
to change clothes and hit the beach and enjoy the gorgeous day.
We are no more than aboard when the 1MCV crackles to life and we
hear that Boating will be Secured until further notice due to
spraypainting on the Stern. Trapped! Major Bummer! What perverse
son of a bitch runs the boats around here?‹f‹å
We cannot get off the ship again until nearly 1600. Cast of
characters includes Toad, Doc Feeks, Mark Sickert, me and
Scooter. We have DCAG’s car© we are supposed to try to take the
flat tire back to the Hertz People, but we are pushing the
closing times of the Sabbath and decide to blow that off. I have
to find the little shop that sells military insignia so I can
outfit the Boys with some trinkets; Toad wants to find a jewelers
shop and Scooter has actually decided to come ashore for the
first time in the inport period. We wind up on top of the
mountain at the Hotel Dan Panorama, which is one of the only two
open bars in town as the sun lowers on the horizon. We buy
newspapers and read with interest of the events of the day.

The Libyans are claiming that the Pharmaceutical plant at Rabta
has burned to the ground. The NCAA playoffs are starting. The
Israeli©PLO talks are continuing to wreak havoc with the
Government.

Drinking with Emil. Mom an DAD are no©shows. Pizza and wine; this
is not the Sabbath we had heard so much about. In fact, this is
wild!

Back home by 0050.

17 MAR:

Up at 0640 for the 5KM run.

Ashore by 0930….more fun with boating!. Another great day.
Signs ups and t©shirts. The poor organizer is going to take a
bath. She ordered about two thousand shirts and there are only
about forty of us running. The race is dedicated to a young
Israeli Commando who contracted cancer and died in a month and a
half and the organizer’s daughter who “died on the way to the
U.S.” four months ago. This is one of those stories I try to find
out more of but it is not going to happen.

Scooter, Toad and I are the Staff reps. We ride south on a bus
with the FID runners to the cable car restaurant complex. A bunch
of expatriate Americans are helping to organize the race. They
are nice and try hard. The sun is brilliant but the wind today is
chilly and gusting. It will be in our faces on the return leg of
the race. At precisely 1000 they send us off and we puff through
the thing. I do not hear my time, but I am pleased I can still go
all the way. I is nice to do something with the body other than
to use it as a caffeine and food filter.

Later, after the awards ceremony, we wander around the downtown
area killing time until it is late enough in the morning back
home for a final phone call before we go back to the ship. We
have an icy©cold Goldstar beer at one of two open outdoor cafes.‹f‹Two kids amble by with packages in their arms and we ask what
store is open in this closed up Sabbath town. They report there
is a grocery store open a few blocks away and we go over there
out of idle curiosity. It is a wonderful place, dark and high™ceiling, shelves stacked to the rafters and great open burlap
bags of lentils and dried beans and red peppers on the floor. I
shop earnestly for a while before finding my treasure. In the
back is the dried soup section, and there I find a Hebrew/English
label Chicken Soup mix with directions for preparing 140 servings
at a time. This I must have! It couldn’t hurt, right? I comment
to the owner about how nice it is to interact with real people
while you shop. She rolls her eyes and says this won’t last long.
The country is changing fast and soon it will be just like soul™less LA.

As we walk back to the landing I realize it is finally coming to
an end. We pass through the perimeter gate and stop at the Phone
center. Inside are twenty phones which connect direct to Israeli
operators who will place collect calls to the States. I almost
don’t call, because in the middle of the entrance stands a tall
rumbled kid who looks like a bos’ns mate. It looks like he has
been drinking for a long time and every other word out of his
mouth is fucking©this and fucking©that at about 102db. His issue
seems to be providing $1600 dollars to someone back home. He is
doing so loudly that the other 19 callers in the room get to
participate along with him. Scooter and Toad already have calls
in progress, so I wait. Finally, the TED finishes his call and I
place a quick one to Jane. She is awakened by the operator and
the boys are not yet up. I tell her to start the meter running, I
am almost on the way home.

I am glad I called and the warm glow lasts all the way back to
the pier. We all enjoys the anarchy at the boat. This is the last
liberty boat ride of the cruise and it is a memorable one. We
ride the small ferry, top heavy and wallowing in the heavy
swells. The view of Haifa is magnificent. We sit up top and I try
to record all the sights in my memory. Finally we arrive astern
the ship, where we are stuck bobbing around for about twenty
minutes.

It just wouldn’t have been FID boating if it had gone smoothly. I
report my return aboard to the JOOD and that is that. Home again.

Later, after a nap and a shower, we get the work day rolling
about 1600. Chop arrives from the ADMIN where he has spent the
last five days. He had a magnificent inport period, no duty,
foot loose and fancy free. He has been following the German
waitress around Tel Aviv for the last four days but doesn’t get
anywhere. He reports that the HS©15 guys who bought us the cognac
were thoughtful enough to put it on VF©31’s bar tab. That Sabbath
in Tel Aviv was a rock and roll affair and the bars were jammed.
‹f‹å«…««At dinner the Admin stories were flying. Some outfits© VF©11,
notably, had problems with the Hilton billing department. VS™28’s bill came in about a thousand more than expected. Our sedate
little sojourn will come to around $50 apiece for the staff,
quite a bargain, really. VA©176 had a biting incident as well,
but the cloak of silence was coming down fast on the sordid
details. CAG and DCAG returned from Jerusalem with tales of
wonder.

Then back to work. Air Wing training at 2000; Intel update on the
aspirin factory, draft a five page message for the Staff. Someone
steals a SECRET chart of Juniper Hawk and I have to decide
whether to call in the NIS. Ugh. This is not going to be fun. Bed
at 0200. IKE inchops in two days.

09 August 2022

End of the Cold War

I will not tire you with details of the medical adventure that has consumed the last month. This was in the background to all that. It is an actual cruise diary of what was the Last Cold War Cruise. Mr. Gorbachev came out to the Sea Sick Summit at Malta to formalize the moment, and so did President Bush.

Screen Shot 2022-07-05 at 10.46.58 AM.png

Now, this deployment is when it happened but of course it was only a part of it. It was a fun experiment that turned into something else on a winter deployment to the Med on USS Forrestal in 1989-1990. The notes were an attempt to capture the real nature of what it is like to get 70 or 80 jets worked up well enough to deploy to the world ocean, crossing the Atlantic and conducting operations in the West, Central and Eastern areas of what the Romans called the “Mare Nostrum.” If you have not seen it from the water, it is pretty neat. I never expected to find myself as an Amalfi coast kind of guy, but it is interesting to find these things out.

This chunk of narrative is of preparing for the voyage home, the Cold War over but still going on. It is relevant now, because for the next thirty 33 years we continue to stumble forward as the Russian machine turned itself inside out. It seems like we are embarked on something similar. Here is some of what it ws like, with a publication date coming up shortly…

– Vic

WESTWARD HO:
JUNIPER HAWK, NATIONAL WEEK AND TURNOVER

18 MAR 1990:

Got up with the Chop energy show at 0750.He has the upper bunk
in our compartment, and it was too early but
that was the way things were going to be. Last-pulling-out-of
port day. I luxuriated in lying there looking up for about a half
hour, thinking about the things that had to be done. When I was
sufficiently depressed I got up and took a semi-refreshing shower
and turned on the TV. I couldn’t quite bring myself to actually
start on the things I have to do, so I cleaned up. Made the bed,
hung up civilian clothes and generally tried to get the idea of
dry land and brilliant sunshine out of my mind.

By the time I got down to Mission Planning I was thinking about
the asshole that had stolen our SECRET Chart of the exercise and
my mood descended. I was in a foul humor through the morning and
a general pain in the ass to be around. I snapped at John Scali
when he came down to have me look at the message I had written
late last night. It was hard to get focused, so I concentrated on
cleaning things up, throwing out old traffic and actually made
some pretty good progress. By lunch I was actually enjoying my
bad mood until Lutt©man told me he wasn’t going to drink any more
famous CVIC coffee until I got funny again.

That shook me enough to put my usual sardonic grin on and after a
while it worked. I happened to stroll through CAG Admin at one
point and encountered an irate Moose, who was vehement in his
condemnation of the administrative nightmare it takes to close
out a Cruise. He was particularly incensed by a package of
awards that had come back out of the Deputy’s office with a lot
of happy-to-glad red ink changes and the number of pieces of
paper that would have to be re-run through the word-processors.
His rage was so impressive and so towering that I felt pretty
good by comparison. I got a haircut and felt almost chipper by
the end of dinner.

Today the Air Wing looked pretty good behind the boat, except for
the last recovery. Toad was waving and so he was happy. The day
was beautiful from what I heard and we survived the whole thing
with near©perfect equanimity. Scooter had some problems with the
air ops summary input Josh had put together at the conclusion of
flight ops but there was no yelling or screaming. I suppose we
will be able to save that for the next few days. The schedule of
events worked in our favor today; it was mostly Carrier
Qualifications for the aircrews (Cuz from VA-37 got six traps
today!) and services for the ships in company. Regrettably, they
got all involved in chasing a Russian Tango-class submarine and
weren’t interested in the kind of training we could provide.

I spent a good solid fifteen hours in the space and got the End of Cruise Intel input finished.

One by one the milestones are starting fall.

Tomorrow will have a lot of bilateral interest. We have ship
guests coming and things are going to get confusing, complicated
and emotional. But that is tomorrow. I have a chance to get a
half decent night’s sleep and that means we are another day
closer to the turnover in Augusta Bay. We fly a long©range TARPS
mission on the IKE tomorrow, who is still located west of the
approaches to Gibraltar. If the Kitty’s can pull it off it will
be a real triumph of the art. No one seems to mind the amount of
fuel we are going to burn to send a Tomcat from the East Med to
the Atlantic and frankly I’m glad. This could be kind of fun.

19 Mar 1990:

A day that had its diamonds and its turds. Since I can’t talk
specifically about the exercise in this somewhat constricted
forum, suffice it to say that a level eight goat©rope was the
order of the day. After a promising start on the third event, we
had a fairly close brush with a dreaded Border Violation.

Now, you must realize in this business that we rely on the pilots
to come back to the ship and essentially turn themselves in for
sins committed while aloft and out of view.

Figure the odds. Bottom line is that the guys normally have a
half hour or so to figure out the right cover story and get it
straight before they come in and debrief. The other part of the
issue is that we are ùnotú agents of the Inquisition and it is in
the best interests of everyone here to ensure that the most
favorable light is cast on any potentially unpleasant event. So
as I conceptualize my job, the only one who really needs the
truth is myself and only so that I can best arm the Boss with the
ammunition to defend himself and his Air Wing from the real
Enemy, who is situational. Sometimes it is the FAA and sometimes
it is Sixth Fleet. In this case it is some Government or another.

I got a good refresher in the Aviation code early in this tour
when I was flying with VC©5 down in Puerto Rico. I was in the
backseat of a TA-4 with an old squadron buddy from VF-151. After
launching a BQR-34 drone for a Missilex, we were touring the
Windward Islands in international airspace. We were having a ball
when I noticed a Turkey from one of our squadrons arcing into
somebody else’s airspace and violating the briefed rules of the
road for the area. My pal (who, as a local, has to live with
these people all the time) was irate. When I returned to Hangar
100 after the hop I was bubbling with residual adrenaline and
stories to tell. I started in on the offending Tomcat and Scooter
quickly drew me out in the passageway. He leaned in close.

“If you ever expect to fly with anybody in this Wing you had
better learn to keep your mouth shut. Nobody is going to give a
hop to a blabbermouth.”

So, with the exception of the Boss, Mum’s the word. I remember
the first time I wrote a response to criticism from the
Government of Hong Kong, which went something like; “We couldn’t
possibly have violated your airspace because we weren’t flying
that day, and even if we were flying we were under positive
control.”

So anyway, today’s story was that it was pretty close but nothing
bad happened and our guy pulled away in time and his wingman
agrees and what are you guys so upset about anyway?

I even believe it.

Well, unfortunately somebody else higher on the food chain didn’t
and we had one of those international snits where somebody comes
up on the radio and tells us to stop what we’re doing without
explanation and we do, except we have a whole event airborne and
we waste that one and then launch right into one of the most
frustrating episodes of the cruise, which is a bit funny but more
on the pathetic side.

After some high©level radio chit chat the exercise was on again
only by the time they got the decision Air Ops called me and told
me to tell the aircrew, except I pointed out that the aircrew had
already manned up their jets and started their engines and that
it was going to be real hard for me to yell through the steel
deck over all that noise and why didn’t they talk to them on the
radio? I called the TAO and told him, too, and Ops and figured I
was about out of the loop.

Two hours later the sixth event players trooped in and said they
had spent the dark©assed evening drilling around looking for
surface shipping and nobody had told them that the exercise was
back on. The point to this is that the guy who was controlling
them on their fruitless mission sits exactly four feet away from
the TAO.

It makes you want to scream. I know who is responsible. I may
have him shot.

On the other hand, we did have our diamonds. The great public
relations coop of the decade started out at 0730 this morning
when Skipper Denk and Crash launched in their trusty Tomcat and
flew out to get TARPS pictures of the IKE Battle Group. Ike is
approaching the Straits right now, or at launch time exactly
2,179NM to the west. Three tanking evolutions later (and about
30,000LBS of jet fuel) they rolled into the groove and caught IKE
with her flight deck clobbered, minding her own business.
That’s right: a ten hour mission, round trip of 4,300NM using
56,000LBS of JP-5 gas and we caught them asleep at the switch.
Fantastic! Welcome to the MED, Eisenhower. They will pass
Gibraltar tomorrow. Looks very much like we will get relieved on
time, unless we wind up at war with that idiot Mohammar Qadaffy.

It is 0130. They just called away a Medical Emergency in
compartment 3-79-1L, forward CPO berthing. Heart attack?
Indigestion? Doc Feeks has volunteered to act as the Senior CVW-6
Military Customs Officer. Maybe a Chief has a Customs question…

20 Mar 1990:

I keep telling myself that all I have to do is get through the
next few days and it will all be OK.

I was expecting some guests from the Beach this morning, so I
propped my eyelids open when the Chop got up and laid there with
the lights on. I got the telephone propped up on my chest and
called Conway who had the duty. “As soon as the Guests arrive,
give me a call. I want to be there.”

I heard the mighty thrashing of an HH-53 land on the deck above
but no call came from Conway. Looks like the schedule was already
falling to pieces. I got up anyway and started into another
twilight day.

First briefs went at 1015, I got the boards done and looked
sideways at the pile of classified material control records that
had been laying on my desk since we pulled out. I had discovered
that there was some considerable variance between my definitive
set of books and that being maintained by the YN1 over in Admin.
My task was to put the books back together, annotate records of
destruction and ensure that my records agreed with Admin’s.

That involved comparing a few hundred pieces of serialized paper
that had once been triplicate. So I stayed at my desk, activity
swirling around me, juggling books and memory and spot checking
documents to ensure that what my records said existed really did.
In the meantime, I entertained Doc Feeks and Lutt©man and Mark,
who periodically needed to get away from the hurly burly in their
spaces. DCAG came back from his meeting with the Friends and
allowed as how we had probably had a minor incident the day
before and remarked on the impressive credentials of the
individual who had walked him through the affair. I answered the
phone and passed briefing notes to Rev Al through the afternoon
while making notations in triplicate.

Flight ops concluded about ten and we got our last ragged summary
out of the way about 1030. The team is puffy and not working
well. Josh is trying to quite smoking and is flaky. Murf got turned down
for a sure-thing augmentation to regular Navy because
he has less than a year on active duty. Or so the queer
accounting of the Bureau reckons, because Murf has been here
almost two and a half years. Problem was his status as an “OSAM”
up until last fall, but that is too complicated (or surreal) to
try to go into now. Everybody has got get-home-itis, including me,
and tempers are short and no one is having fun.

At lunch today I listened to a chorus of agony from the entire
table. Moose was moaning about DCAG, who wasn’t letting him go
home early from Rota and organize the return. Mark is almost
driven to distraction by the fact that he is supposed to detach
and go to a West Cost Squadron in three weeks and he is still in
East Med with no orders. Lutt-man just hates his life as Hof’s
whipping boy since Scooter has elected to take the high road and
step back from the fray. I was actually feeling pretty good, or
at least the caffeine from the CVIC java had me artificially
alert at that time of the day.

Which dragged on and on. We got kudos from the Friends on our
flight performance today, which I relayed to CAG. That reads no
incidents, to the uninitiated. When I finally got done with the
paper drill I just kept finding more paper. There is something
very liberating about trashing all sort of formerly important
papers. I cleaned out two big file drawers and got all the SECRET
documents stuck in binders for easy accounting. I stripped out my
desk drawer of all messages older than two years. I ruthlessly
purged two huge stacks of TACNOTES which have been superceded
without ever getting distributed; I confess to a certain
nostalgia, remembering the sweltering night back in the Caribbean
during Advanced Phase when I had Cookie slaving over a searing
hot bulk copier trying to beat the CARGRU 4 deadline to produce
fifty copies each of the thirty-two separate documents. We go
into the editing phase of the next edition this week. That is one
reason why Lutt-man is hating his life, as he is the new TACNOTE
Officer.

Now we have to get through the last two days of this exercise,
shadow the Soviet task group south of Crete, transit to the next
one and turn over. I have to start the SPECAT inventory tomorrow
to get prepared to dump all this on the IKE.

I must say that seeing their Card of the Day Message and lack of
response to the TARPS mission yesterday made me feel pretty good
about our capabilities, despite the day-to-day agony. They must
be feeling very much the way we did five months ago. Early day
tomorrow. Time for rest.

21 MAR 1990:

It started too early and didn’t get much better. I am on the rag,
short tempered and irritable. Haven’t had much sleep the last few
days and the tempo of things is increasing. ‹f‹å
Struggles today started with the Guests who showed up to have a
meeting in my space about 0830. Had to roust the aircrews who
grumbled at the early hour but it turned out to be a valuable
interchange. Then we rolled right into flight ops. First couple
events involved SSC and DACT training, but the DACT got cancelled
and TARPS missions were laid on and laid off with alarming
regularity. Situation is fluid.

Scooter got upset with my guys© he claimed only 2 of three tasks
he laid on got passed© and I found myself suspended in disbelief,
as he is in his workout clothes saying this shit and I know for a
fact he also took a nap this afternoon. He clearly has a better
program than I do. I told him if he had any problems he should
just talk to me, as I am around just about all the time. It
didn’t register, I don’t think.

Hard to believe. Everyone is ragging. Tempers are short. Things
are starting to disappear. Joining the Exercise Chart in the
Great Unknown is my yellow ashtray. It may have gone into a burn
bag with the 150lbs of classified we shredded last night. Cleaned
out a few more files, drafted two long SPECAT messages for the
mirror-image strikes we will conduct on the 25th. I am starting
to drag again. I need some uninterrupted sleep to stop being so
surly.

It is hard, though. SIXTHFLT is making IKE jump through some
bodacious hoops and we are getting dragged along for the ride.
The CONOPS drill has forced me to pull all the imagery out again
and blow the cobwebs off the mission folders and put up the
exclusion signs. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets
any better. The only positive note is that the star of the show
is the Starship Eisenhower and we are the horse-holders. I say
the words “six days left” like a mantra but it doesn’t seem to do
much good.

I wrote a personal back-channel to Rocky Wilkenson and told him
that unless I heard differently, I was going to go ahead and
destroy most of the classified stuff I have got. The turnover
from America was more of a pain in the ass than a help and I
don’t want to do the same thing to these guys. We’ll see what he
wants to do.

I understand it was a pretty nice day outside, but I couldn’t
vouch for it from here. Got a letter from Jane with two more
pictures of the Boys. They are so huge now I can’t believe it. I
look at Nick’s face and see the one that stared back at me in the
mirror for the first decade of my life. And Eric is so tall. He
must have grown a foot. He has an impish grin and tosses his head
at a rakish angle. I had better get home and administer some
fatherhood to those lads.
‹Jane’s letter referenced the big shoot-out three blocks away. I
wonder what she meant by that?

22 MAR 1990:

What a wild roller coaster of a day this was. I have burned
through whatever mild hostility I had to this line period and
entered an entirely new and somewhat surreal phase.

I got to my stateroom fairly early last night, but was too wired
out to go to sleep. I wound up watching a movie until 0100, and
then tossed and turned in my rack for a long time. When the phone
went off, grenade©like, at 0745 I knew from the way my eyes were
stuck together that this was going to be an unusual day.

It started like yesterday, waiting for the Guests. The giant
helo landed shortly after 0800 and disgorged the briefing team.
The space was filled with aircrew waiting to see how they did;
that proceeded with a good deal of animation right into the first
event brief. Which possibly caused some of the confusion we
experienced a few hours later.

The TARPS guys were flying a short-notice mission to go look at
one of the Soviet anchorages. We had some information that
indicated the warships were not present, but out and motoring
around smartly north of there. Now, COMSIXTHFLT maintains rigid
control over exactly what TACAIR can go do what missions in
proximity to the anchorages, with the commendable goal of
keeping tensions low and preventing untoward interactions.
Regrettably, this adds a significant lead time into planning
these little picture taking evolutions and we were trapped in a
bit of a time warp on this one. The Staff had sent the message
requesting permission to go do the mission, but as of brief time
we had not heard a yea or nay from the Mandarins.

Naturally, the nay came in after the aircrew had manned up,
engines turning, the radio transmission cancelling the mission
was garbled and not received and we merrily drove over the
anchorage without the requisite permission. We had a little
inquisition over that one; aircrew, CO’s, Deputy, Briefer and me
in a little search-for-the-guilty. Deputy was real mellow and the
pictures turned out well, so that flap whimpered to a slow death
later.

We transitioned into flail about the CONOPS mirror image strike,
of which there is a slight chain of command problem (since CRUD-12
has the lead on this, do we wait to hear from them what they
want us to do? What will their pre-exercise message say? what
time and what direction will we run the simulated strike?) Our
directions are mixed, and we essentially are told to sit down and
relax until we hear what they have to say….until the afternoon,
when we get Spanky McClusky radio-derived Intelligence (‘SpankInt,’ for short)
when he overhears the Red Rotator telling his fellow
wizard that our Concept message is already on the wire and that
he ought to speed things up.

Which sort of pokes things in the ass from our end and so we
crashed through the message, got a quick chop on it and I worked
some of my magic and got a bogus date©time©group assigned so it
looked like we had actually sent the thing about eight hours
before we actually did. Then we got a tasker from the Intel
Mandarins to review all the Essential Elements of Information
(EEI’s) for the entire target process and, by the way guys, could
you possibly have that to us by the 26th?

So I flailed at that one for a while and walked down to chow with
CAG and the boys when Dayne Denning from the Fightin’ Bitin’
Schnauzers braced me and said there had been another border
violation and I took swift and immediate action to get all the
information. I jumped on the wardroom phone and had Perky break
the mission code the offending bird had been squawking and found
out it had been a Thunder jet. I grabbed a plate of some oddly green
looking curry and walked back to the CAG Staff table and leaned
over and told CAG it had been 500-series airplane. He didn’t seem
that interested so I sat down and ate and then wandered back to
work.

Where I discovered why he wasn’t that interested in the facts of
the matter because he already knew them pretty well. He had been the
pilot.

So, now it won’t be Deputy going in to the Exercise debrief in
the morning, it will be CAG. I talked to him later, at midrats,
and he was exceedingly unhappy with his B/N. I know the man and
it is all too bad. We will see how this plays out. That asshole,
the Naval Attache, is reportedly drafting a message from the
Ambassador to VADM Williams. Great interlude.

Then later, we lurch into the long message strike plan for CONOPS
and the clocks change from ‘bravo’ to ‘alpha’ time (gain an hour)
and work through to 0100, when I call Scooter to pimp him about
the graphics for CAG’s presentation in the morning (he has to
board the COD at 0500) and he says he hasn’t quite got to that
yet because Murf’s reconstructed bomb©hits memorandum is all
fucked up. Since that is my bowl of rice I storm over to find
the Deputy and Lutt©man in the office and the memo covered in red
ink. I am tired and pissed and afraid that the numbers are all
fucked up and we will wind up at 0230 with all the aircrews and
operations officers in the Wing standing around bitching about
what weapon went where and who the guilty bastard is.

As it turns out, the only thing wrong with the memo is that one
bomb got brought back to the carrier rather than being dropped at
sea, which wasn’t the point, but rather that the percentage of‹f‹duds was unacceptable.

Taking the low road, I was relieved that the data was correct and
that this was an ordnance issue vice an Intelligence one.

Which brings me back to my trusty word processor and helping
Berger to de-crypt Scooter’s writing. And maybe some sleep in a
while. This will be painful because I have to get up early and
get the draft strike message to the Deputy early so that he can
chop on it before transmitting it by 1000L.

One thing is for sure. It is now the 23rd and we are lurching
steadily on toward Augusta Bay. I can only marvel at the
opportunities we have to flirt with the extraordinary.

23 MAR 1990:

Today was a day of triumph and frustration, of low comedy and
professional vindication for the CV-59/CVW-6 Fighting Team. It
started with the wake-up call. This was so painful that I laid in
my bed for nearly a half hour looking up before I could get the
energy to move. I got to Planning about 0750; CAG was long gone
on the COD to the Juniper Hawk Debrief. I immediately started to
work with XO Carrol White on the CONOPS contingency plan; he was
waiting by the safe ready to go.

Phones started ringing and the coffee was flowing and the day
unfolded with astonishing rapidity. The launch and constructive
target positions changed about three times by the time they laid
out the fried shrimp for lunch. We ate with the Deputy; we were
in the grip of a Staff spasm which put us on hold until the
Admiral made some fundamental decisions about where submarines
were going to be placed and where we could stir the waters with
concrete-filled iron bombs.

It was sort of cool, and the action was fast paced. IKE was
supposed to raid us between 1300-1800, so the thrust of the day
was to avoid being discovered. There was a formidable capability
arrayed against us, but Rookie Word came up with a traditional
CV-41 WESTPAC gambit. We were not going to drive peacefully down
the published Point of Intended Movement. Instead, we broke to
the northwest and laid on some of the 3,000BBL of fuel CAPT
Thomassy managed to squirrel away for this very contingency.
Meanwhile, the ship went into strict EMCON and allowed the FOTC
broadcast to put out bad locating data that kept us right where
the simulated bad-guys were supposed to think we were.

OK, so the ship is in EMCON, which means all the launches and
recoveries are happening with the benefit of the radio, which is
a sort of eerie situation. Can you imagine it? All those huge
hunks of aluminum hurtling around, not talking, getting themselves
sorted out and landing without once breaking silence?
It is a wild thing, and thankfully the day was nice enough to
support it.

So we had two basic plans. The defense was arranged to keep two
airborne fighters at max conserve down the threat axis with
tankers shuttling gas out to station. Four more fighters were for
DLI (deck launched alert). Two E©2’s and two EA©6B’s were way
down the threat axis to keep their ESM gear trained for inbound
raiders.

So the defense was first oriented toward fooling them and second
to constructively blowing them away before they got within range
to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, our offense was cleverly crafted. We had requested
low©level times over Sardinia a couple weeks ago and the tanker
support for Sigonella to support the flight there. Our raid
checked in on the eastern side of the island; IKE was operating
just to the south. When the guys popped off the low©level they
continued the run©in and caught the Battle Group in the straits.
We blew them away! Round two to the ancient FID with our antique
airwing! Ha! Welcome to National Week, IKE.

One of the low comic moments came when XO Gershon flew out in a
Gambler S©3A and dialed up the IKE Mode II codes and joined up on
some of IKE’s own Vikings. XO operated around the IKE for about
twenty minutes, practiced some dry plugs on the S-3 tanker and
generally had fun. They wouldn’t give him any gas, though, so he
then joined up on the Air Force tanker and got 2,500LBs. When he
checked off the basket he passed his billing identity as Long
Horn 707. So long, and thanks for all the Fish! He never got
intercepted.

Meanwhile, we had Lizzie Borden and a wingie check back from the
S©3 det at Sigonella. Lizzie was the det OIC there for a few
weeks, and finally had to return to the ship. In their defense,
one has to admit that the situation was not exactly normal; FID
was off course and not talking. Lizzie thought we would be
driving along on the published track, whereas we were actually a
hundred and seventy miles off to the north. Consequently, when he
checked in with the airborne E©2, he got vectors which took him
NNE. The Hawkeye was a busy buckeroo up there all day, trying to
cover the Early Warning Mission, keep Yorktown informed (the
blackshoe motormouths breaking EMCON jeopardized the entire plan)
and be air traffic control and Land/launch for silent FID was
probably too much. In any event, Lizzie heard that he was
“cleared direct” to the boat. Regrettably, the island of Crete
was in the way and he just flew over it. So I got to spend the
half of the afternoon I didn’t spend on the CONOPS plan writing
the Unit SITREP to a host of Med commands. Don’t know if the
Greeks will pout or not.

But the best low comedy of the day was provided by a young
Parachute Rigger Airman Apprentice, who flew in to NAS Sigonella
for further transportation to his ultimate duty station. Filled
with trepidation about his first carrier airplane flight on the
COD the young man screwed up his courage and marched across the
tarmac and climbed up the ramp into the COD. He strapped in,
backwards, and shivered. The large ugly airplane lurched into the
air and lumbered toward the ship. After fifteen minutes in
starboard delta, the COD swooped down the glide slope. Looking
out the tiny porthole the airman could only see water rushing
behind and then suddenly the flash of black deck and the whole
contraption was snatched out of the air and ground to an
improbable halt. The C-2 taxied out of the wires and folded the
wings as the handlers got it situation abeam the island. The ramp
folded down and the PAX rushed out and were ushered across the
commotion of the flight deck, down into the island to the ATO
shack.

Where he discovered to his consternation that he was on the wrong
carrier.

As our first Prisoner of War, he was treated to cookies on the
bridge with CAPT Thomassy and a sheepish picture of the young
man with a placard reading “POW” around his neck hangs outside
of Strike OPS.

Tomorrow, we feature medium range strikes, and will probably get
the tasking for our second (and last) CONOPS strike.

24 MAR, 1990:

The National Week experience continues today. FID continues to do
well against the new guys.

I got my wake©up call at 0545, or so they tell me, because the
first thing I really remember is Charlie calling just before 0800
to say that they were launching the alert fighters because an IKE
raid was inbound. I cursed and tried to move but had some minor
locomotion problems. I managed to get to work in about twenty
minutes to find the second event brief breaking up. I started out
bummed because someone ripped off the picture of the Clueless
Blue Blasters that I had annotated the night before. Things are
continuing to disappear as the souvenir hunters start to hoard
things for their end©of©cruise stashes.

XO White was looking for me so he could get into the safe and
start back to work. So we did CONOPS for a while and I drafted
and sent a back channel to Strike U lobbying for Josh and Thorn
Turner to get a couple of the new jobs that are opening up there
(if it all happens and the roof doesn’t fall in on the Defense
Budget). It is nice to get something out of the way early, sort of
validates the day.

According to the sacred SOE, this day was to be broken into two
distinct parts. During the morning, from 0800©1300, IKE would be
the aggressor and send raids against us. During the afternoon it
would be our turn to go after them. It was an exercise
artificiality to which I was not partial, favoring the Battle of
Midway approach, massed raids flying by one another. But of
course they didn’t ask me.

IKE still didn’t have a good feel for where we were and their
aircraft acted as missile sumps for our cruisers and fighters.
About 1130 some guy (who had been constructively shot down three
times) finally blundered in close enough for the ship to simulate
a Nato Sea Sparrow shot on him and the jig was up. Presumably
with the locational data in hand we would get a stiff war at sea
strike before their offensive war was over. There was a nearly
impenetrable haze where we were operating west of Crete, though,
and the CAPT kept the ship under a low cloud bank and I don’t
think IKE ever really got the big picture.

The notion of force regeneration is makes all these endeavors a
bit surreal. We “constructively” shoot a guy three times but he
continues to come inbound and pass locating data back to his
ship. So we can’t measure empirically how well we really did.
Now, the CAPT was up on the 1MC giving all hands an update on how
well we were doing in splashing the raiders and smashing the
ships. I think, after looking at the debriefs, that they never
laid a glove on us and we probably put between 2-4 Harpoons into
IKE.

That closed out the Blue/Orange war today. Now we move on to the
joint CONOPS strikes tomorrow, the Missilex the day after, one
more CONOPS flail and then into Augusta Bay for the turnover.

In between all the rest of the day’s fun and games we tried to
figure out why the ship claimed that Biff Ethington flew 9 miles
into the Tripoli FIR (I don’t think he did) and how well the
TARPS guys did against the Gulf of Sollum on their run (all the
Soviets were home except the Foxtrot, who is doubtless up to no
good) and draft more responses to more crazy tasking.

After dinner I saw an opportunity to sneak away for a one hour
siesta so I could plow through the night, if required. I had no
more than begun the long plunge into the cool darkness when
somebody began rapping on my door. I tried to ignore it, as I
knew that my guys would simply have called on the phone. The
rapping went on and finally I had to drag myself out of bed to
answer it. An unidentified enlisted guy stood there and told me
he was here for a TV accountability check.

I blinked and said “what the fuck?” cleverly. “Go away and come back later.”
I fell back and was in heavy REM sleep in a couple minutes. I had a
particularly vivid dream which made me sit bolt upright just
after 1900. I dreamed we had been extended on station.

25 MAR 1990:

So today was the day we really plunged into the long delirious
tunnel of National Week. Mirror Image CONOPS was the first event
of the day; brief at 0700 for a 0900 launch. Complicated effort,
27 airplanes on the launch and a major postex message to write
once we found out what it was that they wanted, the whole
enchilada, voice reports too.

Off we went. Now, in keeping with the way we do these things
there were two or three other parallel events which began this
morning. We began the planning process for the CONOPS strike the
day after tomorrow, which is essentially where we were on
today’s strike two days ago. The Missilex began to intrude on our
collective consciousness for tomorrow, and naturally the turnover
and EEI message for COMSIXTHFLT all had to get done.

So in approximate order: launched the strike on time, best
performance by the Flight Deck this cruise, launched everybody in
about 19 minutes. Strike worked like a charm, nobody went down on
deck, great radio discipline, all bombs on target and nobody
boltered when they recovered.

The reconstruction took about the next four hours, and I got the
smooth rough to Deputy by 1500. Cyclic ops and the ASW exercise
were going on and Gene Smith and Rocco Montesano had flown over
to IKE in an A-6 to do face-to-face planning with the CVW-7 guys.
I finished drafting the EEI’s message for the good CDR Lewis and
found myself collapsing into the word processor. Nothing seemed
to be happening, and waiting around didn’t seem to make much
sense.

It being 1600, I ducked down to the compartment and grabbed a
quick hour-and-fifteen minutes of unconsciousness. I dreamed
something, not sure what, and awoke on my own just before 1800.
Ambled back up to mission planning. XO Smith was back from IKE
and ready to get rolling, the tasking message came in and we were
ready to get going on the next round of CONOPS planning. Deputy
had hacked the postex to pieces, it was a Flash message (which is
the only way things are getting off the ship these days) so I got
the materials out for the XO and got to work on a near complete
rewrite. That wasn’t quite complete when the Good Commander Lewis
came in with the modifications to the EEI’s message, so then we
did that and got CAG to sign off on the postex and I split for
Main COMM.

When I got back we had our best show of the day. The evil CDR
Lewis stormed into the room, brandishing the tasking message and
foaming at the mouth. “Goddamn it, Gene! What the fuck!” he
grabbed the XO and strode direct to the map board. “Don’t you
idiots know you can’t launch airplanes from a carrier in the
middle of the land?!?”

Naturally, those of us not being yelled at had quite a ball with
this one, particularly the guys who used to work for HOF. The
issue was that the ASW exercise featured synthetic geography
which imposed land on the middle of the MED. The CONOPs planners
had the gall to imagine that they could pick a launch point for
their drill while the carrier was located, constructively,
hundreds of miles away in a narrow bay.

To which we said “Who the hell cares?” but nobody asked us. HOF
dragged Gene down to the Flag spaces and got on the radio and
chewed the IKE guys a couple of new places to bleed. It was clear
that we were not going to get any new launch posits to plan our
route from, so the strike is on hold. In the meantime, we brief
the range surveillance S-3’s at 0330 and the Missilex shooters at
0530, and host Mr. Workman, distinguished Naval Intelligence
Civilian at 0800. We will get the CONOPS message either in the
middle of the night, or first thing in the morning.

The Missilex fades back into the ASWEX which then lurches into
the CONOPS strike with all its ancillary paperwork and back into
ASW, 36 hours of flight ops and then finally it is Augusta Bay.
Have to organize the turnover materials at some point, too. Could
be busy. Of all things, though, I am sort of enjoying myself.
There are other folks around here who are threatening to slit
their wrists. After the stories I have heard about the
pandemonium over on the IKE, I am very pleased to be right here
in our own snug Mission Planning.

26 MAR 1990:

It should have been OK today but somehow it wasn’t. Didn’t get up
until 0710; missed the first two briefs but got about five hours
of sleep. The first two launches were godawful early. The
Gamblers briefed about 0330 for a 0630 launch. The Fighters (who
were going to be the first shooters on the Missilex) briefed at
0530 for the 0800 launch. The Admiral flew over to Yorktown to
watch the festivities on the large screen display of the Aegis
star©cruiser. Good for us because he was gone; bad for CAG
because he had to sit in one of the tall chairs in Combat and
talk on the radio to the Red Rotator who had all sorts of
information CAG didn’t. It was going to be that kind of day for
CAG.

They were booming off the catapult as I was choking down my first
mug of coffee. Meanwhile, we had the ASW players from that
portion of the exercise landing and XO Smith was struggling through
the confused strike message from the CRUD-12 trying to
retrieve coherence from what was looking increasingly like
multi-colored spaghetti on the chart.

It wasn’t working too well.

I was surveying the increasing pile of junk on my desk….card
packs, top secret folders, bootleg copies of SPECAT messages with
dismay. People were coming and going and sanitizing the space
every thirty minutes was making critical pieces of paper submerge
into the bond paper morass. I was looking at a random pile of
diskettes, wondering which one of the fifteen had the right
mission on it. It was that kind of day.

The issue with Missilex’s trying to do what you have got to do
without either shooting the civilians or dumping an aluminum
rainstorm on them. Thus, the S-3’s spent a good couple hours
driving around the exercise zone (which we had appropriately
NOTAM’ed, it being about one-third into the Libyan FIR) warning
freighters out of the way. Meanwhile, the spendthrift Fighters
were hanging on the impeller blades trying to conserve fuel and
we kept launching alert tankers out to keep the thirsty fellows
happy.

About four hours into the flight schedule we had a green range,
and the drone carrier and the fighters were cleared to move into
position. Everything was go, adrenaline was rising, and the drone
was launched….only to turn into a saltwater seeking missile.
Twice. Which involved another half hour delay while they launched
another airplane and another drone. At long last they were able
to get all the players right over a green range, the drone
worked, and they shot it out of the sky.

Which made the fighters ecstatic, but bummed out the surface
ships, who were to be the backup shooters in case they missed.
So our guys got to come home. The exercise wasn’t over, though.
The Shoes had to have their chance, too. So things dragged on for
another couple hours, during which CAG got increasingly
exasperated.

Flight ops continued, morale and motivation was at a low ebb. In
my effort to cross train the AI’s, I had allowed some to go down
to SUPPLOT to learn some of the all-source tricks of the trade I
lost one who decided he wasn’t going to do anything else.
Consequently, we were short handed and pissed off. I was groggy
and couldn’t get started on the inventory or the other projects
so I went for a nap.

Wrong move. I slept fitfully for an hour or so and awoke
unrefreshed, disoriented and cranky. I walked into Planning and
Perkie hit me with some project Scooter had kicked back and I
said “Well fuck him!” Only to discover that Scooter was standing right behind him.

So we had an emotional minute or two. Then Berto Schnable and
Gentle John Kurowski almost came to blows over something
inconsequential. It was that kind of day.

We got XO Smith set up for his brief. The Admiral changed the
launch points, but aside from changing things (again) it went
fine. We had aircrew planning the nits and grits through about
0200 when the last of them gave up and surrendered to sleep. I
started the night shift on sorting the three hundred©odd imagery
flats for the final inventory and turn©over and began to clean
out my desk. I had skipped dinner and felt generally burned out.
The coffee of the day had given me a low grade headache. I was
pouring over the pink sheet when I discovered the near©final
kicker in the National Week total harassment package.

We will start thirty©two hours of continuous flight ops at 0330
this morning. We will fly through the day tomorrow, then start
uploading real ordnance in the afternoon for the simulated
strike. The we download same, upload the fake stuff and run the
simulated strike. My job starts when they get back around 2200,
as we construct the post exercise report. We will wrap that up
around 0200 or so, whereupon we switch time zones again. To the
east. Which means we lose an hour of sleep without actually going
anywhere. Some rocket scientist has had the two carriers on
different time zones! They figure it would be too complicated
with us lying beside each other in the anchorage, which is
undoubtedly correct.

Turnover starts at 0800, so I expect we will be as shiny as new
pennies. They are saying that bad weather is rolling in from the
west, so who knows what will happen. One has to hope for the
best.

27 MAR 1990:

I was in the office until 0300 this morning; hung up on some
details and daunted by the amount of stuff we had to do today.
Wandered down to bed after tasking Charlie to place a telephone
grenade next to my pillow not later than 0745.

It went off approximately as scheduled. I shaved and wandered
groggily past the CAG office where I found the first flail of the
day already in progress. Deputy was hunched over the message
board underlining a message. He turned around and asked why we
were not operating in accordance with the Force AAWC Intentions
message.

I was at a bit of a loss for a real swift answer, and responded
with something like “Well, er, I have a message that says to use
the old codes….” while thinking to myself “who the fuck is the
FAWC?” So I had my first little project even before I got into
the office. I found my second one when I found a note on my desk
reminding me of the FIROPS message for COMSIXTHFLT that was
probably due yesterday. We naturally launched an immediate
investigation and came up with the guilty party, who was all of
us, which meant me for not thinking hard enough about today.

Excuses were easy, like we didn’t get the message and we had
conflicting guidance from the Staff but that is considered
whimpering or whining so we did what we could to fix the
situation and move on from there. The fix was to make new cards,
get them out to the ready rooms, change the brief, coordinate
with Air Ops and assign Murf to quickly research about forty
sorties from yesterday and start drafting a message for chop.

Gene Smith’s crew was all up planning tonight’s CONOPS thing nd
so there was SPECAT all over. Despite the number of people coming
and going, planning and whatnot going on, there were not that
many sorties being generated. I took a bold step and started
getting the Turn Over package together. It was about time.

The rest of the day was spent putting the package together,
holding a destruction party for the tons of stuff we temporarily
own and inventorying same. We made great progress and I was
burned out but happy with the way things were going. We had some
panic from Gene’s planners, one of whom has a great capacity for
bringing all the sweat pumps on line at once, and the Deputy
hacked up the FIROPS message pretty well so we redid that and I
got the FITREPS on the guys back. They turned out well; Deputy
was pleased and they once they go smooth they will be ready for
CAG. Quite a good feeling because the last thing I want to do is
get into that paperwork drill this late.

By that then it was brief time for the CONOPS drill. The Ordies
had been building and wire©checking and loading all day. There
was kind of a festive air around the place. Aircrew were coming
in, clamming the helmets down and announcing that they were
pleased to call it a cruise; they had flown their last hop. The
guys got out and took pictures of flight ops and reported that it
was a pretty day. I will go look at it tomorrow.

I got a thirty-second commercial about closing out the SPECAT
program in the brief and then HOF called and tasked me to build a
little orientation booklet for our French pals who are going to
Roosie Roads© you know, target photos, bus schedules, that kind
of thing© then had some dinner with CAG and the Deputy. I snuck
away for a quick nap before the launch so I could get through
what promised to be a long night and was only awakened twice with
frantic phone calls. The level of caffeine in my system wouldn’t
really let me get down anyway, so I succumbed to the inevitable
and went back to work.

Every time I leave the place something else is going wrong. This
time the back-channel message I sent to FOSIF Rota demanding an
opportunity to get ashore on April 1st turned into a bombshell.
We got a call from SESS (Ship’s Signals & Exploitation Space)
asking about it and the Staff called down and asked for a copy of my
message and there were dark rumblings
that Dru had turned the thing around front-channel, referencing
my irreverent message and asking for me to Debrief the Entire
Deployment as CTF-60!

Yike! There was about forty-five minutes of trying to figure out
what was going on. I was convinced for a while that I would soon
be dancing in front of the Admiral and be ritually disemboweled.
Thankfully, the real story was that FOSIF sent it back channel,
nobody got it but the Staff Intel officer and me. I got a mild
reprimand and then I invited him along for brunch and the crisis
passed.

Then the strike recovered and it turned out that it went very
well indeed. Our guys can do what they are tasked to do, however
obtuse the mission. I spent a few frantic hours until the great
time change putting the post exercise summary together and it is
now 0400. The turnover bunch will show up here in four hours. I
suppose it is time to get some sleep. After the ritual is
complete, I intend to sleep for a week.

TURNOVER: AUGUSTA BAY

28 MAR 1990:

Got out of Planning about 0400. Sleep was not a priority issue. I
tasked Charlie with three key elements for the morning. I wanted
a wake©up call at 0715 without fail to ensure I was on station to
greet the team from the IKE. The Deputy, in keeping with his
program to ensure that everything went First Crass, wanted some
of the world famous FID bake shop breakfast pastries ( the ones
with the specific gravity of a dwarf star set out. Lastly, I
wanted a fresh cauldron of CVIC java available to help jolt
everyone’s systems into some semblance of activity.

Charlie came through. My wakeup call penetrated my consciousness
and the usual amnesia of short term sleep was penetrated.
Naturally it hurt a bit, but there were important issues to be
covered. I shaved and put on CNT khakis with ribbons. With ten
minutes to kill, I stopped in Wardroom One and enjoyed two eggs
sunny side up and some half toasted bread. Fortified, I was ready
as I was likely to be for turn-over. I arrived in Planning at
exactly the right time, only to discover to my amazement an
utterly transformed space. The deck gleamed. Crisp blue
tablecloths covered the battered folding debriefing tables.
Chairs were arranged in neat discussion group areas. At the far
end of the space, near the map boards, a buffet had been set up.
Heavy silverware was laid in perfect order next to an astonishing
assortment of fat©pill pastries. At the far end of the table was
a large silver salver filled with bacon and sausage. Tall
pitchers of orange juice. The IS’s and Charlie stood off to the
side with broad grins.

They had worked a miracle. When I had left the space but hours
before it was cluttered with half-filled cruise boxes. CAG and
DCAG came in and were suitably impressed. Although we were ready,
the transportation folks let us down and there was no indication
of when (or if) the CVW-7 guys would arrive. After about forty-five minutes
of jaunty camaraderie, the grownups gave up and went
back to their officers. I had used the opportunity to have Deputy
re-chop the CONOPS message from the night before; as is so often
the case, it was a major re-write although we had simply followed
the format we have developed only two nights before. C’est la
vie.

Once complete, I got CAG to look at it and with a minor flourish
of the green pen I was free to tweak the thing on disc and get it
down to Main Comm. Second to last outgoing; now all we have to do
is send the message closing out the program and we are done with
that for the next eighteen months.

At length, the Guests showed up via H©46 from IKE. By that time
the bulk of the food had been devoured by the troops, but it was
a class act and Charlie and the Boys did proud. A troop of
Air Wing Seven staffies arrived about nine-thirty. All concerned
were pretty well burned out and were chug-a-lugging coffee to
stay awake. My counterpart, Rocky Wilkinson, showed up in the
first increment. Since his guys didn’t make the first flight, I
pulled out this running log and covered some of the main issues
that confronted us and offered them up for discussion.

Turnover after you arrive in the MED is not the greatest program
in the world. IKE deployed with a full bag of support materials,
and if any is more cramped for space than we are. Rocky is a
veteran of FOSIF Rota, so there isn’t much about operating here
that he hasn’t supported from the beach. He also made a good
chunk of the last cruise on IKE, so the MED is really his old
stomping ground. We hit some of the ports and procedures he
hadn’t seen yet and I didn’t really have much to add. He has got
a strong program and good AI’s working for him, so I’m sure they
will work things out just fine. Consequently, the package we had
put together the day before was largely a burden he didn’t want
to deal with.

We went through the materials and he took mostly unclassified
stuff, our card packs and a few maps and charts. Most of the
material we wound up throwing back into a box for later
destruction. We talked about life in the CONOPS planning process
and how much better things were gong to be during the summer, at
least from the liberty standpoint.

My main lament was the lack of operating time, and the consequent
violence of every minute we had available underway. There was
little opportunity to wok into the cyclic operations gradually, a
few cycles on the first day out to get comfortable. Instead, it
seems we are flying into exercises from the instant the hook is
pulled and we keep hitting it hard until the very moment the
hook goes down again. The in port visits are too long and too expensive
and they give everyone entirely too much time to think about
other places and things they would prefer to be doing. I treated
Rocky to a FID lunch of fried chicken and we talked about
comparative working hours and conditions.

It doesn’t seem much different over there. Rocky has logged about
four 26HRS plus days on the Translant and the first round of MED
ops. They all look tired and pale and mirror image the way we
looked. I asked what it was like to work for a CRUD staff (mostly
Blackshoes) and he said it was actually a little easier than
working for an aviator. RADM Lynch basically takes what the
Strike planners says on faith, trying not to betray his
ignorance. So not altogether too hard. He had some questions
about the new CAG they would be getting in the fall, a guy named
Jim Sherlock.

Lutt-man was having discussions with his opposite number across the room.
He heard the name Sherlock mentioned and summed it up
nicely. “That guy is the anti-Christ” he said, and left it at
that.

We got the things Rocky wanted packed up and I escorted the party
up to the flight deck. I blinked at the light even under the
leaden Sicilian skies. It was my first time outside since Israel.
MT. Etna was snow covered and vast in the distance.

Most of the SIXTHFLT was at anchor around us. IKE was massive about three
miles away. Tico and Yorktown rode easily astern and the
destroyers and logistics ships were scattered in all directions.
Helo’s flew non©stop from all points of the compass in graceful
aerial ballet. Rocky, his two AI’s and our turnover package
lifted off in an HH-53, en route his Mission Planning and the
beginning of his cruise.

A giant weight lifted from my shoulders with the helo and I felt
positively at loose ends. I walked up forward and contemplated
the dancing helos for a while. The wind was damp and the deck
slippery from liquid FOD. I swung back down to the Flag Intel
spaces and chatted with Jim Everett, Jim Hoey and Regan Chambers
for a while. They were busy and pumped up and I was finished and
exhausted. I went down to my compartment and laid down in the
cool darkness and slept. I awoke after an hour and looked around.
There was, for the first time, nothing in particular I had to do.
I rolled over and slept another three hours.

Later, with my energy levels refreshed, I returned to the office
and lead another destruction party. We had just finished
destroying the charts and TOP SECRET documents when I got a call
from Scooter, who said be sure to save them for the Post
Deployment Report.

Oh well. Turnover is done. We are underway at 0300, westbound
again. I feel curiously empty. Perhaps more sleep will cure that.
It is hard to believe but I will be home in twelve days. The ache
to see Jane and the Boys is almost beyond bearing.

29 MAR:

A dog day. A post deployment day. A day of loose ends and wire
abraded nerve ends. I was up in the spaces doing destruction, a
special project for the XO of the fightin’ bitin’ Silver
Schnauzers, and trying to burn the caffeine out of my system. I
got to sleep about 0430 and was awakened briefly to the dulcet
tones of CAG, who had a penetrating question about a message
security bust from the Red Lions. From my REM sleep I was able to
offer a cogent analysis of the problem and recommended
cancelling the errant message and reissuing it at a higher
classification. I lay there looking up for a moment and then
yawned and the next thing I new it was 1330 and about time to get
with the program.

Things started slowly because the grown-ups had gotten off ship
last night for the big CO’s dinner to conclude the turn-over. I
heard some great tales this morning. Someone looking at the
CAPT’s gig and reporting all the glass gone from the forward
compartment windows. Someone hitting the Admiral smack in the
forehead with a water-soaked roll, and later the Flag and his
staff racing down the NATO fuel pier to leap into the Barge to
drag race the other Flag staff to the carriers. It sounded like
fun and none of them regained their focus until late in the
afternoon.

I confronted just a few short fuzed problems resting on my desk.
One was the task of photographing the charts for the end-of-cruise briefing….
you know, the ones we had finished shredding
the night before. We scrambled around for a while and came up
with a representative sample from the squadrons and arranged for
the ship’s Photomate to make them into slides. There will be a
lot of work to do to get it out of the way, but at least it will
be something to keep us busy across the Atlantic.

Then got into a conversation with John Kurowski that got me upset
about the message controversy we had the other night. It turned
out that the Staff had never been an addressee on the damned
thing and therefore they didn’t have any business reading the
message in the first place. Which got me really hacked off at the
self righteous little shit who was down here talking about
loyalty to the staff and some other pithy issues. I’m glad I
never got involved because I would have offered him a new set of
lumps out in the parking lot. And that worm Scott Sinclair, who
managed to get my messages to everyone except the one to whom it
was addressed….

So I was in a fine fettle when it became 1600 and I realized that
it was time for the meeting I had called to make the awards
presentation for the cruise. I called the meeting to order and
summarized the accomplishments of the deployment, which was most
notable for representing the long line of carriers that had
finally broken the will of the Soviet Union and finally won the
Second World War. As long as they lived, I said, they would be
able to point back at this moment in time and know that they and
all our comrades who had gone before had made a difference in the
world.

Then on to presenting letters of Appreciation from CAG and
finally the presentation of the Navy Achievement Medal to Petty
Officer Berger. I was very moved by the whole thing; it being the
first time I had ever done something so significant. It was a
real thrill to see Berger and how proud he was and quite frankly
quite a charge for myself. It was really neat to be able to do
something so inexpensive and yet so meaningful for the
individual. Really a charge.

Then we launched into a couple other ad hoc projects. Lutt-man
and I filled out the FEDERAL Express vouchers to get us on the
helo to Rota on the 1st, so we could have brunch with the FOSIF
crowd. I couldn’t bear not having at least a morning ashore
before the TRANSLANT, and there is some actual work to be done.
Hopefully over Bloody Mary’s.

Then we schemed a way not to answer a message from SIXTHFLT by
bumping it over to the new guys (“REFS A and B provide CVW-6
input for final report specified REF C”) and Berger’s CO stopped
by to yell at me for awarding a medal to one of his people
without telling him. Sometimes you can’t win. The Schnauzers had
told me months ago Berger wouldn’t get a medal unless I got one
for him, so I did all the paperwork and got the CAG to give one
up, and CAG told me to give it to him. I swear, there isn’t
anything these last couple week you can’t turn into some kind of
crisis. Then the toner ran out on our only printer and I drafted
and sent a priority message begging for more out of Rota. Then I
wrote this and my computer crashed and I had to write it all over
again and that is exactly the kind of day this has been.

It is nearly 0200 and it is time to go to bed. Two days to
Gibraltar and outchop. Twelve days to NAS Cecil Field.

30 MAR:

It was a peaceful night, few announcements on the 5MC on the
flight deck and with the catapults shut down, the compartment was
cool and peaceful. I dozed until 0900….I heard the “ding, ding”
that signified two half hour periods had passed since the change
of the watch at 0800. I was contemplating what to do about waking
up; whether I should turn over and try for more or get up and get
about my affairs. I began to run through the list of things to do
while I lay there, cozy, when the phone went off and the day
crashed into me ready or not.

It was Flash from the Rippers who wanted to know if he could use
the laser printer; in view of the fact that the Rippers had
provided most of the charts for the end of cruise brief, I was
hard pressed not to acquiesce. The toner crisis reached critical
proportions. There must have been four squadrons down to try to
get on our machine; the opnote response I got from Rota was real
snotty and said essentially “FO&D, we ain’t got none.” So we
flailed around trying to figure out if we could get someone CMSA
in Norfolk to get a toner cartridge out to the C-141 that is
coming to Rota to pick up the early birds.

John Hedlund chimed in with an OPNOTE asking for our schedule on
the 1st, but regrettably we can’t give him one. Don’t know when
we can get on the helo.

Then Scooter wanted to view the slides we had taken the day
before; so we had a special screening and he seemed pleased. We
are forging ahead on that and the turn around training cycle.
This drifted into lunch with CAG and the Deputy, and thence on
into a lazy sort of afternoon cleaning out files, organizing the
rest of the photo shoot and preparing to close out the special
category CONOPS program. The earliest of the early bird returnees
are headed off today. IS2 Alexander from ship’s company is headed
off on emergency leave because his mother died yesterday.

Got a letter from Jane; the afternoon drifted away sorting
through the piles of crap on my desk and shooting more chart
graphics. At dinnertime I elected to jog instead of feed. I ran
on the flight deck for about twenty minutes; it was drizzling and
the deck was slippery as hell and being alert was rather pleasant. The
highlight of he activity was an announcement from the tower that
a KC-10 was cleared in for a fly by. We could see the landing
lights way astern and it looked like the pilot was lining up for
an approach. Finally he pulled off down the port side, landing
gear down and floated by. An impressive sight. Then he cleaned up
and disappeared into the low clouds.

I took a shower and pressed my way through the crowd of troops
who always muster directly in front of my door. I laid down on my
rack and watched a segment of Ask the Chief, one of the strangest
shows in the world. Among other tid-bits, it was revealed that
the Mayport Club system is going to the same nonsense as Rota,
with an “all hands” sports bar where the EM Club used to be,
elimination of the Chief’s and Officer’s Clubs. This is all
bullshit and it depresses me. I imagine the rest of the changes we
are liable to see are going to be even more extraordinary.

I dozed off for a moment and Wally woke me up to go get new CMS
material….for the last time of the cruise.

Then down to Fo’csle Follies, a wild and raucous hour of
scatological funnies during which the top nuggets and top
squadron for landing grades were recognized. The clothing was
outre; Fighters in Beach garb, helo guys in sports coats and ties
and shorts. Duke was clad in a raincoat with an enormous water
cannon on the back. It was a wet evening and the globs of crazy
string were flying all over the Capt and the Admiral.

The H-53 crew was their, including a female pilot who could
credibly compete for the title of “World’s Plainest Naval
Aviator.” I wonder what she thought? Maybe having got as far as
she has it rolls off. Still, I would think it would be a little
irritating. Things are definitely going to change when women come
aboard in force.

Best song was unquestionably a rendition of Billy Joel’s song “We
didn’t start the Fire” by VA-37, followed by JQ who did “Dear Admiral, Dear Admiral.”

At the conclusion, the Admiral waxed pretty emotional. It is his
last cruise. Somebody observed it was the Winter Cruise from
Hell, but I think it was just another cruise in the long line. No
better, a little worse in some regards, but basically, just
Cruise. Tomorrow ends our longest month.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotora
www.vicsocotra.com

09 August 2022

End of the Cold War

HAIFA, ISRAEL: INTIFADA FOLLIES
œœ 11 © 17 MAR 90

11 MAR:

Among the Believers. We dropped the hook at 0730 in the
roadstead off Haifa. I was up, bright as a penny, for the Ops
Meeting in CVIC. I was already resigned to the inevitable delays
in getting off the ship; what with the exercises coming up I knew
that my potential playmates from the Operational side of the
house were going to be buried at least neck deep in draft
«±ª«messages all day.

Accordingly, the hairs only stood up a moderate distance on the
back of my neck when I heard the boatswain’s whistle and the
electrifying words: “Liberty Call, Liberty Call for Officers and
Chief Petty Officers.” That went down about 0830, a remarkably
progressive event after the sequential buffoonery of the boating
in Alexandria. Still, the meetings unfolded with the inexorable
force of inertia. There is a ton of stuff to do, almost
surpassing comprehension. The Med portion of the deployment will
end with a rising crescendo of pandemonium. Mark and Lutt©man
are snowed in, and we have to build the concept brief for CAG to
pitch to the Admiral tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, I can’t get
started on graphics production until the grownups decide what
they want to say, so there is nothing for me to do until late
afternoon at the earliest.

I stroll back over to Planning and alert the duty section to the
fact that Tasking will be inbound at some point. Between that and
lunch there isn’t any more I can do for a while, so I am in bed
for a nap by 1300. I sleep hard until 1430, when Doc Feeks raps
on the door demanding a playmate and wingie to hit the Beach
with. I look up for a moment and decide that an Intelligence Duty
Officer and two duty Intelligence specialists are probably
adequate to the task of typing up five graphics. I call Mark and
Lutt and inform them that the sirens of the Holy Land have
overcome me and that I will be ashore until further notice.

Ten minutes later we are walking down the hangar bay and notice
that the liberty line snakes all the way back amidships. This
does not bode well; by the time we exercise our Officer
Prerogative and reach the fantail we see why things are balled
up. One of the contract ferry boats is an enormous ungainly ship
with a flat bottom and two towering decks. He is parallel to the
fantail camel and is swinging through about fifteen degrees of
roll in nearly calm seas. They cannot disembark the ten
passengers they have on board. We watch with increasing
skepticism for a half hour until the watershed occurs and a first
class Petty Officer slips while trying to leap to the camel and
disappears between the barge and the wildly rocking ferry.

I turn away because I know I am about to see one of those
horrible industrial accidents in which a frail human body is‹j‹«ºº«crushed to jelly between two huge and utterly unyielding plates
of steel. Against all hope, the boat is leaning out against its
lines and does not crash against the camel on this cycle and the
sailor is pulled out unscathed. This is the second incident in
attempting to board the boat (dislocated ankle, earlier in the
day) and that is enough for the Officer of the Deck and the large
ferry is summarily banished. After an hour of boating follies we
are finally embarked on a little ferry, equally ungainly but with
a ‘vee’ hull which does not swing so wildly.

We head in toward the harbor and the City which crawls up the
steep slopes of MT Carmel. It is overcast and the wind is brisk.
I am chilly in my sweater. The old arab town is clustered below,
low and straggling along the coast. On the crest thrust the
skyscrapers of Israel and the Dan Panorama and the Dan Carmel
Hotels. We round the new breakwall and pass the ships of commerce
and the low silhouettes of the missile boats. Turrets crown the
quays facing the sea.

Fleet Landing is in the dockyard district. The first impression
is of a quiet industrial backwater, and nothing changes that.

Beers at Gil’s place.

Dan Panorama at the top of the hill. What a view! The Gang’s all
here…at least the Fighter Guys are…Brownie, what a piece of
work!

Cab to shopping mall to look for toys. We can’t find an open bar
later. The only places are near the Fleet landing, so Doc Feeks
and myself wind up sampling the local pleasures. The bartender is
a hefty Moroccan with blue eyes, 48, and she lifts her shirt to
show us her grandmother breasts. Turns out she was a French Colon
who got the boot when decolonization brought the Muslims to
power. Everybody here has got a story. She has two sons in the
IDF now. Everyone in this place has got a story. We disengage as
swiftly as possible and wander down the street to an open air
cart where we buy lamb kebabs on a stick which he throws into
pita bread with salad and sour yoghurt dressing. They taste
wonderful. We have a final beer with the Gamblers in the place
next door and head back to the ship.

12 Mar:

Up early and full of virtue. Doc Feeks has a crushing hangover
and stays in bed. Mark and I are the only alert action officers.
We need output from the 0900 meeting, general guidance on the
Missilex we have to plan for National Week in two weeks;
naturally, this is a major pain in the ass, because the messages
can’t be generated until we know whether the Admiral likes our
surveillance plan and concept of operations. This has all the
potential to be a major goat©rope, since among other minor‹f‹problems the area is in the middle of major shipping routes in
the central Med.

When the meeting is over, a bunch of tasking is issued. Nothing
for me, yet, since I can’t distill the messages for briefing
until they are written. Mark and Lutt©man are going to be snowed
under, but there is no particular reason for me to stick around.
Chop has been delegated to open up the Admin at the Tel Aviv
Hilton, so he will be leaving in a car about noon. I attach
myself to the raiding party, which will feature Toad, Doc Flynn,
CAGMO, Chop and myself. We are waiting on the fantail when Hof
Lewis and the Staff guys arrive to take the Admiral’s Barge into
town. Hof waves us on; I am glad I am wearing my sportcoat.
Boating has not improved much; the camel is still two feet too
high and the boat is rocking and rolling in the swell. We make it
aboard safely, though, and are deposited on the beach in cracker™jack fashion. We are trying to find DCAG’s car when the Senior
Shore Patrol rounds the corner and tells Doc his professional
services are required. One of the kids who run the Admirals barge
got thrown off the boat and has perhaps crushed a couple ribs.

Doc gets involved in his primary mission while we wait outside.
In the lobby of one of the harbor buildings, watching the young
black sailor writhing in agony on a Stoke’s Litter. This does not
bode well. We have to wait for Toad to arrive on the next boat,
so we go out the gate and have a Maccabi beer in the now™brilliant sunshine and watch the passing spectacle on the street.
Every race on the globe is represented in the passing throng.
Dark Yemeni’s walk and gesture with blonde Germans. There is a
tale in every face.

After a beer we walk back. Doc has to escort the injured sailor
to the hospital because the corpsman can’t be located. Toad has
arrived; we bundle into the Deputy’s car and blast up the beach
road toward Tel Aviv with Mr. Toad at the wheel.

I feel my head starting to nod, and the next thing I know I am
hearing the through my doze an intensely strange BBC program
about the topography of a woman’s body. It is related by males in
the most salacious terms. I come to consciousness as the
commentators are plodding up the mons venus. We are slightly lost
in Tel Aviv, looking for the beach and the Hilton. We are turned
around several times before we find the place. Checking into
CAG’s executive suite is a breeze. The lobby show is
extraordinary, well heeled men and women swirling through the
vast cavern, a piano tinkling softly in the background.

The view is magnificent from room 1009. Tall smokestack and
airfield to the north with strange military aircraft buzzing in
and out. An Israeli gunboat sits sentinel just beyond the line
of surfers at the wave break.
‹f‹åWe sortie immediately to stock the bar with frosty cold ones.

We enjoy a couple of these in the room while waiting for the
next car to arrive with our leadership. We go down to the lobby
to have a beer and see who shows up and sit with the Fighter guys
for a half hour and watch them make zone©five passes at two
pretty Canadians who are enjoying tea. I might have mentioned
this, but everyone has a story here. These stories© Yona and
Sharon, as it develops© are that big sister lived here for her
first eleven years and Baby Sharon has lived all her 22 years in
Canada. Their Father got them out of the country after the ’67
war. The family is still in Tel Aviv, and Yona has arrived to
attend a wedding the next day. Sharon is attending Hebrew
University for a year to get familiar with the country. We drift
back to the room as the fighters are cuing up for additional
attack runs.

As the clock swings inexorably to 1900 and no one else in sight
we decide to get our on the street and take a look at the city.
It is raining gently as we walk down the beach toward town.
Nothing is happening. We have a falafal in pita to keep our
strength up and bounce around aimlessly. There are many bars and
restaurants, but no one is in them. Someone comes up with the
intelligence that Israel’s version of Halloween has just gone a
few days before and consequently everyone is a bit partied out.
As the rain intensifies we are driven into a pleasant white
bistro with a student crowd where we enjoy tall draft Maccabis
and dine on a huge plate of french fries. There was a stunning
blonde waitress with whom Chop immediately fell in love. I am
confident she had a story but I didn’t hear it.

Later, in the lounge of the Hilton, Yona and Sharon have returned
and laugh through about 60 Air Wing Six target run©ins. Toad and
I cash it in about midnight with the lounge still rolling with
the echoes of the Thunder’s Squadron Song. CAGMO is on the phone
to the U.S. and has his wife call Jane to give her the number so
she can call the room. I talk to the her and the boys for about
twenty minutes. They sound great. I is almost over. After we
finish I walk back out on the balcony and smoke a cigarette with
Doc Feeks. The surf crashes into the seawall below and the sky
has cleared. I am so far away. Last call before I come home.

13 Mar:

We arise early and start to clear the cobwebs. I treat Doc Feeks
to a prophylactic Alka©Seltzer and read the Jerusalem Post. The
leadership crisis is percolating nicely; there may be a
Government later in the day and there may not. The issue is
negotiations with the PLO over the fate of the West Bank. This is
of some interest, as we are bound for the Capital that morning.

Our guide is Svi Ginzberg, a Polish©German©Sabra of 67 seasons.‹f‹He is a veteran of the anti©British Jewish underground during
WWII; a commissioned officer in the fighting in Jerusalem during
the 47©48 fighting. He wears a nine millimeter automatic
unobtrusively in his belt and drives a Mercedes Cab. He whisks us
out of the Hilton Parking Lot at precisely 1030. We hit the four™lane Rout One to Jerusalem and speed along as he regales us of
tales of the country to which he came in 1934. Every tree was
planted, he says, and the Jews have remade much of this place in
their own blood. We pass scenes of heavy fighting in ’47, and he
points them out with the authority that only a veteran can give.
We pass one of the British Police Forts which were turned over
to the Arab Legion and he describes the action around the place.

As we roll up the hills toward the City we pass the burned©out
hulks of Jewish convoys shelled by the Arab Legion. The twisted
metal has been painted with rustoleum and stones raised to
commemorate the dates of the destruction. We cross areas where
the old border ran and he speaks of the desperation of ’47 and
the triumph of ’67 when they were eliminated.

Fog at the Knesset Building; we can’t see a thing. When we get to
the walls of the Old City the fog has lifted. We are dropped at
the Jaffa Gate while he parks the car and we wander down through
the Arab quarter and the bazaar. Then into the Jewish quarter.
The Intifada; the PLO edict that all shops must close at 1300 to
spite the Israelis. They are, of course, cutting their own noses
to spite their conquerors. Some shopowners hiss from behind
closed doors. Toad and I buy camel whips from a turbaned arab.

We pass the excavations in the Jewish quarter. To the West wall
of the Temple Precinct. Into the newly excavated section of the
West Wall, where Svi is reprimanded by a young man for explaining
while Hasidim are swaying in prayer. As we leave, hands clapped
over the cardboard Yarmulkes, he says that normally Jewish prayer
is so loud that nobody would notice, except for the particular
prayer that these strangely clad devotees. He discusses the
peculiar laws that govern the life of what he calls the Religious
men. A good Jew, he says, cannot walk into the Temple Grounds on
the mount above us because they are prohibited from walking on
the Holy Soil of the Temple. Since no stone has been left
standing on another from the Second Temple, no man may know where
the sacred soil begins. The past here has an immediacy that
lives tangible around us. We peer into the Dome of the Rock. Svi
ushers us quickly past, although we could have removed our shoes
and gone in to see what may be the alter upon which Abraham had
laid his son for sacrifice.

I find out later why Svi, so even handed in his treatment of the
religions, has little interest in the places of the Moslem faith.
I ask him how many children he has, since he has spoken of his
grand daughter who is serving in the IDF now for her National
Service. ‹f‹å
“I have a daughter who is 42” he says. “My son was killed at
eight o’clock in the evening of the sixth of June 1983 in a tank
engagement with the Syrians. He lived for ten hours but never
roused from his coma.”

Like I say, everyone here has a story.

We walk down from the Temple Mount and to the Via Della Rosa. We
walk the stations of the cross from Station Three, where the
ancient Roman paving has been excavated and brought to the
surface. I kneel on the large uneven stones where Christ walked.
We follow the path slowly uphill to the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher. This slightly shabby church was damaged in the last of
dozens of earthquakes and workmen bustle about with tools. A
cassocked priest talks animatedly on the telephone inside the
door. A crazy hodgepodge of Constantine and Crusader stones
outside. Inside, one of the sites of the True Cross, where I go
to my knees to touch the spot. We enter the Sepulcher itself,
where the accident of the line has me with the tomb of the Living
God with four Attack bubbas from VA©176. A greybeard Greek
Orthodox priest lights candles for us in exchange for Skipper
Rocco Montesano’s five dollar bill. I try hard for a devout feel
but it doesn’t come. It feels like Tijuana. The surreal is
increased by the Coptic Priest whose niche abuts the rear of the
Sepulcher. He hisses out of the darkness for alms.

Then out of the walled city, Arabs entreating us to visit the
shuttered shops. We buy a bagel from a street cart and wait for
Svi to pick us up. We are moderately surprised when he rushes up
on foot gesturing wildly. “The Intifada has hit me” he says. “I
am sorry, but they have broken my window with stones.”

I have the rock in question now, a piece of the old city wall,
ominous in its weight, heavy and three cornered. It has exploded
the glass all over the front of the car and lies silently next to
the gearshift amid the wreckage. Nothing is stolen; this is a
political stoning. Some youthful Arabs have targeted the cab
because of its Israeli license plates.

Svi drives off to make a police report and drops us to wait at
the King David Hotel. We enjoy a cold Maccabi beer in the elegant
lobby just this side of where the building collapsed from the
explosion of the bomb planted by young Menachim Begin.

We are just finishing when Svi returns and we pile into the car
for the trip to what may be the real Golgotha and what the Church
of England considers to be the real site of the Crucifixion and
REsurrection. It is a place of quiet beauty and peace. An Arab
cemetery now occupies the summit of Skull Rock, but we gaze from
the viewing place over the bus depot. We have our pictures taken
in front of the Tomb of the Living God.‹f‹å
Then rapidly through the Arab section outside the wall, real West
Bank touring, to the Garden of Gesthemene where the Lord was
denied and sweated Blood on the night the Romans came for him.
The olive trees here are nearly two thousand years old, and may
be the same that in their youth bore silent witness to the
rejection of Jesus. We enter the Basilica and I fall to my knees
at the rail and say the prayer that sustained me through the long
days of Eric’s illness said as a mantra of acceptance and hope.
“Thank You, God. Thy Will be Done.”

The hour is growing late, and there is perhaps 45 minutes of
daylight left. Although it is illegal and off limits to
Americans, Svi offers to drive us quickly to Bethlehem to visit
the Church of the Nativity. We think for perhaps a split second
before saying yes. As fast as thought we are on our way, crossing
quickly through the old border and into the West Bank again. We
are the last car in Manger Square and the Arab kids swarm over us
as we walk across the Square and into another crazy©quilt of a
church. The door is impossibly small, blocks placed within an
ancient arch to prevent the over©enthusiastic from riding their
horses into the church. Wooden covers in the flagstones are open
to reveal the intricate mosaics of the Church built by
Constantine.

We are nearly the last of the day into the Grotto of the
Nativity. We kneel again to the touch the spot where Mary Labored
amid the beasts of the field and where the Child was born. We are
off limits on the West Bank and we do not linger overlong. We
make a speedy exit across the Manger Square to get away from the
Arab children who grab at our jackets.

We speed away from the West Bank, back toward the coast and Tel
Aviv and the images of this day rolls through my head and I
futilely try to reconcile my awe and reverence and distaste and
disbelief. I cannot. As CAG says later, “If you ever figure it
out, James Robin, there are a couple million of us that would be
real interested.”

2000, 13 Mar. We pay off Svi, and arrive back at the Admin. The
Boys are here; Lutt©man and Mark and Moose. We start to party and
show our trinkets and breath our tales. We drink beer on the
balcony. We are near to giving up hope when CAG and DCAG arrive.
Another couple beers while they unwind and then CAG organizes the
strike on a restaurant that has treated him well before. The sign
over the door reads “Mandy’s Candy Store” but it seems to be
named The Little Ole Tel Aviv. I enjoy a Greek salad and the
Maccabi’s are tall and cold. The food is delicious; Lutt©man and
Chop violate any number of dietary laws with cheeseburgers and
spareribs.

I chat with the Deputy on the walk back to the Hotel. He is‹f‹excited because the orders are back on for EA to USCINCLANT. He
is leaving at the end of the week. He has been taking a fearful
ribbing all night, notably at the hands of the Lutt©man who
persists in reenacting the scene from TOPGUN when Maverick sings
“You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” to Kelly McGinnis. After this,
things begin to accelerate.

We visit the room and then pay a call on the VF©31 Admin where
Link Collier and Neck Sisterhen are playing bluegrass on the
guitar and fiddle. We sing along for an hour or so and enjoy a
couple free Fighter Drinks. As midnight comes on, it seems a good
idea for CAG, Chop, Doc and myself to walk up the street and show
CAG the new love of Chop’s life. We have coffee and beer and CAG
confirms Chop’s excellent taste in Israelis.

Then a stop at a strange New Wave Israeli bar under the Hotel
Caravel, where the tunes are a bizarre collision of disco and
Middle Eastern Wailing. There is a lot of stuff going on here,
not all of it readily ascertainable without a scorecard. We
listen to two endless wailing songs with an excellent beat and
return to the Hotel, where the Helicopter guys insist on buying
us cognac from the Bar. Later, Ouzo comes in and invites us to
the Thunder Admin for a nightcap, where Doc Feeks attempts to
defy the laws of physics and tosses an apple and an orange from
the balcony in a bid to outdistance the olympic©sized pool ten
stories below. As we leave, the late shift of the Thunders rolls
in and jumps on top of those unfortunates who had the temerity to
try to go to sleep early. We close the door on a scene worthy of
the Inferno, with partially clad bodies writhing in the darkness.

Upon our arrival at our own Admin, we discover to our horror that
there is no available floor space. There are bodies everywhere,
the top mattress pulled off the double bed and unidentified Staff
Officers slumped in the two chairs and across the couch. Doc
suggests we go to breakfast, which isn’t being served yet, and
after a long talk with two young Israeli security guards winds us
up back downtown drinking red wine and dark sweet coffee in
glasses and eating what appears to be a cheese filled bagel and
soft boiled eggs and talking to some wonderful Yemenis. Not a
tourist trap; more beatnik Israeli. Student place, poetry, late
partiers. When we rise and return to the street is broad
daylight. We talk to our cabby© he has a story, too© about the
influence the United States is pressing on the current talks. We
are at poolside at 0800, where a couchette seems an excellent
place for a quick nap.

14 Mar:

By 1030 it is clear that what we need is a road trip to clear the
evil humors. Chop and CAGMO are going to look for diamonds, so
eight of us set off for Masada with CAG in the lead and Deputy on
the Wing. After some minor confusion in getting out of town we‹f‹find the four lane and blast off toward Jerusalem. I m
navigating and the maps we have do not have route numbers on
them, being more of the National Geographic persuasion than the
usual filling station map. I have plenty of information on the
map about the Dead Sea Scrolls but am hurting for the correct
turns. We detour around the capital and head for Jericho.

We roar through blasted nothingness. Bedouins living in tents.
Sheep grazing on thorns on the ridge lines. Badlands. Then off
the tabletop and we roll downhill, down through sea level, down
to the lowest spot on earth. Where some enterprising Israeli has
also pulled in a trailer, erected an awning. placed some chairs
and opened the Lowest Bar in the World.

Lutt©man cracks we should open a place with a basement and call
it The Scroll Lounge and really have the lowest place ever.

We stop at the marker and have our pictures taken. Then a right
turn on route one and we hug the shore of the Dead Sea, the water
brilliant blue, the barbed wire unweathered on the security
fence. Raw, wild, blasted country with an unearthly beauty. After
55 Kilometers we see an immense flat©topped mesa in the distance.
We are approaching Masada.

Up the cable car; from the summit the Roman siege lines and
Castra are as well marked as it the last 1900 years had never
happened. The ramp that they build to storm the city is there, as
is the spoil from which they worked. It is eerie and real and
tremendously moving. As we gaze down at the assault route I
confess to CAG that I find myself drawn more to the solders of
the 10TH Legion who invested the place than to the Zealots who
defended it. CAG smiles and says softly “I was ùINú the 10TH
Legion.”

The sun is brilliant and the breeze refreshing. Among other
wonders in a day filled with the extraordinary, I walk into the
oldest extant Synagogue, one that served this garrison in the
days of the Second Temple.

The tee©shirts say: “Masada shall not fall again.” F©16s roar by
on low©level training flights. This is a special and holy place.

DCAG has a flat on the highway haded back north; after some minor
excitement in trying to find our where the spare is hidden we
blast on. The ride back to Tel Aviv is long and I doze. When I
awake, I provide erroneous directions to the hotel but we make
it. We pack our bags on the run, as much has transpired in the
business world since we have been away. Mark’s wife Trish was
hospitalized with an emergency gall bladder operation; Scooter is
panicked about five new action items that the Staff has dreamed
up. We have to get back to work. The ride back up north to Haifa
takes an hour and fifteen minutes. We wheel into the port complex‹f‹and get the car parked.

The Senior Shore Patrol immediately buttonholes CAG, and begins
the litany of woe from the night before. CAG changes from Dad to
Commander. Boating is easy for a change and in the wink of an eye
we are Naval Officers again. Up in the office we discover no mail
and Deputy discovers his on©again orders are off again.

He is as low as I have seen him, and he wouldn’t have looked out
of place on a stool at the Scroll Lounge.

The events of the day have been catastrophic. The Conference on
the 16th is back to being on the 15th. There are eighty things to
do. This doesn’t look good. Maybe I will get off the ship again
and maybe I won’t. One thing is clear, however, this has been a
power tour for the ages. The other thing is that when the ship
pulls out of here, the next land on which I walk will be NAS
Cecil Field, Jacksonville Florida.

15 Mar:

A lost day. Up at 0630 to begin preparations for the Final
Planning Conference (I rather like the sound of that). We power
through a variety of issues dealing with our next exercise and
host a group of thirty©odd IDF officers. That goes on till 1300,
whereupon we lurch uncertainly into our next crisis. This one
deals with the dual carrier Battle group operations coming up
next week. Can’t wait, everything is changed, crash action.

I have my guys make up new charts and stand by for tasking. We
are still on the ship at 1600, nothing seems to be getting any
better, so I take a nap. I set the alarm for 1800 and when that
happens I blow it off and sleep until 2100. More action items,
Hof is out of his mind, the usual. I am down at Midrats where I
see Robert Pittman who has some major league bandaids across his
nose. I ask him how he got those and he replies casually that one
of his squadron mates tried to bite it off. I can see that this
has truly been a memorable inport period for everyone.

I secure about 0014. Israeli Air Field tour at 0730 tomorrow.
Great deal except the operations order specifies CNT Khakis,
ribbons and no flight jackets. It was freezing today; I don’t
know what we are supposed to do without coats. This is what you
get when the Naval Attache is a fucking Black Shoe.

16 MAR:

The day of the great Jacket flail begins early. Everyone is
nattily attired in CNTs and helmet bags, the bags containing
flight jackets. We stumble down to the Fantail precisely at 0730.
The group is a motley assortment of outergarments. VF©31 is
defiantly attired in green nylon jackets. A few guys who didn’t‹f‹get the word are wearing brown leather jackets. Those who have
complete sea©bags are sporting the geekish khaki windbreaker. The
Deputy, ever conscious of the letter and spirit of the
regulations is attired in a long black raincoat. The rest of us,
walking the fine line, wear no jacket at all but carry
suspiciously lumpy gymbags.

Thus was it ever, I suppose, but the intent of the instruction
to standardize resulted in no less than five variations of the
uniform.

Thankfully the day is balmy and the issue never gets to the front
burner. Still, we start the tour with bile rising in the back of
the throat. Boating is inexplicably delayed for a half hour;
there appears to be no known connection between the people who
make the announcements over the 1MC and the very same individuals
who could look over the end of the ship and notice that there
isn’t any boat there.

I could go on for a couple hours of ranting about the boating.
Lack of etiquette and decorum. Anarchy in the lines. The drunks,
the mismanagement, the horrible condition of the ship’s boats. It
is enough to drive you berserk each time you essay the journey
ashore. Here, with the swells high and the wind blowing,
virtually everyone has been arriving soaked because the canvas
covers have been ripped away. It looks like hell. I don’t know
what our guests think about all this.

Anyhow, we wound up on a Eurobus making the northward trip to
Ramat©David Air Field. We followed the signs to Nazareth, passing
the industrial suburbs of Haifa and passing into the rich green
country of he Kibbutzes. In between we saw pleasant homes perched
on the hills that could have been in California. We get to within
16KM of Nazareth. The hills in the distance under the beautiful
blue sky must be the Golan Heights. The turn to the base is not
marked. We follow a two lane for perhaps three kilometers and
arrive at the Security Checkpoint. We wait while things are
explained to the gate guards. I look out the window and watch a
cluster of national service kids trying to hitch rides home. The
bus in particularly entranced with a girl with a leonine mane of
blonde hair and an UZI sub machine gun. Apparently the troops are
billeted at home in order to keep costs down.

We pick up LT Danna, who is typical of PAO officers around the
world. She is pretty and her hair falls down over one eye. She is
accompanied by a young man whose purpose is undetermined, but I
presume it is security. DCAG mentions that no one is in charge
and Danna looks at him and says deadpan “I could tell that.” The
bus erupts with hoots.

We drive to the Club where we are served sweetened black coffee
and a lavish spread of breakfast pastries. This is followed by a‹f‹briefing from one of the XO’s of a F©16C squadron. He gives us a
history of the base. Built by the Brits in 1937. Supported Mid™East operations during the war. Evacuated by the Brits in 1947.
First Israeli Meteor jets in 1955. Combat ops in 67, 73 and 1983.
There is another war in there somewhere that I do not recall. The
Major recounts the kill numbers from all engagements and mentions
that the base was hit by Syrian SCUD missiles in 1973.

He mentions that this is a small place several times. Flight time
for him in his F©16C to overhead Amman, Jordan, is 3.5 minutes. 5
minutes to Damascus. He is less than forthcoming during the
question©and©answer session. DCAG asks him how many aircraft are
in his squadron. The XO clears his throat and looks to the back
of the room for guidance. Someone says something and the XO says
“Not enough.”

I turn around. The classification expert is the bus driver, who I
must presume is the Mossad representative. DCAG follows up his
question by asking the umber of pilots in the squadrons but the
XO says “About as many as the airplanes” and smiles.

This is clearly going nowhere, so I refrain from asking whether
U.S.©supplied satellite imagery is used by the strike planners
and how is the RF©4 photo©reconnaissance imagery processed and
can we meet with their Air Intelligence people?

They then show us some fantastic gun©camera footage of MIG kills
from 1983 which plays to rapt attention and then we are off to
the maintenance hangars. We look at some F©16C’s in SLDM and
some venerable F©4’s and note the engine canisters stored
outside that still say “property of USAF” on the side. Then we
pile back on the bus to the flight line and watch some routine
flight operations. We get to see a take off and landing by the F™16’s, a low fly©by and a section of Phantoms in the break. It is
clear as a bell, warm and a perfect delight to be outside. Danna
hands out some zappers, which we exchange for squadron and Air
Wing Six stickers and DCAG manages to get the fact that they have
13 pilots in the squadron out of the XO. They also fly about 15
hours a month.

Then the tour is over and we are back on the bus and rolling
through the pastoral valleys of northern Israel. The kibbutz
workers are in the fields and it is quite lovely, almost like
there were not SCUD missiles lurking on the next set of ridges
waiting to crash into the earth.

We arrive back at Fleet Landing at noon and are back on the ship
to change clothes and hit the beach and enjoy the gorgeous day.
We are no more than aboard when the 1MCV crackles to life and we
hear that Boating will be Secured until further notice due to
spraypainting on the Stern. Trapped! Major Bummer! What perverse
son of a bitch runs the boats around here?‹f‹å
We cannot get off the ship again until nearly 1600. Cast of
characters includes Toad, Doc Feeks, Mark Sickert, me and
Scooter. We have DCAG’s car© we are supposed to try to take the
flat tire back to the Hertz People, but we are pushing the
closing times of the Sabbath and decide to blow that off. I have
to find the little shop that sells military insignia so I can
outfit the Boys with some trinkets; Toad wants to find a jewelers
shop and Scooter has actually decided to come ashore for the
first time in the inport period. We wind up on top of the
mountain at the Hotel Dan Panorama, which is one of the only two
open bars in town as the sun lowers on the horizon. We buy
newspapers and read with interest of the events of the day.

The Libyans are claiming that the Pharmaceutical plant at Rabta
has burned to the ground. The NCAA playoffs are starting. The
Israeli©PLO talks are continuing to wreak havoc with the
Government.

Drinking with Emil. Mom an DAD are no©shows. Pizza and wine; this
is not the Sabbath we had heard so much about. In fact, this is
wild!

Back home by 0050.

17 MAR:

Up at 0640 for the 5KM run.

Ashore by 0930….more fun with boating!. Another great day.
Signs ups and t©shirts. The poor organizer is going to take a
bath. She ordered about two thousand shirts and there are only
about forty of us running. The race is dedicated to a young
Israeli Commando who contracted cancer and died in a month and a
half and the organizer’s daughter who “died on the way to the
U.S.” four months ago. This is one of those stories I try to find
out more of but it is not going to happen.

Scooter, Toad and I are the Staff reps. We ride south on a bus
with the FID runners to the cable car restaurant complex. A bunch
of expatriate Americans are helping to organize the race. They
are nice and try hard. The sun is brilliant but the wind today is
chilly and gusting. It will be in our faces on the return leg of
the race. At precisely 1000 they send us off and we puff through
the thing. I do not hear my time, but I am pleased I can still go
all the way. I is nice to do something with the body other than
to use it as a caffeine and food filter.

Later, after the awards ceremony, we wander around the downtown
area killing time until it is late enough in the morning back
home for a final phone call before we go back to the ship. We
have an icy©cold Goldstar beer at one of two open outdoor cafes.‹f‹Two kids amble by with packages in their arms and we ask what
store is open in this closed up Sabbath town. They report there
is a grocery store open a few blocks away and we go over there
out of idle curiosity. It is a wonderful place, dark and high™ceiling, shelves stacked to the rafters and great open burlap
bags of lentils and dried beans and red peppers on the floor. I
shop earnestly for a while before finding my treasure. In the
back is the dried soup section, and there I find a Hebrew/English
label Chicken Soup mix with directions for preparing 140 servings
at a time. This I must have! It couldn’t hurt, right? I comment
to the owner about how nice it is to interact with real people
while you shop. She rolls her eyes and says this won’t last long.
The country is changing fast and soon it will be just like soul™less LA.

As we walk back to the landing I realize it is finally coming to
an end. We pass through the perimeter gate and stop at the Phone
center. Inside are twenty phones which connect direct to Israeli
operators who will place collect calls to the States. I almost
don’t call, because in the middle of the entrance stands a tall
rumbled kid who looks like a bos’ns mate. It looks like he has
been drinking for a long time and every other word out of his
mouth is fucking©this and fucking©that at about 102db. His issue
seems to be providing $1600 dollars to someone back home. He is
doing so loudly that the other 19 callers in the room get to
participate along with him. Scooter and Toad already have calls
in progress, so I wait. Finally, the TED finishes his call and I
place a quick one to Jane. She is awakened by the operator and
the boys are not yet up. I tell her to start the meter running, I
am almost on the way home.

I am glad I called and the warm glow lasts all the way back to
the pier. We all enjoys the anarchy at the boat. This is the last
liberty boat ride of the cruise and it is a memorable one. We
ride the small ferry, top heavy and wallowing in the heavy
swells. The view of Haifa is magnificent. We sit up top and I try
to record all the sights in my memory. Finally we arrive astern
the ship, where we are stuck bobbing around for about twenty
minutes.

It just wouldn’t have been FID boating if it had gone smoothly. I
report my return aboard to the JOOD and that is that. Home again.

Later, after a nap and a shower, we get the work day rolling
about 1600. Chop arrives from the ADMIN where he has spent the
last five days. He had a magnificent inport period, no duty,
foot loose and fancy free. He has been following the German
waitress around Tel Aviv for the last four days but doesn’t get
anywhere. He reports that the HS©15 guys who bought us the cognac
were thoughtful enough to put it on VF©31’s bar tab. That Sabbath
in Tel Aviv was a rock and roll affair and the bars were jammed.
‹f‹å«…««At dinner the Admin stories were flying. Some outfits© VF©11,
notably, had problems with the Hilton billing department. VS™28’s bill came in about a thousand more than expected. Our sedate
little sojourn will come to around $50 apiece for the staff,
quite a bargain, really. VA©176 had a biting incident as well,
but the cloak of silence was coming down fast on the sordid
details. CAG and DCAG returned from Jerusalem with tales of
wonder.

Then back to work. Air Wing training at 2000; Intel update on the
aspirin factory, draft a five page message for the Staff. Someone
steals a SECRET chart of Juniper Hawk and I have to decide
whether to call in the NIS. Ugh. This is not going to be fun. Bed
at 0200. IKE inchops in two days.

09 August 2022

End of the Cold War

I will not tire you with details of the medical adventure that has consumed the last month. This was in the background to all that. It is an actual cruise diary of what was the Last Cold War Cruise. Mr. Gorbachev came out to the Sea Sick Summit at Malta to formalize the moment, and so did President Bush.

Screen Shot 2022-07-05 at 10.46.58 AM.png

Now, this deployment is when it happened but of course it was only a part of it. It was a fun experiment that turned into something else on a winter deployment to the Med on USS Forrestal in 1989-1990. The notes were an attempt to capture the real nature of what it is like to get 70 or 80 jets worked up well enough to deploy to the world ocean, crossing the Atlantic and conducting operations in the West, Central and Eastern areas of what the Romans called the “Mare Nostrum.” If you have not seen it from the water, it is pretty neat. I never expected to find myself as an Amalfi coast kind of guy, but it is interesting to find these things out.

This chunk of narrative is of preparing for the voyage home, the Cold War over but still going on. It is relevant now, because for the next thirty 33 years we continue to stumble forward as the Russian machine turned itself inside out. It seems like we are embarked on something similar. Here is some of what it ws like, with a publication date coming up shortly…

– Vic

WESTWARD HO:
JUNIPER HAWK, NATIONAL WEEK AND TURNOVER

18 MAR 1990:

Got up with the Chop energy show at 0750.He has the upper bunk
in our compartment, and it was too early but
that was the way things were going to be. Last-pulling-out-of
port day. I luxuriated in lying there looking up for about a half
hour, thinking about the things that had to be done. When I was
sufficiently depressed I got up and took a semi-refreshing shower
and turned on the TV. I couldn’t quite bring myself to actually
start on the things I have to do, so I cleaned up. Made the bed,
hung up civilian clothes and generally tried to get the idea of
dry land and brilliant sunshine out of my mind.

By the time I got down to Mission Planning I was thinking about
the asshole that had stolen our SECRET Chart of the exercise and
my mood descended. I was in a foul humor through the morning and
a general pain in the ass to be around. I snapped at John Scali
when he came down to have me look at the message I had written
late last night. It was hard to get focused, so I concentrated on
cleaning things up, throwing out old traffic and actually made
some pretty good progress. By lunch I was actually enjoying my
bad mood until Lutt©man told me he wasn’t going to drink any more
famous CVIC coffee until I got funny again.

That shook me enough to put my usual sardonic grin on and after a
while it worked. I happened to stroll through CAG Admin at one
point and encountered an irate Moose, who was vehement in his
condemnation of the administrative nightmare it takes to close
out a Cruise. He was particularly incensed by a package of
awards that had come back out of the Deputy’s office with a lot
of happy-to-glad red ink changes and the number of pieces of
paper that would have to be re-run through the word-processors.
His rage was so impressive and so towering that I felt pretty
good by comparison. I got a haircut and felt almost chipper by
the end of dinner.

Today the Air Wing looked pretty good behind the boat, except for
the last recovery. Toad was waving and so he was happy. The day
was beautiful from what I heard and we survived the whole thing
with near©perfect equanimity. Scooter had some problems with the
air ops summary input Josh had put together at the conclusion of
flight ops but there was no yelling or screaming. I suppose we
will be able to save that for the next few days. The schedule of
events worked in our favor today; it was mostly Carrier
Qualifications for the aircrews (Cuz from VA-37 got six traps
today!) and services for the ships in company. Regrettably, they
got all involved in chasing a Russian Tango-class submarine and
weren’t interested in the kind of training we could provide.

I spent a good solid fifteen hours in the space and got the End of Cruise Intel input finished.

One by one the milestones are starting fall.

Tomorrow will have a lot of bilateral interest. We have ship
guests coming and things are going to get confusing, complicated
and emotional. But that is tomorrow. I have a chance to get a
half decent night’s sleep and that means we are another day
closer to the turnover in Augusta Bay. We fly a long©range TARPS
mission on the IKE tomorrow, who is still located west of the
approaches to Gibraltar. If the Kitty’s can pull it off it will
be a real triumph of the art. No one seems to mind the amount of
fuel we are going to burn to send a Tomcat from the East Med to
the Atlantic and frankly I’m glad. This could be kind of fun.

19 Mar 1990:

A day that had its diamonds and its turds. Since I can’t talk
specifically about the exercise in this somewhat constricted
forum, suffice it to say that a level eight goat©rope was the
order of the day. After a promising start on the third event, we
had a fairly close brush with a dreaded Border Violation.

Now, you must realize in this business that we rely on the pilots
to come back to the ship and essentially turn themselves in for
sins committed while aloft and out of view.

Figure the odds. Bottom line is that the guys normally have a
half hour or so to figure out the right cover story and get it
straight before they come in and debrief. The other part of the
issue is that we are ùnotú agents of the Inquisition and it is in
the best interests of everyone here to ensure that the most
favorable light is cast on any potentially unpleasant event. So
as I conceptualize my job, the only one who really needs the
truth is myself and only so that I can best arm the Boss with the
ammunition to defend himself and his Air Wing from the real
Enemy, who is situational. Sometimes it is the FAA and sometimes
it is Sixth Fleet. In this case it is some Government or another.

I got a good refresher in the Aviation code early in this tour
when I was flying with VC©5 down in Puerto Rico. I was in the
backseat of a TA-4 with an old squadron buddy from VF-151. After
launching a BQR-34 drone for a Missilex, we were touring the
Windward Islands in international airspace. We were having a ball
when I noticed a Turkey from one of our squadrons arcing into
somebody else’s airspace and violating the briefed rules of the
road for the area. My pal (who, as a local, has to live with
these people all the time) was irate. When I returned to Hangar
100 after the hop I was bubbling with residual adrenaline and
stories to tell. I started in on the offending Tomcat and Scooter
quickly drew me out in the passageway. He leaned in close.

“If you ever expect to fly with anybody in this Wing you had
better learn to keep your mouth shut. Nobody is going to give a
hop to a blabbermouth.”

So, with the exception of the Boss, Mum’s the word. I remember
the first time I wrote a response to criticism from the
Government of Hong Kong, which went something like; “We couldn’t
possibly have violated your airspace because we weren’t flying
that day, and even if we were flying we were under positive
control.”

So anyway, today’s story was that it was pretty close but nothing
bad happened and our guy pulled away in time and his wingman
agrees and what are you guys so upset about anyway?

I even believe it.

Well, unfortunately somebody else higher on the food chain didn’t
and we had one of those international snits where somebody comes
up on the radio and tells us to stop what we’re doing without
explanation and we do, except we have a whole event airborne and
we waste that one and then launch right into one of the most
frustrating episodes of the cruise, which is a bit funny but more
on the pathetic side.

After some high©level radio chit chat the exercise was on again
only by the time they got the decision Air Ops called me and told
me to tell the aircrew, except I pointed out that the aircrew had
already manned up their jets and started their engines and that
it was going to be real hard for me to yell through the steel
deck over all that noise and why didn’t they talk to them on the
radio? I called the TAO and told him, too, and Ops and figured I
was about out of the loop.

Two hours later the sixth event players trooped in and said they
had spent the dark©assed evening drilling around looking for
surface shipping and nobody had told them that the exercise was
back on. The point to this is that the guy who was controlling
them on their fruitless mission sits exactly four feet away from
the TAO.

It makes you want to scream. I know who is responsible. I may
have him shot.

On the other hand, we did have our diamonds. The great public
relations coop of the decade started out at 0730 this morning
when Skipper Denk and Crash launched in their trusty Tomcat and
flew out to get TARPS pictures of the IKE Battle Group. Ike is
approaching the Straits right now, or at launch time exactly
2,179NM to the west. Three tanking evolutions later (and about
30,000LBS of jet fuel) they rolled into the groove and caught IKE
with her flight deck clobbered, minding her own business.
That’s right: a ten hour mission, round trip of 4,300NM using
56,000LBS of JP-5 gas and we caught them asleep at the switch.
Fantastic! Welcome to the MED, Eisenhower. They will pass
Gibraltar tomorrow. Looks very much like we will get relieved on
time, unless we wind up at war with that idiot Mohammar Qadaffy.

It is 0130. They just called away a Medical Emergency in
compartment 3-79-1L, forward CPO berthing. Heart attack?
Indigestion? Doc Feeks has volunteered to act as the Senior CVW-6
Military Customs Officer. Maybe a Chief has a Customs question…

20 Mar 1990:

I keep telling myself that all I have to do is get through the
next few days and it will all be OK.

I was expecting some guests from the Beach this morning, so I
propped my eyelids open when the Chop got up and laid there with
the lights on. I got the telephone propped up on my chest and
called Conway who had the duty. “As soon as the Guests arrive,
give me a call. I want to be there.”

I heard the mighty thrashing of an HH-53 land on the deck above
but no call came from Conway. Looks like the schedule was already
falling to pieces. I got up anyway and started into another
twilight day.

First briefs went at 1015, I got the boards done and looked
sideways at the pile of classified material control records that
had been laying on my desk since we pulled out. I had discovered
that there was some considerable variance between my definitive
set of books and that being maintained by the YN1 over in Admin.
My task was to put the books back together, annotate records of
destruction and ensure that my records agreed with Admin’s.

That involved comparing a few hundred pieces of serialized paper
that had once been triplicate. So I stayed at my desk, activity
swirling around me, juggling books and memory and spot checking
documents to ensure that what my records said existed really did.
In the meantime, I entertained Doc Feeks and Lutt©man and Mark,
who periodically needed to get away from the hurly burly in their
spaces. DCAG came back from his meeting with the Friends and
allowed as how we had probably had a minor incident the day
before and remarked on the impressive credentials of the
individual who had walked him through the affair. I answered the
phone and passed briefing notes to Rev Al through the afternoon
while making notations in triplicate.

Flight ops concluded about ten and we got our last ragged summary
out of the way about 1030. The team is puffy and not working
well. Josh is trying to quite smoking and is flaky. Murf got turned down
for a sure-thing augmentation to regular Navy because
he has less than a year on active duty. Or so the queer
accounting of the Bureau reckons, because Murf has been here
almost two and a half years. Problem was his status as an “OSAM”
up until last fall, but that is too complicated (or surreal) to
try to go into now. Everybody has got get-home-itis, including me,
and tempers are short and no one is having fun.

At lunch today I listened to a chorus of agony from the entire
table. Moose was moaning about DCAG, who wasn’t letting him go
home early from Rota and organize the return. Mark is almost
driven to distraction by the fact that he is supposed to detach
and go to a West Cost Squadron in three weeks and he is still in
East Med with no orders. Lutt-man just hates his life as Hof’s
whipping boy since Scooter has elected to take the high road and
step back from the fray. I was actually feeling pretty good, or
at least the caffeine from the CVIC java had me artificially
alert at that time of the day.

Which dragged on and on. We got kudos from the Friends on our
flight performance today, which I relayed to CAG. That reads no
incidents, to the uninitiated. When I finally got done with the
paper drill I just kept finding more paper. There is something
very liberating about trashing all sort of formerly important
papers. I cleaned out two big file drawers and got all the SECRET
documents stuck in binders for easy accounting. I stripped out my
desk drawer of all messages older than two years. I ruthlessly
purged two huge stacks of TACNOTES which have been superceded
without ever getting distributed; I confess to a certain
nostalgia, remembering the sweltering night back in the Caribbean
during Advanced Phase when I had Cookie slaving over a searing
hot bulk copier trying to beat the CARGRU 4 deadline to produce
fifty copies each of the thirty-two separate documents. We go
into the editing phase of the next edition this week. That is one
reason why Lutt-man is hating his life, as he is the new TACNOTE
Officer.

Now we have to get through the last two days of this exercise,
shadow the Soviet task group south of Crete, transit to the next
one and turn over. I have to start the SPECAT inventory tomorrow
to get prepared to dump all this on the IKE.

I must say that seeing their Card of the Day Message and lack of
response to the TARPS mission yesterday made me feel pretty good
about our capabilities, despite the day-to-day agony. They must
be feeling very much the way we did five months ago. Early day
tomorrow. Time for rest.

21 MAR 1990:

It started too early and didn’t get much better. I am on the rag,
short tempered and irritable. Haven’t had much sleep the last few
days and the tempo of things is increasing. ‹f‹å
Struggles today started with the Guests who showed up to have a
meeting in my space about 0830. Had to roust the aircrews who
grumbled at the early hour but it turned out to be a valuable
interchange. Then we rolled right into flight ops. First couple
events involved SSC and DACT training, but the DACT got cancelled
and TARPS missions were laid on and laid off with alarming
regularity. Situation is fluid.

Scooter got upset with my guys© he claimed only 2 of three tasks
he laid on got passed© and I found myself suspended in disbelief,
as he is in his workout clothes saying this shit and I know for a
fact he also took a nap this afternoon. He clearly has a better
program than I do. I told him if he had any problems he should
just talk to me, as I am around just about all the time. It
didn’t register, I don’t think.

Hard to believe. Everyone is ragging. Tempers are short. Things
are starting to disappear. Joining the Exercise Chart in the
Great Unknown is my yellow ashtray. It may have gone into a burn
bag with the 150lbs of classified we shredded last night. Cleaned
out a few more files, drafted two long SPECAT messages for the
mirror-image strikes we will conduct on the 25th. I am starting
to drag again. I need some uninterrupted sleep to stop being so
surly.

It is hard, though. SIXTHFLT is making IKE jump through some
bodacious hoops and we are getting dragged along for the ride.
The CONOPS drill has forced me to pull all the imagery out again
and blow the cobwebs off the mission folders and put up the
exclusion signs. This is going to get a lot worse before it gets
any better. The only positive note is that the star of the show
is the Starship Eisenhower and we are the horse-holders. I say
the words “six days left” like a mantra but it doesn’t seem to do
much good.

I wrote a personal back-channel to Rocky Wilkenson and told him
that unless I heard differently, I was going to go ahead and
destroy most of the classified stuff I have got. The turnover
from America was more of a pain in the ass than a help and I
don’t want to do the same thing to these guys. We’ll see what he
wants to do.

I understand it was a pretty nice day outside, but I couldn’t
vouch for it from here. Got a letter from Jane with two more
pictures of the Boys. They are so huge now I can’t believe it. I
look at Nick’s face and see the one that stared back at me in the
mirror for the first decade of my life. And Eric is so tall. He
must have grown a foot. He has an impish grin and tosses his head
at a rakish angle. I had better get home and administer some
fatherhood to those lads.
‹Jane’s letter referenced the big shoot-out three blocks away. I
wonder what she meant by that?

22 MAR 1990:

What a wild roller coaster of a day this was. I have burned
through whatever mild hostility I had to this line period and
entered an entirely new and somewhat surreal phase.

I got to my stateroom fairly early last night, but was too wired
out to go to sleep. I wound up watching a movie until 0100, and
then tossed and turned in my rack for a long time. When the phone
went off, grenade©like, at 0745 I knew from the way my eyes were
stuck together that this was going to be an unusual day.

It started like yesterday, waiting for the Guests. The giant
helo landed shortly after 0800 and disgorged the briefing team.
The space was filled with aircrew waiting to see how they did;
that proceeded with a good deal of animation right into the first
event brief. Which possibly caused some of the confusion we
experienced a few hours later.

The TARPS guys were flying a short-notice mission to go look at
one of the Soviet anchorages. We had some information that
indicated the warships were not present, but out and motoring
around smartly north of there. Now, COMSIXTHFLT maintains rigid
control over exactly what TACAIR can go do what missions in
proximity to the anchorages, with the commendable goal of
keeping tensions low and preventing untoward interactions.
Regrettably, this adds a significant lead time into planning
these little picture taking evolutions and we were trapped in a
bit of a time warp on this one. The Staff had sent the message
requesting permission to go do the mission, but as of brief time
we had not heard a yea or nay from the Mandarins.

Naturally, the nay came in after the aircrew had manned up,
engines turning, the radio transmission cancelling the mission
was garbled and not received and we merrily drove over the
anchorage without the requisite permission. We had a little
inquisition over that one; aircrew, CO’s, Deputy, Briefer and me
in a little search-for-the-guilty. Deputy was real mellow and the
pictures turned out well, so that flap whimpered to a slow death
later.

We transitioned into flail about the CONOPS mirror image strike,
of which there is a slight chain of command problem (since CRUD-12
has the lead on this, do we wait to hear from them what they
want us to do? What will their pre-exercise message say? what
time and what direction will we run the simulated strike?) Our
directions are mixed, and we essentially are told to sit down and
relax until we hear what they have to say….until the afternoon,
when we get Spanky McClusky radio-derived Intelligence (‘SpankInt,’ for short)
when he overhears the Red Rotator telling his fellow
wizard that our Concept message is already on the wire and that
he ought to speed things up.

Which sort of pokes things in the ass from our end and so we
crashed through the message, got a quick chop on it and I worked
some of my magic and got a bogus date©time©group assigned so it
looked like we had actually sent the thing about eight hours
before we actually did. Then we got a tasker from the Intel
Mandarins to review all the Essential Elements of Information
(EEI’s) for the entire target process and, by the way guys, could
you possibly have that to us by the 26th?

So I flailed at that one for a while and walked down to chow with
CAG and the boys when Dayne Denning from the Fightin’ Bitin’
Schnauzers braced me and said there had been another border
violation and I took swift and immediate action to get all the
information. I jumped on the wardroom phone and had Perky break
the mission code the offending bird had been squawking and found
out it had been a Thunder jet. I grabbed a plate of some oddly green
looking curry and walked back to the CAG Staff table and leaned
over and told CAG it had been 500-series airplane. He didn’t seem
that interested so I sat down and ate and then wandered back to
work.

Where I discovered why he wasn’t that interested in the facts of
the matter because he already knew them pretty well. He had been the
pilot.

So, now it won’t be Deputy going in to the Exercise debrief in
the morning, it will be CAG. I talked to him later, at midrats,
and he was exceedingly unhappy with his B/N. I know the man and
it is all too bad. We will see how this plays out. That asshole,
the Naval Attache, is reportedly drafting a message from the
Ambassador to VADM Williams. Great interlude.

Then later, we lurch into the long message strike plan for CONOPS
and the clocks change from ‘bravo’ to ‘alpha’ time (gain an hour)
and work through to 0100, when I call Scooter to pimp him about
the graphics for CAG’s presentation in the morning (he has to
board the COD at 0500) and he says he hasn’t quite got to that
yet because Murf’s reconstructed bomb©hits memorandum is all
fucked up. Since that is my bowl of rice I storm over to find
the Deputy and Lutt©man in the office and the memo covered in red
ink. I am tired and pissed and afraid that the numbers are all
fucked up and we will wind up at 0230 with all the aircrews and
operations officers in the Wing standing around bitching about
what weapon went where and who the guilty bastard is.

As it turns out, the only thing wrong with the memo is that one
bomb got brought back to the carrier rather than being dropped at
sea, which wasn’t the point, but rather that the percentage of‹f‹duds was unacceptable.

Taking the low road, I was relieved that the data was correct and
that this was an ordnance issue vice an Intelligence one.

Which brings me back to my trusty word processor and helping
Berger to de-crypt Scooter’s writing. And maybe some sleep in a
while. This will be painful because I have to get up early and
get the draft strike message to the Deputy early so that he can
chop on it before transmitting it by 1000L.

One thing is for sure. It is now the 23rd and we are lurching
steadily on toward Augusta Bay. I can only marvel at the
opportunities we have to flirt with the extraordinary.

23 MAR 1990:

Today was a day of triumph and frustration, of low comedy and
professional vindication for the CV-59/CVW-6 Fighting Team. It
started with the wake-up call. This was so painful that I laid in
my bed for nearly a half hour looking up before I could get the
energy to move. I got to Planning about 0750; CAG was long gone
on the COD to the Juniper Hawk Debrief. I immediately started to
work with XO Carrol White on the CONOPS contingency plan; he was
waiting by the safe ready to go.

Phones started ringing and the coffee was flowing and the day
unfolded with astonishing rapidity. The launch and constructive
target positions changed about three times by the time they laid
out the fried shrimp for lunch. We ate with the Deputy; we were
in the grip of a Staff spasm which put us on hold until the
Admiral made some fundamental decisions about where submarines
were going to be placed and where we could stir the waters with
concrete-filled iron bombs.

It was sort of cool, and the action was fast paced. IKE was
supposed to raid us between 1300-1800, so the thrust of the day
was to avoid being discovered. There was a formidable capability
arrayed against us, but Rookie Word came up with a traditional
CV-41 WESTPAC gambit. We were not going to drive peacefully down
the published Point of Intended Movement. Instead, we broke to
the northwest and laid on some of the 3,000BBL of fuel CAPT
Thomassy managed to squirrel away for this very contingency.
Meanwhile, the ship went into strict EMCON and allowed the FOTC
broadcast to put out bad locating data that kept us right where
the simulated bad-guys were supposed to think we were.

OK, so the ship is in EMCON, which means all the launches and
recoveries are happening with the benefit of the radio, which is
a sort of eerie situation. Can you imagine it? All those huge
hunks of aluminum hurtling around, not talking, getting themselves
sorted out and landing without once breaking silence?
It is a wild thing, and thankfully the day was nice enough to
support it.

So we had two basic plans. The defense was arranged to keep two
airborne fighters at max conserve down the threat axis with
tankers shuttling gas out to station. Four more fighters were for
DLI (deck launched alert). Two E©2’s and two EA©6B’s were way
down the threat axis to keep their ESM gear trained for inbound
raiders.

So the defense was first oriented toward fooling them and second
to constructively blowing them away before they got within range
to do anything about it.

Meanwhile, our offense was cleverly crafted. We had requested
low©level times over Sardinia a couple weeks ago and the tanker
support for Sigonella to support the flight there. Our raid
checked in on the eastern side of the island; IKE was operating
just to the south. When the guys popped off the low©level they
continued the run©in and caught the Battle Group in the straits.
We blew them away! Round two to the ancient FID with our antique
airwing! Ha! Welcome to National Week, IKE.

One of the low comic moments came when XO Gershon flew out in a
Gambler S©3A and dialed up the IKE Mode II codes and joined up on
some of IKE’s own Vikings. XO operated around the IKE for about
twenty minutes, practiced some dry plugs on the S-3 tanker and
generally had fun. They wouldn’t give him any gas, though, so he
then joined up on the Air Force tanker and got 2,500LBs. When he
checked off the basket he passed his billing identity as Long
Horn 707. So long, and thanks for all the Fish! He never got
intercepted.

Meanwhile, we had Lizzie Borden and a wingie check back from the
S©3 det at Sigonella. Lizzie was the det OIC there for a few
weeks, and finally had to return to the ship. In their defense,
one has to admit that the situation was not exactly normal; FID
was off course and not talking. Lizzie thought we would be
driving along on the published track, whereas we were actually a
hundred and seventy miles off to the north. Consequently, when he
checked in with the airborne E©2, he got vectors which took him
NNE. The Hawkeye was a busy buckeroo up there all day, trying to
cover the Early Warning Mission, keep Yorktown informed (the
blackshoe motormouths breaking EMCON jeopardized the entire plan)
and be air traffic control and Land/launch for silent FID was
probably too much. In any event, Lizzie heard that he was
“cleared direct” to the boat. Regrettably, the island of Crete
was in the way and he just flew over it. So I got to spend the
half of the afternoon I didn’t spend on the CONOPS plan writing
the Unit SITREP to a host of Med commands. Don’t know if the
Greeks will pout or not.

But the best low comedy of the day was provided by a young
Parachute Rigger Airman Apprentice, who flew in to NAS Sigonella
for further transportation to his ultimate duty station. Filled
with trepidation about his first carrier airplane flight on the
COD the young man screwed up his courage and marched across the
tarmac and climbed up the ramp into the COD. He strapped in,
backwards, and shivered. The large ugly airplane lurched into the
air and lumbered toward the ship. After fifteen minutes in
starboard delta, the COD swooped down the glide slope. Looking
out the tiny porthole the airman could only see water rushing
behind and then suddenly the flash of black deck and the whole
contraption was snatched out of the air and ground to an
improbable halt. The C-2 taxied out of the wires and folded the
wings as the handlers got it situation abeam the island. The ramp
folded down and the PAX rushed out and were ushered across the
commotion of the flight deck, down into the island to the ATO
shack.

Where he discovered to his consternation that he was on the wrong
carrier.

As our first Prisoner of War, he was treated to cookies on the
bridge with CAPT Thomassy and a sheepish picture of the young
man with a placard reading “POW” around his neck hangs outside
of Strike OPS.

Tomorrow, we feature medium range strikes, and will probably get
the tasking for our second (and last) CONOPS strike.

24 MAR, 1990:

The National Week experience continues today. FID continues to do
well against the new guys.

I got my wake©up call at 0545, or so they tell me, because the
first thing I really remember is Charlie calling just before 0800
to say that they were launching the alert fighters because an IKE
raid was inbound. I cursed and tried to move but had some minor
locomotion problems. I managed to get to work in about twenty
minutes to find the second event brief breaking up. I started out
bummed because someone ripped off the picture of the Clueless
Blue Blasters that I had annotated the night before. Things are
continuing to disappear as the souvenir hunters start to hoard
things for their end©of©cruise stashes.

XO White was looking for me so he could get into the safe and
start back to work. So we did CONOPS for a while and I drafted
and sent a back channel to Strike U lobbying for Josh and Thorn
Turner to get a couple of the new jobs that are opening up there
(if it all happens and the roof doesn’t fall in on the Defense
Budget). It is nice to get something out of the way early, sort of
validates the day.

According to the sacred SOE, this day was to be broken into two
distinct parts. During the morning, from 0800©1300, IKE would be
the aggressor and send raids against us. During the afternoon it
would be our turn to go after them. It was an exercise
artificiality to which I was not partial, favoring the Battle of
Midway approach, massed raids flying by one another. But of
course they didn’t ask me.

IKE still didn’t have a good feel for where we were and their
aircraft acted as missile sumps for our cruisers and fighters.
About 1130 some guy (who had been constructively shot down three
times) finally blundered in close enough for the ship to simulate
a Nato Sea Sparrow shot on him and the jig was up. Presumably
with the locational data in hand we would get a stiff war at sea
strike before their offensive war was over. There was a nearly
impenetrable haze where we were operating west of Crete, though,
and the CAPT kept the ship under a low cloud bank and I don’t
think IKE ever really got the big picture.

The notion of force regeneration is makes all these endeavors a
bit surreal. We “constructively” shoot a guy three times but he
continues to come inbound and pass locating data back to his
ship. So we can’t measure empirically how well we really did.
Now, the CAPT was up on the 1MC giving all hands an update on how
well we were doing in splashing the raiders and smashing the
ships. I think, after looking at the debriefs, that they never
laid a glove on us and we probably put between 2-4 Harpoons into
IKE.

That closed out the Blue/Orange war today. Now we move on to the
joint CONOPS strikes tomorrow, the Missilex the day after, one
more CONOPS flail and then into Augusta Bay for the turnover.

In between all the rest of the day’s fun and games we tried to
figure out why the ship claimed that Biff Ethington flew 9 miles
into the Tripoli FIR (I don’t think he did) and how well the
TARPS guys did against the Gulf of Sollum on their run (all the
Soviets were home except the Foxtrot, who is doubtless up to no
good) and draft more responses to more crazy tasking.

After dinner I saw an opportunity to sneak away for a one hour
siesta so I could plow through the night, if required. I had no
more than begun the long plunge into the cool darkness when
somebody began rapping on my door. I tried to ignore it, as I
knew that my guys would simply have called on the phone. The
rapping went on and finally I had to drag myself out of bed to
answer it. An unidentified enlisted guy stood there and told me
he was here for a TV accountability check.

I blinked and said “what the fuck?” cleverly. “Go away and come back later.”
I fell back and was in heavy REM sleep in a couple minutes. I had a
particularly vivid dream which made me sit bolt upright just
after 1900. I dreamed we had been extended on station.

25 MAR 1990:

So today was the day we really plunged into the long delirious
tunnel of National Week. Mirror Image CONOPS was the first event
of the day; brief at 0700 for a 0900 launch. Complicated effort,
27 airplanes on the launch and a major postex message to write
once we found out what it was that they wanted, the whole
enchilada, voice reports too.

Off we went. Now, in keeping with the way we do these things
there were two or three other parallel events which began this
morning. We began the planning process for the CONOPS strike the
day after tomorrow, which is essentially where we were on
today’s strike two days ago. The Missilex began to intrude on our
collective consciousness for tomorrow, and naturally the turnover
and EEI message for COMSIXTHFLT all had to get done.

So in approximate order: launched the strike on time, best
performance by the Flight Deck this cruise, launched everybody in
about 19 minutes. Strike worked like a charm, nobody went down on
deck, great radio discipline, all bombs on target and nobody
boltered when they recovered.

The reconstruction took about the next four hours, and I got the
smooth rough to Deputy by 1500. Cyclic ops and the ASW exercise
were going on and Gene Smith and Rocco Montesano had flown over
to IKE in an A-6 to do face-to-face planning with the CVW-7 guys.
I finished drafting the EEI’s message for the good CDR Lewis and
found myself collapsing into the word processor. Nothing seemed
to be happening, and waiting around didn’t seem to make much
sense.

It being 1600, I ducked down to the compartment and grabbed a
quick hour-and-fifteen minutes of unconsciousness. I dreamed
something, not sure what, and awoke on my own just before 1800.
Ambled back up to mission planning. XO Smith was back from IKE
and ready to get rolling, the tasking message came in and we were
ready to get going on the next round of CONOPS planning. Deputy
had hacked the postex to pieces, it was a Flash message (which is
the only way things are getting off the ship these days) so I got
the materials out for the XO and got to work on a near complete
rewrite. That wasn’t quite complete when the Good Commander Lewis
came in with the modifications to the EEI’s message, so then we
did that and got CAG to sign off on the postex and I split for
Main COMM.

When I got back we had our best show of the day. The evil CDR
Lewis stormed into the room, brandishing the tasking message and
foaming at the mouth. “Goddamn it, Gene! What the fuck!” he
grabbed the XO and strode direct to the map board. “Don’t you
idiots know you can’t launch airplanes from a carrier in the
middle of the land?!?”

Naturally, those of us not being yelled at had quite a ball with
this one, particularly the guys who used to work for HOF. The
issue was that the ASW exercise featured synthetic geography
which imposed land on the middle of the MED. The CONOPs planners
had the gall to imagine that they could pick a launch point for
their drill while the carrier was located, constructively,
hundreds of miles away in a narrow bay.

To which we said “Who the hell cares?” but nobody asked us. HOF
dragged Gene down to the Flag spaces and got on the radio and
chewed the IKE guys a couple of new places to bleed. It was clear
that we were not going to get any new launch posits to plan our
route from, so the strike is on hold. In the meantime, we brief
the range surveillance S-3’s at 0330 and the Missilex shooters at
0530, and host Mr. Workman, distinguished Naval Intelligence
Civilian at 0800. We will get the CONOPS message either in the
middle of the night, or first thing in the morning.

The Missilex fades back into the ASWEX which then lurches into
the CONOPS strike with all its ancillary paperwork and back into
ASW, 36 hours of flight ops and then finally it is Augusta Bay.
Have to organize the turnover materials at some point, too. Could
be busy. Of all things, though, I am sort of enjoying myself.
There are other folks around here who are threatening to slit
their wrists. After the stories I have heard about the
pandemonium over on the IKE, I am very pleased to be right here
in our own snug Mission Planning.

26 MAR 1990:

It should have been OK today but somehow it wasn’t. Didn’t get up
until 0710; missed the first two briefs but got about five hours
of sleep. The first two launches were godawful early. The
Gamblers briefed about 0330 for a 0630 launch. The Fighters (who
were going to be the first shooters on the Missilex) briefed at
0530 for the 0800 launch. The Admiral flew over to Yorktown to
watch the festivities on the large screen display of the Aegis
star©cruiser. Good for us because he was gone; bad for CAG
because he had to sit in one of the tall chairs in Combat and
talk on the radio to the Red Rotator who had all sorts of
information CAG didn’t. It was going to be that kind of day for
CAG.

They were booming off the catapult as I was choking down my first
mug of coffee. Meanwhile, we had the ASW players from that
portion of the exercise landing and XO Smith was struggling through
the confused strike message from the CRUD-12 trying to
retrieve coherence from what was looking increasingly like
multi-colored spaghetti on the chart.

It wasn’t working too well.

I was surveying the increasing pile of junk on my desk….card
packs, top secret folders, bootleg copies of SPECAT messages with
dismay. People were coming and going and sanitizing the space
every thirty minutes was making critical pieces of paper submerge
into the bond paper morass. I was looking at a random pile of
diskettes, wondering which one of the fifteen had the right
mission on it. It was that kind of day.

The issue with Missilex’s trying to do what you have got to do
without either shooting the civilians or dumping an aluminum
rainstorm on them. Thus, the S-3’s spent a good couple hours
driving around the exercise zone (which we had appropriately
NOTAM’ed, it being about one-third into the Libyan FIR) warning
freighters out of the way. Meanwhile, the spendthrift Fighters
were hanging on the impeller blades trying to conserve fuel and
we kept launching alert tankers out to keep the thirsty fellows
happy.

About four hours into the flight schedule we had a green range,
and the drone carrier and the fighters were cleared to move into
position. Everything was go, adrenaline was rising, and the drone
was launched….only to turn into a saltwater seeking missile.
Twice. Which involved another half hour delay while they launched
another airplane and another drone. At long last they were able
to get all the players right over a green range, the drone
worked, and they shot it out of the sky.

Which made the fighters ecstatic, but bummed out the surface
ships, who were to be the backup shooters in case they missed.
So our guys got to come home. The exercise wasn’t over, though.
The Shoes had to have their chance, too. So things dragged on for
another couple hours, during which CAG got increasingly
exasperated.

Flight ops continued, morale and motivation was at a low ebb. In
my effort to cross train the AI’s, I had allowed some to go down
to SUPPLOT to learn some of the all-source tricks of the trade I
lost one who decided he wasn’t going to do anything else.
Consequently, we were short handed and pissed off. I was groggy
and couldn’t get started on the inventory or the other projects
so I went for a nap.

Wrong move. I slept fitfully for an hour or so and awoke
unrefreshed, disoriented and cranky. I walked into Planning and
Perkie hit me with some project Scooter had kicked back and I
said “Well fuck him!” Only to discover that Scooter was standing right behind him.

So we had an emotional minute or two. Then Berto Schnable and
Gentle John Kurowski almost came to blows over something
inconsequential. It was that kind of day.

We got XO Smith set up for his brief. The Admiral changed the
launch points, but aside from changing things (again) it went
fine. We had aircrew planning the nits and grits through about
0200 when the last of them gave up and surrendered to sleep. I
started the night shift on sorting the three hundred©odd imagery
flats for the final inventory and turn©over and began to clean
out my desk. I had skipped dinner and felt generally burned out.
The coffee of the day had given me a low grade headache. I was
pouring over the pink sheet when I discovered the near©final
kicker in the National Week total harassment package.

We will start thirty©two hours of continuous flight ops at 0330
this morning. We will fly through the day tomorrow, then start
uploading real ordnance in the afternoon for the simulated
strike. The we download same, upload the fake stuff and run the
simulated strike. My job starts when they get back around 2200,
as we construct the post exercise report. We will wrap that up
around 0200 or so, whereupon we switch time zones again. To the
east. Which means we lose an hour of sleep without actually going
anywhere. Some rocket scientist has had the two carriers on
different time zones! They figure it would be too complicated
with us lying beside each other in the anchorage, which is
undoubtedly correct.

Turnover starts at 0800, so I expect we will be as shiny as new
pennies. They are saying that bad weather is rolling in from the
west, so who knows what will happen. One has to hope for the
best.

27 MAR 1990:

I was in the office until 0300 this morning; hung up on some
details and daunted by the amount of stuff we had to do today.
Wandered down to bed after tasking Charlie to place a telephone
grenade next to my pillow not later than 0745.

It went off approximately as scheduled. I shaved and wandered
groggily past the CAG office where I found the first flail of the
day already in progress. Deputy was hunched over the message
board underlining a message. He turned around and asked why we
were not operating in accordance with the Force AAWC Intentions
message.

I was at a bit of a loss for a real swift answer, and responded
with something like “Well, er, I have a message that says to use
the old codes….” while thinking to myself “who the fuck is the
FAWC?” So I had my first little project even before I got into
the office. I found my second one when I found a note on my desk
reminding me of the FIROPS message for COMSIXTHFLT that was
probably due yesterday. We naturally launched an immediate
investigation and came up with the guilty party, who was all of
us, which meant me for not thinking hard enough about today.

Excuses were easy, like we didn’t get the message and we had
conflicting guidance from the Staff but that is considered
whimpering or whining so we did what we could to fix the
situation and move on from there. The fix was to make new cards,
get them out to the ready rooms, change the brief, coordinate
with Air Ops and assign Murf to quickly research about forty
sorties from yesterday and start drafting a message for chop.

Gene Smith’s crew was all up planning tonight’s CONOPS thing nd
so there was SPECAT all over. Despite the number of people coming
and going, planning and whatnot going on, there were not that
many sorties being generated. I took a bold step and started
getting the Turn Over package together. It was about time.

The rest of the day was spent putting the package together,
holding a destruction party for the tons of stuff we temporarily
own and inventorying same. We made great progress and I was
burned out but happy with the way things were going. We had some
panic from Gene’s planners, one of whom has a great capacity for
bringing all the sweat pumps on line at once, and the Deputy
hacked up the FIROPS message pretty well so we redid that and I
got the FITREPS on the guys back. They turned out well; Deputy
was pleased and they once they go smooth they will be ready for
CAG. Quite a good feeling because the last thing I want to do is
get into that paperwork drill this late.

By that then it was brief time for the CONOPS drill. The Ordies
had been building and wire©checking and loading all day. There
was kind of a festive air around the place. Aircrew were coming
in, clamming the helmets down and announcing that they were
pleased to call it a cruise; they had flown their last hop. The
guys got out and took pictures of flight ops and reported that it
was a pretty day. I will go look at it tomorrow.

I got a thirty-second commercial about closing out the SPECAT
program in the brief and then HOF called and tasked me to build a
little orientation booklet for our French pals who are going to
Roosie Roads© you know, target photos, bus schedules, that kind
of thing© then had some dinner with CAG and the Deputy. I snuck
away for a quick nap before the launch so I could get through
what promised to be a long night and was only awakened twice with
frantic phone calls. The level of caffeine in my system wouldn’t
really let me get down anyway, so I succumbed to the inevitable
and went back to work.

Every time I leave the place something else is going wrong. This
time the back-channel message I sent to FOSIF Rota demanding an
opportunity to get ashore on April 1st turned into a bombshell.
We got a call from SESS (Ship’s Signals & Exploitation Space)
asking about it and the Staff called down and asked for a copy of my
message and there were dark rumblings
that Dru had turned the thing around front-channel, referencing
my irreverent message and asking for me to Debrief the Entire
Deployment as CTF-60!

Yike! There was about forty-five minutes of trying to figure out
what was going on. I was convinced for a while that I would soon
be dancing in front of the Admiral and be ritually disemboweled.
Thankfully, the real story was that FOSIF sent it back channel,
nobody got it but the Staff Intel officer and me. I got a mild
reprimand and then I invited him along for brunch and the crisis
passed.

Then the strike recovered and it turned out that it went very
well indeed. Our guys can do what they are tasked to do, however
obtuse the mission. I spent a few frantic hours until the great
time change putting the post exercise summary together and it is
now 0400. The turnover bunch will show up here in four hours. I
suppose it is time to get some sleep. After the ritual is
complete, I intend to sleep for a week.

TURNOVER: AUGUSTA BAY

28 MAR 1990:

Got out of Planning about 0400. Sleep was not a priority issue. I
tasked Charlie with three key elements for the morning. I wanted
a wake©up call at 0715 without fail to ensure I was on station to
greet the team from the IKE. The Deputy, in keeping with his
program to ensure that everything went First Crass, wanted some
of the world famous FID bake shop breakfast pastries ( the ones
with the specific gravity of a dwarf star set out. Lastly, I
wanted a fresh cauldron of CVIC java available to help jolt
everyone’s systems into some semblance of activity.

Charlie came through. My wakeup call penetrated my consciousness
and the usual amnesia of short term sleep was penetrated.
Naturally it hurt a bit, but there were important issues to be
covered. I shaved and put on CNT khakis with ribbons. With ten
minutes to kill, I stopped in Wardroom One and enjoyed two eggs
sunny side up and some half toasted bread. Fortified, I was ready
as I was likely to be for turn-over. I arrived in Planning at
exactly the right time, only to discover to my amazement an
utterly transformed space. The deck gleamed. Crisp blue
tablecloths covered the battered folding debriefing tables.
Chairs were arranged in neat discussion group areas. At the far
end of the space, near the map boards, a buffet had been set up.
Heavy silverware was laid in perfect order next to an astonishing
assortment of fat©pill pastries. At the far end of the table was
a large silver salver filled with bacon and sausage. Tall
pitchers of orange juice. The IS’s and Charlie stood off to the
side with broad grins.

They had worked a miracle. When I had left the space but hours
before it was cluttered with half-filled cruise boxes. CAG and
DCAG came in and were suitably impressed. Although we were ready,
the transportation folks let us down and there was no indication
of when (or if) the CVW-7 guys would arrive. After about forty-five minutes
of jaunty camaraderie, the grownups gave up and went
back to their officers. I had used the opportunity to have Deputy
re-chop the CONOPS message from the night before; as is so often
the case, it was a major re-write although we had simply followed
the format we have developed only two nights before. C’est la
vie.

Once complete, I got CAG to look at it and with a minor flourish
of the green pen I was free to tweak the thing on disc and get it
down to Main Comm. Second to last outgoing; now all we have to do
is send the message closing out the program and we are done with
that for the next eighteen months.

At length, the Guests showed up via H©46 from IKE. By that time
the bulk of the food had been devoured by the troops, but it was
a class act and Charlie and the Boys did proud. A troop of
Air Wing Seven staffies arrived about nine-thirty. All concerned
were pretty well burned out and were chug-a-lugging coffee to
stay awake. My counterpart, Rocky Wilkinson, showed up in the
first increment. Since his guys didn’t make the first flight, I
pulled out this running log and covered some of the main issues
that confronted us and offered them up for discussion.

Turnover after you arrive in the MED is not the greatest program
in the world. IKE deployed with a full bag of support materials,
and if any is more cramped for space than we are. Rocky is a
veteran of FOSIF Rota, so there isn’t much about operating here
that he hasn’t supported from the beach. He also made a good
chunk of the last cruise on IKE, so the MED is really his old
stomping ground. We hit some of the ports and procedures he
hadn’t seen yet and I didn’t really have much to add. He has got
a strong program and good AI’s working for him, so I’m sure they
will work things out just fine. Consequently, the package we had
put together the day before was largely a burden he didn’t want
to deal with.

We went through the materials and he took mostly unclassified
stuff, our card packs and a few maps and charts. Most of the
material we wound up throwing back into a box for later
destruction. We talked about life in the CONOPS planning process
and how much better things were gong to be during the summer, at
least from the liberty standpoint.

My main lament was the lack of operating time, and the consequent
violence of every minute we had available underway. There was
little opportunity to wok into the cyclic operations gradually, a
few cycles on the first day out to get comfortable. Instead, it
seems we are flying into exercises from the instant the hook is
pulled and we keep hitting it hard until the very moment the
hook goes down again. The in port visits are too long and too expensive
and they give everyone entirely too much time to think about
other places and things they would prefer to be doing. I treated
Rocky to a FID lunch of fried chicken and we talked about
comparative working hours and conditions.

It doesn’t seem much different over there. Rocky has logged about
four 26HRS plus days on the Translant and the first round of MED
ops. They all look tired and pale and mirror image the way we
looked. I asked what it was like to work for a CRUD staff (mostly
Blackshoes) and he said it was actually a little easier than
working for an aviator. RADM Lynch basically takes what the
Strike planners says on faith, trying not to betray his
ignorance. So not altogether too hard. He had some questions
about the new CAG they would be getting in the fall, a guy named
Jim Sherlock.

Lutt-man was having discussions with his opposite number across the room.
He heard the name Sherlock mentioned and summed it up
nicely. “That guy is the anti-Christ” he said, and left it at
that.

We got the things Rocky wanted packed up and I escorted the party
up to the flight deck. I blinked at the light even under the
leaden Sicilian skies. It was my first time outside since Israel.
MT. Etna was snow covered and vast in the distance.

Most of the SIXTHFLT was at anchor around us. IKE was massive about three
miles away. Tico and Yorktown rode easily astern and the
destroyers and logistics ships were scattered in all directions.
Helo’s flew non©stop from all points of the compass in graceful
aerial ballet. Rocky, his two AI’s and our turnover package
lifted off in an HH-53, en route his Mission Planning and the
beginning of his cruise.

A giant weight lifted from my shoulders with the helo and I felt
positively at loose ends. I walked up forward and contemplated
the dancing helos for a while. The wind was damp and the deck
slippery from liquid FOD. I swung back down to the Flag Intel
spaces and chatted with Jim Everett, Jim Hoey and Regan Chambers
for a while. They were busy and pumped up and I was finished and
exhausted. I went down to my compartment and laid down in the
cool darkness and slept. I awoke after an hour and looked around.
There was, for the first time, nothing in particular I had to do.
I rolled over and slept another three hours.

Later, with my energy levels refreshed, I returned to the office
and lead another destruction party. We had just finished
destroying the charts and TOP SECRET documents when I got a call
from Scooter, who said be sure to save them for the Post
Deployment Report.

Oh well. Turnover is done. We are underway at 0300, westbound
again. I feel curiously empty. Perhaps more sleep will cure that.
It is hard to believe but I will be home in twelve days. The ache
to see Jane and the Boys is almost beyond bearing.

29 MAR:

A dog day. A post deployment day. A day of loose ends and wire
abraded nerve ends. I was up in the spaces doing destruction, a
special project for the XO of the fightin’ bitin’ Silver
Schnauzers, and trying to burn the caffeine out of my system. I
got to sleep about 0430 and was awakened briefly to the dulcet
tones of CAG, who had a penetrating question about a message
security bust from the Red Lions. From my REM sleep I was able to
offer a cogent analysis of the problem and recommended
cancelling the errant message and reissuing it at a higher
classification. I lay there looking up for a moment and then
yawned and the next thing I new it was 1330 and about time to get
with the program.

Things started slowly because the grown-ups had gotten off ship
last night for the big CO’s dinner to conclude the turn-over. I
heard some great tales this morning. Someone looking at the
CAPT’s gig and reporting all the glass gone from the forward
compartment windows. Someone hitting the Admiral smack in the
forehead with a water-soaked roll, and later the Flag and his
staff racing down the NATO fuel pier to leap into the Barge to
drag race the other Flag staff to the carriers. It sounded like
fun and none of them regained their focus until late in the
afternoon.

I confronted just a few short fuzed problems resting on my desk.
One was the task of photographing the charts for the end-of-cruise briefing….
you know, the ones we had finished shredding
the night before. We scrambled around for a while and came up
with a representative sample from the squadrons and arranged for
the ship’s Photomate to make them into slides. There will be a
lot of work to do to get it out of the way, but at least it will
be something to keep us busy across the Atlantic.

Then got into a conversation with John Kurowski that got me upset
about the message controversy we had the other night. It turned
out that the Staff had never been an addressee on the damned
thing and therefore they didn’t have any business reading the
message in the first place. Which got me really hacked off at the
self righteous little shit who was down here talking about
loyalty to the staff and some other pithy issues. I’m glad I
never got involved because I would have offered him a new set of
lumps out in the parking lot. And that worm Scott Sinclair, who
managed to get my messages to everyone except the one to whom it
was addressed….

So I was in a fine fettle when it became 1600 and I realized that
it was time for the meeting I had called to make the awards
presentation for the cruise. I called the meeting to order and
summarized the accomplishments of the deployment, which was most
notable for representing the long line of carriers that had
finally broken the will of the Soviet Union and finally won the
Second World War. As long as they lived, I said, they would be
able to point back at this moment in time and know that they and
all our comrades who had gone before had made a difference in the
world.

Then on to presenting letters of Appreciation from CAG and
finally the presentation of the Navy Achievement Medal to Petty
Officer Berger. I was very moved by the whole thing; it being the
first time I had ever done something so significant. It was a
real thrill to see Berger and how proud he was and quite frankly
quite a charge for myself. It was really neat to be able to do
something so inexpensive and yet so meaningful for the
individual. Really a charge.

Then we launched into a couple other ad hoc projects. Lutt-man
and I filled out the FEDERAL Express vouchers to get us on the
helo to Rota on the 1st, so we could have brunch with the FOSIF
crowd. I couldn’t bear not having at least a morning ashore
before the TRANSLANT, and there is some actual work to be done.
Hopefully over Bloody Mary’s.

Then we schemed a way not to answer a message from SIXTHFLT by
bumping it over to the new guys (“REFS A and B provide CVW-6
input for final report specified REF C”) and Berger’s CO stopped
by to yell at me for awarding a medal to one of his people
without telling him. Sometimes you can’t win. The Schnauzers had
told me months ago Berger wouldn’t get a medal unless I got one
for him, so I did all the paperwork and got the CAG to give one
up, and CAG told me to give it to him. I swear, there isn’t
anything these last couple week you can’t turn into some kind of
crisis. Then the toner ran out on our only printer and I drafted
and sent a priority message begging for more out of Rota. Then I
wrote this and my computer crashed and I had to write it all over
again and that is exactly the kind of day this has been.

It is nearly 0200 and it is time to go to bed. Two days to
Gibraltar and outchop. Twelve days to NAS Cecil Field.

30 MAR:

It was a peaceful night, few announcements on the 5MC on the
flight deck and with the catapults shut down, the compartment was
cool and peaceful. I dozed until 0900….I heard the “ding, ding”
that signified two half hour periods had passed since the change
of the watch at 0800. I was contemplating what to do about waking
up; whether I should turn over and try for more or get up and get
about my affairs. I began to run through the list of things to do
while I lay there, cozy, when the phone went off and the day
crashed into me ready or not.

It was Flash from the Rippers who wanted to know if he could use
the laser printer; in view of the fact that the Rippers had
provided most of the charts for the end of cruise brief, I was
hard pressed not to acquiesce. The toner crisis reached critical
proportions. There must have been four squadrons down to try to
get on our machine; the opnote response I got from Rota was real
snotty and said essentially “FO&D, we ain’t got none.” So we
flailed around trying to figure out if we could get someone CMSA
in Norfolk to get a toner cartridge out to the C-141 that is
coming to Rota to pick up the early birds.

John Hedlund chimed in with an OPNOTE asking for our schedule on
the 1st, but regrettably we can’t give him one. Don’t know when
we can get on the helo.

Then Scooter wanted to view the slides we had taken the day
before; so we had a special screening and he seemed pleased. We
are forging ahead on that and the turn around training cycle.
This drifted into lunch with CAG and the Deputy, and thence on
into a lazy sort of afternoon cleaning out files, organizing the
rest of the photo shoot and preparing to close out the special
category CONOPS program. The earliest of the early bird returnees
are headed off today. IS2 Alexander from ship’s company is headed
off on emergency leave because his mother died yesterday.

Got a letter from Jane; the afternoon drifted away sorting
through the piles of crap on my desk and shooting more chart
graphics. At dinnertime I elected to jog instead of feed. I ran
on the flight deck for about twenty minutes; it was drizzling and
the deck was slippery as hell and being alert was rather pleasant. The
highlight of he activity was an announcement from the tower that
a KC-10 was cleared in for a fly by. We could see the landing
lights way astern and it looked like the pilot was lining up for
an approach. Finally he pulled off down the port side, landing
gear down and floated by. An impressive sight. Then he cleaned up
and disappeared into the low clouds.

I took a shower and pressed my way through the crowd of troops
who always muster directly in front of my door. I laid down on my
rack and watched a segment of Ask the Chief, one of the strangest
shows in the world. Among other tid-bits, it was revealed that
the Mayport Club system is going to the same nonsense as Rota,
with an “all hands” sports bar where the EM Club used to be,
elimination of the Chief’s and Officer’s Clubs. This is all
bullshit and it depresses me. I imagine the rest of the changes we
are liable to see are going to be even more extraordinary.

I dozed off for a moment and Wally woke me up to go get new CMS
material….for the last time of the cruise.

Then down to Fo’csle Follies, a wild and raucous hour of
scatological funnies during which the top nuggets and top
squadron for landing grades were recognized. The clothing was
outre; Fighters in Beach garb, helo guys in sports coats and ties
and shorts. Duke was clad in a raincoat with an enormous water
cannon on the back. It was a wet evening and the globs of crazy
string were flying all over the Capt and the Admiral.

The H-53 crew was their, including a female pilot who could
credibly compete for the title of “World’s Plainest Naval
Aviator.” I wonder what she thought? Maybe having got as far as
she has it rolls off. Still, I would think it would be a little
irritating. Things are definitely going to change when women come
aboard in force.

Best song was unquestionably a rendition of Billy Joel’s song “We
didn’t start the Fire” by VA-37, followed by JQ who did “Dear Admiral, Dear Admiral.”

At the conclusion, the Admiral waxed pretty emotional. It is his
last cruise. Somebody observed it was the Winter Cruise from
Hell, but I think it was just another cruise in the long line. No
better, a little worse in some regards, but basically, just
Cruise. Tomorrow ends our longest month.

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