A Veteran's Journey

Trivia Questions (Answers @ end)

1. Who said, “We do not remember days; we remember moments.”?
2. In what movie (and who said it) did we hear, “If I am not me, then who the hell am I?”?
3. Who sang (and what song) did we hear?
   Now the only thing a gamblin’ man ever needs
   Is a suitcase, Lord, and a trunk
   And the only time a fool like him is satisfied
   Is when he’s all stone cold drunk

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Thanks to those who commented on my previous blog, #113—“Another Day in Paradise…” Several comments were spot on and reminded me of things I’d forgotten. Here are a few more shared “memories:”

• That was the Best thing to do!! I “Volunteered” for 18 years!!!
• My two years in VA-36, back in the late sixties, were two of the best years in my military life.
• You can take the sailor out of the fleet, but you can never TAKE the fleet out of the sailor!!!
• It’s been many years since, but I still do many things the “Navy way,” and the phrase “cuss like a sailor” comes to play. I try, and am successful for the most part, to curb my vocabulary. But now and then it comes out.
• AGREED! The NAVY life and DISCIPLINE have followed me throughout! My service inspired my brother, 2 sons, and a nephew to join.
• I’ll never forget a single day. This gave me a most memorable experience that anyone could have. Never a dull moment and the most dangerous in the world. Aviation ordnance on the flight deck and during flight ops.

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I’m working on another book right now. I’ve found I enjoy writing. Not just this weekly blog, but also articles and lately, fiction.

As a legal technology consultant, I worked with hundreds of law firms, law departments, government entities, law schools, and legal technology vendors. Truly a great career… a “journey,” as I call it.

During that time, I found the only real way to get the word out about what I did was to write & publish articles and make speeches. Over the span of those 30 years, I wrote over 300 articles and made over 250 presentations all over the country (and a few outside the U.S.).

I loved what I did… the travel? Meh—not so much.

Now that I’m retired and especially during the past two years (has it really been that long?) of this pandemic, writing has helped pass the time and certainly kept my interest. I started “A Veteran’s Journey” blog on Veteran’s Day 2019 and to date, this is my 114th blog post.

Time flies when you’re having fun, right?

My current book, “Until We Meet Again,” is a high-tech thriller. It’s a three-year project (I’m still trying to figure out how to write good J). But I’m also in the middle of researching multiple topics. This one’s a doozy (that’s a technical term), but I like the research as much as the actual writing.

The Five Senses

One topic I need to understand is Virtual Reality, since the book includes several scenes in a virtual world (a video game, if you need to know). Someone wants to steal the game’s advanced technologies and use them for… “other” purposes.

I don’t know if you’ve had the opportunity to “enter” a virtual reality environment, but systems like Google Glass, Apple Glass, Facebook Oculus, and Microsoft HoloLens are the top contenders. It’s really a stunning experience, to say the least. From a technology viewpoint, I often ask, “How do they do that?”

Sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch: the human body’s five senses.

We all experience these sensations at various times throughout the day. I won’t get into the technical aspects of how to incorporate these into a virtual reality game. That’s part of my ongoing research.

But this particular research led me down a path that brought back a flood of memories during my time in the Navy. Some good, some not so good.

Triggers—We All Have Them

Many of my triggers come from the sensations I experienced on the flight deck of USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). I know many of my Navy veteran friends & shipmates have expressed similar experiences, even those who worked below decks.

I think all of us can still “feel” the ocean breeze, even though we may not be anywhere near an ocean. When I’m out walking and feel a bristling wind on my face, many times, I’ll close my eyes and remember standing on the bow of the flight deck, leaning over the safety nets and looking down sixty feet at Kitty Hawk’s bulbous bow slicing through the deep blue ocean.

It’s even more apparent when I walk on the beach: there’s almost always a constant wind and salt water mist. That’s a happy trigger for me and I embrace it, sometimes to the point of getting “lost” in it.

Two years ago this July, a hurricane was heading up the west coast of Florida. We weren’t impacted here in Gainesville (north central Florida), other than a few limbs down. But our son & family had rented an Air B&B in Daytona Beach for that week. So, we drove over, not knowing what to expect.

Our timing was impeccable—while we were over on the east coast of Florida in Daytona, the hurricane skipped along the western coast. We caught a few brisk windy days, but the beach was almost completely devoid of people. We had the beach to ourselves and what a grand time we had.

But I can also tell you I sat on the beach, watching our kids and their kids play in the water, and I remembered many grand times aboard Kitty Hawk.

Smell Triggers

There are two odors that instantly transport me back to the flight deck. “Only two?”, you ask? There are others, but these two distinctly stand out.

First, there’s the smell of diesel fuel—you remember that smell from the flight deck, right? JP-4 smelled like kerosene or diesel. And if there’s a stiff breeze on a hot summer afternoon blowing that diesel smell directly toward me, I “find” myself behind the JBD (Jet Blast Deflector), as a Yellow shirt, directing the next aircraft to launch in a hold, until the cat clears and the JBD lowers. Yeah, that’s one of my “smell” triggers.

The other odor? Well, let’s just say it reminds me of the river we crossed in PI (Philippine Islands) to get to Olongapo City. It’s not a pleasant smell, but combine that with several charcoal BBQ grills, cooking who knows what? I think most of you know what I’m talking about.

Sound Triggers

Jets—whether they’re commercial or military. I almost always look up and try to locate them. Since I worked as a Crash firefighter at an airport while stationed at NAS Agana, Guam, I’m pretty familiar with most types of commercial aircraft. At least those flying during the day.

Back in the old days (’73-75) while on Guam, we spent two, 4-hour shifts, sitting in a Crash truck, out between the parallel runways in the “Alert Spot.” The Navy shared the same airfield as the civilian airport, so we watched aircraft land and take off at all times of the day and night. I wrote about that earlier: “You Always Remember Your First.”

There’s not a lot to do in between times, so we’d often bet on the type of approaching aircraft when they first appeared miles away. I got pretty good at spotting them, even at night. The number and placement of landing lights were the clue. Back then, Boeing was the major manufacturer, so the 707s, 727s, 737s, and 747s were easy to identify.

The flight deck of an aircraft carrier was much different, of course.

But the sound that triggers my flight deck memory is a helicopter. I know most of my Vietnam War Army & Marine friends have similar triggers when they hear helos, but their memories and flashbacks are a lot different from mine.

I’ve written about unpleasant helo mishaps on the flight deck before: “Gone in an Instant.”

But there was also that time when we were in the Bremerton Shipyards. We (Crash) needed some special metal containers (I can’t remember for what; you know, “CRS”) and I couldn’t find them anywhere on the ship and none of the Yardbirds (the shipyard workers) I asked had any.

I called around and located some at Naval Air Station Whidbey Island. It was a bit far to drive, but I made arrangements to hitch a ride in a CH-46 Sea Knight helicopter, which was heading up that way the following day. I got to the flight early enough and was expecting a flight of about thirty minutes, but I was in for the ride of my life. We had an Admiral on board and the pilot decided to take a brief side excursion over the Olympic Mountains.

The day was one of those bright, blue, clear, and crisp days—you know the kind. My mom used to call them “Champagne Days.” The pilot took off on time and headed northwest to fly over the Olympics. I swear there were some times when I felt like I could reach out and touch one of the glaciers I thought we were flying so low. It was breathtaking, to say the least. The flight up took about two hours, and I didn’t mind at all. Glad to have the Admiral onboard.

Music Triggers

Veterans aren’t the only ones who experience music triggers. It’s almost a given when you hear a certain song that transports you immediately back to a time or place (good or bad). Am I right?

There are certain songs that send me back to a particular time or place in the Navy—Guam, Kitty Hawk, or Bremerton.

I grew up listening to 60s and “Classic” Country music. During the Vietnam War, there were many protest songs, but the bands that performed those songs also had a ton of others that we’d listen to. CCR, Rolling Stones, Merle Haggard, and, thanks to my sister, Anne, Herman’s Hermits.

We weren’t supposed to carry a radio with us while on the Alert Spot in Guam. But… we did, and I know we weren’t the only ones. I was introduced to hard rock and soul. Nobody liked Jazz and opera was a 4-letter word.

The V-1 Division berthing compartment aboard Kitty Hawk was a “little” more cramped for space than our bunks in Guam. I’m not sure what’s available in today’s Navy, but back in the mid-70s, we had three racks stacked (mine was the middle) with about three feet between stacks. A vinyl curtain provided limited privacy. Most of the ships I’ve seen, have the “coffin” racks—that is, you’d lift your bunk bed to get to your storage locker underneath.

Kitty Hawk had two storage lockers built into the side of our rack space. That wasn’t a lot of room, but that’s where we stored our day-to-day items of clothing and personal effects. We had another standing 3’ locker to store our dress uniforms and whatever else we needed to hang up. Most of us in Crash also either had our own locker in the Crash compartment or shared one.

Back then, music was either a transistor radio or a cassette player. And if you were in the berthing compartment, you were supposed to use ear phones to help keep the noise to a respectable level.

Most of the time, the crew complied. But now and then, someone would crank up a song that everyone enjoyed, and we’d all just jam to it. That is, until one of the first class POs stuck his head in, “Shut that ‘effin’ thing off.”

So much for unwinding after an 18 hour day on the flight deck.

KRAL Country Radio

I’d feel remiss if I didn’t mention my time as a country DJ aboard Kitty Hawk. I was “Country Chet Adkins,” and had the 0600-0800 time slot.

Kitty Hawk had three onboard closed-circuit radio stations: KRAL (Country), KROC (Rock), and KSOL (Soul). All three “booths” were next to each other. Some of the other DJs really got into their music and I could hear/feel them banging on the walls to the beat of the record they played.

The Armed Forces Radio Network (AFRM) provided us all with many (MANY) albums of songs that we could choose from. That, and a few that I brought aboard (I wasn’t the only one), made for some splendid music and great memories.

We all have those triggers, some good and some not-so-good. Over time, I’ve learned to appreciate the good memories and try not to think about the bad ones. It’s not always easy.

I won’t lie, though. There are days or times when something triggers a bad memory; there’s no getting around it. My wife knows that “1000-yard stare.” I’ve just learned to accept that it happened and I can’t change it. I just try to think about something more pleasant. And you know what? Most of the time it works.

Until we meet again,
Andy

Answers

1. Cesare Pavese.
2. Total Recall (1990), Douglas Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger).
3. The Animals (1964), House of the Rising Sun; written by Eric Victor Burdon.

Previous posts mentioned in this blog:

• #113 – “Another Day in Paradise…”
• #53 – You Always Remember Your First…
• #36 – Gone In an Instant
• #30 – USS Kitty Hawk at Bremerton Shipyards, Part 1
• #39 – Good Mornin’ to ya, Kitty Hawk!