Well, after going aboard the USS Pinckney (DDG 91) as a guest of my distinguished nephew, LTJG Paul Bridgers, who flies a helicopter from and to her fantail (flying manned helicopters off a destroyer in itself is incredible to me! Couldn't do that in the old days!), and being presented with a Pinckney ball cap, lots of old memories flooded back. I decided to see if I could also get a ball cap from the USS Charles F. Adams (DDG 2), my old ship and the very first DDG built keel up, There is a move afoot to make her a museum ship (she and all of the rest of her class were decommissioned many years ago..... really? Damn!), In looking for a cap, I stumbled onto a website that had a cruise book of our 1966 cruise to the Mediterranean. Of course, I thought I was the hero of that cruise, and sure enough, the cruise book included many of my proudest moments. Trouble is, the authors only noted two of my exploits.
Link to website: http://www.ddg-2.org/1966MEDCRUISE.html ( I had to use "Control V" to past it into my URL block)
One, noted on page 39 entitled Alexandroupolis/Kavalla, shows my first wife standing next to Harry Olds (my best friend) and his wife, with the caption "Where's Mr. Johns?" The two wives were chasing the ship around the Med. meeting us in every port. Two days before we were to arrive in Kavalla, I had been sent aboard the USS Albany, a guided missile cruiser, with a junior officer and three enlisted technicians, to observe a simulated missile exercise the cruiser had to perform. We failed them. The four-striper cruiser captain cajoled and threatened, but we refused to change our evaluation. So, in spite of strong protest from my captain, Commander Roy Hoffman, he kidnapped us and steamed north to Thessalonika. Then put us in a whaleboat, and dumped us ashore. Legally AWOL from our duty post. No cell phones, remember. I collected all of the loose change we had (who carries money on board a Navy ship?), sent a telegram letting the ship know where we were, and bought us bus tickets to our next port. So, when the ship docked, I was missing. Perhaps not my finest hour, but well documented. One will also note a specific letter of commendation to the ship from an official in Casablanca mentioning me by name on page 37. I was assigned to be the Venereal Disease Control Officer there. Least that's what I called it. The strain was reputed to be antibiotic resistant, and we were the first US naval vessel to dock there since WWII. By arranging for the special medically-cleared "entertainment" noted plus free booze, we were able to keep everybody at one club, and to clear port with only one case of VD. Not an insignificant accomplishment.
I was sort of hoping that the fact that I was the Officer of the Deck when we spotted and picked up the French pilot (see page 44) might have been mentioned, or that I was inevitably conning the ship whenever we refueled or replenished at sea (pp. 45 and 27), or that my First Division (pp, 7-9 ... that's me standing in that totally officer-like pose and ice-cream salesman uniform on the forecastle as we prep for entering port or dropping the hook) were the people who conducted the acclaimed refueling and man overboard recovery exercise .... but, alas, I'm only remembered for being AWOL and the VD Control Officer.
Although it was just a Cold War on our side of the world when I was in (I did not go to the Pacific or Vietnam), we did save all of you from becoming Dominican Republicans. You probably didn't realize you were in such danger. After all, becoming a Republican is bad enough. That could possibly have been even worse.
Well, in all seriousness, it sure was fun to go aboard Paul's ship and see him in his element, as well as how far they have come since my day. His class of ship, the Arleigh Burke DDG's, are more than twice the displacement of the Adams class, and we were twice the displacement of the WWII Fletcher class. So our Navy may have fewer ships, but they are "big and bad". I used one of his class DDG as the ship in my highly-acclaimed novelette (see p. 28- "Bird Away".), so the excitement of going aboard was even greater for me. Thanks, Paul. Be very safe. I know we're much safer with amazing guys (and women) like you on guard. Now, to look for an Adams cap to match the Pinkney version ............
Ferd
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