Quote:
Originally Posted by ET2SN
I knew a fair share of her Coners, we weren't parked that far apart. 
I might have been there when you were, were we doing the weekend cook-outs at the high-rise on the weekends when you were there?
There was one cook-out I'll always remember. We were chowing down and drinking beers and an ET from another boat said, "I know we're not supposed to talk about it, but are any of you noticing anything odd when you head up north?". We all knew what he meant, but like I said, we didn't talk about it crew-to-crew. Finally, another guy says, "Yeah we're all alone up there".
That was when I knew we had won the cold war and a nagging little voice in my head said that it might not all be good news. Those boats on the pier cost a lot of money to operate.  |
Most of the time we were in the old barracks up on the hill. At some point we moved into the original barracks that were closest to the dive tower, but I can't remember if it was before or after Westpac 93-94. Only time I spent in the high rise was the 2 weeks before we PCSed to Portsmouth NH for decommissioning. Everyone who lived in the high rise always complained that pizza boxes would jam the trash chutes - that and the rooms were tiny in comparison to the old ones. Only issue with the ones on the hill was the long hangover walk down, stopping at the minimart to buy Gatorade on the way to quarters. The opposite problem for the original barracks was you were way too close if they decided they needed to find off-duty people to do something like an unscheduled stores load.
I found there was always more to do on the weekends away from the barracks. Same when I was in San Diego before that. Portsmouth not so much - we got there in I think January or February and the first weekend was locked in due to a blizzard - but we did have awesome pig roasts that summer that would go all weekend long from Thursday afternoon to late Sunday - one of the perks of decommissioning is you could get down to a minimal duty section in a 5+ rotation (at least until those with time left for orders somewhere else) and most non-duty days were quarters, field day, and then get the hell out of dodge.
Westpac we stopped in Sasebo, Guam, Chinhae, American Samoa, Okinawa and Brisbane.
Sasebo: working port, beer at onbase club served in 6 packs but contained formaldehyde. Headache city. Weps tried to jump straight down fwd escape trunk one night. One of the sonar girls tried to pick a fight with a marine...
Guam: hot. Like africa hot. Cheap beer on base, but Tumon beach called. Awkward moments as some wives flew to meet the boat - and saw some of the other married guys with their hookups from the tender... Most days spent trying to hide until the earliest possible minute you could bail - "I'll take the trash out to the dumpsters!!" Once you got across the tender, it was a quick stop at the dumpsters, pulling a clean trash bag hidden inside containing civvies, and a dash to the parking lot to get your rental car and race to the barracks to take an ice cold shower. Every day was a repeat of the one before:. Sweat all day, take a shower at the barracks, start sweating again, freeze inside the rec room at the barracks which had AC so you could pregame, followed by first round on base, and then all night in Tumon. Show up at barracks at 6am, shower again, start sweating again, go to quarters. Rinse and repeat.
Chinhae: take the duty van to front gate or risk getting shot by south korean navy guards. My first experience with a squatter toilet and not having toilet paper - who knew that it needed to be asked for... Let's just say that some cloth napkins gave their all that night...
American Samoa: had to anchor out. So rough it took a day for small boat transfer, involving the bridge hatch and jacob's ladder (and sqdn rider needing to be fished out.). 18 hrs of liberty involving steak, Vailima, and sleeping in a hotel built like a WW2 bunker. Plus the sonar chief visiting his home village.
Okinawa: 4 hours to go get toiletries and eat real food at Kadena. Steaming at the pier.
Brisbane: Freedom and awesomeness. Hotel rooms for everyone. Gratuitous adult activities with locals...
Funny thing is now (other than covid putting a damper on 2020) I've traveled way more for work than I ever did in the navy. Spain, Australia, Japan, South Korea, and the UK, with a lot of time in the west coast, Hawaii, and DC. And the professional drinking now? Made the drinking I did in the navy look like amateur hour since all of the places I work are heavily drinking cultures... But what I do now has the same type of camaraderie amongst coworkers and customers - it helps that they're either ex-military or reservists - shared misery...
Still, besides most of it sucking, I still had a great time while in the navy and I'm thankful because it helped me in obtaining my current career - resulting in work I enjoy that still is serving our country's defense, a comfortable living, flight status as a Million miler, Global Services for the last 5 years, flying family 1st class for vacations... The look in the wife's face the first time we went to check in for a flight and I had to walk her past economy, business/first, and to the private Global Services check-in lounge...
I'm sure you still can't talk about any expeditionary medal you might have received (I don't) - those who know, know...