USS MULLINNIX DD-944

On 9 October, USS Biddle rendezvoused with USS Mullinnix, USS Glennon, and USS Sarsfield for the transit back to the East Coast by way of San Diego (inport 13-15 October) and the Panama Canal (22 October). USS Biddle arrived in Norfolk on 26 October.

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

…A bit closer was Harvey Wallbanger’s. Then… "That Place Across The Street From The Sports Arena" was literally the name of the bar, located, well, you know... How we found it, I have no idea. I’m just GLAD we did! In a huge two-story barn, it was an extremely long skinny bar (and the bar itself was long and skinny) packed with party animals with rock music blaring from a killer sound system, playing the strangest, most eclectic music you could imagine. One second we'd be listening to Jimi Hendrix, and next the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing The Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's Messiah. ALL played on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Everything you could imagine was inside, either hanging from the ceiling or against the wall, in an amazing collection of early Americana. There wasn’t a bare square inch on the inside walls that wasn’t covered by something; post cards, business cards, photos, vintage signs, and old movie props and posters. You name it, they had it wired to the ceiling or securely fastened to the walls. There was even a fully assembled fire truck from the early 1900's hanging from the roof! In addition, the tables were covered with stuff then clear coated over.

Free salted in-the-shell peanuts from a barrel (or out of the trunk of an elephant). Rule #1: throw the shells on the floor. Rule #2: If you wanted to dance on the bar itself you had to have a girl with you. No problemo! LOL!!!

How many trips to the parking lot with different girls to make out? Countless. What specific shipmates was I was with? My usual crowd. We managed to walk a fine line between good clean fun, and “somebody call the cops”. The last song they played before closing was the National Anthem.

That was the first night in San Diego. Could we even begin to top that?

As it turned out, YES we could – Tijuana, Mexico. Tijuana was unique as it was a city that you had to watch your car - they’ll steal the tires while you’re still in it. The city was noisy even at this hour, bright with strings of bare incandescent bulbs. San Diego had been asleep, but here there were still crowds, peddlers, and shoe-shine kids and Americans in Hawaiian shirts, the smell of frying food, makeshift buildings as dingy as carnival flats. Men with mustaches idled on corners waiting for something to happen, like extras, their eyes following the cars passing by.

The following “tequila ditty” sums up our night in Tijuana.

“Do you have feelings of inadequacy? Do you suffer from shyness? Do you sometimes wish you were more assertive? If you answered yes to any of these questions, go to Tijuana, Mexico and drink tequila.

Tequila is the safe, natural way to feel better and more confident about yourself and your actions. Tequila can help ease you out of your shyness and let you tell all your shipmates that you're ready and willing to do just about anything. You will notice the benefits of Tequila almost immediately; you can overcome any obstacles that prevent you from having fun on liberty. Shyness and awkwardness will be a thing of the past, and you will discover many talents you never knew you had.

Tequila may not be right for everyone. Women who are pregnant or nursing should not drink tequila. However, women who wouldn't mind nursing or becoming pregnant are encouraged to try it. Side effects may include dizziness, nausea, vomiting, incarceration, erotic lustfulness, loss of motor control, loss of clothing, loss of money, loss of virginity, delusions of grandeur, table dancing, headache, dehydration, dry mouth, and a desire to sing karaoke and play all-night rounds of strip poker, truth or dare, and naked twister.

We took a taxi to the border crossing. As we were on foot, we walked into one of the many bars on the northern edge of Tijuana, thus minimizing the distance we’d have to stagger back at night’s end. A minor ‘false start’ as we walked into a bar full of transvestites – Anna’s with bananas, then a (very) quick exit…

We swung open the door to “Jose’s” and quickly realized that were more woman standing on the bar and tables than on the floor. AND, they were all topless. As quickly as they all saw we were sailors, they, in unison, dropped their panties. FTG3 John Brock almost passed out from lack of air.

With ample quantities of tequila consumed, a number of us ended up in the ‘back room’ on a long couch. And then… Well, we did what sailors and women of the evening do best…

How could we begin to top Tijuana? Turns out, we did - again…

Back in San Diego on night #3, we managed to find to huge, and I mean ‘a giant’, country-rock bar where it was rumored that ‘West-pac widows’ frequented quit frequently. In short, the rumors turned out to be true. And, it was karaoke night.

A blond woman came on the stage and set her little white purse in front of her. She wasn’t very big. She was young-looking, mid-twenties maybe, wearing white pedal pushers with white shoes with thick elevated heels, and she had on a white top. Her hair was gold as fresh wheat and she had a very fine face, and even from where we sat, we could see that her eyes were bright blue and she had a killer smile. With the lights on the stage she looked as if all she needed was wings on her back and a message from Zeus.

The way it worked was the singers picked their tunes, and they were supposed to get two songs if they wanted it. Her first song was Foghat’s Road Fever and she did in justice. Her voice was strong and it kind of surprised some of the drinkers, who actually shut up and listened. When the song ended there was a lot of applause. While she had been singing, she had been looking at me. John Brock glance over to see if I had noticed, and I had. I looked like a little kid that had just gotten attention from the best-looking girl in class.

Her second song was The J Geils Band’s House Party and she knocked it out of the park, changing certain words to fit a woman’s point of view. She moved a little as she sang, not much but a little, and with this girl not much was plenty. There was a seductive quality to her moves without them being overdone, and she had her eyes locked on me.

When the song was over there was applause again, and she ended up doing a third song, Black Oak Arkansas’ Jim Dandy, and then she stepped down and walked by me and smiled.

I said, “Buy you a drink?”

“Come to my table?” she said.

Brock mumbled, “Lucky sonofabitch. A woman like that could make a Baptist preacher kill his wife and set fire to his church!”

She pretended to be hard to get. “I’ll have a Coca Cola.” she said.

“Hey, I’m alright, let’s dance, you and me,” I said.

“The manager has a policy, no fraternizing with the customer.”

“We are only going to be here and hour, what can happen in an hour?” I asked her.

“I’m not so sure, YOU are a sailor.”

My head said no, my heart said maybe, and my dick said yes. Dick wins every time. By the end of the night, I had her locked and loaded. Same with John Brock and her roommate, who was dressed like a Mormon call girl. Brock’s had kool-aid orange hair. He’d always kinda loved trailer trash types. You know, bear-foot and pregnant, hair curlers, cigarette hanging out of her mouth and saying, “Give me a double, I’m drinking for two!”

We went home with them.

She just looked at me. Hair on her shoulders. Top two buttons of the man’s Oxford-cloth shirt beneath the jumper undone. Earrings gleaming. Then we were together, first fumbling, then holding on tight. It was kissing, but it was more than kissing. It was like eating when you’ve been hungry or drinking when you’ve been thirsty. I could smell her perfume and her clean sweat under the perfume and I could taste tobacco, faint but still pungent, on her lips and tongue. Her fingers slipped through my hair, one pinky tickling for just a moment in the cup of my ear and making me shiver, then locked at the back of my neck. Her thumbs were moving, moving. Stroking bare skin at the nape of my neck. I slipped my hand first beneath and then around the fullness of her breast and she murmured…

Early the following morning, she walked me to the bus stop. I waited for the bus as the sun came up, liver struggling with the backlog. Sobering by the minute, leaving no alcohol buffer between my head and a triple-A headache. Feeling a little less proud of myself than the day before.

Where the hell was Brock? He wasn’t in their apartment when I left. The ship was leaving at 0800. Sailors on liberty aren’t into clocks. They’re on sun time. That’s why they’re on liberty, but he’d be fucked if he missed ship’s movement. The bus crossed over the Coronado Bridge and I made it to ship with 10 minutes to spare in a quiet, still morning. The sky was clear. The heat, rising from the around me like steam, was already intense. One of our over-zealot Ensigns gave me a dirty look as I saluted him and the flag. He was about as warm as a brass hemorrhoid tester.

Boy, did I have the shits, like an upside-down volcano. I headed to the aft-head to splash water on my face, take a shit, and smoke a fag – not necessarily in that order. They would be announcing “station the special sea and anchor detail” any minute.

My throat was tight with a thirst of such intensity it seemed to belong to someone else. I turned into the aft hatch on the port side, and who do you think I see standing there taking a piss? Brock!

“What the fuck happened to you?”

“Oh, hey Woody. I woke up about 4AM, had to piss like a Russian Race Horse, couldn’t go back to sleep, and felt like shit, so I just came back to the ship. Glad to see you made it.”

“You and me both, Brock. Man, I think I might die. Hey, do me a favor?”

“What’s that?”

“Let me hear your favorite saying --- please! I need a laugh.”

“You mean, ‘Shit-cunt-whore-slut-bitch-fuck’?”

Laughing, “Yeah man, that’s what I meant. Thanks!”

I thought I’d take a quick dump before pulling out of port. As I sat on the shitter, I had my knees pulled up so tight it looked like I was eating them for lunch. I glanced on the floor of the shitter next to the one I was using, somebody had been looking at the bare-chested natives in a National Geographic article.

Once on the fantail for my special sea and anchor duty station (on the phones with the Boatswain mate on the bridge), somebody I only heard, ask me, “Woody, you going to miss San Diego?”

I breathed out two tendrils of smoke and shook my head no like a horse trying to dislodge a blowfly.

Somebody else laughed. I gave him a glance that was the retinal equivalent of manslaughter. “Go fuck yourself”, I offered. He grinned, exposing more open gums than teeth.

I looked over at Boats (1st class Goodman), the man in charge on the fantail. The Ensign just thought he was --- talking with him was like sight-reading braille, “What’s that mean?”. Boats lit a camel, exhaled, and watched the smoke mix with the air, rapidly becoming invisible.

“Bridge, this is the fantail, line 6 is clear.”

“Rodger, fantail.” Mercifully, we are almost done with this horseshit.

“Hey Woody, you look like shit!”

When he talked, his head bobbed and weaved like a spring-headed toy. Kinda like it would pop off at any minute. “Nutter, I think they ruined a completely good asshole by putting teeth in your head.” I flipped my cigarette, its red end rolling down the non-skid.

I looked forward, and saw Birdman approaching. Finally, a friend that wasn’t a smart ass. “Woody, you OK, bud?” I tried to flash him the peace sign, but in my condition, I only managed to raise my middle finger. Birdman laughed.

“We’re half way home.”

“So was Amelia Earhart.” He laughed again. When he said ‘shit’, he’d make it into a two syllable word, “Shee-it”!

Staring straight out to the South-Southwest, you could easily scan past the bay to where the Pacific’s horizon became a thick line of navy-blue ink drawn with a wide-nibbed pen. So long San Diego, it was fun while it lasted…

To be continued...


On the way back from Vietnam, Me and my Kearney State buddy Steve Forward managed to find each other in San Diego


On the way back from Vietnam, Me and my Kearney State buddy Steve Forward managed to find each other in San Diego


Too much beer if that is even possible!


Woody!



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