Sea Stories and More with Jim

More tales from my time as a tow-truck driver while I was in high school.

The Summer was hot and boring and when you're a bunch of brownwater navy scrubs, you don't get many opportunities for treats, but somehow, we did...

The closing music is "Tonto" by Silent Partner

If you have questions or just want to say hi, I can be reached at @seastoriesnmore on Twitter or via email - [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you!

Jim

While I was in Vietnam, my wife gave birth to our first child, my daughter. I heard about it through the grapevine, but I wanted to hear for myself, so I "borrowed" some transportation in order to go have some people help me. And in one of the most astounding days of my life, I got help, big time.

*Note: At the beginning of this episode, I state that it was May 11th, 1971, when in fact it was May 21st or 22nd.

The closing music is "Tonto" by Silent Partner

Please bear with me as I play around with the format of this little podcast. Thank you for your patience.

If you have questions or just want to say hi, I can be reached at @seastoriesnmore on Twitter or via email - [email protected]

I look forward to hearing from you!

Jim

My first trip to Guam was not a good trip. Theft, fights and ugly women marred this voyage and we weren't even pirates. Listen close, there is a little bit of history in this one.

This time I try to explain what it takes to be sub-human - per US Navy standards. Boot Camp was not easy on two main levels: it was physically tough and mentally draining as it was designed to break you down so they could build you up. However, it was clear that whether you screwed up or not, the superiors made sure you screwed up, made sure you felt like you screwed up or were penalized for someone else who screwed up.

And then there is all the puke.

I had a few jobs from the time I was fifteen and a half - and they paid well and built character - some more than others.

This time I am sketching out some details of my youth: my family, what made me different from my brothers - and my sister, what my family had and did compared to the other families in Hollister, CA during the 1950's and 1960's and the impact of my mother's home-cooked meals on a local boy.

With a month left of active duty, I was ordered to a month, plus several days of overseas duty, which mostly consisted of traveling to and back from Southeast Asia. I experienced long waits, a funeral at sea - which became a shooting gallery, the darkly political side of last-minute orders and the darkly political side of returning home in San Francisco.

During Boot Camp, everyone must complete a week of duties outside normal training - and this called "Service Week." As one of the luckiest men in the history of lucky men, I was ordered to what turned out to be the best job in the US Navy and quite possibly the world.

At sea, on board the USS Pledge, a US Navy minesweeper headed to Vietnam, a terrible accident occurs, which haunts me to this day.