Ah, how to describe it. Or her, or whatever they call a ship. It was an LHD, for Landing Helicopter Dock. A brand new one, too, on her first float. The USS Inchon. The previous Inchon had been an old LPH helicopter carrier, turned into a mine warfare ship and recently scrapped.
Inchon was over 800 feet long; a straight flight deck to launch helicopters. And also a stern gate and flooding well deck to launch landing craft—the dock part of her name. Decks for vehicles and cargo; surgical facilities; extensive command and control. Just under a thousand sailors as crew and up to 1800 Marines could be crammed inside.
Everything was gray. It was like living inside a gray box. Not like a cruise—there were no portholes. You either lived inside a big box with a lot of people, like the whole company in one berthing space, or you lived inside a little box with a few people. O'Brien, Milburn, Nichols, and I lived in such a space. Four double-decker racks, a pair against each wall—or bulkhead in nautical-speak. Another wall of lockers, drawers, and fold-down desks. And a mirror and sink. You couldn't quite extend your arms and touch both walls, but it was close. Still, unspeakable luxury compared to the rows and rows of 4-stack vertical racks the troops slept in.
There were two other ships in the Phibron, or amphibious squadron. An LSD or Landing Ship Dock and LPD for Landing Platform Dock. Aboard the LPD was the MEU Service Support Group and Golf Company, the boat company. On the LSD were tanks, amtracs, the artillery battery, and Fox Company.
The Navy was a trip. A totally different culture, and despite our shared nautical language, to Marines a foreign one. The separate mess areas, kitchens, and food for sailors, chief petty officers, officers, and flag officers. Evidence of how, except for the abolition of flogging, naval leadership hadn't changed much since the age of sail. With a few notable exceptions their officers seemed to operate like passive-aggressives. Slack but hostile.
Our ship's captain had a Lazyboy mounted on the bridge in place of his captain's chair, and hardly moved from it while the ship was underway. He even slept there. So much for trusting your people.
We paid for our wardroom meals every month, and a favorite game when Marines came aboard was to cut down on the quantity and quality of the chow and when the deployment was over use the cash to buy luxuries. A few pilots started an underground newsletter that published odes to 3-shrimp gumbo and gave Colonel Sweatman the callsign "Tough Guy."
He went ballistic of course, but for some reason hard-ass Marine colonels turned into lapdogs around the Navy. Colonel Sweatman had even been on the verge of giving up Marines to scrape and paint until the company commanders revolted.
To Marines the only reason the ship existed in the first place was to transport us into battle. And when we went into combat we wouldn't be taking any of the crew along as extra riflemen. But we had to give up Marines to work in the mess, the laundry, the ship's store, and a hundred other jobs because their housekeeping concerns took priority over everything. It may be different on a destroyer, I don't know.
To the Navy we might as well have been overly-regimented vermin who did nothing but eat, sleep, PT, and infest their little world. They called us jarheads—we called them squids.
Shipboard routine quickly turned into, well, a routine. At 0600 the IMC snapped on an instant before the bosun's whistle went into our ears like an ice pick. Then, "Reveille, reveille. All hands heave out, trice up. Reveille." This delivered in the pimply adolescent monotone the Navy must screen boatswain's mates for, because every watch was the same. To trice up was Navy-speak for making one's rack.
We then took turns at our room sink. When the military tells you to do things like conserve fresh water aboard ship, they don't just make the suggestion. If you took your hand off the sink tap it automatically shut off.
At 0615 on the way to the head to shower we heard, "Muster restricted men." Showering didn't take long, because only Navy showers were allowed. Despite what Marines felt about the Navy's personal habits, this was not just donning clean skivvies and deodorant. You stepped into the shower and turned the water on to wet yourself down, then turned it off. You lathered up with soap and/or shampoo, then turned the water on again to rinse yourself off. You ended up clean but dissatisfied, another fine metaphor for military life.
At 0615 on the way back down the passageway, "Breakfast for the crew and embarked units. Meal passes are as follows: orange 0630-0700. Yellow 0700-0730. Green 0730-0800. Stragglers 0740-0800."
After breakfast, down to the company office to see what was up. Something usually was. One aspect of being aboard ship was like the fulfillment of a dream for certain Marine officers. Now they could actually work themselves and their people seven days a week. Never did so many spend so much time thinking up so much make-work for everyone.
"Don't worry," Captain Z assured us. "They won't be able to keep this pace much longer."
"I don't know," Milburn said to me. "Looks like the married guys are rechanneling their sex drives into work."
"We'll be all right when they rediscover masturbation," I said confidently. "Skipper, Jack, Jim; you'll let us know when that happens, won't you?"
The First Sergeant experienced a fit of coughing.
"Shall I tell them to go fuck themselves, or will y'all?" the Captain asked.
"You are the company commander, sir," said O'Brien.
I'd PT the platoon either in the morning or afternoon, on the flight deck or the ship's fitness center. It all depended on whether helos were flying. When they were, it was classes on all the things we hadn't had time for yet.
After evening chow the Navy showed taped movies over the ship's cable system. Every berthing area had a TV, as did the wardroom. Taking the lessons of the workup to heart, I'd brought aboard a 13" TV that plugged right into the cable jack in our room. Milburn contributed the DVD player.
At 2000 or so came the command, "Darken ship. Show no white lights topside."
And at 2200, "Taps, taps. Lights out."
An action-packed existence, I'll tell you. It also took a little getting used to, particularly since our room was directly beneath the flight deck. It was HY-80 armored steel, but that only seemed to improve the harmonics. It felt like those helos were landing on your chest. But after a while you just rolled over and went back to sleep.
This was the routine. But I should explain something else about how being on deployment with a MEU worked. The Marine Corps is the nation's rapid reaction force, though the Army Airborne will argue that point. And the MEU's are the Marine Corps' rapid reaction force. Which was why we'd spent the previous six months training so intensely that we only came out of the field for the weekends. And were now as close to full strength as any military unit ever got.
While we were forward-deployed, we followed a normal sailing schedule with pre-arranged training exercises with friendly nations. But at any time, and in the amount of time it took for an operation order to spit from a printer, the peacetime schedule could be junked and we'd be sailing in harm's way. Or to a point just outside harm's way, where we'd sail around until the order came to go in.
This was why, one afternoon while we were lying in our racks—MORP'ing, which stood for Marine-Oriented Rack Posture—Frank Milburn said, "You know, I think we're fucked."
"That happens every day around here." O'Brien's voice replied from the rack above me. "You're gonna to have to be more specific."
On the first interoperability exercise O'Brien had informed me that the senior man got the bottom rack. I didn't care either way. Then one night of me sagging into the springs above his head changed his mind. Our brand new ship had been having teething problems, and among the rash of equipment failures were racks collapsing of their own accord. This may have led to nightmares of me squashing him like a bug. So the next morning he told me the senior man got the top rack. Fine, I said, but that had better be the last fucking time the senior man changed his mind.
"Two MEU's already in the Afghan theater," said Milburn. "You just know we're going to get stuck in
the Med covering all the bullshit training exercises."
"We'll just have to see," said O'Brien. "If we stop in Spain to do our first scheduled Phiblex, we're screwed. If we keep going we may be all right."
All the speculation was necessary because we were absolutely the last people to be told anything. Well almost the last. But the troops compensated with a rumor mill that was totally out of control.
Living at close quarters, 24 hours a day, with the people you worked with could be very enlightening.
One night we bucked up to see who had to hike down to the wardroom to raid the popcorn machine. I lost. On my way back I bumped into Dave Peters coming out of the battalion office, and he asked me to drop a file off to one of the staff. The room was on my way.
When I knocked a suspicious voice said, "Who is it?" Which was not the usual response aboard ship.
"Mike Galway," I said, wondering what was going on. The lock popped. "Come in."
The only light was from the TV, so it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust. When they did I almost dropped my popcorn. Choking back laughter, I made my delivery and left.
Back in our room I announced, "My question has been answered. But at the cost of what may be some permanent psychological damage."
"How could we tell?" Milburn asked.
"I guess you don't want to hear," I said.
"Talk," O'Brien ordered.
I brought them to where I entered the room. "So there I am. Standing there holding four bags of popcorn. The room is full of captains and warrant officers. And this skanky fuck film is playing on their machine. Well, I'm down with that. But everyone in the room is wearing their poncho."
"Get out," said Milburn.
"Like I could make something like that up," I retorted. "Sitting on the floor, wearing fucking ponchos. And I can't see anyone's hands."
"That is so unsat," said O'Brien. "I mean, they couldn't just watch the flick and go beat off in the head or something. I mean, ponchos or not, sitting there doing it in a room full of guys, it's, it's…."
"Fucked up," said Nichols. "I think that's what you're digging for."
"So what was the show?" Milburn asked me.
"Some amateur flick. I missed the credits."
"And the talent?"
"Oh, the girls next door," I said. "If you happen to live next door to a biker bar."
"Who was in the room?" said Nichols.
If Jimmy knew, the world would next. And then it would be quite clear to everyone who'd ratted them out. "Sorry Jim, I'm going to keep that on a need to know basis for now."
"Good call," said O'Brien. "With all the women aboard this ship, if word of stag night gets around the senior officers are bound to go into a major PC frenzy to cover their asses. We might have to tie our dicks in a knot."
It had been a pretty full week crossing the Atlantic. We docked at Rota, Spain, to do a turnover with the MEU we were relieving. There was some high-speed gear that the Marine Corps only had a few sets of, so they were passed from MEU to MEU. The outgoing commanders also passed information along to their opposite numbers. They were glad to be going home, but really pissed that they'd missed Afghanistan.
For our first liberty of the float we were restricted to base, and the ranks of private to sergeant allowed only Cinderella liberty. Which meant they had to be back on the ship before midnight.
Ever since the birth of the Corps in 1775, appropriately at Tun Tavern in Philadelphia, Marines had been getting into trouble on liberty. No power on earth could prevent this.
They were teenagers, for crying out loud. Most of them away from home for the first time, living in an all-male environment, dedicated to immediate gratification—blind to long-term consequences; each with the sexual appetites of Caligula combined with just enough money in their pockets to get into trouble.
I wanted to look as good as the next officer, but there was no sense in getting all worked up over the inevitable. Realistically, all you could do was make sure everyone knew the rules and consequences, preach safety, and then dispense the appropriate justice afterward.
Full Colonels felt differently. Getting tapped to command a MEU meant you were a high flyer and they had their eye on you for general. So the only thing standing between you and a star was fucking something up. And liberty incidents, like accidents, loomed large in the zero-defects career stakes.
It hadn't quite reached the point where they could get away with locking all the troops aboard ship for six months, but Cinderella liberty was the next best thing. From my point of view anyone who thought Marines couldn't get into trouble before midnight needed their headgear checked out.
Nothing like preemptively punishing nearly a thousand troops just to make yourself look good.
I made sure I got back by midnight, and quickly discovered whose platoon had put themselves on the skyline with the first liberty incident of the float. Mine, of course.
All Cinderella liberty did was make everyone drink faster. At midnight Lance Corporal Conahey showed up in the berthing area in a condition 180° from normal, which was so withdrawn that strangers often mistook him for autistic. He proceeded to rip apart a line of racks and punch out his best friend, Lance Corporal Turpin, who tried to restrain him.
So I was back at work after a fast shower and changing into a set of cammies. I suppose I should mention that we always wore civilian clothes on liberty. The military stopped wearing uniforms off base during the Vietnam war, when all those civilians who now loved us tended to spit on us. We followed the same policy in foreign countries, even though our haircuts left little doubt who we were.
First stop was sickbay, where Turpin was holding an ice bag over a nicely swollen eye. As might be expected, he was quite put out about being beaten up by his best friend.
Then on to Captain Zimmerman. "Mike, the Navy's squawking about the damage to the berthing area," he said.
"Conahey's one of my best troops, sir. I'd hate to burn him too bad."
"You handle it the way you think best."
That was leadership. And not easy, either, because he'd have to absorb some big time heat with the mob baying for Conahey's head.
Conahey was in the company office, back to being his usual impassive self.
"Anything you want to tell me about this, or say in your own defense?" I asked.
"No, sir."
"Okay, you're restricted to the ship until further notice. You'll pay for all the damage you did, and you'll help the Navy do the repairs. You can either accept that or go see the Captain at Office Hours."
"I'll accept it, sir."
"I've got a couple more things to say. These aren't orders, just suggestions. If drinking made me go berserk and beat up my best friend, I'd give up drinking. If you feel you need help with that I'll get it for you, and it won't count against you career-wise. Second, you need to go to sickbay and talk to Turpin right now. You don't want to let pride cost you a good friend. I know you've got the guts to do it. Now get out of here. The First Sergeant will let you know how the money for the damage is going to work."
I watched as he left, and he was heading for sickbay. It was too bad. Conahey would have been next on my list for corporal, except that I wasn't quite sure if he'd be able to order his friends around.
Colonel Sweatman was so disturbed by the liberty incident that he decided to address our whole company. We assembled in the hanger deck. The aircraft elevators were folded up, sealing the big side openings into the deck. The air smelled of kerosene and grease, stifling one second and then a blast of cooler air whenever someone opened a hatch.
The company was in a horseshoe-shaped formation. The First Sergeant called everyone to attention, the staff sergeants out in front of the platoons. Then Captain Z took over the formation, the platoon sergeants posting to the rear and the lieutenants replacing them.
Colonel Sweatman was standing in the background, waiting for Captain Z to finish saying his piece about proper conduct on liberty. And Captain Z was trying to cove
r everything he thought Colonel Sweatman might say.
Something was going on in my peripheral vision. Frank Milburn was standing at parade rest like everyone else, except it was as if his feet were nailed to the deck and the rest of his body swaying around in ever increasing circles. He'd left the Rota officer's club with a Basic School buddy from the MEU we were relieving. I didn't know when he'd gotten in, but it looked like he'd had a bigger night than the rest of us.
Then Frank pitched forward and hit the steel deck face-first. A shiver went through the company, but Marines didn't break formation.
More perfectly timed than if we'd rehearsed it, O'Brien and I both stepped off, marched over to Milburn's prostrate form, each took a leg, and dragged him out of the formation. I threw him onto my back in a fireman's carry and took him up to the room, O'Brien clearing the way. We got lots of funny looks.
I dumped him in a chair and stuck his head between his knees. O'Brien wet a towel and draped it across his neck. We'd only resort to sickbay—which would make the incident official—if it looked like he was going to check out on us.
"I've never been so fucking embarrassed in my life," Jack said.
"How are we going to talk to the troops about liberty after this?" I said.
"Yeah, way to set the example. I don't know what was worse, going tits up in front of the troops or in front the Colonel—just as he's about to talk about liberty incidents."
Milburn recovered once we got some fluids in him. Then he went into Captain Z's stateroom for...a real ass chewing.
O'Brien couldn't believe it. When it was just he and I alone, he said, "We'd get special fitness reports for embarrassing the company in front of the Colonel. And he gets a good talking to."
"It's the Milburn gift," I said. "When you look like the template for a Marine infantry officer, you get the benefit of the doubt."
"How do we get some of that?" Jack said bitterly.
"We're talking massive plastic surgery," I replied.
We left Rota the next day, ahead of schedule, sailing through the Straits of Gibraltar with everyone on the flight deck taking pictures.
William Christie 03 - The Blood We Shed Page 15