Left Coast, USA

There used to be an old riddle went something like this: There are two guys. One, everything out of his mouth is a lie. The other, everything out of his mouth is the gospel truth. What one question can you ask them both that will allow you to know which is which? By the way, my theory that the answer is always five, or a derivitive of five, does not seem to apply here. Sorry.

So, as you know, I lived out on the West Coast for a while while I was a squidlet. A squidlet being, of course, a young squid. I think the term is not in common usage among the services, but is a frequently used term here in my house.

Right there at the edge of the city... the state... the country... heck, the doggone continent... was the ocean. The Pacific one. Pacific meaning gentle or passive, I would suppose, although the name is way far wrong in the winter time out far from shore. There's some ugly, ugly storms out there and it's c-c-cold, too. Anyway, I always thought it sould be called the Specific Ocean, because you're talking about that one. I'm usually ignored on the point. though. Something about it's already got a name, the maps are already printed, no one wants to be known as a Specific Islander, blah, blah, blah.

So we had us a brand new warship. We were the commissioning crew. She was squeaky clean and newly painted. We took off from San Diego with a group of about 18 ships. We all left in a bunch (or, if you are comfortable with the term, a gaggle) and in a bigger hurry than usual. Not a hurry really, I guess. But with a much shorter interval between departures. We got out past Point Loma a hair and just kinda loitered there in an unorganized bunch. Well within sight of the Russian spy ship... er, I mean fishing trawler that monitored such mundane things as the comings and goings of the Specific Fleet warships. So, from the git go, everything was more unusual and chaotic than usual.

We all finally started to fall in to a formation, and I was watching the ships cut and turn and weave and leap frog and all the other things that whip smart, hot dog navy ship drivers like to do. We were so slick and so slow that even I, the ever vigilant I, didn't notice for quite some time that we had drifted off from the pack and were starting to meander north. We never really got out of sight of land good. Just kept moseying north.

Later that evening, on watch up in combat, I found out there were actually three of us navy ships strolling north. Us, a nuke cruiser which I want to say was the California but my memory is a little hazy on this, and a nuke carrier. I also don't remember which carrier, as we called them all the same thing: Damn Carrier (or something close to that, anyway).

Anyway, we had got ourselves all intermingled in with the shrimpers and tuna boats, set a course that hugged the coast a lot closer than was usual, and had turned everything (radars, sonars, radios, etc) off or put them into recieve only. All except the commercial, off the shelf Furuno radar. It's for the surface picture which allowed us a navigation radar, and was not military frequency so we looked (to any nefarious people listening in electronically) like any other merchant, shrimper or pleasure craft.

This took us a few days, and when we got to about the Washington-Canada border area, we hung a left, still running darkened ship and in total emmissions control (still running dark and silent), and put the pedal straight down to the metal. We went screaming across the North pacific at a high rate of speed.

Now a carrier, as I suppose you know, is one humongus hunk of floating metal. And it carries about 80 or so planes and 5,000 people. It is not exactly a dinghy. But that doggone carrier, and her nukey criuiser, would have to keep stopping and waiting for us to catch back up. Now her true speed is classified, and I intend to honor that here, but I can say this. They can fly when they need to.

So we go barreling past Northern Japan. The Japanese, who had not been told about this transit, tried to vector some ships up to intercept us. We jumped all over them with our helo's, which allowed them to see it was the "baka gaijin", or "Crazy Americans". While that didn't help them to understand what we were doing, or where we were going, they knew we were warships and they knew we were flying so, like the cop that passes you on the highway at 100 mph with his lights flashing, they figured we had somewhere we needed to be. And be there in a hurry. They probably went home and turned CNN on.

Not long after that, and remember, we had kept our lights off and our electronics off for almost 12 days so we were more or less invisible, or, literally coming in under the radar, we caught an early morning fog and hid ourselves under it. We slowed down to fog bank speed and pulled up to within 10 miles of the coast and.... anchored.

A few hours later the morning sun started burning off the fog. When it did, the military establishment in Vladivostok, Russia was a might surprised to find a carrier and two cruisers just kinda sitting there. In the fatherland. Unannounced and uninvited. I think they found it rather rude of us.

We were immediately ordered to leave the area which prompted the Captian to have the grills brought up. All the while we were being ordered about, and threatened, and likely being cursed (as I am sure some security dudes were fixing to lose their jobs), we had the ship's band playing loud, the grills fired up with hamburgers on, and the crews lounging around the decks in shorts and t-shirts. And knock-off cheap sunglasses. And we stayed that way for three days, before finally leaving. Because we wanted to, not because you told us to.

Not too long after we surprised them they started sending planes out to buzz us. They would fly right overhead, really low. It would have been more intimidating, however, if the pilots hadn't kept waving at us with these big old grins on their faces. I figure they were happy we were getting ready to get some of their idiot bosses fired and they apprieciated it. But that's just my theory.

So, having accomplished our mission, which was, I assume, to show the Russians that we could, we went somewhere else. I don't remember where, but I'm sure it was warm, with cold beer and pretty girls. Yeah, just the place I liked.

People ask how you can stay in the navy, spending weeks and months at a time at sea. Because this stuff I just told you about is FUN. Never makes the paper. Is seldom even admitted to. But we did this kind of crap and loved it.

Remind me to one day tell you about cruising the length of Vietnam 12 miles and an inch off the coast and the "fishing junk" that put a machine gun round through the stereo in the Turner Joy's wardroom.

Oh yeah, I think the answer to the riddle is to ask, "Is the other guy the liar?" The liar will say yes and the truth dude will say yes. No wait, that wouldn't work out. Actually, I forgot the answer. Sue me.

Farewell to college joys, drink to the foam
until we meet again here's wishing you a happy journey home, out
Ramblin' Ed