16 NOV 1989:

There is a Big Time hangover to greet the new day. The French beer is apparently powerful stuff, particularly effective against the defenseless and recently detoxed system. On FID, the Air Wing Six Staff simulates constructive effort in the morning, pretending to read the boards and discussing the remaining action agenda ashore. The primary topic is how to decrypt the French National Phone system, which involves some sort of credit card thingie that is purchased for about 90 Francs at Tobacco shops or 
bars. After that small hurdle across the language barrier we have to deal with all 5,000 of us trying to call at simultaneously.

We are determined to try. Gradually the impetus to get ashore begins to burn through the mental fog. We assemble the strike team for Doc,
Chop, Moose, Toad and Spy’s Excellent Adventure.

While not at all inebriated, I discover that I am again totally fluent in the skills of the French language. We catch one of the utility boats and get ashore to wander the streets of Toulon for hours, dining from the carts on the streets and stopping at the bakeries.

We find a sandwich cart at the end of the Gut managed by a toad-shaped woman who is working her magic on a rack of French bread. She is producing baguettes avec frommage, jambon et tomat, or what you Americans would call a pressed ham-and-cheese sandwich. She makes what appears to be a standard submarine sandwich our of the fresh tubular load that is then thrown into some sort of laundry press
that squeezes the whole thing flat and melts the cheese into a bubbly deliciousness.

Tres bien!

We wind up at a bar in the Gut with a 1950’s Rock N’ Roll Blue Suede Shoes theme across from the smashed sandwich cart. There are pictures of Elvis and Eddie Cochran all over the walls and it is delightfully sleazy. Later, we run into the Admiral’s party near the waterfront.

Even Flag officers like to have a little fun; as the weather steadily degrades, he makes the command decision to delay the Barge departure for an hour and invites the Excellent Adventure Crew to join him for executive transit back to the ship. We hasten to accept and get to see another couple clubs along the waterfront.

On the Barge ride back, the Admiral has the conn all the way. It is a rough ride and there is water down the hatch above us, giving us a chill soaking.

Pleased to be back to the ship alive and in one piece, I climb the accom ladder to the fantail. I produce my ID card and start to walk away when one of the enlisted Master At Arms, the FID’s police force, says “Please step over here, Sir, so we can frisk you.”

I have a fair head of steam going from the evening ashore, but tried to keep my cool even though I am seething inside. This isn’t right.

“Not a problem,” I respond “lets just find a LCDR or above to do it.”

That is my right, by regulation, officers can only be searched by other officers of equal or senior grade. They decide to jack me around. Twig is the OOD, and on the Quarterdeck, and he could have done it himself and defused the issue but didn’t.

The MAA’s keep me waiting for about ten minutes. My anger is rising, but I struggle mightily to retain my composure. I won’t take it out on the troops, who are just doing what they have been told to do, and a scene, naturally enough, will turn into what they call an “alcohol-related incident” these days. A Liberty Risk!

I cool my heels and keep my temper. Finally Twig comes over and leans over. “Well, you know, you are right, Enlisted can’t search Officers, but that is just the way it is. Skipper Shaky Jacobsen made a big deal out of this last cruise and he wound up as permanent Search Officer.”

I couldn’t take that as much other than a direct threat. So angry I couldn’t see straight, I finally submit to the search by the MAA Master Chief. I feel degraded and violated. The issue wasn’t being searched, mind you, it was who was doing the searching.

This headlong plummet into equality cannot be conducive to good order and discipline. In fact it is outrageous. I am competent to be entrusted with the codes to the nukes but I am not to be trusted not to smuggle contraband onto the ship? I’m so pissed I can barely see straight.

I walk back up through the hangar bay with Moose, who hung back to observe the scene just in case things went to shit. He listened to the first installment of a long after-hours harangue in the stateroom. Mike Chase, Twig’s relief as Navigator and the son of RADM Chase was there and (for what it was worth) agreed.

I fell asleep wondering why Twig hadn’t just done the pat down himself and saved everyone embarrassment and trouble? I’m pushing 40 years old, travelling with the freaking Admiral’s party and temporarily in mental possession of NATO’s most sensitive secrets. What am I doing in this chain gang? I wonder how the family is doing back home.

17 NOV:

Woke up about 0930 in the cool darkness. There was a low, lager-induced mental fog hanging over my rack. I felt I should do something constructive. I went to work with the sense impending doom that usually accompanies that post-party letdown.

I cast my mind back over the events of the night before and decided it could have been a lot worse; I could have let my anger get out of control. I made up a list of things to do ashore as soon as I got there. I wanted to buy some moutarde chaude, that hot mustard sauce that brought tears to the CAG’s eyes at dinner the first night in Toulon and a funky French Naval insignia that I saw for sale in a waterfront shop.

The device has a head on view of an aircraft carrier in the distinctive “V” shape superimposed on what appears to be the international symbol for “don’t”. I want to buy it to wear in Mission Planning and claim it means “No Ship’s Company.”

I read the message boards and felt miserable for a couple hours. Scooter called and laid some DCAG tasking on me. I went through target files and collated kneeboard cards for about half the targets we are going to fly against in the next line period. We don’t have to worry about Morocco now; exercise AFRICAN EAGLE went down the tubes with the announcement of the summit between President Bush and Mikael Gorbachev, and our participation in the circus is considered mandatory.

The Moroccans are in a snit about a perceived slight; apparently we violated the delicate sensibilities of the Host Nationals by the pulling the Services out of the exercise one by one. First, USAFE reduced some sorties and cancelled some Dissimilar Air Combat Training. Then the Marines pulled out of the overland phase. The last straw was FID’s schedule change that reduced our role to a couple days in late November prior to racing for Malta and the usual ominous-but-over-the-horizon presence we do so well.

Nothing is too good for the President, of course, and despite the general sorrow about the missed training opportunities we were going to get a nice replacement deal. The Admiral requested four days in Palma to substitute for the two days in Tangiers.

That looked
wonderful; now, however, the President’s people were saying he might want his Air Demonstration (remember: no bombs. We don’t want to look warlike!)before the Saltwater Get Together.

So, the schedule is up in the air again, we don’t know what we are going to do. Palma maybe, Malaga maybe. Marseilles seems intact and my leave in France for the holidays is approved. So some things are moving forward amid the uncertainty.

I see Moose out in the passageway and he recommends that I brief DCAG on the scene on the fantail last night. I rap on the door and get ready to take a blast. My fine sensibilities don’t seem quite as clean cut as they did last night, and I am thinking maybe I should have sold my principals down the river and gone along sheep-like with the program.

It still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The Deputy yells out for me to come in and I tell my tale of anguish and the Deputy laughs.” So you were the one. That was quite a topic at the Morning Meeting. The Ship was saying some Airwing Officer wouldn’t cooperate with the MAA’s.”

Naturally, they had twisted the story around. They presented it as a refusal to be searched, which it never was. I stood still for that and simply asked for my rights to be searched by a fellow officer of the appropriate grade.

Thankfully, the Deputy strongly echoed the choice I made. In fact, he said that there were only two people on the ship qualified to search him and he would freeze in hell before anyone else did it.

I thanked the Deputy for his time, relieved as shit that I had not made a career stumble, and made plans to go ashore again as soon as possible.

Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
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