All posts by James Jewell

NJP, II

Sea Stories

After my personal introduction to NJP, it was six years before i got to witness it in action again, or at least a variation of it (i think i’ve written of the sea stories before in other places).

i reported to my first ship, the USS Hawkins (DD 873)  in Malaga, Spain in April 1968, and  rode her on the last stages of her MED deployment (that is “Mediterranean” for landlubbers, not “medical”). i relieved the First Lieutenant as the ASW Officer would not rotate until late September that year at the beginning of an overhaul. In those days, the first lieutenant had a bunch of sailors in first division who were more likely to go to mast than most divisions. Not all, but most.

So once we got back to homeport, i spent a lot of time with report chits, XOI, and captain’s mast. The CO, Commander Tom Nugent, was…well, let’s not go there, but he was a stern taskmaster. Strangely, he was lenient at Captain’s Mast. i had several of my boatswainmates get off a lot lighter than i expected.

Then, while late on the evening (2000-2400) Officer of the Deck (OOD) watch on the quarterdeck, i learned the old way was still in my Navy. A very drunk seaman, one of mine in first division, came back from liberty and was so inebriated, i wasn’t sure he would make it across the brow. He was belligerent. When i attempted to calm him, he started cussing me out. As a fresh ensign i was trying to figure out how do deal with the kid while the petty officer of the watch (POOW) called the duty master-at-arms on the 1-JV sound powered phones.

The duty MAA was a first class gunner’s mate. He was big, burly, stout, and ugly. He had a crew cut and his muscles bulged from the tee shirt with one sleeve rolled up to hold his package of camels. He came up to the quarterdeck, saw what was happening and put his arm around the belligerent, drunken sailor.

“Come on, son,” he soothed, “Let’s go down to the boatswain’s locker and talk about this.”

They walked forward together, and i was relieved the incident was over.

It wasn’t.

The gunner’s mate took the young man down to the boatswain’s locker and gave him an old fashioned ass whuppin’.

i know this happened because i came from officer’s call the next morning to quarters for first division. There in the first rank was the offending boatswainmate. i expected him to look pretty bad because he had to be hungover, but he also looked like he had been through a meat grinder. The gunner’s mate had exercised the old style of discipline. My chief explained to me how it worked.

Wisely, i did not question what had happened.

Within a couple of weeks, i saw the old style at work again. First division had a strapping young seaman who was not overjoyed about being in the Navy and was often questioning authority. It did not help that he was also extremely prone to seasickness. If the ship rolled a little bit tied up to the pier or in a nest of other destroyers, this guy would blow lunch.

He had managed to piss off the First Division Leading Petty Officer (LPO), BM2 Carrier. i don’t know exactly what he did, but Carrier was my man second only to BMC Jones, whom i relied upon. Carrier held my hand and escorted me through some tough times. He also was old school, sailor, and back then, liberty cards were used to control who left the ship. The duty section would not be issued liberty cards at quarters. Those not in the duty section, would be given these cards to show to the quarterdeck to get approval to depart after liberty call. The division LPO issued the liberty cards at the close of morning quarters.

It was a Friday. When the LPO issued the liberty cards at quarters, he strangely could not find the seaman’s card. This was a frequent occurrence for sailors who upset the chief or LPO. This meant the seaman would be on board for the entire weekend.

Shortly before the noon mess and early liberty call at noon, i went down to inspect division berthing on the first deck underneath the fantail. The upset seaman was in berthing and seeing me, he became a sea lawyer, screaming about his rights and how the Navy couldn’t do this to him. Again, i was flummoxed and trying to decide how to handle this.

Chief Jones, was about 5-8, a soaking wet 130-pounds, wiry, wrinkled, and about to retire with 20 years in about a month or so. He was also checking out the spaces. Up on the main deck, he heard the seaman yelling below. Chief Jones slid down the ladder to berthing, ran over to where this 6-2, 190 pound kid was berating me. The chief grabbed the seaman by the front of his blue chambray shirt at the chest, pushed him up against the bulkhead and then lifted him up until the seaman’s feet cleared the deck. The chief then launched into a profanity laced tirade that would have made the coarsest of sailors proud, concluding with something along the lines of “don’t you ever confront an officer and deal with your problem on board; see  you at quarters Monday” (Well, i’m sure that wasn’t exactly what he said, but it was close).

LCDR Louis Guimond was the XO, a mustang coming up from the ranks after being a submariner in WWII. He was tough and the crew feared him as he would give them no quarter. Shortly after we went into overhaul at the Charlestown Naval Shipyard in South Boston (the USS Constitution is now moored there), the new CO, one of my best, CDR Max Lasell, went on two weeks of leave. Once again, i had a seaman put on report and forwarded from XOI to Captain’s Mast. i was very concerned. The acting CO was Louis Guimond, the feared XO, who would conduct Captain’s Mast. The seaman had reported aboard almost six hours late and was an unauthorized absence. He had not divulged his reasons at my investigation nor at XOI.

Mast was held on the bridge. When the seaman stood at attention before the podium, Louis asked him why he had not reported as scheduled. Roughly, here is the seaman’s story:

Well sir, my flight got into Logan Airport a bit late, so i hurried to catch a cab. Then when we were going through Callahan Tunnel, the cab driver started hustling me about giving him my guitar. We got in an argument. So i jumped out of the cab with my guitar, i got lost a couple of times but i walked here from the tunnel.

i held my breath. i was waiting for the XO to lower the boom. Louis studied the man’s service record paused for a minute, and said,

“Son, i should give you the max: reduction in rate, half pay for three months, restriction to the ship for thirty days, and 45  days extra duty.

“But that is one of the best stories i ‘ve heard for a long time at mast.

“You are dismissed with a warning.”

And that, my friend, is Navy justice at work in the old days.

Some Thoughts of a Goofy Guy After a Fortnight of Sequester

A Pocket of Resistance

i stayed at home today. It was Sunday. i think. Didn’t feel like Sunday.

i’ve been in my version of sequester for a fortnight. No symptoms. Just thought what if everyone in the world had stayed in a safe version of sequester for these two weeks just what the statistics would look like. There are enough illogical resisters out there that this thing could go on for years.

How much does the media impact this? They are trying to inform us, but some of their reporting creates panic. How do we fix that? Haven’t fixed it history, and we keep stumbling over our mistakes, get up, and keep moving on as if we never stumbled. Sad.

 *     *     *

My brother Joe is an incredible person. Incredible. His depth and expanse of knowledge is amazing. And he is deep. Deep. And good. Did i mention good?

In a moment of my disillusionment a while ago, Joe suggested i read  an author that might help me get my mind right (Still one of the best lines from “Cool Hand Luke”). Rainer Maria Rilke. I did. Reread him in during this downtime. Caught a passage that sort of screamed at me deep inside:

Why should you want to give up a child’s wise not-understanding in exchange for defensiveness and scorn, since not understanding is, after all, a way of being alone, whereas defensiveness and scorn are a participation in precisely what, by these means, you want to separate yourself from.

And i thought: there is way too much defensiveness and scorn out there. Yet, we seem to thirst for it, enable it, applaud it. We hide it in nationalism, socialism, religion, causes, but it’s there, front and center at every roll call falsely responding “here” as if it belonged. Why?

Joe is so valuable to me and should be to so many people. He has two traits combined that are damn near impossible to find: wisdom and caring. He does not suffer stupid, but he always tries to help. He is religious in the right way.

Thanks, Joe.

As we finished dinner tonight and could not find anything we cared to watch, certainly not the infinite updates ad nauseum about our state of fear and tired of reruns, we caught a streaming of the San Diego Symphony. Ahh…

Don’t know when we spent an evening listening to Tchaikovsky. Nice.

And we, here on our hill in the Southwest corner, near four miles as the crow flies from the Pacific, find all is calm — as the word “pacific” was intended to mean — and being close to only a few can bring understanding and inner peace.

i wish that and good health for all of you.

And quite frankly, i’ve been alone more or less for more than a year several times, mostly at sea, and it ain’t all that bad.

 

Birthday Challenge

A Pocket of Resistance

In this dark time (if you are responsible and wish to what is best for you, your family, your friends, and the world) of hunkering down, it can be difficult to adapt. As Hays Mershon pointed out, us old mariners who spent months at sea and even longer periods away from home, have more experience than most when it comes to being isolated on a small ship for long periods of time. Seems to work for me.

But today, as you might discern from my earlier posts, was a birthday. We’ve gotten away from presents between Maureen and i on birthdays. It’s usually a meal at a favorite dining spot, dress up, good food, great atmosphere, and home to bed. That’s about it. But still, under the present conditions, going out for dinner was pretty well shot.

So what should i do?

Well, we started by screwing up her domain: breakfast. i took off for Donny’s Cafe. Donny has a great little place annexed to a bike store. Coffee is the thing, but he and his wife have expanded it into magic breakfasts and great lunches. It’s so good, all the bikers and all the cops go there. But  Donny’s place is closed except for coffee and limited breakfast items for limited morning hours. “Ah, hah,” i said — well actually the “ah, hah” came when i realized i was out of my whole bean Colombian coffee which i grind and make with a French press in my mornings — ordered an asiago bagel and an onion bagel with cream cheese (of course) and an avocado toast. Nice quiet breakfast. Maureen didn’t have to cook and i washed the dishes.

Then in the evening, Sarah and i (and Maureen, she couldn’t keep out of it), we went special. Earlier in the week, Wine Vault and Bistro brainstormed a way to still provide incredible food and wine to their customers. Wine Vault has long been our place to go for special evenings. The atmosphere is perfect, the chef is incredible and the pre-fixe repast with paired wines is absolutely the best. Chris and Mary came up with a plan. They sent out emails to regular customers offering pickup of four magnificent courses and par bread created (and i write “created” purposefully because his stuff is beyond just cooking) by Chef Gregory.

Mid-afternoon, i traveled downtown to the north end of India Street, a food maven’s heaven of cuisines: the iconic El Indio Mexican restaurant with a park of outside tables across the street (El Indio used to be where Marine Major Bruce Brunn and i would hit after a lunch run around Balboa Park for post-run tacos with a Dos Equis in the little park before returning to our flagship); the iconic Blue Water, which is the best seafood deli i’ve ever experienced; the British pub Shakespeare’s, which takes you all the way to England and provides Black and Tan’s, Guinness and Bass Ale, along with the fish and chips or bangers and mash; the Thai special place Saffron; a new American deli; a Japanese Sushi Bar across Washington; and Maureen’s favorite post meal go-to Gelato Vero Caffe, which she claims has the best gelato outside of Rome. Nearly all of these great places are offering take-out at various days and times.

Traffic was almost non-existent, parking was where i chose, both anomalies in this usual glob of vehicles. i picked up our order with a nice six-feet apart conversation with Chris and returned home in record time.

Sarah then took over getting the food prepped and setting the table.. Maureen, unable to keep her gourmet self out of it worked with Sarah on the preps while i felt…well, dispensable. The result:

Sarah found blooms in the yard for the flower arrangements. She got out the high end placemats, the good silverware, the special San Diego Zoo napkin rings, the wooden wine goblets given to us by the legendary Aunt Fran for our wedding gift, the handmade china Maureen bought from an artist when she lived in Monterrey. i brought out the bluetooth and outdated iPod and put Julian Bream on “shuffle,” low volume. And we dined on: Salmorejo (gazpacho-like chilled tomato soup from Spain), Thai Shrimp Curry (a spicy Asian stir fry with a shellfish broth over fragrant jasmine rice),  triple mushroom lasagna (with housemade ricotta and black truffle Béchamel), Cassoulet (with Toulouse sausage, bacon stewed beans, and roasted root vegetables), and that wonderful baked bread.

At the restaurant, we get the pour of the paired wines with each course. Not ready to take on four wines, we selected a bottle of 2017 Margerum “M5” Red Rhone Blend from Santa Barbara.

Damn near a perfect dinner.

Maureen and Sarah settled into the family room to watch the end of a chick-flick comedy thing. i washed the dishes.

i had asked Maureen to name the one movie she would pick to watch if she could only watch one all of the time. She demurred. i mentioned a few i knew she liked plus threw in “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid” and “Silverado.” She laughed and asked, “What about Monty Python?”

And i said, “Sure, i love “Search for the Holy Grail.”

Being Maureen, she didn’t choose her top pick, she chose “Search for the Holy Grail” because she thought Sarah and i would prefer it.

We all enjoyed until it reached, or rather, the knights reached the Bridge of Death. Maureen declared she ate too much and retired.

It was a lovely birthday day.

Of course, reality struck this morning:

“What did you do with the paperwork for the new blinds?” she asked as she shuffled the the file cabinet in my office.

“i gave them to you,” i said indignantly.

“No, you didn’t,” she shot back.

“Yes, i did.”

“You gave them back the first time, but you took them back to check something,” she responded.

“Yes, but i gave them back to you.”

“No, you didn’t,” she almost shouted as she began to rifle through the mounds of paperwork on my desk much to my annoyance.

“Yes, i did,” i answered haughtily but thinking she had a small chance of being right went out and checked in work room in the garage. No luck.

“They are not out there,” i said upon returning, “i gave them back to you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

This went back and forth a few more times getting more heated after each exchange.

…then, then, she picked up a file out of the cabinet and said in amazement, “Look, here they are.”

i then had several options, and i knew, i knew it made no difference what i said, it was still going to be my fault.

So i said, “See, i told you so.”

She wagged her finger at me with a scowl, laughed her sheepish laugh, and then we both laughed, then hugged and kissed.

Her birthday is over, but it was still my fault.

NJP Introduction…Mine

Sea Stories

These are sea stories about an institution in military life not found in civilian organizations, at least not officially or legally.

For those who haven’t served in the military, the institution is called Non-Judicial Punishment or NJP. NJP is the beginning of the justice system for military organizations, which ends with court martials.

i’m sure the other services will disagree, but because of the nature of being isolated on a ship at sea, NJP is unique in the power it has over the crew and the necessity it has for good order and discipline as well, of course, with justice.

The USS Lloyd Thomas (DD-764) was old school in 1963 when i rode her as a third class midshipman. A “FRAM II” destroyer, she had no ASROC, torpedo tubes amidships, two 5″ x 38 twin gun mounts, DASH, and the amazing hedgehogs.

My first introduction to NJP just happened to involve me. In 1963, i was aboard the USS Lloyd Thomas (DD 764) as one of 21 third class NROTC midshipmen. Our first liberty port out of Newport, Rhode Island was Sydney, Nova Scotia. We were not aware, or at least i was not impressed with the idea of sticking to rules and regulations. We had just concluded our first year of college, and we were raring to have a good time, which we did.

While in Sydney, liberty on the Thomas was declared by rank: Liberty for second class petty officers and below expired at 2200. First class petty officers and below expired at 2300; Midshipmen and chiefs liberty expired at midnight, and Officers at 0600 (as i recall) before we were to get underway at 0800. On our last night of liberty in Sydney, a half-dozen third class middies executed our plan to have a good time for as long as possible with the assistance of one of the first class midshipmen. He had the duty that last day and had drawn the OOD quarterdeck midwatch. He agreed to not report us if we came back after liberty call during his watch.

We arranged to meet some local young ladies at one of their homes. The crew had found the local dance hall and went there in mass, but we opted to miss that and have our own rendezvous and, of course party, party, party. As i remember, my night was really uneventful, but i did drink a good bit of Carling Black Label (Do you remember, “Hey Mabel, Black Label?) and was happy to stay until about 0200.

That is when our plan pretty much fell apart. When we crossed the brow to report aboard around 0230, our accomplice was no longer the Officer of the Deck. A junior officer had taken over and the Executive Officer, a stern, no fooling kind of guy, was on the quarterdeck.

The dance hall had created some jealousy when the sailors began dancing with girls of the local boys, also at the hall. A fistfight began between a sailor who was dancing with a local was confronted by her boyfriend. The fight expanded until all the men were rioting while the ladies went home. It was a doozy. Bottles of Mabel’s beer were apparently missiles in the air and used as weapons as well.

Liberty was cancelled around 2100 when the shore patrol and local police reported the melee to the ship. The ship was had mustered to see who was missing and began counting heads to ensure everyone got back.

The Exec ordered the quarterdeck to put the six of us on report. We acknowledged but rather than head for our racks, hung around close to the quarterdeck to watch sailors straggle back from the brouhaha. It was a constant but decreasing stream of sailors in varying degrees of disarray.

My favorite returnee was a third class petty officer. He stumbled off the quarterdeck around 0230 on his way aft to his berthing, drunk in partial uniform with his whites torn and bloody and big chunk of his jumper top missing. He also had no shoes or socks. We caught him as he reeled down the weatherdeck.

“Did you win the fight?” we asked.

“Win?” the sailor shouted, “Hell, i got back didn’t I?”

One of the last groups to return were in a cab. About four chiefs and the captain poured out and stumbled (a nice way to describe it) across the brow. The captain, a former submariner, preferred running with the chief petty officers rather than the wardroom. Seeing the stern XO there, the chiefs disappeared immediately after reporting aboard.

The XO, looking for some command guidance and relief apparently, approached the more than slightly inebriated CO and almost pleaded, “Captain, liberty was cancelled at 2100. They had a big fight between the town guys and our sailors at the dance hall. i’ve been very worried about you.”

The captain reeled about, looking cockeyed, and said, “Dammit, that’s great. Liberty for all hands.”

The XO, as quietly and unobtrusively as possible, which wasn’t very unobtrusive, escorted the captain to his cabin.

The next morning, the Lloyd Thomas left the pier to join the other ships of the USS Intrepid (CV 11) flotilla in the eight-week cruise. i’m not saying the captain might have been a little bit hungover and i cannot find a report of the incident in any search, but while standing out the harbor, the Thomas sideswiped a Japanese fishing vessel. i know because standing the port wing lookout, i watched as the startled Japanese crew went from eating their bowls of rice to jumping over the side. Amazingly, the ship proceeded out as if nothing had happened.

A day later at Captain’s Mast, i was assigned three weeks of extra duty, meaning after the working day, i was assigned a couple of hours each day to do onerous tasks. With my devil-may-care, good-times-roll demeanor, i had a good time. The best moment was the night i was assigned to scrub down the after-steering gear room, just aft of my berthing which was on the first deck below the fantail. With the huge gearbox creaking and groaning, i climbed atop and took a nap. Figured that would show the XO.

i never quite understood how i and the other midshipmen got such punishment at NJP for our pretty innocent foray while the Captain was doing his thing and the chiefs got off Scot free.

But i was beginning to understand NJP.