USS MULLINNIX DD-944

Athens, Greece (Again) 1959


Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood

1959 Athens, Greece Guide Information (PDF)

1959 Athens, Greece Information (PDF)


Mansen faked not feeling well and took duty for a couple love-starved shipmates. In truth, he was still spooked by the fire in Golfe Juan. Scitsofranic-emotion were ripping through his brain at hurricane pace. A ship's crew is bound together by an invisible chain. E-5s, well most E-5s, and below took it for granted that E-6s, Chiefs, and officers would exploit them. But on the whole, they didn't think of them as the enemy in the same way the American peasant thought about the aristocracy before the Revolution. There was a bond that was called "shipmate" which binds all the crew and sees them through the next conflict. He'd come very near losing one of his closest.

He'd never admit it to anyone. Real men didn't say that kind of shit. Where'd that crap get started anyway? He coughed slightly into his sleeve to hide his emotion. His brain scitso'd to the letter from home. It made him reflect on the curtaining that those days were gone - thoughts obscured by the doings of the busy present, were as strangely necessary to him as his own body when he became conscious of it. The past was part of his body. It was in his make-up. Somehow, he could never do his work that right way without the recollection of what was behind him.

He sipped his coffee - bitter and metallic. His mine raced to her. He held up the watch she'd given him. The hands were frozen just the way they had been frozen since she'd thrown it at him. He pulled the knob and spun the hands. He watched them race around the dial, but he knew he was kidding himself. The hands were frozen. Time moved only for other people. Mansen was trapped by his past.

He pulled out his pack of smokes. He didn't use a Mullinnix-embossed Zippo. His was a flamethrower that could be used to caramelize a crème brule. He went through women like Sherman to the fucking sea. But those that knew him, chalked that up to being a sailor, on liberty, overseas, right? About the time he'd really start believing that shit, he'd feel like he was one song short of an album.

He was an emotional pick pocket, livin' off his buddies. Were they any better off than he? Who knew. Who gave a shit. One thing he did know - life is short and it damn near got a lot shorter in a fucking hurry.

Married unhappily, the father of two imbecilic brats, he'd taken off and joined the Navy. Wonder what they're up to? Did he really care? His recipe for good relations with the crew was a measure of co-operation blended with a strong dash of skepticism and a twist of humor which, on the whole, seemed to go down well with most. The Navy was OK but sometimes it wasn't. Some days it damn well sucked a big one. But then liberty with Bull, Benson, and Stretch made it all go away. When will that all end?

He took a drag of his Pall Mall. 'Fuck I should quit these fags', he thought. He flicked his cigarette butt over the side, a shot of about seventeen feet. 37 years old and what's next? Get burned alive in the next whorehouse? Or shot? Stabbed?

He blew his nose. He blocked one nostril with his thumb and from the other shot a shaft of silver mucus onto the deck. He wiped the residue from his upper lip with the palm of his hand. Fuck. He ought to cut back on his drinkin' too. Hell there was a lot of things he should be doing different. When to start? How to start?. Maybe it was time to change some things back in Norfolk.

Darlene. Here came another memory rushing at him so fast he didn't understand its origin. He wondered how it was two people...Mansen could only shake his head. Was any chapter of one's life ever irrecoverably? Darlene said she'd wait for the Med cruise to be over. Is that what he wanted from her? Maybe it was time to decide. Maybe it was time he made the changes rather than waiting for change to happen to him. Maybe. He blew a stream of blue smoke toward the green evening sky. Maybe he should stop thinking so much and take life like the crazy Weckbacher did. The man didn't give a shit about anything. Maybe. Maybe not. Fuck.

To be continued...

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