by Jeff Noonan
Our little group got a hero’s welcome when we walked into the U & I. Apparently we were well-liked there. I couldn’t believe what a big deal they made of us. When they found out that we had brought presents for some of them, the whole place came down around us. We could do no wrong from then on.
Bob had made sure that we had all bought some little trinkets for the U & I ladies when we visited Hong Kong and Yokosuka. He had a nice blouse for Mama-San and other things for a girl that he liked. Since I didn’t have any special girl in Olongapo, I had picked up an oriental-embroidered kimono for Skinny-Mini. It had only cost me about three dollars, but a person would have thought that it was pure gold from the reaction she had when I gave it to her. I later learned that it was the first present that she had ever received from an American—and it was a huge deal. I couldn’t shake her that evening, and Mama-San let her sit with us for once. We had a fun night and left the bar in time to get back to the base on time.
We were scheduled to be in Subic for almost a month before heading back. There wasn’t a lot to do aboard ship, so we had a lot of free time on our hands. I knew that I couldn’t afford to spend every night in the Olongapo bars, so the next day I explored the base. I found a beautiful beach, a hobby shop that looked interesting, and the Enlisted Men’s Club.
That evening, I went to the EM Club with some friends and was bored to death. Some sailors enjoy just going to “The Club” with buddies and drinking beer; I just couldn’t handle it. The conversations were the same ones that I heard all day, every day, except the conversations made even less sense when the participants were drunk. The objective of the “Clubbers” in these excursions seemed to be to see if they could get drunker than the next guy and still walk back to the ship. It was just not my thing. I was back on the ship by eight o’clock.
The next night, I had duty and stayed aboard ship. So, by the next night, I was more than ready to join my friends as they headed for the U & I. But I was not prepared for the reception I got when I arrived.
As usual, we walked in, sat down at our accustomed seats, and ordered our San Miguel beers. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Skinny Mini walking toward me. I was talking and I didn’t pay attention until I got hit on the shoulder as hard as I’ve ever been hit. She almost knocked me out of the chair! For a tiny person, she packed one hell of a wallop!
“You Somanabeetch! I thought you my friend and then you not show up! Whatsa matter, you got other girlfriend? You butterfly on me? I like you, and you do this to me?”
The words were coming faster than I could decipher them, and she was so mad that her English was breaking up. I was so stunned that I couldn’t even reply. The guys jumped in and tried to explain that I had been on the ship, but she wasn’t buying it. She was as pissed as anyone that I have ever seen. She just kept hollering and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.
Finally Mama-San came in from an errand and jumped into the fray. She planted herself in front of the irate girl and, very quietly, said “Shut Up!”
Skinny-Mini froze. No one argued with Mama-San.
Then Mama-San started refereeing the situation. First she asked Skinny-Mini what the problem was. Then she turned to me and said, “Okay Joe, what’s the story? Are you a butterfly?”
She knew me well. For months, I had been “Jeff” to her, but the message was clear: if I was playing games with one of her “Cherry Girls,” I was just another Joe to her and I’d better either have some answers or I’d be leaving this bar.
I was collected enough by now to explain where I had been for the past two days, and Bob chimed in with “Mama, this guy sends most of his money home to his family, so he just can’t afford to be here every night.” (I was surprised. I didn’t know that Bob knew this about me.)
This caught Mama’s attention and her next question was to me, “Why you send money home?”
I really didn’t know what to say and I was so startled by the way this was turning that I just told the truth, “I have seven little brothers and sisters and the money helps to feed them.”
She looked at me with a gaze that could have penetrated steel, “This is the truth?” “Yes.”
She turned to Skinny-Mini, who was still looking pissed, and said, “He good man. You apologize!”
Skinny-Mini was still not convinced. She heard Mama-San and was obviously nervous about not doing as told, but she was still a feisty teenager. She turned to me and said, “All Americans are rich. Why you need to help family?”
At that, all of my friends broke up. None of us was anywhere near rich, and this did the trick. They couldn’t help laughing. I kept my cool, though, and explained to her, “We probably do have more than the people here, but we aren’t rich. All of our families”—I waved my hands to indicate the group of us—“struggle every day to make enough money to live. Our families work hard, but sometimes don’t have enough. So we help when we can. We owe that to our parents.” I went on, “I haven’t been a butterfly. I’ve been on the ship, and I didn’t know that you felt this way or I would have explained before. I’m really sorry if I’ve hurt you somehow.”
That did it. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. She was actually crying!
I could not believe it. The last thing that I had ever expected was that I would have someone in this tropical hellhole that actually cared about me. I’m afraid that I didn’t do a very good job of returning the kiss. I was too surprised to even react.
Mama-San came to the rescue, “I buy everybody beer. Let’s all sit down and talk.” So we did.
We all gabbed for about an hour there, mostly just explaining our lives “Stateside” to Skinny-Mini and the other girls. Their ideas about American life were all taken from the movies, and we were astounded about the things that they did not know about us. Since I was from Montana, their picture of my life was somewhere between a John Wayne Western and a Yellowstone Park travel brochure, with a Hollywood mansion of a home thrown in there somehow.
This topic gradually wore itself down, and the conversation turned to other things. I turned to Skinny-Mini and said “Look, I’ve had enough beer, and I’d like to do something else. If I pay Mama to get you out of here, would you like to get something to eat and go to a movie?”
She looked at me and said, “Two things you have to understand first: One, I don’t go to bed with anyone, not even you. Two, my name is Edith, not ever again Skinny-Mini.” I grinned and agreed.
Mama-San had overheard and said, “You two get out of here. First time, no charge.” It took us about a microsecond to make it out the door.
I had a great evening with my new friend. We ate some kind of local food that was very good and then we went off to a movie. I was surprised to find out that the movie, although it was in English, was entirely made in the Philippines by a local production company with local actors. It was a gangster movie that could have been made in America except for the actors’ appearances and accents. After the movie, we walked and talked. She told me about her life before Olongapo and I told her more about myself. It was such an enjoyable, innocent, evening that I have never forgotten it.
I walked her to her home, which it turned out was a boardinghouse on the outskirts of town. I kissed her goodnight and walked back to the base. It was a magic evening. Even the kiss was chaste, almost bashful. It was the nicest evening I could remember.
By the next day, I could hardly move my arm, and I had a huge purple bruise on my shoulder. I decided that I really didn’t want to piss off Edith again.
The next few weeks flew by in a haze. Edith and I went everywhere together. We spent the weekends on the beach, or as much of them as I could stand. I was permanently sunburned during this time. Edith couldn’t believe how red my poor body would get after just a little sun. In the evenings, I learned to make a beer or two last all night as we talked the evenings away. Mama-San was unbelievably supportive, even when her waitress was obviously ignoring her job to gab with me. We really did like each other. Looking back
on it, I guess we were two lost teenagers that had found companionship, and a little bit of happiness, in that strange place. But at the time, all I knew was that I was happy, really happy, for the first time that I could remember.
Once again, my old dreams of the cottage with the white picket fence became active. I could really see myself and Edith in the place, watching over the happy little children that we would take such good care of. Life was really good for me right then.
I caught a real raft of trouble from my friends about Edith. They were mostly of the opinion that Filipino women, particularly in Olongapo, were just not worth the time and trouble that I was putting into this relationship. The fact that we were not sleeping together made it even harder for them to understand.
Only Fred Ross supported me. As an orphan boy, I guess he had seen enough loneliness in his life, and he was wholeheartedly behind us. He even got in some people’s faces when their comments went too far.
I just cheerfully ignored it all. I was happy.
But all good things come to an end. Our stay in Subic Bay was over and we prepared to return to San Diego. In mid-February 1960, Edith and I said our tearful goodbyes and promised to write faithfully until we saw each other on the ship’s next cruise.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Stateside Studying
We steamed back to San Diego via Guam and Pearl Harbor. The married crew members were in a hurry to get home, so we didn’t linger in either place. We stayed in Guam just long enough to refuel, and we overnighted in Hawaii. It was late February when we pulled into San Diego Harbor, tying the ship up to the accompaniment of a Navy band and yelling, madly waving, family members. My first cruise to the Western Pacific was over.
About this time, the Navy-wide promotion tests were administered. I just barely had enough time in the service to qualify to take the third class petty officer (Pay Grade E-4) exam. I had no formal training and was just a few months off of the deck force, so I was a very long shot for promotion, but the Chief had recommended me and given me a chance at the test, so I’d studied madly during the transit back to the States. I knew I couldn’t match the knowledge that my peers/competitors had, since they had almost a year of school before they came aboard ship, but I decided to take the test anyway so that I would be better prepared when the next testing cycle came around in six months.
At that point in my life, one of my major goals was to be promoted to third class petty officer as soon as possible. It was especially important to me because my transfer off of the deck force was only a temporary action by a ship’s officer. If I made a mistake or got in trouble, no matter how minor, I could be summarily sent back to the deck force and end up cleaning heads for the remainder of my service. But if I was promoted to petty officer, my transfer off of the deck force would be permanent.
The examination for fire control technician third class was divided into two parts. The first part was on military matters and leadership principles. I figured that I had a good chance of passing this part. But the second part was completely dedicated to technical factors. In my case this included electronics, electromechanical systems, mechanical computers, and Navy Fire Control Systems. This was where my contemporaries who had been to school had a major advantage over me. I had studied this stuff on my own for almost a year, but I knew that I still had a tremendous amount to learn.
Rick and I took the test for fire control technician third class on the ship’s mess deck. Fred and Bob were both there, taking the test for second class petty officer. Of the four of us, I figured Fred and Rick were the ones most likely to pass. They had been to school before coming to the Cogswell and were known to be good technicians. Bob had a chance, since he had been working as a torpedoman for over four years now and had studied hard. Since I had come off the deck force recently and had absolutely no formal training, I knew that I was a very long shot for promotion.
When we finished with the tests, the answer sheets left the ship and went off to some far-away naval base for grading, and I went to my radar room and promptly made notes on what I had seen on the test. Then I started using the notes to begin studying for the next test.
The ship was in stand-down status, tied up to a pier, for a month after returning from WestPac. This gave the married crewmembers time with their families. A lot of the other sailors took leave during this period, but I decided to postpone going home for a few months so that I could save up a bit of money for the visit. I figured that I would go home just before the next cruise, which was scheduled to start in September. So I stayed aboard ship, taking the duty for people who wanted to go ashore and saving my money.
Then something happened that upset all of my plans. The test results came back and I had passed! I was going to be promoted to third class petty officer in June! This not only shocked me, but it absolutely astounded the Chief and my contemporaries. To come from the deck force and become a petty officer in less than a year was an unheard-of accomplishment. No one, including myself, could believe it. But it was happening!
To make things even better, Rick had also been promoted to third class, and both Bob and Fred were to be promoted to second class petty officers.
When they found out that I had somehow passed the test, Chief Evans and Ensign Grant went to Captain Moore and made an impassioned plea on my behalf; requesting that they find a way to send me to a Navy school. The Captain made some telephone calls, and I soon received official orders to go to Fire Control Technician “A” School.
Within a couple of weeks, I was on temporary duty at the San Diego Training Center, starting school. The only limitation on my school was that I would have to cut it short in order to be back aboard Cogswell in time for the next deployment. I would be getting the first eleven weeks of a thirty-two week school. I didn’t care if it was short—it was a start.
The “escape” that Mom and I had whispered about in that bunker so long ago was not here yet, but it was getting closer.
The only downside was that I wouldn’t be going home later in the year as planned. The school was going to keep me busy right up to deployment date, so taking leave was out of the question. By the time I could get back to Montana, I would have been gone almost two and a half years! That was a long time, but I had no choice.
I had been writing Mom regularly, so she had a good idea of how my life was going. I didn’t realize it, but she was really counting the days until I came home in the fall. When I got word about the school and the fact that I wouldn’t be making it home for at least another year, I called to tell her. She really broke down and cried when I told her what my schedule looked like. She was very encouraging and told me to give the school my best try, but she was obviously upset. That was tough.
I reported to school in early June, just a week or so before I was promoted. As a petty officer, I was fairly unique on the Navy Training Center where the school was located. Most of the sailors attending the schools were sent there directly from Boot Camp. So I was continually returning salutes from the kids that didn’t know any better than to salute me. But it was good. I was in a school finally, getting the training that the recruiter had promised me a year and a half ago.
I was a little concerned about my last conversation with Mom, so, as soon as I was settled on the base, I gave her another call. We had a long, very good, conversation, talking about everything from my life to happenings in St. Regis. In a part of the conversation, I told her that I’d been trying to save money, but that it just wasn’t working. Even if I had been able to go home, I didn’t have enough money to do it—saving just didn’t seem to be my thing.
So we came up with a plan. We agreed that I would increase the amount of money that I was sending her by the amount that my promotion was bringing in for me. In turn, she was to put the increase in a bank account for me so that I would have money to come home with when I got back from my next cruise. That sounded like a good idea, so I changed the allotment, and she opened a bank account in both of our names.
The school p
roved tougher than I had anticipated. With all of my past study and shipboard experience, the electrical and electronics part was easy. But there was a large theoretical component to the school that required heavy mathematics. This part was pure hell for me. The last math, of any kind, that I had studied was general mathematics in the eighth grade, almost eight years earlier. I tried, but most of the time I was just guessing at my answers to the math questions.
My old St. Regis/Boot Camp buddy, Joe Thompson, came to visit me while I was in school. It seemed like he had not changed even a little bit since we left Boot Camp. He had graduated from the Navy Jet Mechanic School in Tennessee and then been transferred to a Naval Air Station in Southern California. I was glad to see him. He had recently been back to St. Regis, so we spent a weekend gabbing about home and our friends.
About a month after Joe’s visit, I had another visit from another St. Regis hometown boy, a younger guy named Tom. He’d recently graduated from Boot Camp and had just returned from his first leave, so he had news about home and the people there. Between him and Joe, I was very homesick.
Tom was interesting, though, from another perspective. He really wanted to learn about the Navy from me. He was eager to do well in the Navy and he looked to me for advice. I had never seen myself as particularly experienced, but with Tom, I was suddenly an old salt. I did my best by him, but I think that I was probably more impressed with my suddenly salty status than he was.
I had several nightmares while I was going to school and sleeping in the barracks. The same old scenarios came back; I was always in some kind of a hole in the ground, with evil seeking me out.
It struck me as very odd that I never had a dream like these when I was aboard ship—not even when we had lost a man to a typhoon. Somehow, I never had nightmares when I slept in the ship, in spite of all the machinery noise and the constant bustle of shipboard life. But here, in the quiet of the barracks, they came often. Maybe I felt safer on the ship, I didn’t know. I thought a lot about it, but never really figured it out. In all of my time in the Navy, I never had a nightmare when I was aboard a ship.