USS MULLINNIX DD-944
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Leghorn Italy 1959
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Excerpt from "The Last Gun Ship - History of USS Mullinnix DD-944"
A Historical Novel By Frank A. Wood
1959 Mullinnix Leghorn, Italy Vistor's Information (PDF)
Livorna (Leghorn) is a port city on the Ligurian Sea on the western edge of Tuscany, Italy. It was founded on a former auxiliary Pisan port between 1576 and the early 17th century, on the orders of the Grand Duke Cosimo I who made it Tuscany's main outlet to the sea after the Pisan port was filled in. It was a free port from 1675 until 1860, when it became part of the Kingdom of Italy. Originally constructed to a pentagonal design and with a still visible orthogonal street system, it suffered serious damage during WWII.
Late in the eighteenth century Leghorn became a favorite haunt of British expatriates. The novelist Tobias Smollett is buried in the Protestant cemetery in Leghorn. Percy Bysshe Shelley visited the city in 1819, and Byron stayed there in 1822.
Tuscany is a charmed land, equally blessed by the genius of man and nature, and often by the combined efforts of both. Rows of baby green grape vines that manage somehow to march in arrow-straight formation up the gently rolling hillsides, bounded by single files of darker green cypress trees. Snaking sandy roads lead to rust-colored farmhouses and moss-coated castles. Symmetrically rounded hilltops surmounted by towns so homogeneous as to seem one single building. Every inch of land has been sculpted, first by the elements and then by generations of inhabitants whose goals were always twofold: make the land produce as much as possible, make the land as beautiful as possible. Tuscany enchanted the sailors for one reason: were there were vineyards their just had to be wineries.
The crew enjoyed full day immersions to estates filled with salami, prosciutto, and unlimited wine sampling. A typical day began with a visit to a vineyard where they walked the crop land and learn the secrets of planting, maintaining and harvesting the grapes. Then it was off to the cellars to learn how grapes become wine. The mornings were spent with tasting direct from the aging barrels, followed by samplings of the final bottled product. After delicious Tuscan-style lunches they would continue with guided tastings of other wineries in the area. For those that still had visual clarity, a scenic drive through the beautiful countryside back to Leghorn to buy colourful traditional Tuscan ceramics souvenirs was the order of the day. For those that had drank enough to be looking for something felonious, they spent their temporally insanity in small secretive groups just outside the lights on the pier, hatching diabolical plans to sneak bottles of the juice of the vine aboard ship.
The officer on the quarter deck would typically know something was up. Most sailors were having difficulty pronouncing words like innovative, preliminary, proliferation, and cinnamon. One night, one of the snipes stated simply, "Good evening officer, isn't it lovely out tonight.", while he stumbled across the gangplank.
There is one preventive measure that is absolutely fool proof for every sailor in the world:
Don't ever drink and you'll be guaranteed to avoid hangovers for the rest of your life. Since 99.9% of sailors never follow method #1, then the next best preventive measure is:
Never drink enough to get really drunk. That way, hangovers will be rare, if not non-existent. Since 98% of sailors never follow method #1 or #2, Hangovers are as common as roaches in the Raisin Bran cereal.
A typical scene abroad Mullinnix: A sailor just opens his eyes to find himself crumbled into a collapsed mess, hopefully in a rack, preferably in his rack, but, worst of all, awake. His mind gradually manages to reconstruct some sort of memory of some portion of the previous night's activities. He feels like the worst part of hell. This is the cue for the proverbial "I'll-never-drink-again" declaration, one of the most pitiful demonstrations of bullshit in all of a sailor's squalid behaviour.
A red wine hangover is absolutely the worst. Dehydration. Nervous shock. Malnutrition. Pain. A feeling of significant illness. Death without actually passing into the next world. And parched. You can drink 5 large glasses of water and still feel that way. For some reason, you crave a steak and fries. For many, they found dried puke on their shoes.
Many shipmates proclaimed war on wine. They agreed if they ever see wine again, they will kill it. Their hangovers lingered for days. It was like someone hit them on the head, except from the inside. It felt like letting a whole bunch of angry midgets in their head and telling them to go crazy. Then they'd go to their stomach and have a house party, and turn the music on too loud so the OOD got pissed off and they’d have to shit for...forever.
Pilot Captain E. Sahini guided Mullinnix out of the Leghorn harbor on 15 September as she headed back to open sea to continue extensive NATO exercises, paying special attention to ASW readiness.
To be continued...
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