I was thinking this morning and the notes I jotted down became the basis for this post. I was barely 18 when I enlisted in the navy. The picture below is me in boot camp. I don't think I was the image of a man suited to defend our country. Yet just 10 months later we were in a shooting war in Vietnam. Thousands of 18-20 year-old men started flooding into Vietnam, fighting in jungles and losing their lives. Think of the levels of responsibility for those young men, just out of high school and having to work as a team to save each others lives while taking enemy lives.
Navy jobs aren't as dangerous as army and marine, but the responsibilities are also crucial during fleet operations. Most of this post is focused on navy duties because I know more about that than I do about infantry operations. The picture below is me at 19, a year later. I was the youngest man on the crew. We were part of the team supplying overnight radar coverage for the 7th fleet off the coast of Vietnam, sometimes way up north where it was more dangerous than operating down south.
At 20 the only way I could get into a bar was being on duty with a shore patrol brassard on my arm and a night stick on my side.
At 21 I was aboard ship, working on airplanes on the flight deck. Keeping planes in the air instead of being on the hanger deck awaiting maintenance is an important responsibility for a 21 year-old. Those of you who know me later in life may notice I was much thinner then than when you ever saw me later on.
This picture below is of an aircraft flight deck. The young men who work on those decks are a majority of 18-25 years old. They have dangerous jobs that must have a high degree of responsibility when handling multi-million-dollar aircraft. Rigging jets with engines running at near 100% onto catapults (requiring them to be working underneath the jet) can be dangerous. Being on the flight deck during landings is dangerous because they never know where that plane will go when it catches an arresting wire, even more dangerous if the wire breaks. Those steel cables (3 inches thick) crack like a whip and can take an ankle or two off in the blink of an eye. I saw an hydraulics man get his head crushed inside the air brakes of a jet on the flight deck. I saw a plane catch an arresting wire too far left of center and that sent the plane into the catwalk where it cracked open like an egg before going over the side, killing three of the five aboard. I've seen men blown over the side of the ship by jet blasts. The flight deck crew on the Forrestal lost 132 crew members when a fire broke out on the flight deck and started exploding bombs and rockets. Loading ammunition on planes on flight decks is a hazardous job. One slip can crush a hand or break a back. I was on deck once when a plane returned from a raid over Vietnam. It had a bomb hung up that would not release over its target. It landed, caught the arresting wire and the jolt released the bomb, sending it skidding all the way down the angled deck and over the edge into the water. Those of us on deck held our breath until we were sure it had sunk and the ship was well past where the bomb went into the drink.
Summing up, of course our navy jobs are not as dangerous as soldiers or marines in ground combat; but if you die on the job, it doesn't matter to you or your loved ones how you died, it just matters that you did die. Young people, men and women these days have to mature far earlier than those in civilian life and they do. Just because a person is young does not mean they are not capable of doing great things.
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
At 20 the only way I could get into a bar was being on duty with a shore patrol brassard on my arm and a night stick on my side.
At 21 I was aboard ship, working on airplanes on the flight deck. Keeping planes in the air instead of being on the hanger deck awaiting maintenance is an important responsibility for a 21 year-old. Those of you who know me later in life may notice I was much thinner then than when you ever saw me later on.
This picture below is of an aircraft flight deck. The young men who work on those decks are a majority of 18-25 years old. They have dangerous jobs that must have a high degree of responsibility when handling multi-million-dollar aircraft. Rigging jets with engines running at near 100% onto catapults (requiring them to be working underneath the jet) can be dangerous. Being on the flight deck during landings is dangerous because they never know where that plane will go when it catches an arresting wire, even more dangerous if the wire breaks. Those steel cables (3 inches thick) crack like a whip and can take an ankle or two off in the blink of an eye. I saw an hydraulics man get his head crushed inside the air brakes of a jet on the flight deck. I saw a plane catch an arresting wire too far left of center and that sent the plane into the catwalk where it cracked open like an egg before going over the side, killing three of the five aboard. I've seen men blown over the side of the ship by jet blasts. The flight deck crew on the Forrestal lost 132 crew members when a fire broke out on the flight deck and started exploding bombs and rockets. Loading ammunition on planes on flight decks is a hazardous job. One slip can crush a hand or break a back. I was on deck once when a plane returned from a raid over Vietnam. It had a bomb hung up that would not release over its target. It landed, caught the arresting wire and the jolt released the bomb, sending it skidding all the way down the angled deck and over the edge into the water. Those of us on deck held our breath until we were sure it had sunk and the ship was well past where the bomb went into the drink.
Summing up, of course our navy jobs are not as dangerous as soldiers or marines in ground combat; but if you die on the job, it doesn't matter to you or your loved ones how you died, it just matters that you did die. Young people, men and women these days have to mature far earlier than those in civilian life and they do. Just because a person is young does not mean they are not capable of doing great things.
Copyright Bill Weber 2019 and beyond.
No comments:
Post a Comment