We three went up a low lit alley. The guy pulls a bag of grass out of his coat. I could smell fresh cut grass when he opened the bag. “This is grass, lawn grass. This is a fucking rip. No way!” I said, animatedly. I stuck my face in the bag and inhaled, it was fresh cut lawn clippings. “You’re wrong,” said the dirtbag. “It’s a special kind of grass“. I replied “Ya it’s called freshly mowed. What do you think, all sailors are stupid, man. I come from Denver we aren’t that small of a town. This is grass, lawn grass you fucking know it, man. Admit it.”
He was just about to admit it. I saw it on his embarrassed junkie face. “I think its real grass,” said Okie. He was holding the bag and smelling it. “You’re the only one that doesn’t know good pot,” the dirtbag said, recovering. He got between me and Okie. I moved him to the side. I looked Okie in the eyes. “Okie get a grip, it’s not pot. Smell it again.” He smelled it, he took a deep breath. “It’s pot I’m going to buy it,” he said adamantly. “What can I say, man. It’s your money. You big idiot” I said. He handed the guy his twenty for an ounce of grass.
Back at the hotel in the light I could see for sure that it was grass clippings.
We put the wet towel under the door. Okie and Saul lit up. It smelled like someone was burning leaves on a fall afternoon. Peter, Moe and me knew better, Garza did too, but he gave it a try. After they smoked four joints they said they were getting off. I told them it’s from a lack of oxygen. It’s like standing in front of a camp fire, huff the smoke long enough and you’ll get a quick buzz. They smoked half the bag before they admitted it was lawn grass. That was Friday night.
Saturday night. Peter and I went to get some food. We went to the Jack-in-the-box. I like the tacos, they are nasty greasy but so tasty. When we got back to the hotel room Garza, Moe, Saul and Okie were dressed only in their underwear, sitting on the beds. What the fuck we said. They got a hair up their asses and ordered a call girl. She was on her way up. She was going to do the four of them at the same time. She wanted them to be undressed before she got there. They told us if we want we can stay, she’ll fuck us all. No thanks Peter and I said, we’ll be back in an hour or so. We went out into the street to do some people watching.
We no sooner got out the glass swinging doors when I turned to Peter and said, “We should go back up to the room and say ‘Oops, sorry, we didn’t know you were here.’ Maybe we can catch her naked.” Peter took a second to think about it. “She should be naked by now. She’s probably been there for ten or so minutes. Let’s go,” he said.
We headed back up the elevator to our room. I opened the door ready to act surprised. She wasn’t there. “Oh, she hasn’t got here yet?” I asked, walking in the room with Peter.
“No, she came. She’s gone,” said Okie.
“What? Did she change her mind? Did you guys scare her off?” I asked.
“She finished,” they said.
“She fucked all four of you in ten minutes?” I asked.
“Is that all the time it took?” said Garza. “Seemed longer.”
“Okay, how did she do it?” I asked.
Saul spoke up. “She came in here. She took off her clothes. I got a woody when I saw her tits.”
“Ya, her tits,” they all said in unison.
He continued, “She beat me off with her hand. When I was almost ready to come, she put my dick into her pussy. She did us all that way. She put her clothes back on. She took our money and left.
Saul sat there on the bed; it was barely wrinkled. They all had the same stupid grin on their faces. The great thing about TV in California is there is something to watch twenty four hours a day. We spent the rest of the night watching old war movies and drinking beer.
Tomorrow we find out our fate. It shouldn’t take them long to cut us new orders. We came back to the base early so we can get dinner. Later.
March 5, 1973, Monday
It’s time to go eat lunch. The master chief told us that division is deciding what to do about us flunking. They could do a few different things. They could transfer us tomorrow, three weeks from today or when we finish. They could add that exercise on to the end of the course. They haven’t decided what to do. In the mean time we will carry on with classes. Later.
I’m at lunch. My thigh is sore. I stuck a needle in it. The needle was full of sugar water. Except for the soreness and the small welt, I was assured by Chief Mann it won’t harm me.
Nerve gas kills. From the movies we saw, it’s not very pretty. It looks gruesome. Let’s say one of those times I am decontaminating the ship, I accidentally get exposed to enemy nerve gas. One of my options is injecting myself with an atropine auto injector. It looks like a tin cigar tube. I would remove the yellow safety cap. Holding the tube firmly in my hand I would slam the green end into my thigh muscle. The force would trigger the spring that would inject a needle into my leg, automatically administering a dose of atropine. I didn’t have to inject myself. I tried not to. I was the only one in the class to inject one’s self.
After we were instructed on the how-to’s, why’s, who, and when we would inject atropine, the chiefs brought out a box of tubes, about a hundred of them. In the box were three tubes that were loaded. The other tubes were inert. They wanted us to practice slamming hard in a good muscle. It is important that we get the atropine delivered fast. It’s a matter of live or death. If we are doing it to ourselves or to a ship mate, it had to be administered fast to be effective. We had to get the feel of it now, because our exercises this afternoon may be about nerve gas. We may need to do this for real.
One by one we walked up to the box on the table. Choose any tube in the box. Follow the procedure and hope you don’t get one with a needle. They wanted to show us how hard to slam a muscle. The chiefs had secret markings on the tubes that were loaded.
It was my turn. I reached to the middle of the box. Chief Mann said, “Let’s see.” I showed him my tube. He said you might want to pick again. I handed him that tube, I quickly picked again. This time I went to the bottom of the box. I showed him the tube. The chief smiled. I’ll give you one more try, lad. Once again I handed him the tube. Surely two bad tubes can’t be on the bottom. I went to the bottom again. I showed the chief the tube. That’s your tube no matter what lad. Slam it! I did. Everybody laughed and they are still laughing. The swelling is going down a little bit. Later.
It’s after dinner; earlier today I think we killed every fish in the bay. They put us on this boat. It was a large patrol boat. We took it out to the middle of the bay, we set anchor. They gave us our special protective gear. It was a pair of long sleeve overalls, one baggy rubber suit, a gas mask, two pair of rubber gloves, and rolls and rolls of duct tape.
It was 84 degree outside. I put on a pair of gloves. I put the overalls on over my clothes and duct taped my gloves closed. It was getting hot and it was about to get hotter. I asked for some water. The chief said after the exercise is finished we can drink all we want. It was time to toughen up! This is the navy! He said, if the enemy was attacking would I ask them to wait for you to get a drink. I just shook my head.
I put on the other pair of gloves. I pulled the rubber suit over the overalls and taped up the opening to the gloves and my shoes. We put on our gas masks, and taped each other’s necks air tight. Our bodies were air tight from the outside air. The chiefs told us to wait. They went to the bridge tower to watch us in action.
We waited and waited some more. I was drenched in sweat, so was everybody else. We heard a loud high pitched whistle. “Now hear this. Now hear this.” Then a glass vial falls down from the tower. Crash, it breaks open on the steel deck. Barry and Brice approach it with the testers. The Geiger counter goes off immediately. Ok, we know what we’re fighting.
Half the crew sprays the deck with a foam. The other half scrubs it with strong bristled push brooms. As the first crew scrubs. The second crew readies the pumps to wash the deck with sea water. We scrub in till they are ready with the pump.
Four guys
pass out. This is part of the exercise. This would happen in a real attack. We take the sailors that passed out off to the side on stretchers. Contaminates are in the air there is nothing else we can do right now, we moved faster. They’re having trouble starting the pumps. We keep scrubbing. The pumps finally started. I was hoping I would pass out and put myself out of this misery. They sprayed the ship’s deck with water from the bay. We pushed the radioactive foam off of the deck and into the San Francisco Bay. We pumped up good bay water to wash bad radioactive foam back to the bay. It just seemed wrong.
When Barry took his Geiger reading, it was safe. We got the all clear. I ripped off my mask, tape and all. Half of us rushed to the guys that had passed out. Brice and guys like him only wanted to get their own protective gear off. We ripped the suits off of the sailors that had passed out. I was pounding on the bridge door, demanding some water. As they opened the door I saw the steel shiny drinking fountain. The only container I could see was the thermoses of coffee that each of the chiefs had sitting on the table.
I didn’t ask, I barged past them and started to scoop up the thermoses. They might have objected if Barry and a few other sailors had not reached the top of the stairs and were moving towards the drinking fountain. I emptied the coffee from the thermoses. We filled up what we could and rushed down to those that had passed out. They were starting to come around. The water was helping. The good news is we did well on this test. Passing a test made for a fun ride back over the bay to the island. We get to do this two more times. What a day. Later.
March 6, 1973, Tuesday
Today’s class was one of those “Why did I join the navy?” classes. Navy ships run on steam. These ships have big engines, therefore they need high pressure steam. From time to time the pipes carrying that steam develop holes. A large hole is better than a tiny one. Large holes can be easily and safely located and repaired. The very tiny holes are deadly.
The movie you are about to see is real. This movie is presented to you uncut. The Department of the navy classified this movie for training only. Civilian and public use is strictly forbidden. The scenes in this move were shot for other purposes other than depicted. This is an unedited version. Not available for public use. That message was flashed on the screen at the beginning of the movie. It got our interest. I lit a cigarette.
A chief warren officer was in front of a desk. Speaking directly to the camera he said, “What you are about to see actually happened the way that you will see it. We were preparing to make a film about the different markings on the pipes in the hull. As the men walked down the corridor the destruction that high pressure steam can cause, became horribly apparent. And now the film, he said.” They cut to black.
When the show started two sailors in work clothes are standing in a corridor, in the bowels of the ship. The film crew was still setting up. They were turning on more lights. The lens was focusing. They were doing the sound check. The two sailors reading scripts were the only people in the frame. Someone off camera told the two men to walk further down the corridor, so he can get a focus shot. The men turn around, they take four steps away from the camera. The sailor on the right gets his head sliced off from the neck. His head plummets to the earth. Before it hits the ground his body takes another step and collapses. The body and the head hit the deck at the same time.
The guy on the left is half a head shorter than the sailor on the right. The right side of his skull is sliced open. The slice went through seventy five percent of his skull. We could see his brain fall out. He also collapsed. You could hear a women screaming off camera. The shot was frozen. A large script appeared on the screen. “INVISIBLE STEAM. A SILENT KILLER. DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU. BE AWARE AT ALL TIMES. THE END.” Four or five guys threw up their breakfast.
We took a walk to the power plant on base. They had an area set up for a demonstration. They wanted us to know they were not making this crap up. After turning some knobs and levers, a hole in a pipe went from visible steam, to a high pressure whistle, to no sound and no trace of visible steam at all.
One of the chiefs waved the bristle end of a broom in front of him—zzzip—the first inch of the bristles are magically cut off. He says, “That’s just to find the steam.” He turned the broom around and stuck the wooden handle forward. Zip it was cut in two by the same invisible force. We believe, I will be aware. I said, “If anyone ever asks you to do a navy movie, for god’s sake, say no!” They cut us loose for chow. Only half the class ate lunch. Later.
Before afternoon classes started the master chief called me into his office. Brice is bringing formal charges against me. The charge is striking a superior. He wanted to hear my version. I said it was an accident. I was sliding off the top bunk as he was standing up, we got entangled. Gravity brought us both down to the deck. There is nothing more to add, it was a collision.
He said that it’s fairly close to Barry’s version of events. He said Brice was trying to go over his head with it. He told me that Brice has that right. He’ll keep me informed. “You’re dismissed, lad. And off the record, you should have kicked the holy shit out of him. Now go and join class.” Later.
March 7, 1972, Wednesday
Alameda Air Force Base is down the bay a ways. There brigade of B52 bombers are in the process of rotation. They were bombing Laos and Cambodia and sometimes North Vietnam. Some other brigade will take their place for the next six months. They fly throughout the day, twenty or thirty at a time. They fly low. They fly loud. They are so fucking big. It’s an “Oh my god!” moment.
I think the air force guys are flying low over the island on purpose. They want to show their air force toy to the navy boys and girls. It is a sight, huge bombers with wing spans that don’t stop.
They fly in from the ocean, like a flock of metal monster birds, gracing the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge. They follow the Bay up river, flying over the top of us. We involuntary walk with a hunch. We are ducking under the constant roar of the flying machines in the sky. They cast big moving shadows from one side of the island to the other. It gives me goose bumps, watching that awesome power. I can feel the ground vibrate.
Barry said he goes to the Alameda Air Base to get lost in his thoughts. He watches the pilots practice landing and takeoff maneuvers. He said I should come with him some time. We could talk bible. I told him I would like to see the jets do their thing, but let’s leave the bible at home.
We walked to the dock hunched over the whole way. I try to stand up straight but as soon as the next large jet bomber fly’s over I can’t help myself. We boarded the ship and prepared to decontaminate it again. The sight of the B52s in the middle of the bay was even more impressive. Later.
We passed the test. This time I didn’t need to pound on the cabin door for water. They had it waiting for us. More sailors passed out this time, then last time. Brice was one of them. I helped him as I would anybody that needed it. He never did say thank you to us E-2s. He did thank Barry. This exercise initialed washing trace amounts of nerve gas into the Bay. It’s late I am tired. The bombers have stopped for the night. Later.
March 8, 1973, Thursday
We awoke to the sounds of F-15 fighter jets flying overhead. Each bomber division comes with a couple fighter squadrons. It’s their turn to come home for maintenance also. Annoying but so cool. We have to limit our conversation to in between the jets. I can be face to face with someone and not hear a word if the jets are flying.
The first part of class was about yesterday’s exercise and tomorrows exercise. Then we spent the rest of the day taking apart water tight doors. Taking them apart then putting them back together, over and over. Tomorrow is our last test. If we pass we will spend one more week here on Treasure Island. We won’t be attending school we will be assigned work details on the base.
Class was not over when one of the chiefs hurriedly came into the room and said something to our instructor. He looked out at us and said “Class dismissed.” They both ran out the door and said come lo
ok at this. We followed them outside where I saw what kind of power mankind can command.
The air craft carrier Kitty Hawk was floating under the Golden Gate Bridge. It was beyond Boss. The airplanes were flown from the ship earlier, causing it to be at its highest point in the water. It looked as though the radar above the command tower would scrap the underside of the bridge. We ran like hell to get some joints so we could enhance this experience. It looked like half the base had the same idea. It was the first and only time I saw so many sailors running to the dorms at the same time, then running out again quickly.
The rest of the evening was talk about the Kitty Hawk. To me a landlocked Coloradoan it is a sight of a life time. One of those things that I will always remember. This is going to be our last weekend in San Francisco. We found some acid. Later.
March 9, 1973, Friday
We knew right away what deadly hazard we were fighting on the ship, this afternoon. The object came floating down on a string. Poof! It exploded in a yellow cloud. We washed mustard gas residue off the ship and into the bay. I wonder what else the navy feels free to flush out in to this bay. I would never swim in this bay, knowing what I know now. Or should I say doing what I did. No time to think about it now. Now is the time to catch the bus to party town. Later.
March 11, 1973 Sunday
Friday night was fucked up. In our pursuit to find pot I hit my boiling point. The constant barrage of insults we get from every day hippies is bad enough. To get it from dirtbag hippies is hard to tolerate. They are mostly junkies. These were the casualties from Height and Ashbury Streets fame.
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