All posts by Jim

Long Ago and Far Away

A Pocket of Resistance, Sea Stories

i have too much on my hands to get it all done before i leave for another place. i would like to publish posts at least four times a week, if not more. i have six books in various stages of completion (none are completed) i would like to finish. i have established a “kick the bucket” check list and narrative for a guide to whomever is left behind to clean up my mess.

An Aside: My sister was the executor for our parents and aunt, and i was the same for my father-in-law and helped a Navy widow across the street. There are some excellent check lists for such things as funeral, burial, social security, other financial matters, as well as personal matters. The VA provides one that is excellent and also includes information for veterans and military retirees.

Then, there are all of the things i want to do around the house. Hang some outside lights, raise my flagpole a bit, clean up and repair some hardscape, organize the garage mess, put all of my paperwork in order.

This is all to be done while i play golf one or two times a week, would like to practice more, and go to doctors, dentists, optometrists, specialists, not to mention lab tests…aha, i’ve created another checklist.

So in this clean-up-things yesterday, i found some old treasures. Cassette tapes exchanged with dear people while i was deployed going back fifty years. In three boxes, i also found slides. i took about a gazillion when my ships were carrying Koreans to Vietnam and back to Pusan.

It is outright fun to look at them and remember. So another project has been added. Here are a few of the initial results:

The fading is bad on this one, but if you look closely, the ship tied to the Delong pier in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, is the USNS Barrett (T-AP-198). The photo was taken from the bridge of the Barrett’s sister ship, the USNS Geiger (T-AP-197). It is the only time the two were in the same port in my year, 1970, aboard. The two rotated between Pusan, Korea and several ports in Vietnam, carrying Republic of Korea troops back and forth. They were on a 22-day cycle with a six-day respite in Sasebo, Japan for maintenance, resupply, and refueling.

The Geiger was relieved by the third ship of this type, the USNS Upshur (T-AP-196) about half-way through my tour. In the late 1940s, the three were built by American President Lines to be cruise liners, but were bought by the Navy to serve as troop and dependent carriers as the Korean War began. They performed that mission in the Atlantic and the Pacific until 1965 when the mission was to carry the ROK troops and officers. The 1500 troops were berthed in below deck compartments and the officers, including my 18-personnel unit above decks, which retained the configuration of cruise liners. I was a lieutenant junior grade (LTJG) and served as executive officer of the unit. It was a wild and crazy year.

A US Navy swift boat comes alongside as Geiger enters Qui Nhon. The base was an Army base while the swift boats and harbor security was run across the bay at a Navy location with the generic name of “market time.” Several of my unit went across numerous times with the idea of giving the sailors there a bit of a morale booster. Our units, as far as i know, were the only US military in country that wore our regular khaki uniforms and carried US Dollars. We were popular.

Some time in the late spring, early summer, Jim Harding learned i was on the ship. Jim, called “Beetle” by family members and myself, was in charge of the Army’s 101st Calvary medivac helicopters (Jim, correct me if i got the title wrong) based near Qui Nhon. He showed up when we pulled into port and i hosted him with a dinner on board — those meals were exquisite. On the next go-round, he invited me out to the 101st’s base. He took me on a tour of the country side with his driver and armed guard.

A 2,000-year old Buddhist temple (Before you ask, the swaztika is not from Germany. From Wikipedia:

The swastika is also used in other Asian religions, including Buddhism and Jainism.

The swastika is a sacred symbol in Hinduism that has many meanings: 

  • Direction: When facing right, the swastika represents the universe’s evolution, and when facing left, it represents the universe’s involution. 
  • Good fortune: The swastika is also a symbol of prosperity, good luck, and well-being. The word “swastika” comes from the Sanskrit word svastika, which means “conducive to well-being”. 
  • Spiritual purity: The swastika is also a sign of spiritual purity. 
  • The swastika is also used in other Asian religions, including Buddhism and Jainism: 

Here is my Lebanon, Tennessee friend at the temple. He and his driver took me all over the countryside in a day’s outing after i had spent the night in his hutch with five or six other Army officers. After dinner of steak and beer, we went to the hutch and someone pulled out an LP album they had gotten. It was “Woodstock,” the two-record set of all of the music at the renown festival. It was the first time, i had heard the music.

Beetle is the younger brother of my best friend, Henry Harding. i practically lived at their house growing up. The three of us ran around together all of the time. Seeing him in Vietnam was one of the brightest moments of my tour.

To conclude this show and tell time, here is LTJG Jewell, executive officer of Military Sea Transport Service (MSTS, later in the year, renamed Military Sealift Command, or MSC) in fatigues, i thought Beetle got them for me, but he says he didn’t. i remain puzzled as to how i got them. i am on a hill above a Vietnamese village.

This was the only time i was outside of our port areas. The circuit of my two ships began by stopping at Qui Nhon to debark and then embark troops of the ROK Oak Leaf Division, primarily a supply division. The ship’s second stop was Nha Trang where we repeated the troop exchange. These were troops from the Tiger division, the Korean version of marines and known from their fierce fighting. i was told they had learned how to fight from the Turks during the Korean War.

More later.

A Tale of the Sea and Me: Inspection Reality

Sea Stories

In the early spring of 1974, the Hollister had an inspection from the Commodore’s staff, Destroyer Squadron (DESRON) 9.

It was annual inspection involving all aspects of ship’s operation, maintenance, and administration. When completed, the inspection report, full of discrepancies, was handed to the ship and forwarded through the chain of command to our ultimate boss, Commander, Surface Forces, Pacific.

Hollister was required to correct all critical discrepancies immediately and report them to the chain of command. All other discrepancies were to be included in a following report, ninety days after the inspection, noting the corrective action taken and projected completion date.

Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) Kerry Kirk, our executive officer, was relentless in badgering the department heads to submit their discrepancy status reports. Kirk was responsible for putting them all together, editing the mess, and preparing it for the Commanding Officer’s signature. Then it would be sent to all of the ship’s superiors in the chain of command. The XO was driving us crazy. We all felt we had much more important matters to attend, for example, the upcoming six-month regular overhaul. But we all cobbled our parts together. LCDR Kirk spent untold late hours finalizing the thick document. It was signed by Commander (CDR) Phelps, and sent off.

At the noon mess, the captain, the exec, four department heads, the oncoming quarterdeck Officer of the Deck (OOD), Donnie Frahler, as i recall, and the next senior junior officer sat down at the wardroom table for the first sitting. As the meal ensued, CDR Phelps leaned back in his chair and related his tale:

You know, I remember when I was XO on the McKean, USS McKean (DD 784) when we had one of those discrepancy reports to submit.

I was busy and it was over a week late when I realized we had not submitted the report. I ordered the department heads to get their sections in ASAP. Of course, it took them nearly two weeks to get their parts to me. I did the editing and had to get a couple of changes from the department heads. By the time I finished, it was almost a month past the due date.

I started up to the CO’s cabin with the report for signature, I stopped and considered the consequences. If we submitted the report that late, our superiors were going to blast us for screwing, possibly worse than what the report would bring down on us.

So I went back to my stateroom, and put the report in my “pending” basket.

Six months later, when I was relieved to become the CO here, I took the report out and dumped into the to-be shred basket.

We never heard a peep about not submitting the report.

I learned my lesson. Reports to higher authority weren’t quite as crucial for the rest of my career.

Marty Tales; the Last of the First Golf Journey

A Pocket of Resistance

The second day of Marty’s and my golf trips to the desert, we played Desert Falls in Palm Desert.

The course had just opened. It was a great deal. It remains my favorite course in the desert. It is now private. That day was incredible in spite of the 120 degree temperatures. We parked our cart next to trailer serving as the pro shop and unloaded our bags into my car. They had another, smaller trailer that served hamburgers, hot dogs and beer. We shunned the food but sat on the bench in the shade to drink a beer.

Marty had come out of the pro shop after turning in our cart key.

“Hey, i just read a flyer posted on the board in there. They are offering a life-time membership to their club for $10,000. They say it would give us fee green fees for our lifetime, no monthly fees.”

And we dreamed.

We both knew our wives would go catatonic if we did that. We acknowledged joining would require us to get a second home in the desert. We also knew a retired Army Major working in a second career in military contracting and a Navy Commander still on active duty didn’t come close to being able to afford that kind of expense.

Marty Linville-2022

After that, we play Desert Falls when we went to the desert. And we laughed as we saw the houses and condominiums rise from the sand until the course was rimmed with stucco and went private. We continued to laugh for the next thirty-plus years.

i don’t know if those desert golfers would have appreciated these two golfers.