I found the below article via a Daily Read Board entry by Yankee Sailor.

Here it is.

Peachy!

“Durbin Offers Vets Apology for Remarks
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Jun 25, 11:12 PM (ET)

By JAN DENNIS

PEORIA, Ill. (AP) – U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin apologized to war veterans Saturday for his remarks earlier this month comparing interrogators at an American-run prison camp in Cuba to Nazis and other historically infamous regimes.”

I guess Dick Durbin thinks we fell off the cabbage truck yesterday, but does anyone else notice something completely disingenuous here?

“”I think when you’ve done something hurtful to people you have to stand up and say I’m sorry,” Durbin said at a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Peoria, five days after he apologized for the comments on the Senate floor.”

Clue for Senator Durbin: You got that right, but what you got wrong is:

(Oh how I wish Sam Kinison was here right now and I could record him saying this)

“WRONG PLACE, WRONG TIME, SENATOR DURBIN!”

Maybe Sneator Durbin should have listened more closely to the words spoken in the 2004 Presidential Campaign….

Why did you go to the VFW in Illinois to apoligize? Did you say anything on the floor of the Senate about how Americans service members in WWII, Korea, Vietnam or GWI acted like Nazis, or did I really miss the “revised and extended comments” you guys always make and pretend like you said something on the floor of the Senate Chamber, when you really never said it to any audience?

(Back to Sam Kinison initaion)

“IT WAS THE MEN AND WOMEN AT GTMO YOU INSULTED AND THEY ARE IN GTMO, HAVING FECES THROWN AT THEM, WITH TERRORISTS THREATENING TO KILL THEM AND THEIR FAMILIES, WHILE YOU HAVE A BEER WITH PEOPLE YOU DIDN’T INSULT!”

I’d really like to know, after all the “trips” you have taken on my tax dollars, Senator Durbin, why you couldn’t pick up the phone and ask for the United States Air Force to pick you up and fly you to Camp X-Ray, so you could humble yourself before the men and women who have shown remarkable restraint, unlike you, in the performance of their duties? You know they would have done that for you, despite their personal feelings. Our Air Force, like their Army MP counterparts at GTMO are professionals.

“Initially, Durbin refused to apologize, but he relented as the firestorm over his remarks continued.”

Yep, and so for my Kinisonion “WRONG TIME!” comment. Five days later? Did your staff sheild you from the reality of what the outcome of your actions on the Senate Floor, or did you plan to have it simmer in the public view for this long, to make sure it’s toxicity saturated deep enough?

“Durbin received a standing ovation from most of the crowd after his speech Saturday. Charlie Brimm, 55, said Durbin’s comments upset veterans, but most think his apologies are sincere.

“It took a pretty big man to come up in front of a veterans group after the comments he made just a week or so before,” said Brimm, a former state VFW commander and Army veteran of the Vietnam War.”

Open comment to Mr. Charlie Brimm:

Thank you for your service to our nation, but please do not accept what is not yours to take credit for. I think it took a lesser man to come before you, than to stand in the very presence of those he defamed before the world. By your acknowledgement of his “apology,” you give Senator Durbin a false seal of approval he will use to excuse his egregious behavior. You, sir, have been used for his political gain. I think you would have done more service to this country, to compliment your past service, by holding your applause and directing a comment to the speaker such as this:

“We veterans here in Peoria cannot accept this apology. It is not our place to do so. We were not there, we did not have a hand in the situation of which you spoke of on the floor of the Senate. We do know where the people are who are owed your words in person. They are our brothers and sisters in arms, across the ages, connected by the common experience of service to this country while wearing the uniform of the Armed Forces. Those who you have spoken ill of are stationed at Camp X-Ray, Gauntanamo Bay, Cuba. Go there and stand in their presence and apologize.”

Clue for the clueless: If you wrong someone, go to them and make amends. Surrogates are not acceptable if you are sincere. If you are using surrogates, then it’s clear what your motivation has been…

It’s the 5th of June here, just before midnight on the 6th. 61 years ago, Lt Jim Helinger, Sr, was making his preparations to fly a glider full of troops and be one of the 200,000 men to invade Europe. I can’t begin to imagine what his thoughts and feelings were.

Here is Part II of the story Jim, Sr told me (Part I is here).

Part I is here.

For two months, Jim was assigned to Primary Flight Training at Coleman, TX. His training aircraft was a Fairchild PT-19, a monoplane with two open cockpits. Following primary training, he was sent to Sherman-Dennison, TX to train to fly the Vultee BT-13 Valiant, which provided the student pilots with more instruments, so they could become proficient flying in bad weather, or at night. Under the normal pipeline for pilot training, the pilots would have then be split out for advanced training in Advanced Single Engine (fighters), Or Multi-Engine (bombers, transports).

An urgent call came in to the beginning pilots: An offer to become glider pilots. Attached to this request was incentive: 50% extra flight pay. That would be added to their current pay, 20% overseas pay and combat pay they would be receiving when they were sent overseas. Jim volunteered to be a glider pilot.

The training for gliders first took Jim home to Louisville, KY, where it looked like that would be the main location for glider training. The Army changed its mind and changed the training from Bowman Field, KY. When Jim got wind of this, he tried to pull his application for gliders, but, it was too late, so it was back to Lubbock Field, TX.

Most of the pilots in the glider training with Jim had backgrounds as “service pilots.” That was the term used for pilots who ferried aircraft to and from the factories. Most of these service pilots were older men, in their mid to late 20s.

Once again, Jim found himself in a PT-19 as the surrogate for a glider in the training pipeline. They flew four hours a day, and had ground school for the other four hours a day. Both parts of the day were “intense” according to Jim. One of the requirements was to learn to Morse Code. Jim had a problem with this and had to spend his evenings in the training lab, trying to get proficient enough to pass the test. On the tenth evening, he broke through the barrier and was able to pass. He never used Morse Code ever again after the test.

With graduation came the big band at the ceremony, the presentation of the pilot wings with the distinctive “G” in the center, to delineate “glider.” It was off to two weeks of hard earned furlough, which he spent back home in Louisville, KY.

At the end of the two weeks, Jim reported to Laurinburg-Maxton, NC for overseas combat training, which was combined with the 82nd Airborne Division troops. Six weeks of landing gliders in fields and also in lakes followed, with another week of furlough at the end of this training phase before shipping overseas. For the duration of his time in the service, Jim was assigned to the Headquarters Company of the 442nd Troop Carrier Group.

Jim flew a glider into the Utah Beach invasion area behind Normandy on D-Day. On landing, the glider pilots fought with the Airborne troops, until the area was secured. Once the landing area was secured, the glider pilots would walk backwards, still ready to fight, back to the gliders. Once there, Jim was one of the officers trained to survey the airframees and find the airworthy ones. When found, they would rig a set of goal poats, a tow line and then fire a flare, to alert the orbiting C-47 (equipped with a tailhook) to make a low pass and snatch the glider from 0 to 135 MPH and off the ground. He said he had to wrap his arms around the steering wheel, and lean forward, holding on tight, that it was quite a shock to take back off like that. He did say some of the glider pilots somehow “forgot” to return to get a ride back, and fought with the ground troops all the way to Germany.

He flew supplies into Patton’s Army, when they were being cut off from the normal supply train, so General Montgomery could push ahead. No one was really paying attention to what the glider pilots were doing, so General Patton had supplies brought to him, including gasoline for his tanks, via glider. Jim flew some of those missions. One of the missions he flew, he carried donkeys, that would be used as pack animals to carry gas cans. The donkeys were not happy with their accommodations and managed to kick holes in the fabric covering of the rear of the gliders.

Jim prefers to only briefly describe some of the technical details of the operations, such as a response to a question most people wouldn’t think to ask: “Did you stay and fight with the airborne troops, or did you get out of the combat zone and how?” His focus is on the slices of life that defined the fun and good things. He did say he had also helped liberate the death camp at Dachau in Germany, and that was all he said about that.

More to follow in Part III

He walked into the office one day to ask about some repair work, and for some reason, I thought to ask him is he was veteran. The answer was yes.

The following text is the story of Jim Helinger, Sr, a US Army Air Corps Glider pilot in World War II, about his wartime exploits. I’ll segment it up some and post most of it in the next few days. It’s not a story of blood and gore and the ugliness we all know goes on in war, but he rather would just tell of the things we know young men do in times such as these, when they are far way from home and facing the reality of conflict. Most of it will make you smirk, and some of it will have you laugh, as his stories are slices of life as it was, and, had then been blogs around, I’m sure much of this would have been typed by Jim himself.

Before I post, my advertisement for capturing history for our future and those who follow us. I posted this “warning order” a few days ago.

“The Library of Congress Veteran’s History Project has some useful tools to help you in capturing these valuable first person stories. Don’t let them go undocumented!”

If you know someone, take the time to listen to their story and record it however you can for the Library of Congress.

On with the show!

Like so many others on Dec 7th, 1941, he heard the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the family radio, a Philco. He knew he had to do something, and at he decided to enlist. Sometime between the decision to enlist and heading for the Army Recruiter in Louisville, KY the next morning, he figured if he was going to go in, he wanted to fly.

Visiting the recruiting office the next day brought a harsh reality home. At 17 years old, he would not be accepted into the Army Air Corps. He might have joined the one of the other services, but he wanted to fly. He waited until his 18th birthday, February 22, 1942.

Arriving at the Post Office on his birthday, he found a line of about 50 men. He got in it and asked the others what it was for. The “Aviation Cadets” was the answer. He was in the right place. He was shepherded through the input process, taking the written test and “squeezing by.” The medical exam was done as well as the physical fitness exam, which he did very well on. He was called on the loudspeaker back into see the doctor. He was told by the Doctor that he wasn’t qualified medically, because he had a heart murmur. He said “It doesn’t hurt.” The Doctor told him he was sure he was a patriotic young man and assured him he could probably serve in the Navy, or somewhere and sent him home.

On leaving the part of the office where he had tried to make it into the Army Air Corps, he saw another line outside the other end of the building. He asked someone in it what it was for. “Aviation Cadets.” He got in line. This time, he “breezed through” the process and so began the flying career of Jim Helinger, Sr, US Army Air Corps..

The first stop on the route to becoming a pilot was Basic Aviation Cadet Training in Biloxi, MS. Jim’s first comment about this training was “they tried to break your spirit, knowing you would be pilots and officers.” It was Corporals and PFCs who ran the place. The purpose of this initial training was to teach these men how to be soldiers first, before receiving any specialty training. While he was in Biloxi, he said he never got off the base, and that everyone got sick with the “Mississippi Miseries,” which was a generally miserable feeling, and a hacking cough.

Upon finishing basic training, it was off to the College Training Detachment at Southwest University in Memphis, TN. For eight weeks, Jim studied college course, and picked up eight college credits. Following “college,” the next stop was the San Antonio Aviation Cadet Center (SACC) for a month of school that trained, then tested the cadets for dexterity, reflexes and knowledge retention, under varying conditions. It was here that Jim had to indicate his preference for assignment in the aviation ranks. The card he had to fill out, along with the others, had three choices: Pilot, navigator and bombardier. You didn’t just check the block, you indicated your desire for each by a numerical grade, with 9 being the highest. He put a 9 for pilot, 1 for bombardier, and left the blank for navigator empty, against directions. As he told this part of the story, there was a twinkle in his eyes and a big smile on his face as he said “I wasn’t going to be a navigator, doing all that math in the plane.” He was assigned to train as a pilot, getting his wish.

End of Part I.

Stay tuned for more action and adventure in Part II!

Digging around the urban legend site Snopes, I came across a speech by a retired Air Force Officer. The speech was given in the fall of 2001, obviously from the text, after 9/11. Great speech. Brian Shul has flown 212 combat missions from Vietnam, and in the Cold War. Here’s what caught my eye:

And many years later, while fighting another terrorist over Libya, my backseater and I outraced Khaddafi’s missiles in our SR-71 as we headed for the Mediterranean…

I recall clearly that night in April, 1986, while aboard USS BIDDLE (CG-34), we had been told a “national asset” would be traversing our airspace. We gathered around the radar scopes in the Combat Information Center, switched on the SPS-48 air search display and proceeded to watch the SR-71 smoke by. We probably could see about 600 miles across (about 300 around the ship). As the radar rotated, we saw about 4 radar returns from one side of the area of coverage to the other. He was a real “fast mover.”

Now I know it was Brian Shul who flew by.

History, it’s fun stuff, especially when you are present.

Each year, the Navy sends a group of ships, to exercise with the navies of Central and South America. The cruise is named “UNITAS” and has been a long tradition of showing the flag in the southern part of the Western Hemisphere. While there is good professional, at sea experience to be had, and the opportunity to meet with your professional counterparts from other countries, there also is a requirement to enter port and attended “mandatory fun.” More on what that looks like is a topic to be reserved for a later post.

In the later part of 1983, two of the ships of the UNITAS task force were detached to go on the West African Training Cruise (WATC). One ship was mine, USS CONOLLY (DD-979), where I was assigned as Engineer Officer. The other was the USS JESSE L BROWN (FF-1089).

We had both been import in Brazil, in a port north of Rio de Janeiro. The BROWN was next to the pier, and we had been nested (moored to the outboard side) to the BROWN. The day before departure, both ships were scheduled to refuel. The hoses first went to the BROWN, and upon her completion of fueling, the hose would be brought across her deck to our fueling stations. I had my fueling team stay aboard that day, anticipating it would be our time to fuel about noon.

About mid-morning, the Duty Engineer called me and said BROWN was done fueling and we were getting ready to receive the hoses. I recall thinking that had been a very fast refueling, but, ordered the engineers to get us fueled.

We sailed east the next morning without incident, the BROWN leaving port right behind us. Our destination was Liberville, Gabon, and hers Equatorial Guinea. While we were “proceeding independently,” because our destinations were close together on the continent of Africa, we would end up sailing close to one another for about half of the transit across the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

We sailed in the warm, almost empty ocean for several days, when we received a message from the BROWN: “We don’t have enough fuel to reach Africa.” Exacerbating the problem tremendously was the fact that the USS SEATTLE (AOE-3), who had sailed south to meet the UNITAS group for exercises with the Brazilian Navy, had already headed back north the States. CONOLLY was the only ship within thousands of miles that could help.

No destroyer is designed to give fuel away. That being said, we have to get fuel down from the topside refueling stations, and it’s just a matter of pipes and valves, and having some sort of pumping system to reverse the flow. There is a very minimal capability to do this, in particular for a condition where you may have to de-fuel the ship. Having the competent crew that we did, I sat down with CDR Harry Maxiner (the Captain) and LT John Taylor, the Weapons Officer, and a few key players to figure out how to transfer fuel at sea to another ship. We had two options. One was to rendezvous with the BROWN, have one ship go to all stop and rig fenders, so the other ship could come alongside and moor together. Option two was to pass the fuel via connected replenishment while underway, using a manila “highline” and 2 ½ inch fire hose as the delivery method. Option two had the least impact on the arrival schedule in Africa for both ships. In any case, the transfer rate of fuel would be very slow, so to stop at sea for a better part of a day would put us both behind in meeting our “show the flag” commitments.

LT Al Curry, my Main Propulsion Assistant, GSMC(SW) Weigman, and men of “M” Division got the plan together for using our fuel transfer pumps (used to take fuel from the storage or “bunker” tanks to the service or “day” tanks) to send the fuel about 50 feet up in the fuel piping, where it would cross over to the BROWN in the fire hoses. John Taylor put the Boatswains Mates to work laying out the lines, hoses and blocks necessary to make a RAS (replenishment at sea) rig.

We rendezvoused with BROWN and Captain Maxiner set it up for us to make the approach (meaning BROWN would sail at a set course and speed and we would come up from astern of her, off to one side about 120 ft, at a higher speed, until we were alongside her where the location of our fueling station and her receiving station were across from each other, then match BROWN’s speed). The best part about this is that meant our officers and crew would get the experience of shiphandling in close quarters, and all BROWN would have to do was make sure their helmsman steered his course.

The approach was generally uneventful except for our smirks at our peers, who, I’d conjecture, had been too anxious to get out for a last day of liberty in Brazil (and let me just add, liberty in Brazil is wonderful), than making sure they had been “topped off” prior to sailing. It is customary when a ship comes alongside a delivery ship, such as the USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2), my first duty at sea, the delivery ship would announce over the topside 1MC circuit (the loudspeakers) something to the effect of “Aboard the USS JESSE L BROWN, welcome alongside USS CONOLLY. You are the first ship alongside this deployment. Standby for shot lines fore and aft!” After that, the receiving ship deck crew would have the fueling station supervisor blow a long whistle burst and direct the signalman to indicate readiness to accept the shot line. The delivery ship station crew blew a whistle and the directed the gunner’s mate to shoot. The passing of the hoses to the BROWN as planned and we pumped about 30K gallons of fuel to her in the next four hours.

It was history. No SPRUANCE Class destroyer had yet done this. To document the event, we sent a message off to Destroyer Squadron TEN, our parent command. In response, we got a message back, telling us they would log in the successful completion of a “Z-26-S Delivering Fuel” exercise in our training and readiness matrix. In the TREAD Manual, that was not one we had been required to do (for obvious reasons). They gave us a score of 100%.

The BROWN proceeded to Equatorial Guinea, making it safely. We still had plenty of fuel to arrive in Liberville on time. We had bragging rights for the first, and gloating rights over our counterparts aboard BROWN. We didn’t have any close interaction with them for the rest of the cruise, such as a port visit together, where I’m sure my “snipes” would have made the point of who was better in the local bars. Our homeport was Norfolk, and the BROWN’s was Charleston, so we went on our separate ways, returning home in mid-December of 83.

Our mistake on the CONOLLY was to not have the Public Affairs Officer write up the event for an article in All Hands, or Surface Warfare Magazine. A few years later, one of the Pacific Fleet SPRUANCEs did the same type of operation, and they took the time to grab that overworked junior officer and make him draft and submit the article to Surface Warfare Magazine.

I was there, I know who was really first.

I have plenty of “sea stories” about the E-7s, -8s, and -9s that made me look successful for 20 years. Most of them are uplifting and more than a few just plain humorous. Some are not so good, but I found out that incompetents, lazy, and slackers come in both genders, all colors and backgrounds. Conversely, dedicated, hard charging, make it happen people come in both genders and all colors and backgrounds. In both cases, there is no exclusivity.

When I was an XO, and we were on cruise, a few of the Chief Petty Officers were complaining to the Senior Chief Petty Officer of the Command (SCPOC) about how bad the junior officer were. Well, instead of the EMCS doing the “right thing,” and having a short “meeting” in the Goat Locker, where he would have read them the riot act and then handed them the solution, he came to me.

I enjoy solving problems. On the other hand, on a Persian Gulf deployment, being the Navigator, the second in command, and the guy who had to keep all the right balls in the air, I was sort of busy with the “big picture” stuff. When the SCPOC brought this one and dropped it in my lap, I was slightly annoyed, so I had called the meeting in the Goat Locker.

I didn’t yell, I didn’t throw anything around. I just provided them with this fact of life (or words to this effect):

“You know how you you have served with COs and XOs and department heads that really sucked and made your life miserable, because they didn’t know anything? Well, guess what? Their CPOS, when they were division officers failed to take them aside and train them, so you got stuck holding the bag.”

“Not only do you have my permission to bring your JO down here, close the door, put a cup of coffee, no, strike that, can of Coke, in their hands and tell them how life is, I actually expect you will do that, because that’s your job. If you don’t take the time to do it, you’ll just be stuck with them as department heads, XOs and COs who will make your life miserable and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

It sure seemed pretty clear to me how to solve the problem. Once more, I refer you back to one of my earliest posts about RDC Mac and his ensigns beginnings.

We need those senior enlisted to step up to the plate and form a bond with their “butter bars,” so the wisdom of real leadership can be passed on. We also need the “butter bars” to resist the urge to think they have a commission and therefore a corner on the knowledge market in the profession of arms. When this happens, we see a military that can slice and dice more bad guys before breakfast, than most other armed forces could do in a week.

Since we see this capability in action via the many blogs, I know there is this sort of “training” happening. Let’s hope the tradition stays with us.

A few “hall of fame” names of my enlisted mentors (in order of appearance):

OSC Michael P. MacCaffery
RMC Hansen
GMCM(SW) Don Dolance
STGCM(SW) David Frey
FTCS(SW) David Magnus
GSCS(SW) John “JC” Wiegman
GSMC(SW) John Graham
GSEC(SW) Denny Rohr
RMCM(SW) Rumbaugh
OSC(SW) Michael Bennett
GMCM(SW) David Cress

To swipe General Doolittle’s book title, I’ll just say, I could never be so lucky again, to have such great senior enlisted men who took the time to invest in me.

While checking the referring links, I followed one of the inbound search engine links back. They had come looking up “whaleboat.” One of the other links presented with one of my posts was to a 1st person story about the sinking of the USS NEOSHO (AO-23), a fleet oiler, at the Battle of Coral Sea in May 1942. for those without an understanding of the significance of that battle in WWII, it was the first time the US forces in the Pacific took offensive action against the Japanese. It was pretty much a draw, but it stopped the advance of the Japanese in the Pacific, and after that, we just kept pushing them back to their homeland.

I am always facinated by 1st person reports, and this link provides some good reading.

This quote is of particular interest, as there was some similar discussions on this topic when I spent the afternoon with Dick Rohde, regarding being in the rafts after the Battle Off Samar:

“Three whaleboats were put safely over the side of the tanker,” continued the sailor. “One of them took me and the other wounded from a raft and the other two boats were also rapidly filling with men.

“When it became apparent there wouldn’t be enough room for all the men struggling in the water. Lieutenant Bradford suddenly stood up and said:

‘I guess those of us not wounded will have to get off.’”

“Then he dived into the water.

“Several other uninjured men in our boat followed his example and we later learned that fifteen men in all had voluntarily quit the whaleboats to make room for the wounded. The lieutenant and two enlisted men of the fifteen survived.”

Read the link on the NEOSHO. It will give you an appreciation for the perils of the sea service, when you have a capable enemy to confront.

To get even more info on the story, this link will provide more detail on the NEOSHO, as well as having links to Bill Leu’s video interview (the person who did the 1st person report mentioned above)..

After reading with interest the stories of the two men in the topic line, one the first Congressional Medal of Honor Winner in the GWoT, the other, a combat leader who has been subjected to an Article 32 (equivalent of a civilian Grand Jury proceeding). That contrast, for each man, is their distinction is a result of combat action in Iraq. One a hero, one accused of murder.

That’s about as far at the opposite ends of the spectrum as you can get. Now for some comparison:

In the stories of who each of these men are, there was a common thread between the two. They both demanded their men were ready for combat. Training was the method, and it sounds like was used for thier units by SFC Smith and Lt Pantano, while other units went on Liberty.

Paul Smith had been called “the morale nazi” by his men, implied in the St. Petersburg Times articles, because he made them do things over and over, making sure they had them right. SFC Smith’s life philosophy seemed to be that his profession was what he focused on. His troops, after his death in the firefight, credit his training, taring, and training, as what kept them alive, while he took on the terrorists. The men in his charge, who thought he was some kind of fanatic about traiing, I suspect are now “reborn” and will hammer the lesson into their units. They are the next generation of “morale nazis” as well as combat heros. SFC Paul Smith’s legacy will save more lives.

2Lt Pantano sounds like he is cut from the same cloth. Insisting on doing it right through training, and then demanding those procedures on the battle field. As a result, he was accused of murder. The man who accused him was a sargent who was relieved of his squad leader position for failing to follow procedures while the platoon took a break in the field. the sargent didn’t have his men follow the correc tsecurity procedures. Sounds like a good reason to pull someone out of leadership to me. Not only can a mistake like this get the sargent killed in combat, but many of the other members of the unit. From my experience, I cannot see how the reprimand and relief of duty could not have been a causative factor in the bringing of charges against his platoon leader.

Not to compare any of my work with these two combat heros, but I’ll tell you what I found while in the training world, to help frame the Lt Pantano case issues. for three years, I was assigned to a mobile training team and my duty in the organization was to evaluate the Combat Systems readiness of Atlantic Fleet surface units. I reported as a senior O-4 and left as an O-5. I’ll say this: I didn’t have the job to make friends, nor to make enemies. I had it to report to a 3 star the status of his ships, as they worked their way up through the readiness for deployment cycle. As a result, I had to make some calls, based on established criterai from printed Navy and DoD references. In a few cases, the “grade” wasn’t to the liking of the Captain of the ship, or maybe his boss. The bottom line: A few senior officers wanted to throw me under the bus, along with my team, because we did what we had to do. One very senior O-6 Squadron Commodore, made a point of publicly berating me on the bridge wing of a ship because I was “flunking his best Engineering ship.” I don’t know about you, but it sure seemed like a disconnected argument to me. The equipemt to ward off attackers wasn’t working to design specs, and under preformed (by a big margin) that day. I had an obligation to report it. The Commodore flew to Norfolk to walk straight into the Type Commander’s office the next morning. Thankfully, the Type Commander “got it.” Case closed, grade stood.

My point: Most of the people I met in the service, to include my two tours while assigned to training organizations, really weren’t interested in doing training, training and more training. The ones who did were looked at, at the least, like they had three heads.

SFC Smith’s actions on the day of his death dispelled any thoughts of him being a morale nazi. The sargent who accused Lt Pantano of committing murder is alive to do so, because he served a leader who knew it was important, above all else, to be ready for combat and to carry out that training.

With luck, Lt Pantano’s case will be dropped,as the Article 32 board seems to have recommended. I just hope the leadership of the Corps does the right thing.

He was my second Commanding Officer. An aviator on a “deep-draft” vessel, the stepping stone to command of an aircraft carrier. Getting this far, you knew people in these positions would be wearing flag rank one day.

Capt Cecil B. Hawkins, Jr. At 6’4″, half Cherokee Indian he was now in the Combat Logistics Force (CLF) on a replenishment oiler. He was the kind of CO that was all over the ship, but only for the reason was he was interested in what made the ship tick. When you found him looking over your shoulder, and he asked “What are you doing?” he wanted to know the details.

Prior to being my CO, he had been the CO of the largest aviation squadron at the time. If I remember correctly, it was an A-7 training squadron in Texas, with about 1000 people assigned. Quite a responsibility.

Sometime in 1978, we had pulled into Port Canaveral for a few days, I can’t remember the reason, but, as usual, the Commanding Officer was given a car, but the rest of us had to hoof it if we wanted to go somewhere. Several of us were sitting in the Wardroom, it must have been a Saturday, and Capt Hawkins came in the door from the weather deck and asked “Does anyone want to go to Cape Kennedy?” The 1st Lieutenant, LCDR Mike Pivonka, and I said we would like to come along. We changed and met him on the pier. Capt Hawkins had been the CO for a while at this point, but as we drove to the Cape, he began to tell us about being part of the initial set of men being trained as Mercury astronauts, that he had not mentioned. As we walked about the Cape, he told us stories of the original Mercury 7 astronauts selected. One put his house up for sale as “A Future Astronaut.” One of the others had the reputation of doing anything it took to make sure he was one of the astronauts selected. Over the years, his stories have squared with other historical accounts, such as “The Right Stuff” and “From the Earth to the Moon.”

I did a little searching and found that there were 32 men who were not only passed the selection process, but also volunteered to enter the training program. Capt Hawkins told us he went almost all the way through the program, but was “cut” when the final design of the Mercury capsule was completed. The tallest you could be was 5’8″ and still fit inside the capsule. At 6’4”, he wasn’t going to get to fly.

Capt Hawkins had another story he told, and if any of you out there who have been in Naval Aviation, or worked with some of the aviators, see if you can confirm this:

For the filming of “Tora, Tora, Tora!,” a large group of Naval Aviators were recruited to take leave and fly as stunt me in the movie. With scenes of Japanese planes launching from their aircraft carriers, where else do you get people who can actually do that while the camera rolls? Anyhow, Capt Hawkins was one of those, and told of the film producers paying their stunt actor guild fees, and how there were really big parties every night. His next claim is one I’m not sure is all real, as I ran across someone else, who had a CO who made the same claim. He told us that the one plane in the carrier launch scene that leaves the deck, then sinks out of sight, only to reappear a few breath taking seconds later was piloted by himself!

He never made a big deal of all of this, but just presented it as the story of his life, just a slice of history. I learned many things from Capt Hawkins, as a very junior officer on a CLF ship.

Said the XO, CDR Dave Martin on 4/4/1977.

It was a different time in our history, and I present this story as a contrast to the young men and women we see today, who put on a uniform and do the many things they do, at home and abroad, to protect us.

I had officially reported aboard Saturday evening, checking in the with Command Duty Officer, as my first ship was moored at Pier 2 in Norfolk. George told me to take the rest of the weekend off and show up Monday morning.

I originally had orders to be the Communications Officer on USS OPPORTUNE (ARS-8), but….things changed. My orignal orders had refelected that I would have many “hats” to wear, so after “Little SWOS” (Surface Warfare Officer’s Basic Course), I was sent to Communications Officer School and also Legal Officer. The purpose of a Ship’s Legal Officer, which on most every ship is a “collateral duty” and not a primary one, was to be the person to provide guidance to the Command on the Uniform Code Of Military Justice (UCMJ), mostly from an administative support role. While the XO reviewed my terribly skinny servie record that day, his eye caught that I had attended the training to allow me to handle the Legal Officer duties. No one else aboard had been to the course.

My first ship was USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2), a replenishment oiler. The letters in the hull humber, we often joked, stood for “Always Out Replenishing.” As part of the Combat Logistics Force (CLF), we were not one of the sleek greyhounds of the sea, nor a mighty aircraft carrier, capable of projecting power “across the beach.” We were just the ship that hauled around a bunch of crusty old sailors, who had been around the block and the world many times, making sure the boilers and aircraft on those fancy, “high value” ships didn’t have empty tanks. As a result, some of the best and the brightest sailors and officers eluded these assignments.

We carried two CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters. On any ship, when “flight quarters” is sounded, an emergency firefighting team is on station, with their equipment laid out, just in case. For rhe most part, specially trained crew members man the “crash and smash” team, having recevied additional training over what every sailor gets as a matter of course.

We had many small boats for the ship. The largest ones were the “40 Footers,” which could double as cargo haulers, in addition to getting the crew to and from “the Beach,” as the ship drew a 40′ draft, and many times had to anchor away from shore. We also had two 26 foot motor whale boats. When you ride in one, you will notice most small boats do not have “dry bilges,” and what’s down there, mixed with sea water, is usually a little diesel fule, as well as engine oil. Flammable stuff. One of the universal rules of Navy small boats: No Smoking, and that was in effect long before the Navy decided Smoking was bad in the mid-80’s. It’s a safety thing.

When you carry fuel in large quantity, and MILWAUKEE did, you need vents on the tanks. On Navy oilers, the cargo storage tanks have very large vents, and are located on the main deck. We worked and walked around them daily. Rule on the “weather decks” of Navy oilers: No Smoking (I hope I don’t have to explain that one). MILWAUKEE carried 6M gals of Diesel Fuel, Marine (DFM or “F-76”) and 2M gallons of JP-5 (jet engine fuel, or “F-44”).

I was sowrn into the Naval Reserves as an E-3 in August, 72. That was the first year when there was no ore draft. Fighting was still raging in Vietnam, riots were happening on aircraft carriers, where enlisted minority groups made their displeasure known to the chain of command. It was the opening days of the “All Volunteer Force,” and I can state I was one of the charter members.

Fast forward to Apr, 1977. I was assigned to fill the collateral duty of Legal Officer, and within a few days, I was attending one of the very many “Article 15s” or “Non-Judicial Punishments” I would attend over the next 19 years.

Three enlisted men from the Engineering Department were charged with:

1) Unauthorized Absence (UA) from apointed duty station (crash and smash crew) during Flight Quarters and
2) Unauthorized use of drugs, to wit: Smoking marijuana
3) While in a small boat
4) in a skid (cradle to store the boat in while it’s not in the water), which was
5) On the main deck of an oiler….

Five punishable offenses in one moment of drug use. Welcome to the duties of the Legal Officer….

By the time I retired in 1996, the crew of ships (and I travelled extensively to Atlantic Fleet ships weekly in 90-93)were exactly the opposite of those early examples of sailors I first ran across in 1977. I don’t mean to imply it happened that late, just that the contrast is remarkable across that time span, and a powerful reason to support and all volunteer, professional fighting force.