Anchors Away

A couple of friends recently reminded me that I hadn’t posted to The Grumpy Doc for quite some time. They were wondering if perhaps I decided to abandon the project. I wasn’t sure whether they were asking because they were glad they didn’t have to read it anymore or because they actually enjoyed reading it. I’m going to assume the latter so I’m heading back to the keyboard.

The easiest thing when you’re trying to turn out an article on short notice is to just indulge in some reminiscence. You don’t have to do any research and hopefully your memory hasn’t started to fail yet. Although, I’m not so sure about the last part.

Going back to 1967, I just finished my first year in college as a political science major at the University of Kentucky. I was restless and bored. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life, but I was sure it didn’t have anything to do with political science. I was also having a lot of doubt about my plan to go to law school.

I spent the summer working construction, basically, as an unskilled laborer, hauling, carrying, and digging. I also spent the summer closely watching the Vietnam War. While there were some protests, the true nature of the war really hadn’t dawned on most of us. I’ve always been and still am very patriotic. I thought perhaps it not only would be my civic duty but also a great adventure to enlist. One night at dinner I told my father I had decided to drop out of college and join the Marines. I was expecting quite a bit of resistance, but he just looked at me and then finished his dinner.

The next night I came home for dinner and my father’s first cousin George was having dinner with us. I would occasionally see George around town. He spent a lot of time in the Navy, and I was pretty sure he was still in the Navy. What I didn’t know was that he was our local Navy recruiter and by the time dinner was over I was enlisted in the Navy. I guess my father decided better not to argue with a stubborn guy like me but just to take action.

I went to Great Lakes Naval Base for basic training or boot camp as we called it. It seemed that the main purpose of boot camp was to indoctrinate you in the military way of life and to get you used to being a member of a group rather than an individual. They also wanted to teach you how to follow orders and complete all your jobs as directed. As an aside, they also spent a lot of time teaching us the proper “Navy way” to fold clothes. Anyone who was ever in the Navy will understand when I say I still fold my underwear the Navy way.

I won’t bore you with a lot of detail about the myriad wonders of boot camp. However, I want to share one experience that pretty much sums it all up for me. It also should have taught me a lesson to remember throughout my life. Unfortunately, I’ve always been too hardheaded to listen to that inner voice that offers caution.

We were at water survival training. This is where they taught us how to abandon ship in combat situations. Not only would a sinking ship drag you down to the bottom with it, but very likely there was burning oil floating on the water everywhere waiting to burn you alive. Knowing how to get safely off the ship and away from it quickly could mean the difference between life and death.

Our instructor was a grizzled old salt. His skin was leathery and wrinkled, most likely the result of years of wind, salt spray and sun with liberal doses of cigarettes and alcohol thrown in. He looked to be at least 60 but he was probably barely 40. He was the kind of man who dedicated his life to the Navy and who made the Navy work. I didn’t know it at the time, but I would come to respect those men far more than I could ever know.

He stood on the edge of the pool with a 15-foot tower behind him. We were all sitting on the deck in a rough semicircle around him facing the pool. He began explaining how to abandon ship. The first thing he said was, “Always abandon ship feet first. There will be a lot of floating debris in the water.” Only he pronounced it deb-er-us. Being the oh so smart college boy, I said “It’s pronounced debris.” I thought I had said it too low for anyone other than me to hear, but I was so wrong. He zeroed in on me like a bloodhound. He pointed his finger at me, curled it in a come here motion and said, “Get up here wise ass, you’re going to be my demonstrator.” It was just about that time that I remembered my father’s parting advice as I left for boot camp. He looked at me and said, “Keep your head down and your mouth shut.” He was a Navy veteran of World War II and knew what he was talking about.

I spent the rest of the day in a variety of uniforms and heavy equipment repeatedly jumping off that 15-foot tower to show the proper way to abandon ship. I still wonder if our instructor didn’t mispronounce that word on purpose to try to catch a smart young fool like me and to show who was really the smart one.