The Sentinel, First Navy Shore Patrol 210318

      Time for some sea stories.

That's me on the left of the picture.

       Back in the days when I was a young lad in the Navy I was a fairly slender guy. In fact my original issue uniforms included trousers with a 26-inch waist. I’ve lost that slim, trim image through the years, but one thing I’ve never lost or ever will is my sad face. I’ve always looked like I’m mad about something. Family members, friends and my own wife have always asked me if everything’s all right, if I’m mad about something. I’m not usually upset when they ask. My Mother had that same look.

That angry countenance has worked against me all of my life. Nowhere did it hurt more than when I was assigned Shore Patrol duty. From Millington, Tennessee to Hong Kong, the routine was the same. Navy Shore Patrol was setup the same way. There was a small cadre of full time Shore Patrol; (always guys whose specialties were sea duty rates with no other shore duty billets, rates such as a boiler tender, or engineman) the Navy had no professional police type rates, like the Army does. The full time Shore Patrol always had a temporary brig in the port of call with a big parking lot outside. The duty Shore Patrol, guys like me, there for one night, would report from every squadron or ship in the area and would mill about the parking lot at around 2 PM for roll call. The shore patrol Chief in charge of the station would line us up in formation, usually perform an impromptu personnel inspection, call roll and give out any special instructions. We would all have our armbands and night sticks from the ship or station we were assigned to at the time. The Chief would then pair us up and give us our assigned patrols. I can only assume that my usually angry face made me stand out, more often than not I was chosen to accompany one or more of the full time Shore Patrolmen who drove the trucks and picked up the drunks and troublemakers. It had to be my face, because I never weighed more than 150 pounds, so I wouldn’t have been much help in a riot.

The duty would often last from 2 pm in a foreign port, (most, but not all sailors had a difficult time getting really drunk before 2:00 pm). Shore patrol went until 1 am or 2 am the next morning, so we could ensure all who intended to return to their ship or duty station made it there safely. 12 hours of foot patrol is a long time, especially with someone you have just met.

My first time was in San Diego, back in 1966. Sailors on ships back then were not allowed to have civilian clothes aboard ship, so downtown San Diego had a thriving business in what were called “locker clubs.” There were a large number of lockers to store civilian clothes. The locker clubs also had laundries, pawnshops, gift shops and some other things you don’t need to know about. Disputes between two Sailors or Sailors and owners or drunks passing out in the locker area made them a hotbed of activity. That night I was assigned to ride with one of the permanent Shore Patrolmen, a crusty old salt, tattoo laden, and hard-bitten, hard living sailor from the Korean War days.

It was still early evening when we got our first call to one of the locker clubs. We pulled up and went inside where the Sailor and the manager were still arguing over whatever the issue was, so we separated the two of them. The fulltime Shore Patrolman spoke to the manager, while I had to keep the Sailor away from them. I have no idea of what the disagreement was about, but we departed with the Sailor. We stopped out at the curb and I was told to pat him down for weapons while the driver opened the cage in the back of the truck. All I knew about searching for weapons was from the movies so I was quite gentle and didn’t want to get personal enough that I would be asked out on a date the next evening. The driver got the cage open and then he asked me if I was done and I said “yes;” he then asked if I checked his boot? I had gingerly tapped the outside of them.

“Reach down in them,” he ordered.

I did as instructed, and damned if he didn’t have a three-inch knife in his boot! Well I was shocked. I had never known anyone that carried a knife at that sheltered point in my life. We took that young lad over to the brig and put him behind bars. He seemed nice enough until he saw those bars, he wasn’t a big guy at all but he wasn’t going into that cell, no way! It took three of us to shove him in there.

The next guy we picked up was a cook off of some ship down at 32nd street. He was drunk, overweight and belligerent. We stuffed him into the back cage on the truck and drove off to the brig again. We struggled getting him into the truck and on the way out of the truck, and then into the registration area of the brig, then down the hall to the cells. As soon as he saw those bars, he was docile as a two-day old lamb. It seemed then (and all through my many shore patrol duties) that the guys who were most troublesome on the street just went limp when they saw those cell doors and those submissive on the beat, became tigers when they saw those steel bars ready to lock them up.

The last pickup that night was an Army Sergeant just back from Vietnam. A bar owner had called in about him and we went out to pick him up. He didn’t seem bad to me, just drunk. The fulltime Shore Patrolman asked him if he had a place to stay so we could drive him there. We didn’t want to lock up a guy who had just returned from combat. He had no place to go and didn’t want to get himself a hotel room. He didn’t want to do anything but go back into that bar, so we had no choice but to take him downtown and put him in the brig for his own safety. He was so liquored-up he may have been an easy prey for a couple of thugs to roll him and possibly harm him. We, I, loaded him into the truck cage and rode back to the brig with him. The Chief in charge talked to him and tried to find somewhere to take him rather than a cell, but he wouldn’t admit to having anywhere to go; so the Chief told us to surround this guy and be careful, he could be an army Ranger and might just go into some super defense mode and kick a few asses when he saw those bars in back. I looked at the Shore Patrol driver at that point and thought “that’s why you let me put him in the back of the truck and ride with him, he could have stuck a boot through my gut and out my backbone.” It turned out the Sergeant was quite easy going and went into the cell quietly. They turned him loose without a report the next morning as soon as he was sober.

Throughout the night we patrolled the local beaches, along with all of the nearby bars, where the driver spoke in whispers to the barmaids after initial greetings and questions about any troublemakers. I think maybe he was setting himself up for his next night off duty. He seemed to know all of those barmaids and they obviously liked him.