A man or woman can be false, fleeting, a liar or a coward - in every way corrupt and still be an outstanding engineer, doctor, a great artist, cryptologist or a computer wizard. But there's one thing they can't be and that is a Sailor or a Naval officer.
3 comments:
Wow. What set you off, to post this?
I remember, long ago when the MidEastFor MCM commodore came aboard on Wedesday and had us all gathered on the fantail where he told us that the second he knew which 3 MSO's were going to head home first, we would be the first to know. The next morning I stopped in the SupShip office at BASREC and the SupShip gave me a copy of the al Khaleej Times opened to the page which stated that the USN had decided to remove 3 of the 6 Minesweepers from the Persian Gulf and send them home. I copied the page twice and went back aboard my ship which was moored outboard an East Coast Sweep. I dropped off a copy of the article on their Quarterdeck (I'm a nice guy).
I was in my CO's cabin dropping off the other copy when the radioman stepped in and asked me to join him in Radio. There, I heard the CO of the ship next to us talking to the Commodore on MCM Tactical and baldly stating that the Commodore had told him and the other east coast ship COs that they were heading home at the end of the month. They went back and forth as if nobody else could overhear them and the Commodore assured the East Coast guy that they were indeed heading home at the end of the month.
That Commodore never ever told us anything. We just read their unit sitreps every evening as the 3 east coast ships practiced tow and be towed evolutions and then read unbelieving as they and the commodore sailed out of the Strait of Hormuz headed east and entered the Red Sea and never a peep from the commodore or the MCM staff on the Coronado that we were being left behind for another 2 years of duty in the Middle East.
It's enough to make one laugh. It also became pretty much the rule for dealing with the Atlantic Fleet staff and officers. They were never ever straight with you and they lied about everything.
I forgot to add that the Al Khaleej Times article identified the 3 west coast sweeps as the ships heading home.
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