*Thanks for the excellent Sea Story Chief!
I got the 'watch.. so I can't respond right
now.
Duane
--- Andy Burns <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> OK Parson..
>
> I see, like me the Nav had it's "effect"
> on yee<G> The thing is that for me it was
> a brief tour.. and I am amazed it took you
> 12 years to have yur fill...
>
> Would have stayed longer, but I didn't like where
> Clinton took the
> establishment....
>
> I'm looking back over 29 years amigo, can't
> remember a ding-dang thing of High School but
> am "haunted" by fan sounds and the smell of
> foam green pain and old spice<G>
>
> I have the same lack of memory from high school
> compared to the Navy.
> You certainly got to smell the fine scent of animal
> fat fire fighting
> foam. My era got the pleasures of the better
> smelling AFFF. (Aqueous
> Foam Forming Foam). Though I will never forget
> fighting a fire with a
> hose. when my entire hose team abandoned me in the
> space with no way out
> except through the flames by me lonesome. (needless
> to say, they got
> their heads handed back to them promptly upon my
> exodus from the space).
>
> Raining shells on Iranians was also a stressful but
> unforgettable
> memory. gun boats firing at us, us firing back at
> them with the big
> guns. blowing their oil rigs out of the water as
> they dove off to save
> themselves. hollering "batteries release" as the
> CO's 1JA talker for
> every shot fired. (handed out lots of Bibles those
> days. they just
> wanted to have one in their pockets.)
>
> .and the great cookies sent over by the supply ships
> during Unreps.
> (Since I stood next to the CO during every
> evolution, I always got the
> goodies). me we almost didn't make the 'emergency
> break away' . they
> zigged, and we zagged, so we snapped some lines but
> missed the other
> ship only close enough to shake hands with the other
> ship. while
> gallons of sweat washed off the deck afterwards.
>
> Here's a few questions from 'ole -=A=-
>
> 1. Was the civilian economy so shot that the
> Navy looked better, when you came to re-up?
>
> I was too much of a sea duty sailor and did not
> enjoy life on the
> outside back in 1989. I had a decent job, but then
> Desert Storm came
> along and I got recalled.
>
> I was only to do 1 year in Washington, DC to process
> folks back from the
> Storm, but they told me it would be unaccompanied.
> I didn't want to
> spend an entire 12 months away from my wife and 1
> year old boy. so I
> wandered down to the real recruiter's office and put
> my hand up again
> for another hitch.
>
> My punishment for that was to be sent with the
> family from California to
> Norfolk, VA on a "gator freighter" called USS Nassua
> (LHA-4) that had
> just returned from the Gulf War.
>
> Since I was in Personnel, I came onboard to the
> entire office on leave,
> and a stack of nearly 6 months worth of records to
> process. which I
> managed to do in 3 weeks.
>
> I spent 4+ more years on that ship, then got a hitch
> at NAS Oceana where
> I went absolutely bananas. hated shore duty.
> different politics, and no
> 'hook ups' unless you ran into a sailor from your
> old ships (which I
> managed to do a few times).
>
> I decided to either terminate my shore duty and go
> back to sea, or get
> out.
>
> After a long 12 month debating, my wife and I
> decided that our kids
> needed to know their grandparents (who lived in
> California), so we
> decided to call it quits on the Nav. I moved her
> out with the 3 kids
> about 6 months ahead of me getting out to get
> established and lived in
> the barracks in the mean time.
>
> I got out and pastored a small church for a while,
> all the while job
> hunting for 'real' income. I found a job in the
> SFran East Bay with a
> software company as their IT Director an stayed
> their for 5 years until
> I got laid of this last January. I've been
> unemployed since. and boy is
> it getting tight!
>
> At any rate, Getting out turned out to be the best
> decision we'd made
> back then, as was going back in back in 1990. My
> full term was from
> 1985 thru 1996, with only a small break of reserve
> time in-between in
> 1989.
>
>
>
> 2. How in heck, would a blue water sailor find
> himself able to be attractive to a young
> christian
> lady and be able to work that into marrage?
>
> That's another long story. my wife's brother was one
> of my Pioneers back
> in the early 80's when I was the Sr. Commander at
> Calvary Temple A/G
> (Outpost 104 in NCN). which has since folded up due
> to it's Pastor's
> belief that Rangers has no place in today's culture.
> We had over 125
> boys when I was there. (By the way, I found some
> old records of that
> outpost from the early 70's and found that my
> father-in-law was my very
> first commander!)
>
> At any rate. my wife always showed up at every event
> we had. She had a
> real crush on me at the time. I didn't give her the
> time of day though,
> since she was nearly 6 years younger than I was.
>
> After about 3 years in the navy, I got a letter from
> her out of the
> blue, I was scheduled to go on leave a few weeks
> later, so I offered to
> 'do lunch' when I was in town. From our first date
> of "lunch" to the
> day I proposed the days totaled 11. We got married
> 4 months later, and
> have been married nearly 13 years now. She
> definitely did her term as a
> Navy Wife. 3 kids in diapers with a husband at sea
> on the opposite coast
> of all her relatives and friends. she earned her
> stripes for certain.
>
> Ranger DJ floored me by starting up a RR outpost
> at a Yokosuka,Japan chapel... *that I had sat in
> 1971 and felt 1 million miles from home.
>
> I too held several positions while on sea duty. In
> San Diego I was the
> Senior Commander of a fine outpost that is now run
> by Steve Barnhill
> (#106), and I also served as the Sectional Rally
> Coordinator under the
> leadership of ole' Bearwaller.
>
> When I moved to Virginia, I served as a Sunday
> School teacher and Sr.
> Commander for an outpost there until they asked me
> to be "more faithful"
> in setting an example in my attendance (Knowing full
> well that I was on
> Sea duty).
>
> During both my San Diego years and my Virginia year,
> I taught LTC. I
> even taught one onboard ship to a few guys who
> wanted to be ready to
> join outposts when the got out of the Navy. Also
> taught weekly Bible
> study and ran Sunday services on the ship every week
> (on both ships).
> (Since I was credentialed, the Squadron Chaplain let
> me run things while
> he went to all the other squadron ships).
>
=== message truncated ===
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