An article in WaPo today got my attention: Sunday, 7 December 1941
Coward that I am, hiding behind a camera, I took my son’s arm, with sunglasses to walk by the Vietnam Memorial.
In this television depiction, the Chaplain and Marines are real. Arlington
I have zero tolerance for complaints. Hot water, good chow and no illiterate 15 year old around the corner with an AK -47. We all, volunteered. Works fine, fail safe, drains to the bilge and vents overboard. I had it, you got it.
One of the benefits of fathering an Officer of Marines is that, at TBS, these are essential. And the knowledge passed to me, an old Bubble Head, aka Submariner, has been, useful.
Mine has out lasted 2 Timex Ironman Triathlon Watches. It works, no batteries. Good in the dark, when you are in peril. No app or phone required.
President Kennedy watches a Polaris Missile launched from submerged USS Andrew Jackson, 16 Nov. 1963. He was assassinated six days later.
Submarines are Boats, not Ships. They are Ships but they aren’t. And this was eight years before I reported aboard. I spent four years aboard, two as Blue Crew and two as combined crew at Electric Boat for Overhaul & Conversion to Poseidon. New reactor core too. I swear, the yards with Port & Starboard Watch Sections were worse than Patrols.
At the beginning of a Patrol ( we sailed from Rota, Spain), you’d hear and feel the Fairwater Planes slap the surface on submerging. And knew the next 60 to 70 days were watch schedule and life suspended. You turned off the switch.
“Boomers” are still out there, indefensible. A Strategic Nuclear Deterrent. The bad guys know. The guys pushing the buttons? Skivvy Hats like me.
This boat is a lot bigger than the one I was aboard for four years. And we sailed from a tender in Rota, Spain. Their home port is Bangor. Longer range Birds don’t need to be deployed close to targets.
Sometimes, Old Men (moi), think about being Young Men. And what would be different if War had not been a consideration.
My Draft Notice arrived at my parents address while I was at Navy Recruit Training in Great Lakes. I was 18 in 1968 and like most of my peers, clueless. Except for the older brother of a classmate, a Marine Corporal home on leave who told me without drama, his experience in Vietnam. So I joined the Canoe Club.
The idle time of a an old widower inexorably leads to Google searches of first loves. And wonder about, what if there had been no War. And then I see photographs of children in Ukraine and Gaza. And feel guilty for my good luck.
I made this long ago but it was only yesterday. Harder than leaving, is coming home.
My war was a cold one, hidden underwater and an intellectual abstract. Clean, well lit and well fed. And “Battle Station Missile” sounds while you’re in the shower and you’re dripping and wearing a towel and flip flops and sound powered phones with “hard cards”, rolling switches in Missile Control Center that you hope stop with before “Tactical” because it has to be a “WSRT” aka “Weapons System Readiness Rest’, right?
But if it isn’t, we’re putting birds in the air and in a few minutes, because we’re already most of the way to the target, a couple of million folks with the bad luck of living close to military installations are going to be incinerated. Then it’s going to get ugly.
1960’s vintage Polaris A-2’s with Mk47 Y2’s were good for about 1.2 Megaton Yield. “Little Boy”, the fission weapon dropped on Hiroshima was estimated at a hundredth of that yield, about 10 or 15 Kiloton. And we had 1600x that. Plus another 20 or so other U.S. Boomers on Patrol. The current Ohio Class boats with Trident D-5s currently on Patrol are also, indefensible.
The decisions of a Warrior are made before battle. The price is eventually paid. I’m writing this because of a conversation I had today with another Warrior. His war was not abstract. And we are both too familiar with how deadly is, benign, corporate inertia.
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