What Were You Doing 35 Years Ago?

This weekend's visit of the USS Ronald Reagan (CVN-76) near the harbor of Santa Barbara, prompted radio talk host Dr. Laura to pledge, on the air, to pay $30,000 for a disputed waterfront docking fee.

The waterfront service fee is a standard charge for all port stops by military vessels. Photo: US Navy

The Navy League at the same time was lobbying the Santa Barbara city council to waive the fee, which they voted to do--but for this one time only.

And my Vietnam military flashback began. Enlisting in 1967, my time with the United States Navy began. Four years were bursting into momentary view. The steamy, screeching sounds on the asphalt surface flight deck, catapults launching F-4 Phantoms hellbound toward the horizon.

Photo: US Navy
I am living in surreal parallel time this month, August 1969, shipping out on my first "WestPac," or western Pacific cruise. My white hat hangs jauntily as I step aboard my last permanent duty station, the USS Constellation (CVA-64). It was named after the last all-sail vessel built by the US Navy.

Four and a half football fields long, the "Connie" was the last conventionally powered aircraft carrier. Eight steam boilers drove four main steam turbine engines. Such massive power at times felt as if the sweaty Hands of God were just a few decks below.

I'm writing news releases sent to the hometown newspapers of these shipboard sailors, a journalist in the boat's public affairs office, massaging teletype from the communications center. Two Phantom pilots shot down a MiG-21. Someone wrote the news announcements of the airmen lost on deck, blown off a catwalk, lost at sea, shot down over 'Nam.

This netherworld stays alive writing itself, again and again. The closed-circuit radio and tv studios were the coolest spaces onboard the ship. Way preferable to the humid tropical temperatures outside--in the 90's to 100's most of the time.

It's a semi-comfortable joke that I am playing records "for our fighting boys overseas...in Kent State, Ohio." Just past the horizon, a patch of ground called Hamburger Hill is claiming lives. The blood of our soldiers blots the ground.

Spare time is reading, writing letters home, planning to buy stuff when we hit port in Japan. A stereo, a camera, a 14-piece place setting of chinaware littered my life. My life echoes in my reverie.

The "N" in the "CVN" of the USS Ronald Reagan's name means it's a nuclear-powered boat. No one seems to mention it has a nuclear reactor in media reports. Why would it be conveniently not mentioned?

Dr. Laura, coincidentally (?) with her money pledge, could also have been promoting her one-woman show at the Lobero this weekend. Got her front page press, so go figure.

In my never to be humble opinion: it was a cheap way to sell tickets, Doc. Most of the men on the carrier are doing what I was doing--putting in an honorable enlistment, doing good work and waiting to get back to civilian life.

Sailors don't want anyone taking advantage of them for publicity, especially a radio "Doctor." Our US sailors and soldiers, ghosts from Vietnam and Iraq, stand on hallowed sand each Sunday at Arlington West. It's a church with more than 1800 crosses for the fallen.

One other thing I know for certain. My Vietnam tears and memories--my service enlistment--will never have a discharge date. Sphere: Related Content