December, 1979

I stood on the flight deck this morning to watch the sunrise. It was a sky like a watercolor painting by John Singleton Copley, and the wind was brisk. The pastel colors were perfect. The Marines were doing Jody Calls as they ran around the quarter-mile circuit on the flight deck. It was enough to call back the strange days under the Florida Sun with our beloved Drill Instructor, Staff Sergeant Ronald Mace, USMC, and the misery of marching on the Pensacola grinder by the seaplane ramps.

The representative of the Soviet Red Banner Indian Ocean Eskadra was about three miles in trail, the odd little bow-heavy silhouette of the Soviet Natya MSF- Fleet Minesweeper- grey on the grey oily water. He was around to provide target information in case someone wanted to whack us, which meant, of course, that the minesweeper would be the first to go if things got tense.

Plastic bags of trash floated off the starboard sponson aft.

Joggers and aircraft mechanics. The ship’s nav lights were still on. I was cool and collected in my flight-deck jersey. I wondered why my body had decided that one-thirty in the morning was a splendid time to be awake. I walked around the deck after the sun had risen far enough that there was no possible doubt as to fee fact that it was once again a fly day, The non-skid is totally gone from the landing area. The bare steel is oily and brown and very slippery.

I gave a portion of my numbed brain to an idle, dull hatred of the Iranians.

The situation today is as bad as the day before, and as bad as tomorrow. A ray of hope is the statement by Goat-ze-deh (the opportunistic Foreign Secretary who followed the erratic but easy to pronounce Bani Sadr) that he will release some of the hostages by Christmas. This is news to the Students, who claim that they are going to go ahead and try everyone for espionage.

Iran appears near to being on the brink of war with Iraq; heavy artillery has flown across the boarder already. The Soviets are conducting a massive buildup on the Afghani boarder, and in fact already have two airborne brigades deployed in country, I hold a dull hatred for them, too. Negotiations continue with the rebels in the province of Azerbaijan, who have rallied behind a more rational Ayatollah named Shariat Madari. Khomeini remains as crazy as a bedbug, I hate him with more than dull feeling, On him I would pull the trigger, and delight to see his ancient features writhe in agony,

And so a crisis goes on. No hope in sight, no way to pull the carriers off the line, because the situation is as bad as ever. Can’t be taken for a sign of weakness. And cannot act militarily for the same reasons we have not for the last month. Frustrating. Jesus.

The beat goes on out here. Larry Jensen, the Air Wing Intelligence Officer ,flew away on the US-3 yesterday. They bonged him away and minutes later the cat stroke put him light-years away from this steel island of repressed sexual longing. The latest Penthouse came aboard on one of the recent UNREPS and the pictorials had us squirming.

Are there such things as women, still? Or mail? Is anyone still out there, beyond the grey oval disk of the horizon?

Ah, I suppose we are spoiled here in the modern age, TV on the ship, the AP press-wire over satellite downlink; decent food (for institutional crap) and even the perpetual Space Invaders machine down in the wardroom lounge. Did you know that after ten racks of the little electronic critters it all goes back to zero again, and the score continues to mount?

That the elusive 500,000-point game has already been achieved, and that the tantalizing million point record can only be weeks away?

That there are dope dealers on the ship was a known fact. The MAA in a routine search turned up over fifteen of the little Skillcraft Uncle Sugar pipes made out of the Lighthouse For The Blind ball-point pens in our squadron Day Check Berthing?

The clicker end is unscrewed and a piece of foil twisted on to make a bowl.) I have heard rumors from those in a position to know that an ounce of dope is going for one hundred dollars. That there will be big money made by a few individuals is a known fact. I mean big bucks: the real stuff. Dealers who supply entire areas of Japan live right here with us on the ship, interesting. From noting sections of the ship’s POD, it would seem like the incidence of marijuana use on board the ship is ever increasing, c’est la Vie.

Numb. That is the only word for it. Sleep schedule all fucked up. I am getting fat. Can’t get the energy to work out. The Shah Is in Panama now, in a plush resort. A Senator in Minnesota has called for the return of the noted International criminal to the impartial hands of his former subjects for trial and eventual disposition.

I feel a dull hatred for him, too. I can only hope that The Senator’s constituents will have him shot, or not reelected, or whatever the worst thing is you can do to a political hack.

We had a flight deck cookout the other day. An Iranian P-3 came by to say hello, with a Kitty Hawk F-14 in trail. We munched burgers and got sunburns. My once vaunted Indian Ocean tan is peeling and fading. I can no longer dredge up the energy to do anything about it.

Maybe something will change tomorrow. It won’t rain or anything. Just give us something different.

Like today. First suicide of the trip. Hard to evaluate. It was a Marine Sergeant, so you have to take into account the fact that his death wish probably goes back beyond the day he put up his right hand and vowed to do it all ferr Uncle Sugar and the bigod Corps. He vanished from the flight deck clad in blue running shorts and white running shoes. They say he was up in Flight Deck control at one point and had described his desire to go to visit his brother in Israel, couched in mumblings and religious terms.

The Ship’s XO came up on the one-mc this morning and was inquiring for the whereabouts of the guy. Later, the Chaplain got on the horn (so odd to hear him before the ritual performance of the evening blessing that echoes through the spaces on the ship at 2155 each evening.)

This we took to be confirmation of the extraordinary nature of the search, that the chaplain was calling from the navigational bridge. The helo searched for him, in vain. There are bodacious sharks in these waters, and I expect that that is the last of that, save for the CACO call in some dusty town back in the World.

When you think about-it, this still is one of the healthiest populations around, Five thousand good Americans, all of an age where the bloom of youth is still on the downy cheek. And with all the heavy and dangerous machinery going bang and thump all the time, the JP-5 jet fuel in the water, and the murderous microwaves pumping through us all the time, it is remarkable that more are not squashed.

We have lost one or two in job related accidents (fewer, I would suspect, than what a comparable community loses in traffic accidents) and three or four in liberty-related mishaps.

Beer bottle upside the head for one guy, a good man, who stepped between two P.I. hookers. Felt fine till he got back to the ship and his bruised brain swole up and quit..

Another two in Pattaya Beach, Thailand, drugs and booze overdose. It is tough to go on Liberty out here; maybe tougher than just working. But there still was an eerie Veteran’s Day, or some such thing, when they commenced to firing off the saluting rifle up on the 0-8 level, and reading the List of the Midway Dead, their years and their names.

Down from the early war cruises off Vietnam, through the heat of the last great offensive, to our guys who died choking on vomitus ejectus in the small hours of the most beautiful nation of SE Asia late last year. We have more names, now.

And the Crisis. The conundrum. We are back to a training evolution. We are practicing the delivery tactics of the La Combatante class missile boats, which the Iranians have gone ahead and fitted out with the handful of Harpoons we were foolish enough to provide.

It is a ticklish problem.. What does one do when they make a head-in run towards engagement range? Do they become hostile by virtus of their course and heading? At what point can we end the charade and kill them?

It seems not to be my decision, and for that I am glad.

Don’t want no mach-plus  missiles coming through the bulkhead: not in world famous Bunkroom Two. No goddam place to swim to.

We are thrilling the fans with our presence. We have reliable reports (the source of which is neither here nor there) that the commercial pilots are beginning to call our portion of the Gulf of Oman the “Fighter Playground,” After getting snuck up on (due to our grave
mistake in trusting the Kitty’s judgment in what exactly constitutes a threat axis. What was that line from Animal House? “You fucked up. You trusted us”) by an Iranian P-3, we have put a PIRAZ ship up due north and have been intercepting the shit out of everything that flies down the airways, military or commercial.

With good reason, too. Although unsporting, certain unscrupulous people have been known to simulate all the IFF of airliners, then suddenly plunged off the scopes and secured all modes n’ codes for an inbound run on us. We had not been overflown without an escort in five years, and in our neck of the woods, that is no mean feat. We went perhaps a little overboard in our prosecution of the civilians, (“I just wanted to see what the co-pilot was wearing. Honest. I wasn’t really that close.”)

They reported such diverting and endearing tactics as high-speed over and under fly-bys.

Certainly enough to give a sane man with plenty on his mind, like what hotel he was going to stay in that night, and what his chances of scoring with the new little number serving the fish back in second class the shakes. Seeing cold blooded reality with two AIM-9s and a couple Aim-7s missiles strapped on flash by at Mach umpty-fratz would certainly call for a stiff drink.

That is life in the Fighter Playground. Up there is threat and thuder. The surface of the sea around us is now covered with the plastic bags that contain our trash.

You can see the sharks hit them in the wake astern.

Copyright 2012 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com