Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

The Old Navy as I knew it...

USS Vogelgesang in rough seas...

Don't talk to me about the OLD NAVY UNLESS...

Granted there is Old Navy and there is much Older Navy.

Lets consider a possible scenario... You are just out of boot camp and are reporting to your first ship, which is a tin can. It could be a Forest Sherman Class or a Gearing Class.

It is about 2030 on a Sunday night as you approach your ship. It is in a nest of other destroyers tied up at the Norfolk piers. You salute the Ensign as you cross the brow and request permission to report aboard from the OD (Officer of the Deck). He is a Lieutenant and by the tattoos he is sporting on his forearms and you bet he is a mustang. (This is when a sailor becomes an officer by starting out as an enlisted). He inspects your orders and says, "Welcome aboard sailor." He then turns to a messenger and says "Run Seaman Kid up to the Personnel Office." You enter through a weather door forward of the quarterdeck and proceed up an interior passageway that runs almost the length of the ship. You both pass through the galley in which a movie is being shown in black and white. It is Casablanca with Humphrey Bogart. The duty Personnelman checks you in and the messenger takes off. The Personnelman says. “You are being assigned to the OI division since I see you are striking for Radarman. There are no available bunks in OI so you will bunk aft with the Supply guys. I will take you down there but before I do here is your GI (USN) Gray blanket, a fart-sack (mattress slip cover), a thin mattress, a rectangular piece of canvas, torpedo bag for your toilet articles and some line (Small stuff). You will find an aluminum frame which to make up your rack. Lights go out at 2200 sharp so we best get you down to your berthing compartment. Listen Kid my name is Bartholomew but everybody calls me Bart. Here let me help you with some of this stuff.”

So, we go out on to the weather deck through a door just aft of the Officer's Wardroom. Just aft of a 5" 54 mount you both drop down through a hatch like monkeys right into the supply-sleeping compartment. You find a small mailbox size metal locker and put your extra master combination lock on it. You then find a bottom bunk in a tier of 3.

All the top bunks are taken. Bart then gives you a few tips and you proceed to make up your bunk from scratch. After you have finish you take out some extra socks, skivvies, white T-shirts, towels, white hats and a working uniform out of your sea bag. Oh, don’t forget your boon Dockers. The pea coat and dress blues stay in the bag. You are now in your skivvies and in a bad way in need of a dump. So with your flip-flops on you go up the ladder and straight away to the head.

After taking care of business you decide to take a shower. Oh by the way the toilets are quite primitive... they remind you of the same set up in an Outhouse you found when you visited your sweet Grandmother in Louisiana. The water used for flushing is salt water. The water for shower is fresh but icy cold but since you are hot it works out just fine.

After you are through with your douche you go back down to your berthing compartment and try out your newly laced bunk. The next thing you know you are fast a sleep. It was a long trip from Great Lakes to Norfolk by train. The only thing you recall as you roll over is the lights going off and the Bosun pipe as you hear coming over the 1MC the word, "Lights out... Lights out. All hands turn in. The smoking lamp is now out in all berthing spaces."

Then as if it was only a few minutes have passed the lights come back on and the Bosun pipe again with, "Reveille, Reveille... up all hands. Thrice up all racks. (That meant you got your bunk off the 90-degrees level and placed in it a 45-degree position. This would put it out of the way. You also couldn't get back into it during the day... it was verboten.) Sweepers… sweepers get your brooms give a clean sweep down fore and aft, get the ladders as you go. Now hear this muster at 0700."

You look at your watch and it reads only 0530. Wow, you think… you just turned in but you see everybody getting up so you best do the same.

There begins your first day onboard a tin can … the adventure has begun...

Now if that is not Old Navy I will eat my white hat.

USS Vogelgesang coming home from deployment...

My Panama at night...

I spend most of my growing up years on Naval Bases and Navy Towns in the old Canal Zone. My uncle had served in the Coast Guard and in the Navy during WWII. So, for me it was a logical choice to join the US Navy out of BHS. Besides I live on Tamarind Avenue in Cocoli, a Navy Town in my day, and just a few houses up from me lived a Navy Recruiter. So, in my last year at BHS we talked and a year later I enlisted at Rodman Naval Station and went on to Camp Moffet, Great Lakes Naval Recruit Training Center (Boot Camp). I am glad I did. During the time I was there I kept meeting Cocolians coming through. We had a Ge-Dunk Hall (something like a day room) where boots would gather after the day's work was completed. It was usually for an hour just before evening chow. One day I met 3 guys who had live on Sago Avenue in Cocoli. That is how it has been until I retired. CZ Brats seem to pop up in the strangest places. Once at the YMCA-USO in Istanbul, Turkey I ran into a few other guys. But the call of the sea has been always strong... one can not sit there in the Canal Zone on a 24/7/365 and see ships lock through the Panama Canal and not wonder what if I was onboard one. Then as others have said, one day you just do it! In my case it was the US Navy. And when you leave your ship in your cracker jacks (that is how it was in my day) and strut your stuff up the pier...You can only think, Wow, Life is Good!...

Yes! Let's escape to my Panama
at the crossroads of world commerce
in the heart of the universe...
Let the magic begin.

Click for Tocumen, Panama Forecast

Night comes as softly
As a whisper on the wind
Sweet dreams come alive

USS Carney

"Home is the sailor, home from the sea, and the hunter home from the hill."
Robert Louis Stevenson

To believe.....to reach.....to strive is to keep a dream alive.
If you use each today as a chance to reach out,
to learn something more of what life's all about.......
If you follow your dreams, strive to make them come true.....
Then life's sure to bring
all the best things to you.
----Unknown

"And the sea will grant each man new hope, as sleep brings dreams of home."
----- Christopher Columbus (1451 - 1506)

Old Admiralty prayer: “Lord, Thou knowest how busy I shall be this day. If I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me.”

When you have heard it all... Carpe Diem.
Yes seize the day!

Here are a few final thoughts:

Make the best use of what is in your power
and take the rest as it happens...---- Epictetus

You are beaten to earth...
Well, well, what is that?
It is nothing against you to fall down flat,
But to lie there...
now that is a disgrace.
--- Mike Ditka

"... And the sea will grant each man new hope,
as sleep brings dreams of home."

--- Admiral of the Seas, Christopher Columbus


Escape to Panama


It has been a real pleasure sharing some of my love of Panama
as I remember it. Feel free to check out other pages.....you'll be glad you did! So take care and drop by again.
We will all be here, God willing. Hasta la Vista....
See you on the flip side.


Photo Credits: Author,Bill Fall, Montana, CZ & PCC Archives and US Navy Archives

Too Many Secrets

Little Stories to enjoy

Sing and rejoice, tra-la-la, for fortune is smiling upon you!