A Farewell To Arms It's easy to wax nostalgic about an experience like the Navy; we tend to remember the excitement and the novelty of the time while we gloss over the long hours, the homesickness, and the constant discipline. I hated my time in the service: I just didn't want to be there, and I would never put myself through an experience like that again, even if it were possible. There was something very ugly about our military in those days, and I believe that this contributed to the morale problems experienced by our armed forces during the Vietnam era. It seemed that almost every day I witnessed an incident which led me to believe that our officers and senior NCOs were more concerned with their careers than with their duty. It was not unusual to see seamen ordered to postpone maintenance on critical pieces of equipment in order that they could devote themselves to cleaning up for an inspection. In the most obvious case, we once hove the ship to in a potential combat zone and sent half the crew over the side on stages to scrub the ship's hull and patch up some rust spots so we would look good upon our return to port. I am convinced the veterans of that war who chose to stay in and make the military a career committed themselves to reforming that institution, judging by the performance of our troops in Iraq twenty years later. But it can't be denied that military service makes a deep impression on a young man; life on a ship, in particular, is total and absorbing: the smell of paint and grease and stack gas, the constant motion of the vessel and the effortless way the body adapts to it, the hum of the ventilators and the distant rumble of the engines. I still recall vividly the choreographed drama of a refueling at sea during a gale, and the menace of the Russian bombers and their sleek gray destroyers buzzing our ship. What I miss most is the sea itself, its heartbreaking beauty and endless variety, and the honest satisfaction of guiding a ship across its trackless wastes with the art and skills passed down from numberless generations of mariners. I could do this now, I was good at it, and I couldn't get enough of it. On 3 December, 1968, I stepped off a jet airliner at the airport in Tampa in my dress blues. I picked up my seabag at the baggage claim, but this time I had no orders. I had pulled it off. Sergeant Pepper Time I registered for college at the University of South Florida just a few days after my return from active duty. I had my own GI Bill to rely on now, and I was even able to go back to work part-time at the golf course. There was still a year of Naval Reserve drills to attend in order to finish up my military obligations, one weekend a month. I was authorized to advance in grade to Second Class Petty Officer; I had passed all the appropriate exams and correspondence courses while on the Dean, but they wouldn't allow me to sew it on unless I shipped over for a few more years. Fortunately, my local Reserve unit, the USS Tweedy (another decrepit destroyer escort, the Beatty finally having gone on to razor blade heaven), offered no obstacles to my promotion. Making E-5 after only a little more than a year in the fleet was possible in those days; there was a war on and I was in a critical rate. I was now the leading QM on Tweedy's Reserve complement, and since the skeleton crew of Regulars manning her between drills were usually off on liberty when the Reservists were aboard, I was put in command of a scurvy gang of QM strikers with responsibility for their training. I enjoyed my last year on the Tweedy, especially communicating my enthusiasm for the quartermaster rate to the new trainees. It was especially satisfying holding school call in navigation on the officer candidates. I had originally planned on staying in the Reserves until retirement at half-pay as Chief, or perhaps even as an officer, since I now had every reason to believe that graduation from college was inevitable. But I eventually had to reconsider due to pressures from school: one weekend a month was a real drain on my study time. I regret not having been able to do this; my Reserve pay was a real budget stretcher, and even a half pay retirement for life would have come in really handy during the nineties. But, I kept my hair short and wore my uniform to classes one Friday a month until my time came to transfer to the inactive Reserve. Two years later they sent me my Honorable Discharge through the mail. Thoughts On The War There were a few other reservists and many Vietnam vets at USF, and opposition to the war was now pretty universal on campus, especially among them. A lot had changed since I was away. I had missed the pivotal year of 1968, when the Sixties finally arrived in Florida. My own opinions about the conflict were changing; it now seemed fairly clear that we were in a war of attrition and that our South Vietnamese allies were not as ready to die as were our adversaries from the North. Perhaps what really swayed me against the conflict was not so much the opinions of my classmates as the strident meanness of the sunshine patriots. I never claimed to be a hero; I never fired a shot at the enemy and was never under fire myself during my brief stay in the war zone, but I resented having my courage and patriotism questioned by people who had never been there. I found myself arguing both sides of the issue, and even during my period of uncertainty and debate about our involvement, my anti-war friends, and even strangers of that opinion, never insulted me for my views; not even on my trip to visit Roger at Morningside Heights. I was never called a baby-killer, and I never knew anyone who was called a baby-killer, or anyone who knew someone who was called a baby-killer. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I suspect that the alleged insults leveled against servicemen and veterans by opponents of the war were mostly lies perpetrated by the war's supporters. Self-righteous vindictiveness has always been an American trait. PREVIOUS    Back to Sea Story page