Chapter Seventeen
So two days later, the boat pulls out of Toulon and you are back on the bridge doing the log, and there’s this weird feeling because no one ever mentioned the first lieutenant’s little dive and how you jumped in after him, and how you are restricted to the ship, it’s like there’s the usual conversation going on the bridge and there’s this little bubble around you, even when you are down in supply although the senior chief said when no one was around that it was a ballsy thing to do but you still feel bad about dropping the gun belt because it was your duty and your responsibility[140] and the right thing to do would have been to call away the rescue detail and stand there and watch the first lieutenant drown but anyways you only missed a day of liberty and you were broke any how so who cares.
For the next week the boat moves out into the Med and then toward Corsica and the ground war is over and Saddam surrenders his ass, and there’s pictures from the news of this big convoy all smoking with dead guys charcoaled and hanging down from their tanks and jeeps and the cars they stole out of Kuwait[141] and then there are this people in the northern part of Iraq, the Kurds, and Saddam is banging the hell out of them with bombs and shit and they all ran up in to the mountains to get away and in the south the Shi’ites are fighting the Iraqis and Bush is saying that they ought to take over but he’s not sending any troops and Saddam gets to fly his helos and he is bombing the crap out of them too, anyways that’s what it says in the ship newspaper.
And you run south and then up between Sicily and Italy and then you stop by Sardinia to do an operation with the Italians, and the helos pound off the flight deck and the jar heads get the hell off the boat and everything is empty and echoing, and then one night when the boat is pulling up the anchor to move closer into the bay for backload day after tomorrow and you are on the bridge making log entries and looking out over the long low brown land and at the evening sky, the Commodore comes up on the bridge and walks over to the Skipper with everyone listening very carefully but they sort of talk low, and then the Skipper hops down from his chair and they go out on the bridge wing and talk some more with everyone sort of listening in through the windows, and then the Skipper comes back on the bridge and hops back up into his chair and he sits there with his head on one hand leaning against the bulkhead a little and thinking and you are all thinking along with him.
Once the anchor is down and set, and the sea and anchor detail is secured, the Skipper looks up and calls the gator over and then they talk while you are taking your time turning the log over to the quartermaster of the watch and sort of just milling around a little, and then the gator comes over to the chart table and asks the QM for a chart of the eastern Med and then he takes it over to the Skipper and that’s when the QM chief asks you if you are done and tells you to go below
And just as you are clambering down the ladder to deck berthing the 1MC clicks on and hums and the Bo’sun of the watch blows that annoying whistle and then says stand by for the captain and then the captain comes on.
And he says that we all know about the Kurds and how they are up in the hills starving and freezing and how the US is dropping supplies to them and then how the MARG has given orders to bring its Marines to northern Turkey and then having them go down into Iraq and set up a safe zone for the Kurds so they can go back to their villages and get on with their lives and how we are right now expediting backloading the Marines and all their gear and how tomorrow we would weigh anchor and get underway for Iskenderun Turkey where we would offload the Marines in four days and how this would be a tough mission, that nothing like this has ever been tried before, and how we all need to work hard to make sure that all combat and damage control systems are in order and working right and when he says that last part everyone looks at everyone else and one guy says oh shit
So before you hit the rack, you go back up to the Deck office and then grab the PMS sheets off their hook and go out into the passageway and start going over all the hose reels and valves and OBAs and AFFF cans, and you are running your finger over a valve flange and the bright brass cuts into your forefinger and you hold it up and watch the blood run down the finger into the palm of your hand and then clench your hand to hold the blood there, then you go into the office and run over all the cables and check the welds on the angle iron holding the desks in place, and look over the pipes in the overhead and then trace them all back to their cutoff valves with the blood in your hand, and then you look up and it’s 0214 and the Bo’sun comes in and tells you to hit the rack and on your way below you can see guys in every passageway going over the cables and the hose reels and the valves and the dogs on the watertight doors, each tracing them with their fingers and looking at them with thoughtful looks because it is real this time
And the next day everyone is running all over the boat getting the Marines back on board and you walk through the mess decks past a table of FCs and they’re talking about the BPDMS, a piece of shit missile system, and you can hear them say that the Raytheon guy said to just punch the fire button and hold it down until all the missiles are gone, and then you slip on a big chunk of Italian mud on the deck and almost go down but catch yourself on a table, and you pull yourself back up and keep on walking one two three four and up and duck and one two three four and up and duck all the way to the Supply Office.
Three days later, after the ship got everyone back on board and you pulled out from Sardinia and hauled ass across the Med, running the straits between Italy and Sicily at top speed, and then across the water at about 20 knots the whole way, with those fat old boats cranking it on all three of them, and the Marines live-firing on the flight deck every night and the GMs greasing up the guns, the old three-inch fifties the ones you see in World War Two movies going bang-bang, bang-bang, bang-bang against the Kamikazes arrowing down out of the blue Pacific skies, and the 25 millimeter chain guns going bam-bam-bam-bam, and the fifties on the pintels going duh-duh-duh-duh-duh and the tracers skipping out on the waves and the oil drums spinning around as the bullets slam into them and then sinking under the ocean water, and the Cobras lifting off the flight deck with their chain guns swiveling around under their chin, and then the ‘46s and the ‘53s humping off the deck with their crew chiefs in their helmets swinging their fifties around, and the ordinance guys hauling shit out of the magazines you never saw before like the sidewinder missiles they hang on the Cobras, and the SAWs and the M-16s burping out, and then they test fire the CIWS spinning carefully on their mounts like the fucking terminator, and then zipping out the rounds, and the ship heeling through the whitecaps, tucked over to port and just hauling ass, and the cold saltwater fresh breeze deep into your lungs like the cold snap air you walked in as a child.
And suddenly you are there on the bridge as the boat pulls into the bay of Iskenderun, and as soon as you are secured, you go up on the signal bridge to watch the jarheads march up out of the flight deck shelters and across the flight deck in a big arc behind the rotors spinning up in the soft morning air, and then up the ramps and into the helos, and the ramps closing and the helos lifting up and then left and then forward and then joining up, and the off into the mist and over the mountains all around, a swarm like gnats, and below the Marines are climbing down the accom ladder and into Mike boats and then chugging off to the shore where you can see through the big eyes something like Greyhound buses waiting for them all different colors, and the whole day is crazy with running people and supplies humping up out of storage and cranes lowering them down into boats, whole rafts of MREs and one whole pallet of toilet paper.
At the end of the day when the sun drops beneath the sea and flight quarters are secured and the boats come slogging across the bay back to the ship and everyone is back on board, and suddenly the ship is empty and echoing again, you climb up to the signal bridge and stand there looking out over the mountains to the east where the Marines went and you wish so hard that you could go with them.
You Are Free Page 17