USS MULLINNIX DD-944

11-14 May 1972
Subic Bay, PI (Enroute to Vietnam Gunline)

11 May 1972 Mullinnix Familygram (PDF)

The few sailors on board Mullinnix that had been to Subic Bay before? Boy, did they have the stories!

"Po City is a beast”, they said. “It has a roar – you can hear it when you cross the bridge over Shit River. It’s a monster. It sustains itself on a steady diet of girls – you can feel that in its roar.”

Powerful engines pounded in our heads like a jack-hammer orchestra. Subic must be like a photograph. A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you, the less you know. You know the song – everything you wanted to say but without the words. Crème de la crème…

Somebody yelled, "Suckee-fuckee, fi-dollah!”

“Richsaws, chipneez, motorbikes, government licenses taxis, fast as Navy helicopters. Whore houses, topless bars, grimy peepshows, transvestites parading in halters and heels. Hustlers, gamblers, day drunks, stevedores, sailors, ne’er-do-wells, and neighborhood wise guys. Concubines, and sing-song girls.”

Somebody else hollered, “You come back soon sailor-boy, me so horneeeeeee!!!”

We were flesh hunters. We wanted to see it, smell it, stroke it, lick it, suck it, f-ck it, or maybe even eat it. It was a carnivore’s glee, a raptor’s urgent need, our passion amazed even us.

Then someone started talking about a girl he'd met in Subic named Vhari. "She had a bikini top the size of a postage stamp, barely containing her breasts. Naughty and knowing slanted green eyes in an olive-skinned face. I can remember the softness of her skin. It was like a tear in the fabric of my sleep. I can still remember the perspiration pearling on her skin. She..."

His drinking buddy, a fellow MM, interpreted his tale, "Yea, she had black hair down to her waist. Not on top of her head, just all the way down her back."

We roared with laughter!

"Bite me, Sammy, you asshole!"

Continuing, "She was the type of woman that would drag you to 3rd base before you’d stepped up to the plate. Her voice was like a tropical sing-song that caused her vowels to lengthen. Her laughter like music on a summer night.”

That evening, at dusk, Birdman and I sat on a couple davits on the starboard side of the fantail, shootin’ the shit and smoking a number like a pair of over-the-hill salts who cared less about Navy life than just being close friends, best of friends while the sun turned into a red ember on the horizon.

I began to wonder if in fact there were some sea-stories you told only to fellow sailors, because no one else would believe them. Personally, I was so ready for Subic my back teeth ached!

Mullinnix steamed steadily on to Subic, somewhere over the horizon off her port beam…

Go to Subic Bay ("Po City") Liberty Call


MT52 - Subic Bay, Phillipines, 1972


My Chain of Command: L to R: FTG1 Tom Demko, FTGC Robert Walters,
LT Richard Shrope (Weapons Officer), me - FTGSN "Woody"
Gunfire Support Practice off Coast of Phillipines Before 1st Gunline tour in 1972

















USS Mullinnix (MT53 Barrel) - Subic Bay, 1972
After a gunline period or two...

Mullinnix left Subic on 14 May, headed to Vietnam.

...She was running hard now, the only sound besides the engines was a rhythmic thump…thump as she sped over the low rolling swells. On the bridge wings there were single mounted .50 caliber machine guns, flac-tubes mounted on both stacks, and a detachment of Marines with shoulder-firing Red Eye missiles. Bacon, eggs, coffee and bug juice. Breakfast doesn’t taste like breakfast when you’re going to war. Son, this was it. This was the real-deal. This was war...

Next Stop: Vietnam Gunline!!!


Go to 16 May "Mullinnix Arrives on Gunline"

Back to "7 May - Guam"
Back to 1972 Vietnam Gunline - Page 1
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