The day of reckoning was upon us. Or at least the reckoning was on CDR Max Lasell and me. The NWAI team from Atlantic Fleet arrived at precisely at 0800. We met to kick the inspection off in the wardroom. The captain greeted them cordially. The inspection team laid down the rules. i passed out the security manuals hot off the press, or rather, hot off the hands of third division. The team was about to end the meeting when leader of the Cruiser Destroyer Force Atlantic Fleet, a master chief ASROC gunner’s mate, stood up.

“i want the inspectors to know this is the first time the loading, unloading check sheets have been used,” he explained. They are the new standardized version and during the workup. We have discovered and corrected as many errors in the procedures as possible.

“However,” he continued, “We may have missed a couple. So any errors in the process from the checksheets is not the fault of the Hawkins ASROC team.” The lead inspector wrote some notes on his pad during the MTT master chief’s comments.

Then we got to it.

The inspection took about six hours. We went through the loading and unloading of the ASROCs into the launcher and magazine. The inspectors caught a couple of errors in the checksheets. No dings for my team. The MTT had saved my bacon.

Everyone met in the wardroom after the inspectors had consulted among themselves. Our captain sat at the head of the wardroom table. i quivered while seated to his left with the XO on his right.

The security manual met its requirements. We were graded a 98 on the inspection. We were certified.

But damned if they didn’t find three errors in my pen and ink changes in the abhorred SWOP 5-5.

Sometimes, you just can’t get everything right.

It was time to get it on.