USS MULLINNIX DD-944

San Diego, CA
Friday, 13 October
(Lord help us...)

As the Beach Boys sang... ...The West coast has the sunshine
And the girls all get so tanned
I dig a french bikini on Hawaii island
Dolls by a palm tree in the sand

I been all around this great big world
And I seen all kinds of girls
Yeah, but I couldn't wait to get back in the states
Back to the cutest girls in the world

I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California girls...

__________



A couple shipmates actually got discharged while the ship was in San Diego. One Radioman in particular (can't remember his name) had become an ass about being a short short-timer. Now, I'd be the first to admit, he was a couple sums short of an equation. The day we pulled into San Diego, I'd finally had enough.

Pointing, he announced, “See that cockroach? Tomorrow I’ll be out of the Navy and it will still be on this fuckin’ ship.”

Wham! I killed that little sucker. Then I screamed, “It just beat you off this ship asshole!”

The compartment erupted in a roar of laughter!!!

With the war winding down, the Navy couldn't dump LTJGs fast enough. Most were good guys just paying the Navy back for sending them to college. ,As he was leaving the ship for the last time, I said, "See'ya later LT.“

"Do you think there will be a time that you’ll be able to drop the LT?”

“Yea, Bill, I think just maybe. Now get the hell out of here and start the rest of your life!”

He laughed, and said, "See'ya later Woody. Have a good life."

I thought, yep Bill, I plan on just doing that exact thing. But first I've got another 489 days and wake-up in this outfit!



__________

In books, love and hate seem black and white. Either you feel one thing or the other. In real life – in mine anyway – it was different. Like a butterfly batting its wings in Subic Bay and a sailor takes a drink in San Diego. It’s all interconnected. I was lost in yet another strange city. The woman of my dreams was back. I’d realized I’d forgotten about her and then remembered, but then lost her again. Now she was back yet again.

Time, tide, sunset, and liberty wait for no man. I loved ports. The smell of tar and sea air, and the scream of gulls. Ports were freedom, escape, maybe...

We, the guys I went on libs with, caroused the city and the surrounding area to the many and varied entertainments of Ocean Beach, under the guidance of “men of war looking for round-eyed women”. There was an orphaned quality to loneliness. Like most of the others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent, and at times, a stupid hell-raiser. I suffered the physical tug of being male.

About five blocks down from the Marine Corps Recruit Depot we were amongst the true dive bars. You could feel the ooze of the sleaze from a block away on Rosecrans. There is no sleaze like a Navy and Marine port. This is one area where the Army and Air Force simply step back and stare in awe and wonder.

Many were straight out of the fifties with cheesy tile, crumbly grout, and windows opaque with grime. We past abandoned tenements, an over-crowed cemetery, and decrepit warehouses with rotted wooden fencing only an arsonist could love. There were only a few streetlights and most had burned out. The many bars had been stuffed into every available space tight as impacted turds in a colon. It was like looking at tea leaves or chicken entrails.

We stopped into the Salty Dog to grab our first beer. A sign shaped like a palm tree grew from its roof, with arrows pointing down the trunk to the entrance. The palm tree and arrows were outlined in neon, but the tubes were broken and faded. One tube blinked intermittently off and on. Once inside, we were treated to what would be the first of many spectacles while San Diego…

A sailor from one of the many ships in port positioned himself, took aim, and shoved his size ten straight into the jukebox and Janis Joplin’s throaty “Me and Bobby McGhee”. The song splintered like a broken windshield, flying into pieces, shivers of metal and glass. It caught the entire room in a freeze-frame. No one moved. Except the sailor, who walked back to his chair, finished off his beer, looked around the table and said, “Mac one, Salty Dog zero.” Then he turned with his white hat atop the back of his head and walked out where, not far away, there was another drink with his name on it.

To finish the story of San Diego, go to the "San Diego Liberty Page" - the link is at the bottom of this page.






















The normal steering station of any US Navy ship is the bridge. The ship could also be steered from the After-Steering space itself – typically by taking over steering control of the ship in an emergency. The After-Steering space is the aft most compartment on a destroyer. It’s even aft of the props (short for propellers) or screws, and the rudder. AND, there is nothing below you except water and nothing behind you except the ship’s wake.

After-Steering watch had always been my baby - the ONLY watch I ever stood while underway. Lucky me. An After-Steering watch moved like honey poured over an iceberg. Absolutely nothing to do in a sleep deprived state for four bloody hours.

Typically, it was hot – your shirt would stick to your skin like wet Kleenex. And close - the only thing you could smell was the heat and humidity. Which was a good thing, this being mystery meat Tuesday. Along with the always present stench of everything machine-like – oil, grease, JP-5, monkey shit, you name it.

Oh, and riding a storm out (REO Speedwagon song – LOL) in After-Steering was a trip in itself – no windows, no ventilation, no human beings, no nothing. When the ship would get good at ‘rock’n and roll’n, the screws would come out of the water. Where the rest of the ship might feel a slight vibration, After-Steering clattered like a vibrating junkyard. Boy howdy! Other than my first night at sea during a hurricane off Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, I’d never gotten sea sick. But buddy, being in After-Steering during a storm will make any salt’s ass pucker up real tight!

After-Steering was, like all watches, manned 24 hours a day while at sea. In my 3 1/2 years aboard Mullinnix, the ONLY watch in which the bridge gave steering control to "After-Steering" was the 0400-0800 - the watch when the ship is sleeping and the angels are watching - as a test of the equipment, and more than likely, just to screw with sailors like me.

Hence, the other 20 hours of watches were “dead time”. Absolutely nothing to do but say “howdy” to the Sounding-Watch guy ever hour. He’d make sure After-Steering hadn’t sprung a leak and I’d drowned.

The only bright spot, and I mean the ONLY bright spot was on a 2000-2400 watch. When my buds knew I was stuck back here, they’d come back to see me. Nice guys, right? WRONG! They came back to get high before the movie on the mess decks. So…on a typical “movie” watch, ‘Snake’ and ‘The Doyle’ would come by for a visit with a little opium from the far east. We’d smoke a bowl or two, they’d leave to go see the movie and I’d stay on watch, high as a kite – like putting a knuckle buster in the center of my forehead and pulling the air-trigger.

I’d have tiny red threads in the whites of his eyes and bags under the bags under my eyes. I’d look like I was chain-dragged behind a car, but felt great! I’d open my mouth, and my lips would come unstuck like chewing gum being peeled off linoleum.

So, what’s a guy to do? I’d sneak up to the mess decks, or course, to watch the movie. Who would know, right? I’d typically grab a cup of joe to clear the fur off my tongue. Fortunately, I never got caught pulling this stupid stunt.

Back to the 0400-800 watch… I opened the hatch above my head that opened up to the fantail just to catch my breath and some fresh air – yes, it was against regulations but so was going to the mess-deck movie while on watch. What would happen if After-Steering were to become flooded? They’d tie my dick in a knot. Fuck’m! I poked my head out and the sky disappeared for a moment, screened by an immense green-hearted swell. The sky was the same black as the sea, sinister, lightless, light-absorbing. I thought to myself, “Woody, you’re going to die tonight.”

Mullinnix was close enough to the shoreline that the odor of fish and tendrils of smoke drifted out low across the water to mingle with the rain. It may have actually smelled edible if I’d hadn’t suffered through the Navy’s version of fillet-of-mystery meat at chow. The rain smelled of petroleum smoke and decaying vegetation. Wish I had a bottle of that ‘White Trashfindel’ we were drinking in San Diego. Ah, Navy life, first you hate it, then you get used to it, then you come to depend on it. You become institutionalized. The hatred can take your life away. Or at least the part that matters.

As we were steaming ‘with’ the wind, I was able to fire up a Marlboro with my Mux Zippo – snapping it shut quickly, a habit left over from WWI. The soldiers in the trenches were a superstitious lot. It was said German snipers waited for a man to light a cigarette, then pass the match to the man beside him. And as the third cigarette flared, the sniper had made his kill. Three. I figured, storms at sea don’t give a shit about no damn Zippo.

Dawn wasn’t far off and I was torn between getting a couple hours of shuteye or…lose track of time. A world where there is no mark for day or night, or for sunrise or sunset, just an endless expanding infinity. They’d be calling for ‘the drill’ soon, so I finished my smoke and flipped it over the fantail into the wake, then shut the hatch and locked it good and tight. I was right…

Just as I got my headset back on, “Bridge to After Steering, over.”

“This is After Steering, over.”

“Standby to take control of steering, over.”

“10/4, standing by.”

After about a 20 second pause, “After Steering, take control, steering course 190 degrees true, over.”

“10/4, taking control, steering 190 degrees true, over”

The next thing I knew the ship was mine for 15 minutes, just 15 minutes, but ALL mine. I was steering the ship from about 4’ forward of the stern and 1’ foot above the waterline. Freaky!!! It wasn’t like the bridge, where you had windows, bridge wings on both sides, and lots of officers telling you every nit-picking thing. No, it was me, standing behind a beast-of-a-machine holding onto a steering wheel smaller than a frisbee, staring at a needle on a dial smaller than the steering wheel, doing my damn-est to keep the needle on 190 degrees true. Easy, right? WRONG!

She had been steaming southeast at 23 knots, straight as an arrow until I took control from After Steering. For the next 15 minutes her wake looked like a long lazy twisting snake following the ship. But she was my snake – 3,500 tons of steel – and all mine. I’d move my little ‘wheel’ a smidge and the fucking needle would move 5+ degrees. Crazy, I know. I’d adjust, and the same damn thing would happen in the opposite direction. It was maddening.

Above the somber music of the main engines there was, at times a long ascending whine from a pump. The room pulsated. I’d forgotten to mention earlier that the voice on the other end of the phone, was a Boatswain Mate standing watch on the bridge. He couldn’t resist…

“After Steering, this is the bridge, over.”

“After Steering, aye.”

“Hey Woody, there is a snake following the ship, over.”

Asshole. “Boats, go fuck yourself!” I heard a brief laugh before he took his finger of the sound-powered phone button.

Finally, after about 15-20 minutes of insanity, “After Steering, standby to transfer steering control back to the bridge, over.”

“10/4!”

“After Steering, this is bridge, taking control, over.”

“10/4 Bridge, you have control.”

That was it. The end of the biggest bunch of bullshit I’d ever seen. I liked being at sea but these chicken-shit watches got old in a fucking hurry. So now, it was back to me, my brain, and my boredom. Back to my Nebraska mind wondering…

I asked myself, why do men find it difficult to make eye contact? Breasts don't have eyes. Then my mind would switch gears: what makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying? The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving. Switching again: What is a Yankee? The same as a quickie, but a guy can do it alone.

FTN. When would this watch end? My ‘fun meter’ was pegged. A fun meter is a fictitious gauge that shows the amount of mirth one is experiencing in any given situation. Most often used sarcastically to express extreme boredom or disinterest. "Please end this red-ass of an AOM (All Officers Meeting). Typically, when your ‘fun meter’ was pegged, you had better double-check your ‘suck meter’.

Your ‘suck meter’ is similar to your ‘fun meter’ – another fictitious gauge displaying how shitty a given situation is. "Cruise got extended indefinitely the day we were supposed to out-chop and head home? Man, my suck meter just red-lined!"

Finally, my relieve showed up, ending my sentence. “I’m here to relieve you.”

“You do look like an enema.”

“Go fuck yourself, Woody!”

Bottom Line? I hadn’t had this much fun since I pistol-whipped a redheaded midget.


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