This is a continuation of the USS Hawkins (DD 873) preparations for the NWAI nuclear weapons inspection in the spring of 1969. The captain, CDR Max Lasell, had informed his ASW Officer, aka me, doing my best was not enough: i had to pass the test. Period.

And the heat was on. Me. In addition to working with the Mobile Training Team on the checksheets, i oversaw the maintenance and cleanliness of the equipment and the spaces, especially the magazines where we stored our ASROCs that were not in the eight-cell launcher. i still had to meticulously maintain the SWOP manuals with their burdensome cut-and-paste and pen-and-ink changes.

Then, i learned we had to rewrite the ship’s security manual. Like the checksheets, there was no standardized security manual. Each ship was responsible for writing their own security manual that adhered to all of the current security regulations for Navy ships.

The security manual was the responsibility of the Security Officers on FRAM destroyers. The executive officer was the Security Officer. But if there was any officer with more on his plate than a brand new LTJG ASW Officer getting ready for an NWAI, it was the XO. Consequently, i was informed i had to rewrite the security manual.

There was about five weeks i did not go ashore. My days were filled with going through loading and unloading drills, checking on spaces and equipment, and consulting the mobile training team, my division chief STGC Rogers, my ASROC Gunner’s Mate GMT1 (i’m having an old man’s brain fart and can’t come up with his name and i will but until i do, i will call him GMT1 Harris), my first class sonar tech, STG1 Alan Ernst, and advising the C), CDR Lasell, and the XO, LCDR Louis Guimond. My evenings were filled with typing out the security manual from references and keeping that damn SWOP 5-5 up to date.

We were getting close. The security manual was finished, a total of about 50 pages, and the XO signed the original as Security Officer. The last thing to do on the NWAI eve was to have about 25 copies ready for the inspection, which would begin when the inspection team came aboard around 0800 the next morning. ST1 Ernst and i went up to radio and the radiomen xeroxed the required copies. Around 1900, we mustard the sonar techs, the ASROC gunner’s mates, and the torpedo men in the wardroom. They sat around the wardroom table — for those unfamiliar with the wardroom on FRAM destroyers, it doubled as the main damage control medical post when at general quarters, and the wardroom mess table was converted to an operating table for casualties.

There, the third division sailors of all ranks and ratings sorted and put the 25 or so copies together, finally stapling them into documents, the required security manuals. We finished about 2300, an hour after taps.

i laughed then and i laugh every time i recall those great guys, all enlisted sitting around the wardroom table with cokes, smoking, and compiling those copies. John Paul Jones and a bunch of surface flag officers must have been in disbelief.