(USS Forrestal (CV-59) on the hook off Toulon, 1989. Anchored out, contract ferries and ship’s utility boats got us to the bright lights of France. Photo USN.)

It was November, 1989, in Toulon, France. It was first night in port, and I had the fever. I made a significant tactical error leaving the boat, having got hooked up with the Grownups. for them meant the first liberty boat was out of the question. The Air Group Commander- the CAG- and his Deputy had many decisions to make. There was a detachment of people and airplanes on the ground at the airfield at Hyeres, preparing for an exercise with the French. That in turn meant decisions on how to support the maintenance troops, spare parts to transport and communications to establish.

We rode in the launch toward shore, past the moonlit white cliffs, past the breakwater and the fortress and finally to Fleet Landing. We exited the Utility-boat and walked across a vast parking lot to the old port.

CAG’s car was located at the Naval Base across the harbor, so we walked past the sidewalk cafes of the old port and around the corner to Naval Headquarters. In the parking lot was a Peugeot with some baffling mechanism that connected the key-fob to the door locks. It took about ten minutes for the group of skilled professionals to figure it out.

Life with the Grownups is a challenge. The Kids wanted bright lights, music and alcohol; regrettably, it looked like we were headed for a Staff Dinner in a little place the Deputy remembered from a previous cruise, where we could dine as formally as in the wardroom.

We rocketed along the main drag and down the coast until we were very nearly parallel to where the ship lay at anchor. We had a couple beers in a roadside bistro before discovering the cute restaurant the Deputy had selected was closed for the season. We wound up back in town, and ate something incomprehensible in a bistro.

Later, ambling back along the waterfront to Fleet Landing, we saw all manner of extraordinary sights.

One of my finest young intelligence officers was passed out at a sidewalk cafe. I walked over and shook his shoulder hard. After a moment or two I got an opened eye that rolled around the orbit and closed again. He had some squadron mates with him, and I estimated he would make it back to the ship.

“It’s OK, CAG. This man is in possession of the Nation’s most sensitive military secrets. We can count on his discretion.”

Along the street the whores beckoned in their fur coats, opening them to reveal satin baby-dolls underneath. At length the dichotomy between the Grownup and the Children’s program became overwhelming. CAG and DCAG headed on to Fleet Landing and the Kids went uptown to The Gut, where we drank till closing.

The boat ride home is long, chilly and damp. One thing you can always say is that a chilly damp time ashore is always better than a warm dry one underway.

Pleased to be back to the ship alive and in one piece, I climbed the accom ladder to the fantail. I produced my ID card and started to walk away when one of the Master at Arms said: “Please step over here, Sir, so we can frisk you.”

I kept my cool even though I was seething inside. “Not a problem” I responded “let’s just find a Lieutenant Commander or above to do it.”

It was my choice to stand on the regulation. There is indignity enough on the bird farm, and the regulations state that it is the prerogative of an officer to be searched only by another of the same rank or senior. I had nothing to hide, having only my ID card and some rumpled franc notes.

The MAAs declined, and started to jack me around. Cops are cops, whether in the Fleet or on the beat, and they like nothing better than to bring the powerful low. “Twig” Branch was a LCDR too at the time, a light attack pilot doing his ship’s company tour as Navigator on Forrestal. He had the misfortune to have the deck as Officer of the Day- or night, as the case may be.

They kept me waiting for about ten minutes. My anger was rising, and I struggled to retain my composure. I wasn’t going to take it out on the troops, who were just doing what they had been ordered, and a scene, naturally enough, would turn into what they had begun calling an “alcohol-related incident” those days. I cooled my heels and held my temper.

Finally Twig came over and leaned close. “Well, you know, Vic, you’re right. Enlisted can’t search Officers, but that is just the way it is. You know Shakey Jacobsen, the Bull’s XO? He made a big deal out of it last cruise and he wound up as permanent Search Officer.”

I took it as a direct threat. So angry I was quivering, I submitted to the search by the MAA Master Chief. There was nothing for him to find, of course, but I felt degraded and violated. The issue wasn’t being searched. It was who over who had the right to do it.

When it was done, I was so pissed I could barely see straight. I walked through the hangar bay with Moose. He had hung back to observe the scene just in case things went to shit. He listened to the first installment of my outraged harangue in the stateroom on the 0-2 level forward, and said good night.

I fell asleep wondering why Twig hadn’t just done the pat down himself and saved everyone embarrassment and trouble?

I awoke in the brown chair, almost twenty years later. The Carrier show had cycled through the first run and was on the encore version, playing at just the same moment in episode three when I had dropped off. The former Strike Group Sailor of the Year was talking about the bad choice he made on liberty that had just cost him his career.

I yawned and shut everything down. I padded back down the hall to try to get to sleep again. As I did, I remembered the morning long ago. I had a hangover, and decided it could have been a lot worse; I could have let my anger get out of control. Choosing to submit had been the right thing to do, since the system is a lot bigger than the individual.

That next morning, years ago, I was up early to read the message boards down in Mission Planning and felt miserable for a couple hours. The Wing Ops Officer called and laid some DCAG-level tasking on me. I went through target files and collated kneeboard cards for about half the targets we are going to fly against in company with the French, and looked at the traffic about the Summit that was going to be held with President Bush and Secretary Gorbachev at Malta.

(DCAG on inspection. Photo USN).

I saw Moose out in the passageway. He is an Academy type and political, like Twig. He recommended that I brief DCAG about the scene on the fantail last night. I realized pre-emption was a really good idea, and rapped on the door and got ready to take a blast. My fine sensibilities didn’t seem quite as clean cut as they did the night before, and I was thinking maybe I should have sold my principles down the river and gone along, sheep-like, with the program.

The Deputy yelled out for me to come in. I contritely told my tale of anguish and he laughed.

“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.”

The Ship’s XO had twisted the story around, and he claimed I had refused to be searched at all. “DCAG, I stood still for that. I just asked for my right to be searched by a fellow officer of the appropriate grade.”

I waited to be placed in House Arrest, Confined to Quarters for the rest of the port visit. Shit. Nothing good ever happens after midnight.

The Deputy laughed. “There are only two people on the ship qualified to search me, and I’d freeze in hell before I let anyone else do it.” He dismissed me with a chuckle, and said there might be a Staff Dinner ashore that night, and to brush up on my French before we got ashore.

I wandered away, relieved that my choice had not cost more. I ate lunch down in Wardroom Two; fried fish, wax beans and possibly the worst macaroni and cheese I had ever tasted.

Turning out the lights in 2008, I marveled at the whole thing. The Deputy wound up getting four stars out his career, and Twig has one already. In 2013, he is getting a third and I am betting he is in the running for another one after that. Of course, he will have to navigate the rocks and shoals of his new Corps of Information Dominance, but I am confident that he is up to the task. He has certainly dealt with us before.

You never know how these things are going to turn out, do you? It is all in the nature of the choices, twig and branch, all the way to the end.

(Leaving town, a little sadder and a little wiser. Photo USN.)

Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com