On Gonzo Station, Part Nine

(Marine VMF-P3 RF-4, VF-151 Switchbox F-4 and VF-161 Rock River F-4- the three flavors of Phantoms on Ma Midway, 1980. Navy photo.)

Maybe things will come out all right. It is hard to say. One thing seems to be true: we are going to get to leave and go, if not home, to another place. The plotting has begun about what to do with the paychecks that have piled up since we left Mombasa months ago.

There is so much pent-up cash on the boat that the A-6 Intruder guys of VA-115 are talking about “buying” a bar in Olongapo for the week we are in port. The married guys are going to have the wives come down from Yoko to meet us in the P.I., as Midway gets some vital and long overdue voyage repairs before we head north again to Japan and our home port.

Coral Sea has been directed to meet us and take on the big Sea Stallion helicopters and that tippy-top secret stuff Dean “The Dream” Whetstine has been working on behind the curtains that they pull around the planning table.

A couple of the indicators that looked grave have not thus far panned out. Tito, for example, still hangs on by a thread, the gangrene crawling up his left leg. Yet he obstinately tells his doctors he will not allow them to remove it. He apparently has more clout than the poor old woman back home, who lost her battle in the courts to keep hers.

The Yugoslavs appear to be organizing to make a Soviet Adventure there as difficult as possible. Some of the Divisions on alert appear to be bound not for southern climes in Central Europe, but as reinforcements for the effort in Afghanistan. There is talk that the conquest and incorporation will take a generation.

(LTJG Socotra in Midway’s Mission Planning spaces. Photo Socotra.)

I had material to talk about from the podium in Mission Planning on the 20th: Arafat’s new trip to “Congratulate Khomeini on the success of the Revolution,” and to plead for the release of the hostages. He has much at stake in gaining the credibility of the West, and the States in particular. He has been turned down in his attempts to see the Imam before, right after the hostage taking. He is attempting another bid in the wake of the Presidential election.

That little circus has had an exciting parade through the Intel briefs. The field of candidates at 106: including by Khomeini’s own account, persons of no brains and outright perversion. Leading lights were a man who advocated mass hypnosis to cure the national crisis, and a man who claimed he was particularly suited for high rank because his wife had tortured him for ten years. The Imam’s man, meek little Dr. Farsi, was thrown out of the race late in the game because he was not technically an Iranian citizen.

It is typical of the Imam’s staff work throughout the affair. Bani Sadr, the ex-foreign minister, looks to be the logical choice. If, and when, Yassir Ararfat makes his pilgrimage to Qom, he may be assisted by a new President who has advocated a more moderate line. On the other hand, there is no guarantee that the alleged Students will accept anything less than the original terms.

They want the Shah in exchange for the release of the hostages, and no substitute will do.

There is, of course, no guarantee that even the Shah’s return would secure the release of all the hostages. They will doubtless- hold out on the “real spies” to exact further concessions from Uncle Sugar. Fat chance.

But the Afghan situation had me nearly in hysterics. The Russians are described by several sources as being shocked and dismayed by the reception they have received by the crazy tribesmen. There are reports of a Fort Michilimackinac-style massacre by Afghans against Soviet troops  watching a staged sporting event. In colonial Michigan, Indian women smuggled weapons in under their blankets to toss to their men who were demonstrating a game of lacrosse that turned deadly for the Brits. Same deal yesterday, the locals turning against the occupiers.

Bombs seem to be the way to express disapproval of the Soviet presence. They are going off daily in the capital of Kabul. The Afghan army is deserting wholesale, and two regiments have taken up positions overlooking the major airhead of the Occupying Forces. It should make air operations colorful in the weeks to come. Even the Soviet troops are said not to be getting enough to eat.

It was a great day to be briefing the chaos. It almost makes me want to stick around the show, rather than get out of the Navy and be a civilian again.

Still, this thing has only been going on for three-and-a-half weeks, and the story is not told yet by any means. Maybe it will slow them down long enough for us to regroup our thin lines and get ready for the storm to come.

A powerful and heady rumor has been sweeping the boat: the great powers have determined that we could be relieved by Coral Sea south of India, rather than waiting for them here on the Gonzo. We would meet up somewhere in the Laccadive Sea and do our turn-over there.

That would enable us to pull chocks on the first of February, and get to Subic by the tenth. It appears to be a good rumor, although I did not get it on the Mess Decks from the second butter-cutter and thus be able to ensure its reliability.

That would make this only an 88-day at-sea period. Well, maybe we can pass up the century mark on this one.

The Air Wing Five Commander stopped by the Ready Room tonight and his eyes were wistful as he began to describe the in-port to come. O, Subic! The sailors wax lyrical at the prospect. The adult Disneyland of Asia; where anything may be bought for a song, or at least it’s equivalent in hard currency. The ship pulls into Alava Pier; first drinks over at the Subic 0 Club. Later to NAS Cubi Point for BOQ bartender Romie’s Cubi Specials to wash down the Cubi Dogs.

Temperatures in the 80s and humid. The fantastic greenery. Monkey racing out of the trees to steal golf-balls from the links. The warm musty smell of the jungle, and the penetrating fecund aroma of Shit River, walking across the bridge to the gate and the sound of the little women tapping pesos against the Plexiglas windows of the money-changing stands.

Olongapo is the belt buckle and Tee shirt capital of the world. Cocktails and cold San Miguel, nature’s laxative, and gorgeous women of all descriptions. Noise and laughter and jeepneys; women, and women, and yet more women. The depths of human abasement have yet to be fully plumbed. But I’m ready to try.

Before, it was something to speak of wistfully. Now, it is reaching out it’s luscious brown arms and crying “Come to me, Sailor, What sheeep you on? Benictican Cab you come in please?”

(Olongapo bar scene to come. Ahhh.)

The endless bunkroom poker games are going to take on a new and weighty significance. Each dollar of the private hoards is going to start becoming real again.

There will be things to buy, for a change, and the green checks will serve another purpose than simply marking off neat fifteen-day periods. I have get to conserve, and yet I know that is impossible. When Subic fever strikes there is no cure but to drown in it. Wallow, if you will. Kill the hangover will a fresh batch of liquid reinforcements. Banish forever the curse of celibacy, and of the single largest drinking problem we have ever faced: there just ain’t no booze!

But in the meantime there are a few devilish little weeks to pass here. The specter of War still lurks, although the Horsemen face the Goddess of the coming debauch. I know we will not be safe until the engines are disassembled, and the dry-dock gates clang closed behind us in Japan. But there is Hope now, which had got lost in the endless gray circling in the blue water. Hope for at least a respite.

Too soon to even dream of the fabled land of Amerika-Jima, where the great cars and burgers and White Women reside. Perhaps it is even the land of myth, untouchable to the mortal. Yet a man may aspire to the mystery; to see with his own eyes the fog of little cat’s feet off the Bay, and visit Tony Bennett’s heart upon the sacred hills. You just never know.

The rumor is looking good. Jeeze! I can’t imagine being somewhere other than here. This seems immutable. Just us and the trash-bags, floating endlessly in the vastness of the ocean east of Oman and south of Iran. Menacing, certainly, ominous to a fault, but mostly floating amid the jetsam of our trash.

It was not a good day for the Russians. They appear to be shocked and dismayed by the reception they are getting from the Afghanis. I suppose they have heard the Big Lie so long that they believe it themselves. All that “Onward March of World Socialism” bullshit. I never really thought anyone could take it seriously. But apparently they do. Or should I say did.

Two Soviet Officers the other day were cruising the streets of Kabul, looking for whores. It sorta made me warm up to the poor Socialist chumps, Anyway, they met an Afghani pimp who lured them into the seedy section of Old Kabul and slit their throats and then decapitated them. The heads were displayed for the residents of the district before the Soviets found out.

Makes you realize that there is such a thing as bad head, after all.

The Russians who showed up wearing Soviet Uniforms just after the invasion are now wearing Afghan uniforms. It is also reported that they are showing a certain reluctance to go into the native Bazaars these days. Wonder why?

Decapitation was big in the news today. Reuters reported that a West Bank Arab showed up at his local Police Station with his sister’s head, which he claimed to have removed “in accordance with Khomeini’s Law, which is the Law of Islam” since his sister had slept with a man. Whew.

The thing in Afghanistan is sure to take a generation to clean up at least. Whole villages are rising against the Soviets.

It must be terrifying for them. In one case, hundreds of the villagers attacked them and butchered 36 Russians. The rebels lost 236; nearly two hundred and fifty additional martyrs to the cause of liberty. I’m rooting for the Afghanis all the way.

I can’t wait to get home and see what the old New Left is saying now. Their beloved North Vietnamese are threatening Thailand, and butchering the Kampucheans in a war of aggression now that we are gone. Or is it liberation? I can’t tell about the Khmer Rouge.

The Soviets are running roughshod over the poor defenseless Barbarians who will not see the right way forward with the vanguard party of the proletariat. It is enough to make a poor JO chortle. I wonder, though, was there a young Soviet officer who was getting the same kicks out of Vietnam? The parallels are so many, and I can’t evaluate which ones are right.

As we turn our attention to the exit-stage-right from Gonzo Station, the Captain came up on the One-MC this morning and said there was entirely too much ‘grab-assing’ going on. By which he meant that a rash of fistfights has broken out. Can’t say as I blame the troops.

There are two enlisted guys in our work-space I would delight in heaving overboard. Three, maybe.  One of them in particular is so loud and obstreperous that he literally makes the Planning Spaces echo and seethe with tension.

Any other situation you could ignore it, or laugh it off, or at least get away from it. Here, in this environment, there is no escape. You just live with what aggravates you day in and day out, until it hits flash point. We teetered on the edge of that, but I am amazed by how well the Midway Magic crew has handled this whole thing.

If I was living in the teeming berthing spaces, jammed in with a Shoe horn, without space to beat off, or even be alone, or do anything without the active participation of ninety other guys, I’m sure I would flip myself.

Only a matter of a few weeks and this is all over- at least for us. Then Nimitz and Coral Sea are on their own.

(USS Midway in the Northern Arabian Sea, 1980. Navy photo).

(Gentle Readers: Thanks for bearing with me. There is more of this curious onion-skin manuscript, but it has been in the archives a long time, and it is time to move on. The more that things have changed, the more they appear to have remained the same. LTJG Socotra was wrong in his assessment of the Soviet Threat. The Communists did not make it to the new millennium: the Iranians did, and are, if anything, more problematic than ever. USS Midway was decommissioned at NAS North Island on 11 April 1992, and after a decade in the Inactive Ship Maintenance Facility, Bremerton, WA, was towed to San Diego, CA, for use as a museum and memorial. Opened to the public on 7 June 2004, the museum doubled attendance projections by welcoming 879,281 guests aboard in its first year of operations. Visitors may tour the ship’s flight deck, hangar bay, mess hall, bridge, primary flight control area, enlisted and junior officer quarters, sickbay, and portions of the engine rooms. There are currently no plans to open the Mission Planning spaces to the public, but they should. A lot of really weird stuff went on there behind the Green Door.)

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com