Tag: Navy

Doctors of the Deep Blue Sea

On March 25, 2025

A Brief History of the U.S. Navy Medical Corps

The U.S. Navy Medical Corps has a history that evolves from a humble beginning during the Revolutionary War to its current role as a vital component of modern military medicine. The Medical Corps ensures the health and well-being of sailors, Marines, and their families, while contributing to public health and advancements in medical science.

Origins in the Revolutionary War

The roots of Navy medicine trace back to the Revolutionary War, when medical care aboard ships was primitive at best. Shipboard surgeons, often lacking formal medical training, treated injuries and disease with the limited tools and knowledge available to them. In the early days of the U.S. Navy, physicians served without formal commissions, often receiving temporary appointments for specific cruises. Their primary tasks included amputations, treating infections, and caring for diseases like scurvy and dysentery.

In 1798, Congress formally established the Department of the Navy, creating the foundation for organized medical care within the naval service. Surgeon Edward Cutbush published the first American text on naval medicine in 1808. The Naval Hospital Act of 1811 marked another milestone, authorizing the construction of naval hospitals to support the growing fleet.

Establishment of the Navy Medical Corps (1871)

The U.S. Navy Medical Corps was officially established on March 3, 1871, by an act of Congress. This legislation created a formal medical staff to support the Navy, setting standards for the recruiting and training naval physicians. These physicians were initially known as “Surgeons” and “Assistant Surgeons,” tasked with providing care on ships and at naval hospitals. The act granted Navy physicians rank relative to their line counterparts, acknowledged their role as a staff corps, and established the title of “Surgeon General” for the Navy’s senior medical officer.

During this period, the Navy Medical Corps began to expand its scope. It embraced emerging medical technologies and scientific discoveries, setting the stage for its later contributions to public health and medical innovation.

The Navy Hospital Corps

The U.S. Navy Hospital Corps was established on June 17, 1898. Its creation was prompted by the increased medical needs during the Spanish-American War. Since then, the enlisted corpsmen have served in every conflict involving the United States, providing critical medical care on battlefields, aboard ships, and in hospitals worldwide.

Corpsmen are trained to perform a wide range of medical tasks, including emergency battlefield triage and treatment, surgery assistance, and disease prevention. They are often embedded directly with Marine Corps units, making them indispensable on the battlefield.

The Hospital Corps is the most decorated group in the U.S. Navy. To date, its members have earned numerous high-level awards for valor, including: 22 Medals of Honor, 182 Navy Crosses, 946 Silver Stars, and 1,582 Bronze Stars.

World Wars and the Expansion of Military Medicine

Both World War I and World War II were transformative for the Navy Medical Corps. During World War I, Navy medical personnel treated injuries and illnesses both aboard ships and in field hospitals. Their efforts were instrumental in managing wartime epidemics, including the devastating 1918 influenza pandemic.

World War II brought further advancements. The Navy Medical Corps played a pivotal role in addressing the challenges of warfare in diverse climates, including tropical diseases in the Pacific Theater. It also pioneered methods for treating trauma, burns, and psychiatric conditions.

Cold War Era and Modernization

The Cold War era marked a time of significant innovation for the Navy Medical Corps. The establishment of the Navy Medical Research Institutes advanced studies in areas such as tropical medicine, submarine medicine, and aerospace medicine. These efforts supported the Navy’s global missions and contributed to broader medical advancements.

In the latter half of the 20th century, Navy medical personnel became key players in humanitarian missions, responding to natural disasters and providing aid in conflict zones. Their expertise in public health, infectious disease control, and trauma care enhanced the Navy’s ability to spread goodwill worldwide.

Modern Contributions and Future Challenges

Today, the Navy Medical Corps supports both military readiness and global health. Its personnel provide care on ships, submarines, aircraft carriers, and for Marine Corps forces, and at shore-based facilities. They also participate in humanitarian missions and disaster response, reflecting the Navy’s commitment to a broader vision of security and well-being.

In recent years, Navy medicine has faced challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing mental health issues among service members, and adapting to emerging threats like climate change and cyber warfare defense. These challenges underscore the evolving role of the Navy Medical Corps in a complex world.

From its early days of rudimentary care to its modern role in global health and innovation, the U.S. Navy Medical Corps has been a cornerstone of military medicine. Its contributions extend beyond the battlefield, shaping public health, medical research, and humanitarian efforts worldwide.

As the Navy Medical Corps continues to adapt to new challenges, it remains a testament to the enduring value of medical service in the defense of the nation and the promotion of global health.

Travels of a West Virginia Boy Part I, Hong Kong

By John Turley

On February 20, 2023

In Commentary, Travel

The first time I left the United States I was 21 years old and on my way to Vietnam. In one of those little ironies of life, I would visit Hong Kong three times before I ever made it to New York City. Growing up in West Virginia, my family thought a trip to Myrtle Beach was the height of travel. It’s still the destination of choice for many West Virginians and I still love the South Carolina low country and fried sea food.

My first trip to Hong Kong was in the spring of 1970. I was serving on the USS Sanctuary in the coastal waters of Vietnam. I had my R&R (Rest & Recreation) trip planned to Australia later in the summer. However, I received orders ending my tour early because I was to report for a training school in San Diego in early June. This meant if I wanted to go on R&R it would have to be soon. The only R&R destination available in my time frame was Hong Kong. I knew next to nothing about Hong Kong. The closest I had come to Chinese culture was chop suey at the New China Restaurant in Charleston.

R&R was basically a five-day vacation that the military gave you when you were serving in the Vietnam area. It was something you looked forward to for the first part of your tour and then you would dream about it for the remainder.

Even flying into Hong Kong was an exciting experience. The old Hong Kong airport was almost in the middle of the city. The flight path carried you down between the buildings. I remember looking out the window of the plane and into the window of an apartment building. There didn’t seem to be enough room for the wings in between the buildings, but somehow the plane landed without incident. That initial look out the window may have been one of the most surprising things that I have experienced.

When we first arrived, we were given the typical military orientation lecture that included warnings about venereal disease with a large map that showed us the areas of Hong Kong we should avoid. Of course, for many of us that meant those were the areas we were going to head to first. They also gave us a list of hotels we could afford without spending all our R&R money.

Hong Kong was like nothing I had ever seen before. I spent the first day wandering around the crowded streets watching the people and trying to sort out the multitude of sights and smells. There was an odd combination of delicious, exotic and downright strange. Street food was everywhere and so were street vendors. The first day I was determined to sample as many different foods as possible. They varied from delicious to inedible. I’m sure that was just me, because the Chinese people seemed to most enjoy the food I couldn’t eat.

I also looked in a lot of shops trying to decide what I should buy. The shop people were friendly and spent a long time answering my often rambling questions. I had been advised to be very careful about negotiating prices. A Chief Petty Officer who was familiar with Hong Kong (his wife was Chinese) told us, “The Chinese people are basically honest. They won’t steal from you, but if you’re a bad negotiator, they are glad to let you pay three times what it’s worth.” In Hong Kong you even bargained over the price of a pack of gum, a skill I never really developed.

I eventually decided I would have a suit made because I had never had a tailor-made suit. I also had some shoes made. I’m sure that because of my poor negotiating skills I paid more than I needed to, but I was happy with the price and that was all that mattered to me. I thought I was pretty fashionable, but looking back I probably could have done better in my selection of material. The shiny shark skin material that looked so cool on Frank Sinatra didn’t do anything for me. The shoes were nice though. I wore a size 14 narrow, and it was nice to have a pair that actually fit.

The second night in Hong Kong as I was leaving the hotel, I ran into an Australian sailor who had been to there many times before. He said he’d show me the “real action” in Hong Kong. As we walked along, he turned down a narrow and dark side street and then into a basement level bar that had a big neon sign that said “Club Red Lips” with a big pair of neon lips underneath it. The place was dark and crowded with a lot of Australian sailors and Chinese women. It smelled of stale beer, cigarettes and sweat. After two beers my new friend turned to me and suggested getting out of there and going someplace where there would be some better action.

We started down the street and as he was ready to turn in to an even darker and narrower alley, I suddenly remembered I had someplace else to be. The “real action” was starting to seem a little too risky to me.

I begged off and headed back to a better lit part of town to have dinner and drinks with other American sailors. I suppose it was something he was accustomed to, but it was a little too much for a West Virginia boy to deal with. It turned out I was not as rowdy as I thought.

Most of the rest of my R&R was spent doing the typical tourist things and riding tourist buses. I didn’t venture down any more dark and narrow side streets. But I really did have a good time.

My next trip to Hong Kong was in May of 1975. By this time, I was in the Marine Corps and was an infantry officer. I was part of a Marine Amphibious Force that was embarked on Navy ships. We had recently completed support of the evacuations of Saigon and Phnom Penh and the recovery of the merchant ship SS Mayaguez. Our ships anchored in the harbor in Hong Kong for liberty call for the sailors and the embarked Marines.

Since I was one of the few officers in our battalion who had been to Hong Kong, I was tasked with briefing the troops on the things they could do there. I spent quite a while going through the ship’s library to find a few things about Hong Kong and then doing my best to remember some of the things that I had done during my previous visit. Of course, there was no internet to check.

I was happy that I had come up with a quite detailed list of sights to see and places to go. I gave my briefing. I told them where they could catch buses and where they could catch the ferry and where there were good places to shop and where there were good places to eat. When I finished, I ask for questions and the first question was, “Is it true that there’s a Kentucky Fried Chicken in Hong Kong?” Yes, it was true.

While I didn’t have any fried chicken in Hong Kong my friend Walt and I decided to be a little adventurous. We went to a “non-tourist” restaurant. Walt ordered pigeon, thinking it would probably be Cornish Game Hen and I ordered beef with bitter melon thinking how bitter can it really be, after all it is melon. Well, Walt’s pigeon was pigeon, and it came complete with head, beak, eyes, and feet. My melon was so bitter I couldn’t eat any of it.

Our stay in Hong Kong lasted four days and then we were back onboard ship to return to our home base in Okinawa. I knew I would be returning to Hong Kong in a few months when Margie joined me for Christmas leave.

Anchors Aweigh, Part IV

By John Turley

On February 7, 2023

In History, Medicine, Travel

I reported on board the USS Sanctuary in September of 1969 and went to the personnel office for my assignment. This won’t surprise anyone who was ever in the Navy, but they seemed to have no idea that I was coming. After conferring among themselves, they came back and told me that I would be senior corpsman in sterile surgical supply.

Sterile surgical supply was where we prepared and maintained all the equipment necessary for conducting surgery as well as the sterile equipment used in the clinics and wards. The Sanctuary had several surgical suites that were busy almost all the time when we were on station in support of combat operations. It was a busy place and went through a lot of equipment.

Life on board a Navy ship is a 24 hour a day, seven day a week job. There are no days off when you’re at sea. Fortunately, as a member of the hospital crew, I was what they called a shift worker. Which meant I had a set schedule. Members of the ship’s crew were watch standers. That meant they worked in four hour rotations that changed every 24 hours. We could at least have some type of a routine for awake and sleep time, but for a watch stander the schedule was constantly rotating. As a petty officer and a supervisor, I was exempt from some extracurricular duties such as working on the mess decks and taking part in working parties for regular ship maintenance and supply.

The work was hard and continuous. There was no shortage of casualties in 1969. Our job was to provide direct medical support to our troops in combat. The wounded were flown by helicopter directly from the battlefield to the ship. We got the most severely injured; the ones who couldn’t be effectively treated at a field hospital.

The crew was highly trained and incredibly efficient. From the time a wounded soldier or marine landed on our flight deck it was only minutes until he was in the operating room. The survival rate for the wounded in Vietnam was far greater than it had been in either World War II or Korea. This was largely due to the speed with which casualties were transported to definitive medical care.

We generally didn’t treat civilians, but one day, unbeknownst to us, one of our medevac helicopters was bringing in a pregnant Vietnamese woman. When she was offloaded on the flight deck she was already in labor. They brought her down to the preoperative holding area which was adjacent to our sterile supply room. When there was a heavy influx of casualties, we helped out in the preop area that functioned somewhat like an emergency room.

We were standing there, an anesthesiologist and three corpsmen, trying to figure out how to deliver a baby. Thank goodness the woman took it in her own hands and delivered the baby herself! Of course, that didn’t stop us from congratulating each other about delivering the only baby born on a Navy hospital ship during the Vietnam War. If only all our patients could have turned out so well.

When I remember my time on the Sanctuary, I try not to dwell on the suffering of our patients. Their sacrifices still move me to tears. I prefer to be grateful that I was mostly out of direct combat and to focus the less intense episode that helped us maintain our sanity.

One unexpected benefit of being the senior corpsman in sterile surgical supply was being able to order those supplies. One day while going through the supply catalog I discovered it was possible to order five gallons of pure medical grade grain alcohol. And even better, it required no approval. I also ordered a large five gallon glass beaker. We had wall mounts in our work room where there were glass beakers with soap solution and acetone. We also had an empty wall mount.

The alcohol arrived, along with the five-gallon beaker. I put the alcohol in the beaker and pasted a large poison sign on it. I got green food coloring from the mess decks in return for a promise to share. It’s easy to be generous when you have five gallons. I did have to emphasize that it couldn’t be drunk straight but had to be diluted by fifty percent with fruit juice or soda.

The food coloring gave it an appropriately poisonous appearance. It also gave us the advantage of hiding it in plain sight. I quickly became the most popular corpsman on the ship.

Right after Thanksgiving the CO of the ship issued an announcement that the crew was now authorized to put up Christmas decorations. (I think I’ve mentioned before that sometimes I don’t always think through my wise cracks.) The fact that we were now authorized to have Christmas got me thinking. I made a large sign that said “All enlisted personnel desiring to have a Merry Christmas must report to the ship’s office to obtain a Christmas chit. Personnel having a Merry Christmas without an appropriate chit will be subject to nonjudicial punishment.” A chit was basically the Navy’s version of a permission slip. I thought this was pretty funny. Apparently, the ship’s office did not agree when people started lining up to get their Christmas chits.

This resulted in a stern lecture from our leading chief. It generally consisted of about every third word beginning with the letter F. I was sure I was going to be reassigned, reduced in rank, sent to the brig or something even worse. Surprisingly, after many blistering words, he dismissed me with a wave of the hand. As I was leaving, much relieved, the chief said, “And you can drop off the rest of that grain you got to the chief’s mess .” That depleted my supply and ended my short-lived popularity on the USS Sanctuary.

Right after Christmas, we had the opportunity to have a Bob Hope show on board the ship. Everyone was crammed onto the main deck to watch Bob, a few musicians and some dancers put on about an hour and a half show. I was way in the back as we had all the patients in the front. Bob’s jokes were corny. I’m sure the dancers were pretty (I wasn’t close enough to tell for sure) and the musicians weren’t particularly talented, but a good time was had by all.

Navy ships at sea in a combat zone practice strict blackout at night. Hospital ships don’t. Not only are they painted white, but they are lit up like a cruise ship with large flood lights hanging over the side of the ship to illuminate the red crosses. This illumination led to what quickly became one of our favorite pastimes.

Inshore ocean waters in Southeast Asia are infested with sea snakes and they are attracted to light. One sailor had his parents send him a sling shot and BBs and before long the ship’s rails were lined with sailors firing BBs and watching the snakes rolling in the water. For most of us, these were the only shots we fired in Viet Nam.

Once, while cruising close to the mouth of the Perfume River near Hue City, the ship went dead in the water. The rumor quickly spread among the crew that the NVA had attached a mine to the hull. Everyone rushed on deck to watch as divers went over the side to investigate. Imagine our disappointment when they surfaced dragging a large fishing net that had wrapped around the propeller.

I don’t remember as much about the trip home from Vietnam as I do about the plane ride over. I do remember that as soon as the plane lifted off the ground everyone on board started cheering and applauding and whiskey bottles were passed up and down the aisles. (Perhaps that’s why I don’t remember much about the flight.) Needless to say, it was a very happy trip.

There were other events that I may share at some point, including a misguided trip to Camp Eagle and several port calls to the infamous Olongapo in the Philippines. However, this post has gone on long enough, but I may return later to revisit these memories.

We arrived at Norton Air Force Base, which I now knew was in Ontario, California, not Ontario, Canada. They took us through customs and started searching our bags. I was wondering why, because I couldn’t imagine anything we could possibly be bringing back that would be valuable enough for customs to worry about until I saw them going through bags and pulling out weapons, grenades and even a mortar shell.

This was in the spring of 1970 and the height of the Vietnam War protests. As soon as we cleared customs, they put us in a large auditorium and gave us our welcome home briefing. One of the few things I remember from this is that we were told that if we did not have civilian clothes that we should go to the base exchange buy some and put them on before we got to LAX. Under no circumstances should we go to LAX in uniform because we would be harassed or possibly even assaulted by protesters. This was not quite the welcome home any of us were expecting.

I was on my way to an officer training program and four years in college. I was sure that by the time I graduated and got commissioned the war in Vietnam would be over. But, like many things associated with that war, nothing would ever be certain, and I would see that sad country again.

Anchors Aweigh, Part III

By John Turley

On January 20, 2023

In Commentary, History, Medicine, Travel

When I left my duty station in Key West, the Navy handed me my orders and a check to cover my travel costs. As always, they left it up to me to figure out how to get there. I didn’t worry about that for the first two weeks. I was at home in Charleston, WV, and when I had a week left in my leave, I thought it was time to figure out how to get from Charleston to Norton Air Force Base, where I was supposed to get government transportation to take me to my new duty station, the hospital ship USS Sanctuary that was cruising off the coast of Vietnam.
I asked my father. He had never heard of Norton Air Force Base either and he suggested we contact a friend of his who was a travel agent. So, Dad gave him a call and two days later I went down to pick up the tickets. The agent handed me an airline ticket to Ontario International Airport. While I was trying to explain to him that I wasn’t going to Canada, that I was going to take my orders to Vietnam, he laughed and told me that Ontario was actually in California. It was the closest commercial airport to Norton Air Force Base.
While the Navy had given me money for transportation, it would only cover coach. In those days a coach seat was about the size a first-class seat is today. That flight took me to California where I got a bus to the Air Force base for the government chartered flight to Vietnam.
It was a long trip from California to Da Nang. We stopped in Hawaii to refuel. Unfortunately for us, they wouldn’t let us out of the airport. We were on that airliner long enough that they fed us three times, once on the way to Hawaii and twice between Hawaii and Da Nang. All three meals consisted of baked chicken, peas and carrots, and mashed potatoes. It wasn’t so bad for lunch and dinner but baked chicken for breakfast just wasn’t something I was up for. In typical government style we had three meals supplied by the lowest bidder.
I arrived in Da Nang to discover that the Sanctuary only came in port about every 6 to 8 weeks to resupply and wasn’t due back for three weeks. I got assigned to the transient barracks, where the Navy puts people awaiting further assignment. Sometimes at morning muster (roll call) they gave us jobs such as unloading trucks or doing basic lawn maintenance. Most of the time we were on our own to entertain ourselves.
The transient barracks was in Camp Tien Sha, a Sea Bee run support base. The most popular place on the base for enlisted men was the movie theater. It was open 24 hours a day and was free of charge. You could bring your own beer and they even allowed smoking in the theater. (Everyone smoked in the 60s.) They only had four movies which they ran in continuous rotation. But most importantly, it was the only place on base that an enlisted sailor could go that was air conditioned. Some guys even slept there.
While the camp was in one of the most secure parts of the Da Nang area, occasionally at night the alert sirens would sound. If any place in the surrounding area was attacked everyone got an alert. We would then go out to the bunkers and stand around outside to see if there were any rockets landing close to us. If there were, we would go inside the bunker. If not, we stood around outside smoking and trying to avoid the shore patrol who drove around to make sure we were in the bunkers. Occasionally we could see an explosion or the path of tracers in the air. Mostly we could just hear them. We were never quite sure where they were, but we were fairly confident they weren’t very close.
One of the most entertaining things was watching the TV news reporters. Camp Tien Sha had a weapons repair facility. If you were near it, you could hear machine guns and other weapons being test fired after having been repaired. You could also see tanks and other armored vehicles running up and down their test track. We got a big kick out of watching reporters put on a helmet and a flak jacket and stand in front of the camera while the tanks ran up and down behind them and the machine guns fired and them saying: “I’m reporting from the front lines in Vietnam. You can hear the battle raging behind me “. Occasionally, we would laugh so hard that one of the production people would come over and run us off. I know we ruined more than a few shots.
Eventually I got called to the personnel office and was told that the Sanctuary was due in port that afternoon. They handed me my orders and told me to report on board. I asked how to get to the dock and the personnel clerk just looked at me and shrugged. I eventually found my way to the motor pool and got a ride with a jeep that was heading down towards the docks.
There were several ships in the port at that time. However, the Sanctuary was hard to miss. Unlike other Navy ships that were painted gray, the Sanctuary was painted bright white and was emblazoned with big red crosses on the hull. I walked up the gangway, saluted and requested permission to board. In Anchors Aweigh Part IV I’ll talk more about life on the Sanctuary.

Anchors Aweigh, Part 2

By John Turley

On June 13, 2022

In Commentary

I managed to successfully complete bootcamp despite my well-known inability to keep my opinions to myself. I also successfully completed the Navy’s Hospital Corps School. After completion I was what now might be considered partway between an emergency medical technician and a paramedic. After several months of training at the Navy’s Great Lakes Training Center north of Chicago I was on my way to my first duty station. I had spent several months on the banks of Lake Michigan where the temperature sometimes dropped below zero with windchills to 40 below. Now, late in November I was on my way to the tropical paradise of Key West Florida.

After an uneventful flight to Miami, I boarded a DC3 for the flight to Key West. For those of you too young to have ever been on a DC3, it is a venerable old plane developed in the years before World War II. It was well engineered and well-made in the time before planned obsolescence became the law of the land. In fact, over 80 years later some of those airplanes are still flying around the world.

You entered the plane from the rear. It set with its tail down and its nose up. You climbed up at about a 30-degree angle to get to your seat. There were no cocktails, no gourmet meals, and no inflight movies. There was just a nice wide seat, a lot of leg room and a comfortable flight. As we flew over the Florida Keys I remember looking out and wondering if there was any place where there would be enough dry land for an airport.

On the flight I was sitting beside a First Class Signalman, an old Navy salt who had about 15 years of service. We got to talking and I told him this was my first shipboard assignment. He told me about his many adventures in the Mediterranean, in the Caribbean and in the Pacific. I was really fascinated and hoping to see some of those places myself.

We landed in Key West and went to baggage claim and picked up our sea bags. He asked me where I was heading, and I said to the ship. He looked at me in disbelief. He said “It’s only four o’clock in the afternoon. Look at your orders, you don’t have to be on board till midnight. Surely, you’re not going to give them eight hours of your free time?” In fairness, he expressed it more colorfully than I have recorded it here, liberally sprinkled with sixth letter alliterations.

There were a lot of things I didn’t know. One of them was how to go about getting a locker to keep my civilian clothes. Sailors on board Navy ships at that time were not allowed to keep civilian clothes. We could only leave and board the ship in uniform. We couldn’t be on the base in civvies.

He introduced me to locker clubs. This was a place where, for a small monthly fee, you rented a locker to keep your civilian clothes. It was also a place where you could take a shower and buy snacks and drinks. They looked the other way if you were under 21 and wanted a beer.

Following his sage advice, I got a locker, changed into civilian clothes, and stored my uniform and my seabag. And we headed into town. This was my first time “steaming” through local bars with an experienced sailor.

I grew up in a fairly sheltered environment in the conservative state of West Virginia. I had virtually no experience with other cultures, especially with the gay culture. However, a friend of mine and I did spend part of our senior year in high school drinking beer at what was probably the number one gay bar in town. We went there because it was a nice quiet basement bar where, if you were tall and looked like you were 18, which was the drinking age in West Virginia at the time, you could get a beer as long as you didn’t cause trouble. So, for six or seven months we went there usually once a week for beer and had no idea it was a gay bar, which says something, not only about our naivete, but about how conservative and low keyed the culture in West Virginia was at that time.

When I arrived in Key West, I still didn’t know that I had frequented a gay bar. However, I was about to find out that the culture in Key West was a lot different than it was in Charleston, West Virginia. My buddy told me we would be heading to his favorite bar; a place called the Safari Club. We passed by another bar named John Brown’s Body. There were a number of men sitting out front at tables on the sidewalk. As we walked by, I heard a couple of whistles and someone commenting “seafood.” My buddy looked at me and said “Don’t pay them any attention, it’s not worth the trouble. They don’t mean any harm. They’re just trying to get a rise out of you.” I still wasn’t quite sure what was going on and I looked at him with a curious glance. He gave me one of those you’ve got to be kidding looks and said, “Haven’t you ever seen a gay bar before?” Well, I had, I just didn’t know it. I had certainly never seen one like that.

I quickly discovered that Key West was a “live and let live“ place. There was occasional verbal heckling, but it was seldom mean spirited and almost never physical. Sometimes the Navy’s old Key West hands had to provide strong counseling on proper island behavior to new arrivals. Even now, over fifty years later I am amazed at how people from disparate backgrounds and with different lifestyles could coexist if they would just accept that their differences did not make them enemies. As I would discover, the sailors and the gay men engaged in friendly rivalry, and we occasionally challenged one another in beach volleyball and ended with group beer drinking watching the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. I remain convinced that there are no societal problems that can’t be solved by sincere people on a beach with enough beer, despite their differences.

At 10 minutes until 12 we reported on board the ship. I walked up the gangplank, now back in uniform, and saluted the officer of the deck. I handed him my orders. He looked at them and said, “You’re cutting it pretty close, aren’t you sailor?” Then he looked at my buddy coming up behind me, obviously he knew him, and said, “Well, I see you’re falling into bad company already.”

The USS Bushnell was a submarine tender. A submarine tender is a combination of a supply ship, a repair ship and a floating machine shop. It was known by the Navy designation as AS 15. That stood for Auxiliary Submarine Support 15. Because it seldom went to sea, it was known in Key West as Building 15. Every time it would go out for its semiannual cruise the joke was that the tugs had to come out and pull it off the pile of coffee grounds that had built up underneath it. It had a disconcerting habit of catching on fire. The fires were never serious, but they were frequent enough that the crew referred to it as the Burning Bush.

I arrived in Key West in late November, just in time to have my first Thanksgiving away from home. At the time the temperature in Chicago was about 20 degrees with wind chills down to about 30 below. The first Saturday I was in Key West I decided to go to the beach because the temperature was in the upper 50s and I thought it was a heat wave. I went out to catch the bus to the beach and was surprised to see people walking around town in coats and in some cases even parkas. I guess it’s all about what you’re used to.

I really enjoyed my time in Key West. I took two night classes at Key West Junior College. Drank way too much rum. Bought a motorcycle and toured around the Florida Keys. It was a lot of fun and not much stress. But that was about to change.

I was having a great time until the Navy decided to decommission (retire) the USS Bushnell and all the submarines that were assigned to our squadron. The submarines were all diesel boats; these were World War II veterans and were deemed to be obsolete and no longer needed in the days of the nuclear submarines. Like many things time has passed by, the diesel boats had many die-hard proponents in the Navy, and it was hard for them to let it go. For me, I only went to sea one time in a submarine and that was just on a one-day tour where we went out into the Gulf, dove underwater for about 3 hours and came back. I never really had a true appreciation for diesel boats or the mystique that they held for their crews.

There was one other thing that happened to me while I was in Key West, that completely changed the course of my life, although I didn’t realize it at the time. I was a high performer as an enlisted man. I made Third Class Petty Officer in just barely more than a year and made Second Class Petty Officer with only two years in the Navy. This was an extremely fast advancement that was partially due to the fact that the Navy needed to expand because of the Vietnam War, and I was in the right place at the right time. Because of my rapid advancement, I was invited to apply for a program called the Navy Enlisted Scientific Education Program (NESEP), a program where the Navy took young enlisted men with the potential to become officers and sent them to college for four years. There was an obligation to serve as an officer after college, but if you were getting paid to go to college it couldn’t get much better than that.

I will say, I was sorry to see both the submarines and our tender decommissioned. It meant the end of my time in Key West. All of us were reassigned. I was reassigned to the hospital ship USS Sanctuary then off the coast of Vietnam. I was fortunate because two other corpsmen on our ship were reassigned to serve with the Marines in Vietnam.

I took my seabag to the Greyhound station and put it on a bus to Charleston. I strapped a small overnight bag on the back of my motorcycle and set off on a three-day trip to West Virginia. When I say motorcycle, it wasn’t one of the big highway cruisers so common now. It was a small 350 cc Honda and in the pre-Interstate days that made for a rough trip.

More about the USS Sanctuary in Anchors Aweigh Part 3 and about NESEP in Anchors Aweigh Part 4.

Anchors Away

By John Turley

On April 12, 2022

In Commentary

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.