by Thomas Hay
ANTICIPATION: Just wait until your father gets home.
BECOMING AN ADULT: If you don’t eat your veggies, you’ll never grow up.
ROOTS: Close the door. Were you born in a barn?
IRONY: Keep crying and I’ll give you something to cry about.
Nevertheless, I felt the need to spread my wings and be all I could be. The navy, not the army, provided the perfect opportunity. Looking back, I wonder if the abductors played a role in this decision?
IN THE NAVY
In the navy, yes, you can sail the seven seas, in the navy, yes, you can put your mind at ease. —Village People
Right after high school, my friend Roger and I joined the navy, on their Buddy Program. We were guaranteed to stay together throughout boot camp. Unfortunately for me, I sprained my left ankle badly the day before the physical in Kansas City. During my physical, the navy doctor noticed I was limping pretty badly. He disqualified me because I’d never have made it through boot camp on a sprained and swollen ankle. He informed me to try again when the ankle healed.
So Roger flew off to San Diego and I limped back to Clinton. I was devastated. After moping around for a month, I talked my buddy Frank into joining me on the same program. This time I passed the physical tests. Watch out world, the Kid was about to spread his wings and soar like an eagle.
The trip to San Diego would be my first time on an airplane, and my excitement level darn near reached the stars. In my excitement, I had no clue about the shock and awe that awaited me.
BEND ME, SHAPE ME
Bend me, shape me, anyway you want me. You got the power to turn on the light. —Amen Corner
“WHAT THE FUCK YOU LOOKIN’ AT, YOU PUSSY? YOU THINK I’M PRETTY? LINE UP! ASSHOLE TO BELLYBUTTON! DROP YOUR COCK AND GRAB YOUR SOCKS!”
“SIR, YES SIR!”
My parents would surely washed my mouth out with soap if ever I used such language.
“HUT TWO THREE FOUR. YOUR LEFT, YOUR LEFT RIGHT LEFT. YOUR OTHER LEFT, YOU MORON! STRAIGHTEN THAT LINE!”
Boot camp instructors started shouting at me as soon as I departed the bus. They knew only to yell and curse. I couldn't understand why they were so pissed off with me. I discovered quickly that there was absolutely nothing I could do that would ever pacify them. (And I had thought my mom was always mad at me for no reason. She had nothing on these guys.) I learned real quick to keep my mouth shut and to never volunteer for anything. Nothing I had ever experienced could have prepared me for the next nine weeks.
The San Diego Naval Base was gigantic, bigger than the whole town of Clinton. There were hundreds of recruits there trying to make the miraculous transformation from civilian to a U.S. Navy sailor. It was a drastic metamorphosis, both mentally and physically.
Every week about thirty raw recruits, fresh out of high school, from various states, and thinking they could conquer the world, were thrown together to form a company. The company ate, slept, worked, marched, and trained together for the next nine weeks. The company needed to learn to function as a unit. If one person screwed up, the whole company suffered the consequences.
In the first week they instilled in us three words that have been with me and every recruit since: Honor, Courage, and Commitment. This is the U.S. Navy motto, and these were the core values that immediately became the ideals we lived by. I remember to this day an instructor telling us: What you make of this experience is what will make you as a person. He hit the nail right on the head.
In the second week, we went through the confidence course. This is designed to simulate emergency conditions aboard a warship. The instructors taught us to be sharp, to be self-reliant, and above all, to make key decisions upon which our shipmates might depend. Teamwork dominates and infiltrates every aspect of a sailor’s life.
Week three put us onboard a land-bound training ship. We learned the name of nearly every working part of the ship. They taught us first-aid techniques and how to signal from ship to ship using flags. We spent a lot of time in the classroom learning navy customs and courtesies, the law of armed conflict, shipboard communications, ship and aircraft identification, and basic seamanship. All this was interspersed with physical training, including sit-ups, sit-reaches, and push-ups. Tons of push-ups!
During week four we got some weaponry training with the M14 rifle. We had to carry that sucker everywhere we went, including the head (bathroom). My hunting skills came in handy, as I became a sharpshooter.
The firefighting and shipboard damage control course came next. Everyone learned how to extinguish fires, escape smoke-filled compartments, open and close water-tight doors, operate the oxygen breathing apparatus, and move and store fire hoses. It was during this training that I thought I might have met my Waterloo.
During an exercise simulating a compartment fire, the lead man on the hose panicked, dropped his position, and disappeared. I was in the second position and felt the hose start to sway. I could barely see my hand in front of my face through the smoke. My lungs were quickly filling with smoke and I heard the guys behind me choking too. I knew if we didn't get the fire out, we would have to try it again. No way did I want to do that. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Somehow I managed to grab the front hose position and distinguish the fire.
The following week, the training exercise involved the confidence chamber. The whole company was put in a gas chamber with our gas masks on. The instructor then unleashed a tear-gas tablet. Everyone had to remove his mask and recite his name and serial number. This exercise was repeated until everyone got it right. I got it right the first time. Hey, there’s no crying in baseball and most definitely not in the U.S. Navy.
During the last week of training everyone had to jump off a one-hundred-foot platform into the water and tread water for at least thirty minutes. It was surprising how many recruits joined the Navy and didn’t know how to swim. They learned that day or they were shipped out.
All recruits are tested, both physically and in aptitude. Physically, I discovered that my eye-to-hand coordination had improved immensely, compared to my pre-accident days. I could now do activities I never dreamed of doing before. My aptitude tests revealed that I had skills I never knew existed. My eyesight had even improved, so that I didn’t need to wear glasses anymore. When I told the navy eye doctor about the fragment of glass left from the B-B gun accident, he couldn’t find anything in my eye. Somehow, it had disappeared.
I went from 135 pounds wet to 175 pounds of lean mean fighting machine. Why the sudden improvements? I gave most of the credit to the navy, since I had no reason to think otherwise.
I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW
I can see clearly now, the rain is gone. I can see all obstacles in my way. Gone are the dark clouds that had me blind. —Johnny Nash
Graduation day was a proud day for all who made it through boot camp. Those of us left had proved we had the right stuff. We dressed in our brand new dress uniforms and paraded past all our instructors and the upper brass.
On the way to graduation, I passed a mirror and almost didn’t recognize the dude staring back at me. I had found within myself a confidence and pride I had never known existed. For the first time in my life, I felt proud of myself. I had developed a completely different personality. Whatever had existed before was now gone. Tommy boy had become a man.
The navy gave me two weeks’ leave after boot camp, so I went back to visit my parents and sisters. I was sitting on a bench at the bus station when they walked right past, looking for me. No one had recognized me.
“Hey guys, it’s me, Tom.”
“Is that really you, Tommy?” Asked my oldest sister, Sandy.
The expression on their faces was priceless.
The navy decided to send me to radioman school after boot camp. My aptitude tests had revealed that I had the skills to be a radioman. But first, they sent the FBI to my hometown for a background check. Radiomen would have access to top-secret data that is normally concealed from the public. They couldn’t hav
e a Russian spy infiltrating the ranks.
I received a top-secret clearance and was sent to the radioman school at the same base in San Diego where I had received my earlier training. Luckily, the FBI didn’t uncover the fireworks and telephone pranks, nor the abduction.
WESTERN UNION
A telegram was traveling on its way . Flashing across the darkness on the telegraph machine. —Kinky Friedman
“Fuck this shit,” a classmate said as he picked up his typewriter, slammed it and his earphones to the floor, and walked out of the classroom, mumbling to himself. I never saw him again. He probably finished his naval career swabbing decks.
I guess listening to the dit-dah-dit of Morse code for four hours a day got nerve wracking for some. It would drive many a sane man right up a wall, but not me. I had no idea why, but it was music to my ears, and seemed to come naturally to me. For the first time in my life I accomplished something that most others struggled with. I even impressed the instructors. To graduate, a student had to achieve at least eighteen words a minute, both sending and receiving. I doubled that halfway through the course.
Radioman duties included ship-to-ship and ship-to-shore communications. In 1961 the main types of communications were voice, signal flags, Morse code, and crypto, using UHF and VHF frequencies. I learned each one of the communications methods, plus basic electronics.
I suppose the abductors were proud of their prodigy.
BEYOND THE SEA
It’s far beyond the stars, it’s near beyond the moon ... happy we’ll be beyond the sea. —Bobby Darin
After graduating at the top of my class, I received orders to join the aircraft carrier USS Hancock. At the time, she was on station in the Far East.
The history of ships bearing the name “Hancock” is as long and dramatic as the history of the U.S. Navy itself. During the period from 1775 through today, the national ensign has flown from three successive “Hancock’s.” Through the Revolutionary War and both world wars, a “Hancock” was in action.
The intrepid spirit of “Hancock” has inspired the present “Hancock” since her commissioning during World War II. Nicknamed the “Fighting Hannah” for her battle prowess, during the war she destroyed more than 730 enemy planes and 17 Japanese warships, 31 merchant ships, and 51 railroad trains. Fighting back after kamikaze hits, she won the navy unit commendation with the following citation: For outstanding heroism in action against enemy Japanese forces in the air, ashore, and afloat. Operating continuously in the most forward areas, the USS Hancock and her groups struck crushing blows toward annihilating Japanese forces. Daring and dependable in combat, the Hancock rendered loyal service in achieving the ultimate defeat of the Japanese empire.
In 1961, the USS Hancock still strived to keep the peace she’d fought so hard to win. Modernized with an angled wooden deck, the first steam catapults ever used on an American carrier, and mirror landing systems, she alternated every six months between pilot qualifications on the West Coast and deployments in the Far East as a member of the Seventh Fleet.
In crises such as those in Formosa, Quemoy and Matsu, Laos, and Vietnam, the men of the “Fighting Hannah” were ready, proving themselves worthy guardians of the proud tradition begun by the illustrious Massachusetts patriot who gave the ship her name.
To hook up with my new home, I flew from San Diego to Alaska to Japan, and then into Subic Bay, in the Philippines. My first trip outside the United States would produce a cultural shock.
The base at Subic Bay was just like an average town in the United States, but once you ventured outside the base, it was a completely different world. This was the filthiest place I had ever seen. To get into town, I had to cross a bridge over a river, where I saw naked children swimming in sewage.
The town consisted of one main street lined with nothing but hotels and nightclubs.
“Hey, Sailor Boy, you want date?” Asked half-naked, sexy, pretty Filipino girls. Most didn’t look a day over sixteen.
Every nightclub had numerous young pretty girls wearing clothing that didn’t leave much to one’s imagination. Up until now, I hadn’t seen girls dressed like that, except in girly magazines. Now, here they were in the flesh, begging for my attention. I was to learn this would be the scenario outside every overseas American military base.
Oh my, what was I to do?
Up until now, I still hadn’t been with a woman. The navy had shown us videos of what could happen to a man’s penis if he didn’t wear protection. Some of the pictures were pretty gross. I didn’t muster up the courage to fall for the temptation, so I left town still a virgin. Another time, another place. Don’t worry, remember, I’m just a slow poke. My time will come.
The next morning, I hurried to the dock to wait for my new home to arrive. I got there just in time to see her slowly floating into the bay.
WOW! Was she big!
I stood there in awe as I watched tugs maneuver her toward the dock. The flight deck looked to be at least a hundred feet above the waterline and as long as a football field. My new home happened to be one of the oldest aircraft carriers in the American fleet, but it sure looked brand new to me.
“Request permission to come aboard,” I proudly said, saluting the officer on duty.
“Welcome aboard, sailor.”
This would be my home for the next three and a half years.
I was very excited to begin this new adventure, but my first night onboard was to be a rude awakening.
All new personnel were assigned the bottom of three stacked bunks in a tightly confined compartment. A sailor worked his way up through seniority. I had just crashed in the bottom bunk that first night when the rest of my shipmates began returning from shore leave. They were noisy and mostly drunk. Just as things finally quieted down and the snoring began, the guy above me leaned over and puked all over me.
Yea. Welcome aboard.
The ship was a floating city with a crew of three thousand men (no females back in those days). Meals were served twenty hours a day. Protecting America was a 24/7 operation. We worked in twelve-hour shifts. It was hard work with very little play.
On August 4, 1962, during my second cruise, Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her bedroom. Marilyn had earned the film industry’s title of Screen Sex Queen. She was the favorite pinup girl of most servicemen, including yours truly. But I don't think it had anything to do with the name Monroe. You will discover later why I mention this now. In the meantime, life went on as usual aboard the ship.
There were always battle station drills, but in November of 1963 we had our first battle station announcement that was not a drill. We were in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and I was right in the middle of a shower.
WHOOP WHOOP! Man your battle stations. This is not a drill!
We each had only a few minutes to get to our assigned stations before all watertight doors were locked down. I grabbed my pants and took off like a bat out of hell.
This could only mean we were at war. We would spend a few tense days on edge, before we were told to stand down. Only then did we learn about the shot heard around the world, President Kennedy's assassination.
During my tour of duty, I would visit Hawaii, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, and Okinawa. The ship’s home port was in Alameda, California.
Every ship and naval base had a baseball team. You know my love for the game, so I tried out for the ship’s team. I would become the regular shortstop, as we played the base team in every port we visited. I found out I could be really good in almost every sport I played. What a difference from my younger days!
So, why the difference?
I suspect the entities keeping watch over me knew.
LIKE A VIRGIN
I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through. Didn’t know how lost I was until I found you. Like a virgin, touched for the very first time .—Madonna
Bet you had been wondering if and when I’d be losing my cherry. It took awhile, but I finally got acquainted wit
h the birds and the bees!
During my navy stint, I visited many places and met many women from various cultures. In Japan, I visited Kobe, Yokosuka, Yokohama, Tokyo, and Hiroshima. Yokohama was the place where I finally lost my virginity. We passed through Yokohama as the ship was heading back to our home base in Alameda, California, shortly after I had boarded the ship in Subic Bay.
Seagoing sailors had havoc-wreaked love lives. We were never in one port long enough to establish any kind of a meaningful relationship. We had enough time ashore only to get drunk and to get laid. The native girls knew this and willingly provided their hospitality—for a few Yen, of course.
In a Yokohama nightclub, I ran across one such girl. Konnichiwa! (Hello), she said. I don’t recall her name, but she was a Japanese Geisha, schooled in the art of pleasing a man. She also was willing to teach me how a man can please a woman. I figured that if I was new at something, I might as well learn from a pro. She spoke no English, but communication proved to be no problem.
She taught me well. I was never to be shy around or afraid of the opposite sex again. She taught me a rather simple technique: look the girl in the eye, smile, and say hello! Now why hadn’t I thought of that?
I was so fascinated with her other teachings that I lost track of time. In foreign ports our liberty expired at midnight. The sun shining through the bedroom window forced me to come to my senses.
The ship was scheduled to leave port at nine that morning. To make matters worse, there were Japanese anti-American protesters outside the base, making it difficult for me to get back on base. I eventually pushed and shoved my way through the angry protesters and scampered onboard a split second before the gangplank lifted.
Of course, I was determined to be AWOL, and put on report. It was my first offense, so I got off lightly, with just a restriction to ship at the next port. The next port just happened to be Hawaii. Luckily, we were to visit Hawaii on several other cruises.
SOS
This time please someone come and rescue me. S.O.S. please somebody help me.— Rihanna
I spent many nights on the carrier flight deck, gazing at the vast array of stars. There were millions of them. In the middle of the ocean they were especially bright and appeared close enough to touch. Many nights, the shooting stars would put on a breathtaking and amazing performance. Their display left me thinking that there had to be other life forms in such a cosmic universe. I dreamed of hitching a ride on a starship.