USS MULLINNIX DD-944

FTG3 Frank Wood

(A Relatively Brief) Naval Career

At 19, I was still a kid when I joined the Navy. The ocean and its waves raised me and I was better for it. My friends of 1973 helped shape me into who I am today. My life on Mullinnix I remember in terms of images, smells, and sounds rather than historical events - Gun mounts and the smell of spent powder, bug juice, salt air, low rumble and steady vibration of the turning screws, smell of JP5 jet fuel - that had obviously been created as a cinematic tribute to my youth.

I was nothing but a smudge of excrement on a tissue surging out to sea with a ton of sewage. We fought the bureaucracy, the lifers, the Navy constantly and with zeal. Sometimes however you’d have a passing feeling not to fight and make the intolerable tolerable…

Now however, I’ve begun the next season of my life. Love is like a good piece of wood, it just gets stronger and stronger as the years go by. Take it from someone who had it, and only lost it when the Lord decided it was time. It sounds corny, I know, but it’s really the only thing that works between two people. I wonder some times, is history like the falling tree in the forest? If nobody remembers did it still happen?

…a long time ago we knew each other for a short time…

FTG3 Frank Wood - US Navy Feb 16, 1970 to Feb 15, 1974. Boot camp in San Diego, CA. Fire Control Technician "A" School at Great Lakes Training Center. Assigned to USS Mullinnix for the duration.


That's me - Backrow, left end


Home From Bootcamp - May 1970
That's Woody with his best friend Larry Nord and Larry's father, Carl Nord


That's me - Backrow, 4th from the left
Back row L to R: Wayne Porkelson, "Perch" Robinson, Dennis "Showman", Frank "Woody" Wood, Wayne Torkelson, Jason Wyscarver, Mike Stillwell, "Boats" Myers


My Classmates comments to me...


FTGSN Frank A Wood and the aft 3" Gun Mount (Springboard 1971)

After graduating from FT "A" school on 9 October, 1970, I was assigned to the USS Mullinnix DD944 as an E3 --- Seaman striking for Fire Control Technician. Unfortunately I had to wait for the Mux to get back from the Med. Hence, I got ‘stuck’ mess-cooking at the Norfolk Naval base for ~6 weeks. If I'd been assigned a couple weeks earlier, the Navy would have flown me over to the Med to meet the ship. The only good thing about mess-cooking was that beer was available from the vending machines in the barracks for 25 cents a can courtesy of Admiral Zumalt. I stayed home (in the barracks) a lot during this waiting period.

I'll never forget my first day on the Mullinnix. FTG3 Don Boettcher met me on the quarterdeck and showed me to my sleeping quarters below Mount 52's carrier-room. As I walked down the ladder and looked to my left - there sat FTG3 Greg Berry - who turned out to be my best friend in the Navy & still to this day. “Birdman” and I had met up at Great Lakes and then kind of lost track of each other after he convinced the Navy he didn’t want to be in school. Was I surprised (and relieved) to see The Birdman! Maybe this assignment wasn't going to be that bad.

The Mullinnix was the only ship I served on. I look back on those days with fondness. At the time however, I hated everyday. I couldn't tell you why really. Today, all I remember are the 'good' times.

I slept in a middle rack (1 of 3). While we were in Vietnam in 1972 I took a black magic marker and starting with the #1 and going up to ~600, wrote each number on the underside canvas of the rack above me. Every morning for the rest of my days in the Navy, I would wake up and with the same black magic marker, draw a slash across that day's number.

The cruise to Gitmo in late 1973 (after the lengthy stay in dry dock at the Portsmouth Naval Yards and the “Summer of my life”) was my last cruise in the Navy. I'll never forget the day we pulled into Norfolk and the old Navy tradition of throwing your white hats off the fantail. There were about 30-40 hats thrown that day. I remember FTG3 Greg Berry, GMG2 Jim Roland and many, many more --- their names having slowly drifted out of my mind with time.

February 16th, 1974 happened to fall on a Sunday, therefore the Navy let me out 1 day early. On Friday night @ 12:01 AM a walked off the Mullinnix for what I thought would be the last time. I was long last a civilian and man-o-man was I lost. I didn't have a clue what or were I was going.

As it turned out I headed to West Virginia to see "The Birdman" and then to Ohio and spent a few days with some girls we had met in Norfolk (they actually lived with us). Then I headed to Long Island, NY and spent a few days with RM2 Neil “Apple” Appel who was a civilian by then as well. After that, I found myself heading back to Norfolk.

I actually spent the night on the USS Mullinnix the night before she left for an extended cruise to the Middle East. Fireman Terry Dannels found me an empty bunk back were the MMs slept below MT 53.

The following morning the Mullinnix left for the Middle East. I actually threw line #6 off as she slipped away from D&S piers. A lot of 'wish you well' and 'see you later' were yelled. The only comment I do remember and will probably always remember was from my old Chief, FTGC Walters who yelled "Woody, get a haircut!" and then he laughed. As I waved goodbye I kind of got a sinking feeling in my stomach and thinking "there goes 4 years of my life". Save for a precious few, I have never seen those guys since. As fate would have it, that was the last time I ever saw the Mighty Mux - the last all-gun destroyer in the Navy - may she rest in peace.

I drove non-stop to Lincoln, Nebraska and my future....

                     
Woody in West "By God" Virginia 1971                    Woody - Ocotber 2015 and December 2018

Navy Memories

I liked standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe the destroyer beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drove her swiftly through the sea.

I liked the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC, and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.

I liked Navy vessels -- nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet auxiliaries and amphibs, sleek submarines and steady solid aircraft carriers.

I liked the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea, Valley Forge - - memorials of battles won and tribulations overcome. I liked the lean angular names of Navy "tin-cans" and escorts - Barney, Dahlgren, Mullinnix, McCloy, Damato, Leftwich, Mills - - mementos of heroes who went before us. And the others - - San Jose, San Diego, New Port News, St. Paul, Chicago - - named for our cities.

I liked the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside speakers as we pulled away from the oiler after refueling at sea. I liked liberty call and the spicy scent of foreign ports. I even liked the never-ending paperwork and all hands working parties as my ship filled herself with the multitude of supplies, both mundane and to cut ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where there was water to float her.

I liked sailors, officers and enlisted men from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trusted and depended on them as they trusted and depended on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for strength and courage. In a word, they were "shipmates"; then and forever.

I liked the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word was passed: "Now set the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port," and I liked the infectious thrill of sighting home port again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pier side.

The work was hard and dangerous; the going rough at times; the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the "all for one and one for all” philosophy of the sea was ever present.

I liked the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying fish flitted across the wave tops and sunset gave way to night. I liked the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead and range lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and joined with the mirror of stars overhead. And I liked drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and small that told me that my ship was alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch would keep me safe.

I liked quiet midwatches with the aroma of strong coffee – the lifeblood of the Navy permeating everywhere. And I liked hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed kept all hands on a razor edge of alertness.

I liked the sudden electricity of "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations," followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transformed herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war -- ready for anything. And I liked the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.

I liked the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I liked the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones, Burke Zumalt. A sailor could find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman's trade. An adolescent could find adulthood.

In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods – the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief's quarters and mess decks.

Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was ever over the horizon. Remembering this, they will stand taller and say, "I WAS A SAILOR ONCE."

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