Welcome To The Jungle - Part Ten: The Reserves

ACTIVE DUTY IS OVER.  TIME TO SEE WHAT THE RESERVES ARE ALL ABOUT...

GMG3 Peterson - Navy Reserves - Laramie, WY - 1991

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR:  SIGNING UP IN CHEYENNE…AGAIN

To quote Yogi Berra, the trip over the hill to Cheyenne was like “déjà vu all over again”.  It had been a very short three and a half years earlier that I had first gone to talk to Chief Felton – the visit that got the wheels rolling and landed me onboard the Fresno.  I never thought I’d be going back to the scene of the crime and talking to another recruiter, but here I went.  I didn’t even know that there was a Navy Reserve Center in Cheyenne – and I had lived there for two years!  I followed the directions they had given me over the phone and soon found myself in the same neighborhood we had lived in when we first moved to Wyoming from Iowa.  According to my directions, the Reserve Center was about two blocks from our old house.  As I found the street - Ocean Loop - and turned up it, I suddenly recognized the building.  When we had lived in Cheyenne, it was a delivery warehouse for Sears.  It had since been converted into a Navy Reserve Center, complete with the obligatory anchor on the front lawn.  I pulled up into the parking lot in front, and promptly parked in the space clearly marked “Reserved for Center CO”.  I could really have cared less about military decorum at this point.  I got out of my car and walked in to find the Reserve Recruiter.

I was met at the front desk by a bored looking First Class who pointed me toward the recruiter’s office, which was a small room off the main hallway.  I walked in and introduced myself to him. 

 “GMG3 Peterson reporting for duty…I guess” 

 “Peterson?  Oh yeah, the guy who hadn’t reported yet.  Welcome back.” 

 I sat down and talked with the recruiter as he explained the deal.  As with most sailors right off  active duty, I was required to serve time in the Navy Reserves.  Everyone who enlisted signed some sort of eight-year contract.  Most guys did four years of active duty, followed by two years of active reserves and two years of inactive reserves.  According to the recruiter, active reserves were the guys who drilled one weekend a month and inactive reserves weren’t required to drill at all.  They just had to stay on a call-up list if things ever got down to that.  Since I had only signed up for two years of active duty, I was required to do four years of active reserves.  But, the recruiter informed me, since I was on the Sea College Plan, my active reserve time was a bit different.  Since I was supposed to be going to school, the Navy wasn’t going to require me to drill one weekend a month.  However, there was the little matter of two weeks’ worth of active duty training (AT) per year AND the occasional “additional training” that I could be sent as far away as Guam for!  Besides, he reminded me, with my inactive reserve time as well, the Navy had their hooks in me until 1995, so I’d better get used to the idea. 

 The recruiter told me that I was required to spend two weeks a year, usually during the summer months, on active duty.  Normally, they sent you out to whatever ship the Reserve Center was attached to.  The center in Cheyenne was attached to the USS Vincennes and the USS Valley Forge, both Aegis-equipped guided missile cruisers.  Very new, very cool, very top-of-the-line ships.  They were so new they didn’t even HAVE GMG’s on them.  All of their gunners were GMM’s (Gunner’s Mate Missiles) and GMT’s (Gunner’s Mate Technical).  The dear old GMG rate was being phased out of the modern Navy.  We were evidently too old and antiquated to have a place among all the new technology.  As a matter of fact, today the Navy only has GM’s – no M or T designations either.  But I digress.  According to the recruiter, they would be sending me out to work on one of those two ships during the summer for the next three years.  Either that, or some other type of duty that the Navy deemed necessary.  I wasn’t entirely thrilled with having to go back into service, but I HAD signed the contract.  Besides, they were going to pay me an entire month’s pay for those two weeks.  I grudgingly agreed and signed the papers which made me an official active member of the Navy Reserves.

 Before I could go, the recruiter told me the deal about weekend training.  He said that one weekend a month, they would bring us all to Cheyenne, put us up in a motel and give us two days’ training.  For our time and trouble, we would get four days’ pay and our meals and travel would be paid.  I was seriously thinking about signing up for weekend drill when he hit me with the kicker – since I was Sea College, and not required to drill on weekends, I could quit whenever I wanted.  If I did one weekend and decided that it was too much to deal with, I could quit and only do the two weeks AT per year. 

 Four days’ pay for two days work PLUS a room, meals and gas money.  Sounded sweet to me – another check coming in would be nice too, especially since I’d pretty much run through all of my Navy nest egg as I partied my way through the first semester of college.  I signed up for weekend drill and agreed to come back next weekend for my first one.  They’d explain all of the rest of the details then.  I shook the recruiter’s hand and walked out of his office.  As I climbed back in my car, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I had just agreed to put myself through a lot more of the same crap that I’d just gotten out of.  Oh well, I thought the extra money would make it all worth it.  I was such a sucker.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE:  WEEKEND DUTY

I spent the next week feeling very apprehensive about the weekend to come.  I had no idea what to expect.  I was worried that it would be a lot more of the same BS I had come to associate with the Navy.  I had grown very weary of dealing with that stuff by the time I finished active duty, and I was not looking forward to throwing myself right back into it. 

 When Friday night finally came, I drove over to Cheyenne and checked myself into the Rodeway Inn – a cheap motel that was the “assigned duty motel” for the weekend.  Evidently, we stayed at a different place every weekend.  It was a good thing, too, as the Rodeway Inn wasn’t exactly a high-class joint.  But at least they had a decent bar, so once I was checked in, that’s where I headed.  It was late fall, and very cold outside.  The roads were full of snow and ice, and just getting to Cheyenne had been an adventure.  I decided that I needed a drink to help calm me down.  I walked into their bar – the “Outlaw Saloon”, and ordered my usual Beam and Coke with a Budweiser chaser.  The bartender didn’t look at me twice, which was good, because I was still eight months away from 21.  He served my drinks and I sat at the bar to enjoy.  As I looked around the room, I suddenly realized that it was full of sailors.  Nobody was wearing a uniform and everyone’s hair was a little too long and the mustaches were a little too far out of regs, but you couldn’t deny that these were sailors.  The language, the actions, the drinking…it felt like I was sitting in the base club in Long Beach again....or maybe at PuBeS, waiting on my laundry!

 I met and talked with a couple of guys sitting next to me, and found out that, sure enough, they were all Reservists in town for drill weekend.  We all bellied up to the bar and got good and chewed as we shared active duty stories all night.  I was the “new kid” by far – I had been off active duty just a few months, while most of the other guys had been out for a couple of years, at least.  They were all good guys, and it was a fun evening.  Somewhere around midnight, I managed to stumble back to my room, where I passed out and waited for the alarm clock to wake my drunken ass up at 0600. 

 When the alarm went off the next morning, the first thing I realized was that I wasn’t alone – somewhere in the night, I had acquired a roommate.  Evidently, they had us bunked two to a room, and my room was no exception.  My roommate was a gigantic fat guy who looked like there was no way he could pass even the first boot camp PT test.  I awoke to the sight of him grunting and straining, trying to fit into his dress blues.  It didn’t work out too well – he was oozing out of his uniform everywhere.  We headed down to the motel restaurant for breakfast, and I met up with a couple of guys I had been hanging out with in the bar the night before.  One of them was a kid about my age who was from Scottsbluff, Nebraska.  His name was Eric Feinstein and he was actually a Freshman at the University of Nebraska – or he would have been, but he blew out his knee a couple of months before he got off active duty, and was now taking a year off before he started college.  The Navy had let him leave active duty and put him into the Reserves to finish out his time.  He and I got along very well.  We drove to the reserve center in my car, and he showed me the ropes that morning.

 The Reserve Center in Cheyenne was the most relaxed military installation I had ever been to.  There were very few, if any, salutes to be seen, and most guys were totally lax in everything – from military bearing to grooming standards.  It was like everyone felt the way I did – they didn’t really want to be here, but the money was nice, and it was a nice way to get away from the wife and kids for a weekend.  The Cheyenne Reserve Center was home to four different Reserve Units – there were the two shipboard units; the USS Vincennes and the USS Valley Forge, one SeaBee unit, and one Navy Field Hospital unit.  We all drilled separately (well, the shipboard units drilled together) and only came together for musters and quarters in the morning and afternoon. 

 I was assigned to the USS Valley Forge, and after quarters I headed into the classroom for my first day of Navy Reserves.  I made sure to grab a big cup of coffee and a couple of donuts first, though.  We were supposed to start class at 0730, but by the time everyone finally made it to the Center, and decided who was going to teach the lesson for the day (shades of Apprentice Training here), it was almost 0830 – time for a coffee break.  So that’s what we did.

 We finally got started with the actual training around 0900.  It consisted of watching an old out-dated movie about Damage Control onboard ship, and talking about some of the DC features on board the Vincennes and Valley Forge.  It was pretty useless, since no one had been on board either of the ships, and they were trying to teach us from a book the ship had sent about her systems.  Thankfully, it was soon time to go to lunch, so the lesson was cut short.

 At lunchtime, we caravaned over to the Royal Fork Buffet, where the Navy paid for lunch.  It wasn’t bad, and we ate a ton!  After eating, we headed back toward the Reserve Center and took naps until it was time to muster again at 1300.  The afternoon was much the same as the morning – another three hours of completely useless lecture and training.  At 1600, we mustered in the main drill hall again, and they dismissed us for the day.  And that was that.  My first day of Reserve drill had been a complete joke.  If this was all I had to do for my money, I was in luck!  Because we hadn’t done anything! 

 Once back at the motel, we changed out of our uniforms, and most of the guys headed to dinner or the bar.  I drove across town to pay a visit to my “second parents”, Charlie and Sherry DeFond.  I hadn’t seen them since before I left for active duty in 1988, and I was way past due for a visit.  Besides, Sherry had promised to cook me dinner.  It was a nice visit, and when I left at around 21:00 that night, I intended to go directly back to the motel to go to bed.  Somehow, though, my car made a detour, and I ended up in front of the Cheyenne Club.  The Cheyenne Club was a bar in downtown Cheyenne that let 18-year olds in.  If you were under 21, they would mark your hand, and you were supposedly not allowed to drink. It worked about as well as you would imagine.  That little magic marker stripe on the back of the hand never stopped anybody from drinking in the Cheyenne Club.  When the bouncer asked to see my ID, without thinking, I handed him my Military ID card.  

 “Just get off active duty?” he asked. 

 “ Wha..?  Oh – yeah, just got out.” 

 “Well then, you deserve this…just behave yourself.”

 With that he marked my hand with the “21” stripe, giving me free reign to drink all I wanted.  I guess with things beginning to get tense in the Gulf, and with an Air Force base in town, the bouncer was doing what he felt was his patriotic duty and letting the military guys drink.  Whatever the reason, I appreciated it, and I availed myself of his hospitality.  I drank.  I drank a lot.  By the time 0200 came and they bar closed, I was absolutely hammered.  I staggered out of the bar and found my way to my car.  I was in no shape to drive, but the motel was on the other side of town, and I had to have my car to get to drill in the morning.  This seemed to me to be a perfect reason to drive, so I crawled in and started it up. 

 As I eased away from the curb, my unfamiliarity with the streets of downtown Cheyenne soon hit me.  I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, and I began to realize that most of the streets were one way.  That’s when I came up with a fool-proof plan – why, I’d just drive through the alleys, then I wouldn’t get caught on any of the one-ways, and no cops would see me!  The plan worked brilliantly for about three blocks – that’s when I decided I was hungry.  I knew there was a Hardee’s on the next block, so when I got to the end of the alley, I hung a right and headed towards the Hardee’s parking lot.  What I didn’t know was that the street I was driving down was a one-way…the OTHER way!  No sooner had I figured out that the headlights coming right for me were there for a reason, I realized that I was going the wrong way.  I also realized that the headlights I was pointed at belonged to a Cheyenne city cop!  I pulled over to the side of the street (still pointed the wrong way) and waited for him to come haul me to jail.  Instead, he rolled his window down and drove by slowly, shaking his finger at me!  I couldn’t believe my good luck!  I counted my blessings, threw a quick U-Turn and headed back down the street the right way.  I didn’t stop at Hardees, or anywhere for that matter, until I got back to the motel.  I went right up to my room and crawled in bed, just hoping that my fat roommate had set an alarm clock.  I was awash in relief, and Jim Beam, as sleep overtook me.

 I woke up on Sunday morning feeling like so many active duty mornings before.  I was broke and hungover, smelled like a brewery and had a wrinkled uniform.  Luckily for me, so did 90% of the other guys at the Reserve Center!  As a result, Sunday was even less productive than Saturday had been.  All we did was sit around and BS about the night before, and nurse our hangovers.  We drank a lot of coffee and ate a lot of donuts, and that was about it.  Soon it was lunchtime, and then it was 1600 and the weekend was over.  I had survived my first Reserve Drill Weekend.  Actually, far from just surviving it, I had kind of enjoyed it!  I decided that this weekend drill thing wasn’t going to be too bad after all – especially once that check arrived! 

 I drove back to Laramie that afternoon and spent a couple of quick hours finishing my homework that was due on Monday.  I decided then that I would do weekend drill my entire Reserve enlistment, because the money was good, and it was just another great excuse to get drunk.  I put my uniforms away and marked the next reserve weekend on my calendar.  I was a full-fledged Reservist now!  I was looking forward to next month – maybe I’d even sign up for my two weeks’ duty then as well!  I just know I was fired up about the next part of my Navy Adventure.

 Around that time (November, 1990), the thought that was above all others in our minds was the growing tension in the Persian Gulf region.  We had all heard that they weren’t letting anybody off of active duty until the conflict was resolved, and rumor had it that war was imminent.  When Operation Desert Shield was started, several Reserve Units got the call to go.  The majority of units that were being mobilized were units like the SeaBees and the Field Hospital Units.  Since I was assigned to a surface ship, the chances of me being recalled to active duty lay somewhere between slim and none. 

 As December rolled around, it became very evident that we were going to war, so things got serious around the Reserve Center.  We were told to stand fast and be ready to go at a moment’s notice.  We had to notify the Center if we were going to leave the area, and we were asked to not leave the States.  I didn’t have any immediate vacation plans, but I did decide to stick around over the Christmas Holidays just in case. 

 Then the call to duty came – the Center’s SeaBee Unit was recalled to active duty.  They were sent off to help build infrastructure in Saudi Arabia – Hospitals, airfields, barracks and the like.  When they left, the reality of war began to sink in.  I decided then that I wanted to do my duty.  I called the Center and asked if there was any way I could volunteer for the next wave of call-ups.  They told me that the only way I could do it was if I temporarily transferred to the Hospital Unit as a part of their security detail.  I told them to start the paperwork, and I waited for the call.  Part of the Field Hospital Unit was then called into Active Duty, to be followed soon thereafter by another part of the Unit.  I was still waiting for my paperwork to go through so that I could be part of that second unit, when the attacks began.  I watched on TV the night we attacked Baghdad.   They were having a party at a house I hung out at a lot in college, and I almost got into a fight with a group from the UW’s Theater Department over it.  They thought war was terrible and inhuman, and I was drunk and thought that war was pretty cool and my sworn duty!  Needless to say, it wasn’t a pretty sight.  I ended up being shoved into a car and driven home by a friend of mine, who was smart enough to realize that bad things were about to happen to some peaceniks.

 As the Gulf War attacks continued, so did the call-ups.  I was told that my paperwork had gone through, and I was scheduled to be part of the next round of recalls.  I was excited and ready to go do my duty.  I followed the happenings overseas intently, preparing myself for getting thrown into the middle of it.  And then – just 100 hours after it began, it was over.  The war – and my chance to defend my country – was over.  I couldn’t believe it.  I was really bummed.  I hoped that maybe they would send me over to help with the clean-up or something, but no such luck.  I was returned to my regular Reserve Unit, and my chance at attaining war hero status was gone. 

 Looking back on it now, with all the Gulf War Syndrome cases that popped up, it was probably for the best anyway.  At least I earned a ribbon for my Reserve Service during the war – my second one.  I now proudly wore both the Sea Service AND the National Defense ribbons.  I was a decorated veteran!  As the excitement of the Gulf War wore down, our shipped-out Units returned to Cheyenne and I returned to my regular Unit.  Things in the Navy Reserves soon fell back into the same old routine of worthless drill weekends and bad hangovers.  But it was nice to know that we actually DID respond to the call when they needed us.  Maybe all of that military training did have a point, after all.

 The next few months went smoothly.  The one weekend a month thing was kind of fun.  Those military weekends were more of an excuse to party with a bunch of old sailors than they were to give us any sort of real training!  We made a vain attempt at training, but since we were clear out in Wyoming, the Navy didn’t seem too anxious to send us any up-to-date training aids, and we went through pretty much everything we did have…twice.  It was more a series of drunks, hangovers and half-assed inspections than anything resembling the “real Navy”.  They DID give me a complete seabag full of new uniforms though.  As part of my Reserve deal, the Navy was required to issue me a complete set of uniforms…that fit.  I guess they knew that the change in lifestyle from active duty to reserve duty usually added more than a couple of pounds to sailors, and rather than have the Reservists walking around looking like overstuffed sausages, they just gave us all new uniforms.  I was one of the lucky ones – my lifestyle hadn’t really changed much – I was still partying 24/7 and hadn’t yet learned how to eat right, so I hadn’t gained any weight since my release from active duty.  So now I had TWO complete sets of uniforms – and one of them didn’t have any paint stains or oil spots on them!

 As the winter passed into spring, the C.O. of the Reserve Center began to stress the fact that we needed to start looking into finding our two weeks’ training assignments for the year.  There were actual assignment postings that we could go to and apply to get sent to.  You could apply to do something within your rate at any place that needed help – like the base armory in Pearl Harbor, or at the Naval Gunnery Range in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  If you couldn’t find anything you wanted on that list, you would be sent to your unit’s assigned ship (the USS Valley Forge in my case) for two weeks.  I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about where I was going to go – it was getting too close to finals week in college to waste my time with it.  The next big Navy event for me was the Physical Training (PT) test in May.  The command was coming down hard on us, saying that there were too many of us out of shape, and that we had to pass this test or else we would face dire circumstances.  Basically, if we didn’t pass the test, we’d be forced to do Physical Training after our regular drill on that one Saturday a month…pretty “dire”.

 The requirements for this test were similar, but not quite as intense, as our last boot camp test.  The requirements changed according to age, since I was still 20, I had to do the maximum.  I had to do 25 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and run a mile and a half in 14 minutes.  Whew! 

 I was a little worried about it on the morning of the test.  I hadn’t worked out once since I got off active duty, and even then, the only work outs I did involved weight lifting…12 ounces at a time!  Since the Reserve Center didn’t have facilities for workouts, they had us all drive over to F.E. Warren Air Force Base, as it was the closest military installation.  Eric and I drove over together and took our places in the base gym for our test. 

 The order came down, “Go!”, and Eric and I blew through our push-ups and sit-ups and then sat and watched the rest of the Reservists grunting, groaning and sweating their way through theirs.  It was kind of funny how fat and out of shape most of those guys were!  Once we had finished (or most of us had, anyway), we took our places at the starting line of the indoor track.  The room was stuffy and hot and we were all sweating and about half-dead.  Oh well, it was only 11 laps around the tiny little track. 

“GO!”

 We were off – Eric and I started running together, to keep each other company and keep our minds off the fact that we were about to die!  As we made our fourth and fifth trips around the track, we began to lap runners with regularity.  Guys were dropping out left and right, and the heavy smokers were coughing up a lung.  We just kept running.  9…10…11!  We were done!  Eric and I stopped running and looked at the clock – 10:30!  Not a bad time for a mile and a half…we were in a lot better shape than we thought!  As the two of us took a seat and watched the other guys run, it became evident that we were the only two who were going to pass the test!  Nobody else came across the finish line until well after the 14-minute mark.  The entire Reserve Center flunked the PT test!  With the exception of GMG3 Peterson and ET3 Feinstein.  Now THAT was funny!  And for some reason, nobody was ever sentenced to that additional PT they promised, either!  We just made up for it by playing some beer-on-base softball.

Navy Reserves softball - Cheyenne, WY  - 1991

 The most exciting thing that happened after that was the weekend my car blew up.  I had come to Cheyenne for drill one weekend, but also had to come back to Laramie to work on Saturday night.  I bounced at the bar until 0200 and then went home and caught a quick nap.  About 0600, I got up and headed over the hill to Cheyenne.  For some odd reason, I decided to drive on Happy Jack Road (the back road) instead of staying on the Interstate.  I was tooling along about 80mph with the stereo blasting, when I began to hear a steady click, click, click.  The sound built until it was a deafening KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK!!! I knew something was wrong, and as I was trying to slow it down, when there was a huge

 “BOOM!!!!!”

 The hood flew up, and a large fireball came from under it.  I lost control and spun at least one 360 in the middle of the road before I could get it stopped.  When I got it to the shoulder, I jumped out and raced for the fire extinguisher I had luckily put into my trunk just the week before.  I grabbed it and doused the flames. 

 When the excitement died down, I stood back to gather my senses and survey the damage.  I then got back in and tried to fire it back up to see if there was any way I could still make it to drill on time.  I turned the key, and it DID start, but it was the roughest idling thing I’d ever seen, felt, or heard.  It sounded like it was going to explode at any second!  I quickly turned it off and decided that the car was toast.  I was going to have to find another way to Cheyenne.  I looked up the road – I looked down the road…nothing.  I was in the middle of nowhere, wearing my dress whites (which were completely splattered with oil droplets), and it was 0630 on a Sunday morning.  I decided that hitchhiking was my best chance, so I started walking towards Cheyenne. 

 I was about 25 miles from town, and I hoped that a car would stop and give me a ride soon.  But, as you would expect on a rural back road in Wyoming at 0630 on a Sunday morning, there were no cars to be seen.  I walked about five miles down the road when I found a roadside bar called “The Bunkhouse Bar”.  I had to try my luck and walked up to the door.  I was shocked when I found it open.  I don’t know who was more surprised – me, for finding someone actually inside, or the poor guy who owned the bar, being walked in on by some guy wearing a sailor suit in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming on a Sunday morning!  I saw the look on his face, and quickly explained myself, and asked if I could use his phone.  He agreed, and I made two calls – one to my Dad, asking him to come get me, and one to the Reserve Center explaining my predicament.  They just laughed and told me to get there when I could.  I thanked the guy at the bar and headed back toward my car, knowing my Dad would be along soon. 

I met him about halfway back.  We went back to my car and took a look – it was pretty bad – there was actually a huge hole in the side of the engine block where one of the piston rods had made a hasty exit.  Evidently, I had run it out of oil, and at 80mph, engines need a little oil.  Oops.  Dad decided to give me a ride back to Cheyenne so I could make it for the rest of my drill day, and I told him I could catch a ride back to Laramie with one of the other Reservists.  He dropped me off at the Reserve Center and then went back to tow my car home. 

 I finished up drill and caught a ride back to Laramie with one of the Chiefs and found my car dead in the water in front of my folks’ house.  Another Navy casualty!  It took me a couple of weeks to find another car, but I was soon the proud owner of a 1965 Dodge pickup, which my Dad had found for $200.  The truck was completely worn out and resembled more of a mobile junkpile than a real truck.  There were actual junkyard numbers spray-painted across the hood!  The truck was quickly named “Truckasaurus” by those who knew her.  I had to borrow a different car from my folks to make it over the hill to Cheyenne for my duty weekends, but I made it on time every weekend.  Somehow.

 The next month, guys began to head out to their two weeks’ duty stations.  I hadn’t made up my mind where I wanted to go – and the truth be known, I didn’t want to go anywhere!  I tried to let it slide as long as I could, but I got caught in July.  The CO handed me a manila envelope with a set of orders in it when I walked in for July drill.  I was being sent to San Diego for the first two weeks in August to drill aboard the USS Valley Forge.  Damn.  I finished my drill that weekend, then went home to start making preparations for San Diego.  It would be fun, I thought.  Besides, I had always liked San Diego anyway, and the best part – I would turn 21 in July, so I'd be legal to drink! 

 I spent my 21^st birthday visiting my Mom in Washington state, and a week after I got home, I headed over to the Cheyenne Municipal Airport, where I caught a plane to Denver with a few other Reserve Center guys, then another on to San Diego.  It was another of those déjà vu moments, as we shared our plane to San Diego with about ten kids heading from the MEPS center to Boot Camp in San Diego.  We spent the flight sharing our stories and experiences with the new booters.  Our plane soon landed and it was time for:

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX:  MY FIRST A.T. – ONCE A SQUID…

There were around ten of us on the plane from the Naval Reserve Center in Cheyenne headed to the USS Valley Forge.  A couple of other guys had driven out and would meet us at the base.  We landed, and as we walked out of the San Diego airport, we decided to catch a cab to the base.  There were enough of us who had been to San Diego before, that we knew that a cab was the fastest way to get there.  There was a free base shuttle, but only if you wanted to wait for an hour.  There was cold beer in the base club waiting for us, so we decided on the cab. 

 Before we walked to the cab stand, though, we did the right thing, and led the recruits to the Navy Information booth where they would be processed and sent to the right bus.  After all, these were our new shipmates, and it was our duty to help make their transition into Navy life a bit easier.  We got them to their destination, then went outside and grabbed a couple of taxis. 

 “To 32^nd Street Naval Station – and we know where it’s at, so don’t go driving all over Hell to up your fare!”

 The cabbie looked at us with that “Who? Me?” look – and then took off.  He drove us directly to the base, with no detours, and then on to the base and directly up to the pier. We paid him his fare plus a little tip for his extra effort.  It was a lot more enjoyable experience than the last one I had in a San Diego airport cab, that’s for sure.

 The USS Valley Forge was amazing.  It was one of the Navy’s newest ships, and a top-of-the-line Aegis-equipped Guided Missile Cruiser.  We walked up to the quarterdeck and signed in, then they pointed us toward our bunks.  I couldn’t believe how clean the ship was as we toured below decks.  The Fresno had NEVER been that clean – even when she was new!  I’d have eaten off of the decks on the Valley Forge!  It was amazing.  A whole different Navy from where I’d been!  I soon realized what a different world the Amphib Navy was, and what a rough and tumble duty assignment the Fresno had been.  It made me even prouder of the fact that I’d survived her! 

 We found our bunks and got settled in for the night.  The ship’s regular crew was pretty used to seeing Reservists come and go, and most of them didn’t give us a second look, let alone a “Hi” or a “Welcome”.  The ship was split between Actives and Reservists, and ne’er the twain should meet.  It was an odd thing, but I understood how they must have felt.  It was probably a real pain in the ass to have to babysit Reservists in addition to doing your regular job on the ship.  I could definitely see where the hostility came from.  Not that I was too worried about it, though.  I was more concerned with getting to the base club than I was with making friends with my new shipmates!  I got my uniforms out and stashed my seabag in a locker, then grabbed Eric and headed out for the Base Club.  I had just turned 21 and was ready to party legally on a Navy base for the first time!

 By the time we got to the club, it was around 1700 in the afternoon, and we hadn’t eaten anything all day.  We got a pizza, then commenced to drinking ourselves into oblivion.  I even tried to dance with some girls at the club, but they were married, and their husbands didn’t take too kindly to the fact that some other sailor was asking their wives to dance.  Eric drug me out of the club just short of an ass-kicking, and we went back to the Valley Forge to get ready for the start of our two weeks’ training.

 When I heard the sounds of reveille from my bunk the next morning, I felt like I was caught in a bad, bad dream.  Hangover, uncomfortable bed and a 1MC speaker blaring reveille – I wanted to just roll over and go back to sleep, but it wasn’t to be.  Eric shook me awake and said,

 “Time to go – let’s get up to quarters”. 

 I got up and got dressed, then found my way up to where their Gunner’s Mates held quarters.  I was supposed to act as part of their crew during my stay, and they were supposed to train me on the weapons systems of the Valley Forge.  The only problem was that I was a GMG, and my only weapons system experience was on a system that had been obsolete for the past twenty years.  All of these guys were GMM’s and GMT’s – they knew as much about 3”50’s as I did about 5”54’s (which was what they had on their ship).  I basically spent the two weeks trying to stay out of everyone’s way.  They gave me a quick tour of their spaces and gave me a General Quarters chair to sit at.  I was in charge of nothing.  During GQ, my job was to sit in that chair and be ready to take someone’s place if he got killed and there was NOBODY else left!  A real glorious assignment to be sure. 

 The biggest part of our two weeks was the fact that we went out to sea for a couple of days.  We spent two or three days off the coast of San Diego doing some refresher training for the crew.  I had forgotten how much I liked being out to sea.  The wide-open seas reminded me of the wide-open prairie in Wyoming.  The gentle rocking of the ship in the open sea was like an old familiar friend.  The Valley Forge didn’t rock NEAR as much, or as hard, as the Fresno did, and the slower rolling took a while to get used to, but I soon found my sea legs again, and felt very comfortable.  Once we pulled back into port, it was back to the “just stay out of the way” stuff.  Our evening activities were what I remember most about that first A.T.

 Of the group of us from San Diego, there were about four of us who hung out together.  Myself, Eric Feinstein, and the two guys who had driven from Colorado.  I think Eric and I hung out with the guys with the car the mostly because they had a car, and the taxis were getting expensive!  We drank every single night we were in port.  We went to a Padres game one night, to Tijuana another night, and barhopping the rest of the nights.  We spent a couple of weekend days at the beach, and even ventured a trip back to the base club at RTC/NTC to sit and laugh at the booters.  It was basically just a two-week California party, interrupted by eight hours of “work” a day.  Militarily, the trip was worthless – from a fun standpoint, it was great! 

 A couple of the more memorable nights were the night the guys’ car got towed, and the night we got thrown out of Moose McGillycuddy’s.  The car-towing happened when we decided to go find a country bar in San Diego.  After much direction-asking and beer-drinking, we found it - the seemingly ONLY country bar in San Dawg.  There wasn’t much parking on the street around the little bar, and the guy who had driven finally found a parking space behind a Tower Records store across the street.  Unfortunately, he hadn’t seen the sign that said “Customer Parking Only – All Violaters Will Be Towed”.  Besides, it was 22:00 at night – what record store is open at 22:00 at night?  Tower Records, evidently. 

After he had parked, we walked over to the bar and proceeded to get stinky drunk.  When the bar closed at 01:30 we stumbled out to find the car.  It was gone, and at first, we were sure it had been stolen.  The car was a hot-looking little Eagle Talon, and the guy who owned it was just SURE it had been taken.  Then the manager of the record store came out and told us that he had the car towed from his lot.  He was a real jerk about it, and before we could do what we should have, and kicked his ass, a cop showed up.  We told him what had happened, and that we were Navy Reservists from Wyoming and had no idea where to go to get the car back.  The police officer must have felt pity on us, because he gave us a ride to the impound lot where, ninety dollars later, we were driving home.  It was a crappy ending to a fun night, but at least the car hadn’t been stolen!

 A couple of nights later, we decided to go check out Moose McGillycuddy’s down by one of the beaches.  Moose’s was a chain bar, part of the same chain as the one I’d found in Waikiki in 1988.  It was “dollar drink night”, so away we went!  About two hours later, I was twenty dollars into the Beam and Cokes, and feeling NO pain.  I then decided that I wanted to dance.  Since they weren’t playing anything I could dance to, I decided to improvise.  I grabbed some unsuspecting girl by the hand and let her onto the dance floor.  They were playing some Depeche Mode song, and I proceeded to two-step her around the floor.  She was absolutely mystified by what I was doing.  The next song they played was M.C. Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”.  Not one to miss an opportunity, I proceeded to try to country swing with her to it.  We made it about halfway through the song before I finally embarrassed her off the dance floor.  Everyone in the bar was now looking right at me, and I asked if anybody there wanted to dance.  No takers.  As that song ended, the DJ must have been watching, and he fired up Hank Williams, Jr.’s “Born To Boogie”.  A real country song!  Now to find a partner... 

 It was amazing how quickly EVERY woman in the bar disappeared!  I couldn’t find anybody to dance with.  I stood there, by myself, in the middle of the dance floor with no dance partner as the music blared.  I then began to hear the calls of

 “Turn this country shit off”, and “This SUCKS!” coming from the other guys in the bar. 

 The other guys from the Reserve Center must’ve seen trouble coming, because the next thing I knew, they were dragging me off the dance floor and we were heading for the door.  I grabbed some guy’s drink as we went past – because I was thirsty, and because he looked like a wuss anyway.  He took offense to that and decided that I should pay for his drink.  I told him to go to Hell, and it was on!  As he rared back to take a swing at me, the bouncers descended upon us.  Before I knew what had happened, I was being forcibly escorted toward the door, then unceremoniously deposited on the sidewalk outside.  I was too drunk to process exactly what had happened, I just knew that I’d been thrown out of a bar – how cool!  The guys I’d come with were laughing about it as well, as we got into the car and headed back to the base.  Once safely on base, we headed over to the base club to finish our drunk.  It was really funny at the time…and now that I stand back and look…well, it’s STILL kinda funny.

The trip we made to Tijuana was mellow – we didn’t even get that drunk.  I did buy a bottle of Kahlua and a bottle of Mescal and a pull-over to hide the bottles when we crossed the border, but that was the extent of the Mexican craziness.  About the only other thing I really remembered from the trip was the girl I met at the Sports Bar just outside the gates of the 32^nd Street Naval Station. 

 We were standing there drinking, as usual, and I went up to one of the many beer stations scattered throughout the bar.  I asked for my usual bottle of Bud, and when the serving gal turned around, I was completely awestricken.  She was the most jaw-droppingly gorgeous woman I’d ever seen in my life.  She had long red hair, and a face to die for.  I couldn’t speak, she was so incredibly beautiful. 

 I just kind of said, “uhh….uhhh…..thanks” and walked away. 

 My head swam – and it wasn’t just the twenty or so beers I’d put down before I’d seen her.  I found a table with a view of her station, and I sat and stared at her for the next couple of hours.  I was in love.  Absolutely, without a doubt, head-over-heels in love.  And I didn’t even know her name.  Wow – what an amazing creature.  She disappeared around closing time, and I didn’t have a chance (or the nerve) to talk to her, so I headed back to the ship with the intention of going back to that bar every night until I had finally talked to her.  It was a brilliant plan except for one small flaw – I was a chickenshit when it came to women. I went back to that bar for the next five nights, just sitting there, staring at her and not saying a word.  Occasionally she would smile at me but that was about it.  I thought the fact that I bought 20 beers a night from her, and her alone (and I tipped her for each one) would give her a clue, but then again, this was a bar full of sailors – ALL of us were buying 20 beers a night! 

 Finally, on our very last night in San Diego, I decided I had to take the chance and actually talk to her.  I found her in her usual spot and sat at my regular table.  About an hour went by, when I finally decided I needed to say my piece.  I gathered up every ounce of courage I had and walked over to her. 

 “Hi, Hon!  Bud?” she said – she remembered what I was drinking! 

 “Um yeah, sure.”  I stood there and looked at her. 

 “Is there something else I can do for you?” she asked – I’m sure my open-mouthed stare was more than a little unnerving. 

 “What the Hell” I thought, "Here goes nuthin’”. 

 I took a deep breath, looked right into her eyes. 

 “Yeah – my name is Jerry, I’m a Navy reservist from Wyoming, out here doing two weeks training.  Well, I’m going home tomorrow, and I just wanted to tell you that….you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.  Seeing you has made this entire trip worth it.  Thank you.” 

 Whew!  I had said it – I had actually told her what I thought!  I stood back and waited for the love to erupt….

”Ummm..thanks…I guess” she said.  “ I guess I’m flattered.  But, well…look – you’re sweet and all, but I don’t date sailors, and I really don’t think you’re all that cute.” 

 And she turned away from me.  I stood there, open-mouthed, my brain reeling. 

 “Wha…..?” I stammered. 

 I had just been blind-sided by the semi truck of reality.  I don’t know what I was expecting, but that surely WASN’T it…not even in the realm of possibilities, actually.  I turned away, instantly ashamed, angry, and humiliated.  I set my bottle of beer on the table next to me, walked out of the door and back to the Valley Forge.  I climbed into my rack and pulled the blanket up around me and cried myself to sleep.  At least I would be going home tomorrow, I thought.  That humiliation was just another in the long line of my women troubles.  Not any one of them amounted to much, but when you added them all up over time, it said to me that I wasn’t really much of a ladies’ man at all.  Far from it, actually – and that was just damn depressing for a 21- year old to grasp.   

I thought again, “At least I'm going home tomorrow”.

CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN:  GUNNERY SCHOOL  IN CHICAGO

I made it home from San Diego without any further problems or crises.  When I got back, it was time for the school year and band camp to start again.  I fell into the old rhythm of school all day and party all night.  I had still had my job as a bouncer at a local bar, and I was staying busy.  My grades were terrible, but that was due to the fact that I was drunk most nights, and hungover most days – not a lifestyle terribly conducive to good scholastics.  I kept up with the one weekend a month drill, although they weren’t as much fun since my Reserve running buddy, Eric Feinstein, had left the Reserve Center in Cheyenne and re-affiliated with the center in Lincoln, NE while he attended the University of Nebraska. 

 I still managed to keep up the “party all weekend” attitude, and Drill Weekends were becoming almost a money-losing proposition, as I spent more money on booze than I got back in my check.  I guess it was safe to say that by this point in my life, the drinking habits that I had learned in the Navy, were getting way out of control.  After I got my grades from the Fall semester of 1991, I knew there was a problem.  My G.P.A. was a 0.6!  I had flunked everything except for marching band and jazz band (I had an 'A' in those).  I was put on academic probation and told that if my G.P.A. was below a 2.0 after the next semester, I would be put on suspension and booted from school.  The only thing that worried me about that was the fact that if I was kicked out of school, I would lose my monthly Navy money, and it was all that was keeping me afloat.  Things were getting tough, and then I decided to earn a little extra money for school – I signed up for a weekend of “Individual Training” (I.T.) through the Reserves.

 I.T. was something that the Reserves encouraged us to do throughout the year.  In addition to our two weeks’ A.T. and monthly drill weekends, I.T. was another way for us to get some more training.  The cool thing about I.T. was that they held schools and trainings all over the globe at different Naval Installations.  When I decided to go ahead and sign up for I.T., I told them that I wanted to stay near home, so they signed me up to go to a weapons training at Fort Carson, just outside of Denver, Colorado.  I took the assignment and waited for my official orders to show up in the mail.  About a week later, I got one of those infamous manila envelopes in the mail with my orders to I.T.  Imagine my surprise when I opened it to take out my packet of orders and found a plane ticket to Chicago! 

 Chicago?!?  What the Hell?  I read the orders and read that instead of a weapons school at Fort Carson, the Navy was sending me to an official Gunner’s Mate Training Weekend at the Gunner’s Mate 'A' school at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago, Illinois.  I was shocked – I called up the Reserve Center in Cheyenne and asked them what the deal was.  They were just as shocked as I was, but they told me that since the orders were already cut, there was nothing they could do about it.  I was to pack my bags for the weekend and go to Chicago. 

 “This could be fun.” I thought. 

 But that thought was about where the fun ended.  That one weekend was a microcosm of my entire time in the Navy Reserves.  If something could go wrong, it did, and every time I turned around, I was told something different, something wrong, or something completely untrue.  It was an amazingly crazy weekend, and one that I will never forget.

It began on a cold, snowy Friday afternoon in January.  I was to meet my airplane at the Cheyenne Municipal Airport at 15:00 in the afternoon for my flight to Denver.  The weather outside was terrible, and the snow and ice on the Interstate turned a 45-minute drive into an hour and a half expedition.  Somewhere along the way, the heater in my 1973 Jeep Wagoneer went out, and the windshield wipers quit working.  In spite of that, I managed to find my way to the airport, grabbed my seabag out of the back, and trudged in through the snow and wind to check in. 

 I was on time – but just barely.  I got checked in for the flight and took a seat to wait for the boarding call.  Just then, I heard my name –

 “Jerry?”  

 I turned to look, and standing right next to me was a girl I had met the year before – Maryann Greentraub.  Maryann had been a roommate of my roommate’s girlfriend, and the two of us had hung out a little bit once or twice.  She was DEFINITELY not my type.  She didn’t drink, and she was embarrassed to even watch me change the sheets on my bed.  (I don’t remember why she was at my house and saw that, but there she was).  But the thing about her that really turned me off was the fact that she NEVER shut up.  Once I had made the mistake of turning around and saying “Hi”, it was all over.  She talked to me non-stop until the FINAL boarding call for my plane.  I kept trying to cut her off, but she never took a breath for me to jump in.  Finally, I just said

 “I’ve got to go” and walked off. 

 She was still talking as I walked out of the terminal and toward the waiting plane. 

 I HATED airplanes (a by-product of our little issue in Guam) and the thought of getting on an airplane in a blizzard was even less appealing to me.  I climbed on board, sat down and buckled my seat belt – tight.  I kept my eyes closed as we lumbered out onto the runway and sped off into the snowy Wyoming afternoon.  I somehow managed to hold onto my lunch as we lurched skyward and turned towards Denver.  That particular Cheyenne-to-Denver flight had been nicknamed the “Vomit Comet” and that was never more evident than the trip we made that day.  It was, with the exception of the near-crash in Guam, the worst flight I’ve ever been on.  Through the power of prayer and a big barf bag, we made it to Denver, where I changed planes for Chicago.  Once onboard the bigger, more comfortable United Airlines jet for Chicago, I relaxed a bit and reviewed my orders once again, so that I knew what to do when I got there.

 I had never been to Chicago before, and my orders weren’t very specific as to what I was supposed to do when I got to O’Hare International Airport.  Evidently, there was a rental car reserved for me, and I gathered that I was supposed to go collect my luggage, then call for a shuttle to come take me to the rental car office.  When I had requisitioned my car, I was supposed to ask them for directions to the Naval Station and then proceed to the BEQ (like a hotel for enlisted men) to get a room assignment for the weekend.  It was all pretty cut and dried – no room for error, right?  Right. 

 That feeling of security disappeared as soon as we landed in Chicago.  We were told that we had to wait for the airline to prepare our gate for arrival, so we sat on that plane for a half an hour before we finally pulled into the gate.  When we got into the terminal, I tried to follow the signs to the baggage claim.  O’Hare was a HUGE airport, and I wasn’t sure where I was going.  I managed to find the baggage claim, due more to the fact that I followed the crowd than to effective signage.  No matter how I got there, I was there.  I stood with the crowd and waited for my seabag to spill out of the carousel. I waited…and waited…and waited.  It never came.  I went to the Customer Service booth and was told that all of the baggage was off of the plane, and if my bag wasn’t there, then it didn’t make it from wherever it was I'd boarded.  And that was that.  I had the clothes I was wearing, a manila envelope with my orders and ten bucks.  That was it.  No uniforms, no money, nothing.  AND, I had left my peacoat inside my seabag in Cheyenne so that I wouldn’t have to carry it on the plane, and it was ten below outside!  I was pissed, but what could I do?  I huffed off and went to find the rental car phone so I could call for the shuttle.  By now it was about 21:00 at night – I hadn’t eaten all day, and I had no idea how long it would take me to get my car and get to the base.  It was beginning to look like a very, very long weekend lay ahead of me.

 The shuttle bus took over an hour to get to where I stood.  I was waiting inside the terminal, because it was about ten degrees below zero outside, windy, and snowing like mad.  A beautiful January evening in Chicago to be sure.  The bus got there, so I dashed out and climbed onboard.  The driver took me to the rental car office about five miles away.  By the time we got there, I was completely turned around, and had NO idea which direction we were going.

 I walked into the office and told the guy that the Navy had a rental car reserved in my name and that I needed directions to the base.  He proceeded to find the paperwork, and then he asked me for a credit card. 

 “A what?” I asked. 

 “A credit card.  We need to secure the deposit against your card.” 

 That was a problem.  Nobody told me that I needed a credit card.  Luckily, I had just received my very first credit card a couple of months ago, but unluckily, it was already charged waaaay over the max.  I knew it would never work. 

 “How much do you need to put on it?” I asked. 

 “Not much – we just make sure there is at least $200 left on it and then I’ll give you the car”. 

 I knew there was NO way there was $200 on that card – Hell, I’d be lucky if there was $2 on it.  I tried to argue with him that the Navy had ordered the car for me – surely THEY had $200 in credit with the company.  He wouldn’t budge.  I finally gave in and handed him my card.  He ran it through the machine, and sure enough – it came back declined.  I told him it was over charged, but he tried it again…denied again.  Finally, in desperation, he tried to get it approved for $50.  Somehow, it worked.  The credit card company approved it and he gave me my car.  Along with it, he gave me a map to the base and told me to make sure I brought it back with the tank full.  I hoped to God that it wouldn’t take more than ten bucks to fill it up, because that’s all I had!  I grabbed the keys, got into my Chevy Lumina and pulled away – off into the cold, icy Chicago night.

 As I drove along what I hoped was the right road, I spotted what looked like an airport toll plaza in the distance.  As I neared it, I realized that’s exactly what it was – a toll plaza.  They had toll roads in Chicago!  I’d never seen a toll road before!  I then realized that I didn’t have any money (I was saving my $10 for gas) and that there wasn’t anybody in the tollbooths to take it anyway.  I slowed down to see what the cars in front of me did.  They would pull up, toss their coins into the basket, the arm would go up and they would drive off.  I was at a loss – how in the Hell was I going to get to the base now?  It was too late to find another way, and there was no way to get off of road I was on, anyway.  As I watched the cars go through from my spot on the shoulder, I realized that the gates would stay open just long enough to let a second car get through if they stayed RIGHT behind the car in front of them.  So that’s what I did – I got right on the tail of the next car I saw, and as he went through the gate, I tailgated him right through myself.  I was now officially a lawbreaker – I had jumped a toll plaza!  I sped off into the Chicago night, keeping a wary eye on my rearview mirror, looking for those flashing blue police lights I was sure would be coming.  They never did. 

 Before long, I was seeing signs for the Great Lakes Naval Training Center.  I followed them and was soon pulling up to the Main Gate.  I parked and walked into the guard shack to get a pass for my car.  I was a little nervous, because the last time I had been in a Main Gate guard shack, my Dad had threatened to shoot his way onto the base!  I shook it off and took care of what I needed to do.  They gave me a three-day pass for the car, and directions to the BEQ, then it was back into the car and onto the base. 

 I had to take a couple of tries at it, but at last I found the BEQ, tucked in behind a dozen other similar looking buildings.  I walked in the door and up to the front desk.  There was no one there.  I looked around for the guy who was supposed to be manning the desk, and soon found him.  He was sitting in his office with the door open, watching a show on T.V., and ignoring me.  I stood there and cleared my throat – nothing.  I tapped my foot – nothing.  So I tried ringing the bell…

 DING, DING!!

 The MS who had been watching TV looked up at me and said,

 “Yeah, I’ll be right there.”

 He reached out and pushed the door shut so as not to be bothered by his job anymore.  I was pissed – I had been on the road since noon that day, and I was tired, hungry, and getting cranky.  When the show ended, fifteen minutes later, the MS walked out and looked at me as though I were the biggest annoyance he’d ever seen.  

 “What?”  he growled.  

 “I’m supposed to have a room here.” I said, and handed him my orders. 

He looked through them, checked through his log, signed something on my orders, stamped them and then walked back into his office and sat down to watch T.V.  

 “Hey!  Where’s my room?” I asked. 

 He looked at me, “Ain’t got no rooms – we’re all full.” 

 “What?” 

 “We’re all full – you gotta go get a motel or something”  I looked at him incredulously. 

 “WHAT?  I don’t have any money!  I just got here from Wyoming, and have no money, no uniforms and no idea where I am.  What the Hell am I supposed to do?” 

 “Ain’t my problem, man” he said, and shut the door again. 

 I was pissed – I picked up the bell and threw it at his door, intending to break the glass, but I missed.  I grabbed my orders and stormed out of the BEQ lobby.

 My anger lasted about as long as the short trip out the front door.  As the icy, sub-zero wind hit me square in the face, I realized the true gravity of my situation.  It was ten below zero, I had no place to stay, no money and nothing to eat, and no coat to wear.  To top it off, it was about one o’clock in the morning, and there weren’t many places to turn for help.  I didn’t know what to do.

 I got in my car and drove off the base, looking for somewhere safe to park for the night.   My plan was to sleep in my car.  I would run the car for a short while to get warm, and then sleep until I got too cold to sleep anymore.  It was a bad plan, but a plan nonetheless.  It lasted for about ten minutes.  As soon as I turned the car off and tried to get comfortable, the cold crept in.  I realized that I would be an icicle by the time morning rolled around, so I racked my brain to think of what I would do next.  And then it hit me – my old friend, Kendrith, lived in Chicago!

 She was going to school at Northwestern, and I had her phone number in my wallet.  I had planned to go out to dinner with her one night when I was in town, and suddenly an early breakfast sounded a lot better than dinner.  I spotted a pay phone outside the car, climbed out and made the call.  Kendrith was sleepy, but glad to hear from me.  When I told her my situation, she didn’t hesitate.  She told me to get over to her dorm room right away, and she’d take care of me.  She gave me quick directions and off I went – driving blindly through the night trying to find Northwestern University from the Great Lakes Naval Station. 

 I have no idea how I did it, but in less than an hour, I was parked in front of her dorm building.  I walked up and hit the buzzer for her room.  A couple of minutes later, she came down and let me in.  It was a tearful, welcome reunion, but we didn’t spend much time in the doorway – it was too damn cold.  We went up to her room, where we sat and talked for a couple more hours.  Finally – it was around 04:00 in the morning and I had to report to class by 07:00.  I curled up on Kendrith’s floor and made her promise to wake me up by 05:30.  I drifted off to sleep and just hoped that tomorrow would be a better day.  Fat chance.

 05:30 came early – REAL early.  I guess when you’re working on an hour and a half of sleep, those little cat naps just don’t do the trick.  Regardless, I woke up and thanked Kendrith for her hospitality.  She made me promise to come back that night so that she could “show me Chicago”, and I thought that sounded like a great idea.  I agreed, then asked her for directions back to the base.  She did her best to tell me, but between the fact that I was sleep-deprived and the fact that I hadn’t eaten in almost 40 hours, I missed most of it.  I groggily told her “I got it” and walked out of her room, and out of her dorm building.  I found my car, scraped the frost off the windshield, and started for the base. 

 I remembered the first highway she had told me to get on, but that was about it.  I didn’t remember much about my trip there the night before, and the fact that it was in the dark wasn’t helping me to identify any landmarks.  Well, as one would imagine, I got lost.  Really lost.  I was so lost, as a matter of fact, that I actually stopped at a gas station to ask directions!  This was a pretty big deal for me, as I NEVER stopped to ask anybody directions – I was a typical man when it came to that.  With the help of some really friendly folks, I managed to finally find my way to the Main Gate.  I was supposed to have reported for class at 0700, and it was about 0715.  I was only 15 minutes late – not too bad, considering.  I walked into the guard shack to ask directions to the Gunnery School, and the guy standing at the Receiving Desk gave me some more bad news. 

 “Oh man – you’re a Reservist, ain’t ya?” 

 “Yes.” 

 “Well, you have to go check in on the Reserve Base first.” 

 “Reserve Base?” 

 “Yeah – it’s about four miles back the way you came.  Go there and check in, and they’ll tell you where you need to go.” 

 I was already hearing the chewing out I was going to get for being so late, but at this point I just wanted to get to school.  I headed out the doors and back to my car.  I turned it around and drove back the way I came.  Once again, I took a wrong turn and spent fifteen minutes driving around some random industrial section of town before I finally found the Reserve base.  As I parked in front of the Reserve Headquarters Building and walked in, I realized that everyone was staring at me.  The whole staff was standing in the lobby, and they were holding quarters for the morning.  Here I was, some guy in a cowboy hat, Wranglers and boots with a packet of orders in my hand.  To say that I didn’t fit in would have been more than accurate – I was like a fish on a bicycle!  One of the Center’s Yeomen stepped out of ranks, and came over to check me in.  I handed him my orders and told him that I had just been sent over from the Main Base. 

 He looked my orders over and said, “They shouldn’t have sent you here, dude.” 

“What?” 

 “You’re going to Gunnery School – that’s over on the Main Base.  Over by the gym.” 

 I couldn’t believe it – the moron at the Main Gate had sent me to the wrong place.  He had just wasted ANOTHER hour of my day.  I exhaled sharply, grabbed my orders back and headed for my car AGAIN!  I was beyond pissed at this point.  I fired up the car and laid rubber across the parking lot as I sped BACK toward the base!  I barely slowed down for the gate guard to salute my pass and let me through – I had a school to get to.  The Reserve Center yeoman had given me a map to the Gunnery School, and I had a pretty good idea where it was.  It was about two blocks away from the full BEQ I'd been at the night before.  I found a parking spot in front of the building, grabbed my order packet and walked in the door. 

 I was immediately stopped by some joker at the check-in desk and he asked me if I knew where I was going.  I looked at him and said,

 “Hell no – but I’m not going to bother asking you, because I seriously doubt that YOU do, either!” 

 The kid looked at me blankly. 

 “Look” I continued, “I’m here for a Reserve training weekend.  What room am I going to?” 

 “Second door down on the left side” he said, as he pointed toward a nearby hallway. 

 I thanked him and headed for the door.  I stepped into a large area that had all kinds of gun mount mock-ups sitting around.  Guys were doing training on most of them – must have been the “A” school kids I figured.  I found the door I was supposed to go into and pushed it open.  Here at last!

 The instructor stopped in mid-instruct when I came in. 

 “Can I help you?” he asked. 

 "Yeah – I’m here for the Reservist Training.  Please tell me I’m in the right room.” 

 “This is the right room – is there a reason you’re not in uniform?” 

 I launched into the story (up to this point).  I told them about the flight, the lost baggage, the toll booth, the BEQ, the morning traffic.  By the time I was done with the story, the whole class was in hysterics. 

 “Welcome to class, man – have a seat!”

 I took off my hat and put it under my desk and sat back – ready to learn.  As the class went on, I found the lack of food and sleep, when combined with the excessively warm and poorly-ventilated classroom to be a lethal combination.  I fell asleep…hard.  The instructor actually had to come over and wake me up, because nobody could hear him over my snoring! 

 It was soon lunchtime.  The class headed out for the base galley to eat.  I was STARVED!  I couldn’t wait to eat, even if it WAS Navy chow!  I was in for a rude surprise, however – when we walked into the galley, their Mess Decks Master-At-Arms came over to the line we were in and told me that I couldn’t eat there. 

 “What?!?”  I asked. 

 “You’re not in uniform.  No civilian clothes allowed.” 

 “But the airlines lost my luggage, I don’t HAVE any uniforms!” 

 “Sorry, but regs are regs – no uniform, no chow.  There’s the door” he said, pointing at the door we’d just walked in. 

 I couldn’t believe it – after everything I’d been through, NOW they weren’t going to let me eat in the galley! I was unbelievably pissed, but at the same time, not surprised one little bit.  After the way the last 24 hours had gone, I wouldn’t have been surprised if Jesus Christ himself came down and offered to cook me lunch!  Things didn’t get quite that bad, but now I was stuck.  I couldn’t eat in the free galley because I had no uniform, and I couldn’t eat at McDonald’s (which was directly across from the school building) because I had no money.  I had all but made up my mind to head back to the classroom and wait for everyone to get back when I heard,

 “Hey, cowboy – wait up!” 

 I turned around to see my entire class walking out of the galley.  They had all decided that if I couldn’t eat there, then they wouldn’t eat there either! 

 “Let’s go on over to Mickey D’s – lunch is on us!” our instructor told me. 

 I couldn’t believe it – all twelve guys from the class had walked out on free lunch because they wouldn’t let me eat!  We went to McDonald’s, and true to their word, they bought me lunch.  It was the best tasting McDonald’s I ever ate!  Two Big Macs, a couple of cheeseburgers and a double order of fries later, I was ready to go back to class.  I felt MUCH better.

 During our lunch break, we got to talking about where we were from, and we discovered that I was the only one who lived outside of the Chicago area.  Evidently, this school was for Reservists from Illinois only, and the Navy had made a big mistake and sent me to the wrong school.  Figures.  Not only was everything going horribly wrong, but I wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place!  When we got back to the classroom, I tried my damndest to stay awake for the afternoon session.  I managed to make it to 1600 and the end of the day, but it wasn’t easy!  I was absolutely exhausted.  Several of the guys in the class invited me over to their places for dinner, and offered me a spare room to crash in, but I politely turned them down – I had plans with Kendrith! 

I wasn’t supposed to meet her until 1830, so I had a little time to kill.  I figured that I’d just head over to the BEQ and check in – I was sure they’d have an open room by now.  Then I’d call the airport and see if my seabag had turned up yet, and maybe catch a few minutes’ nap.  I drove the two blocks from the school building to the BEQ and walked in and up to the front desk.  I handed the MS on duty my orders and he told me,

 “Sorry man, no rooms open”. 

 “What?  Where the Hell am I supposed to stay?” 

 He gave me the same story I’d heard the night before – “You can get a room off base, and the Navy will reimburse you for it”. 

 Rather than go through the whole “lost luggage, no money” spiel again, I just turned and walked out.  I got into my car and decided that I’d just crash at Kendrith’s again.  It was still too early to go to her place, and I was in desperate need of a shower.  I had been wearing the same clothes for two days now, and I was starting to feel a little gross.  I racked my brain for a minute, trying to think of how I was going to swing a shower without a hotel room.  And then it hit me – the base gym!  I’d just go shower in the locker room at the base gym!  I looked at my base map, located the gym and headed that direction.  I found it right where it was supposed to be – amazing!

 When I got to the gym, I followed the signs to the Men’s locker room.  I found a locker, stashed my clothes, then went in and showered.  When I was finished, I looked around for a towel.  There were none to be found.  I saw one of the attendants walk by –

 “Hey – are there any clean towels anywhere?” I asked him. 

 “No, sorry – the laundry broke down.  All of our towels are dirty!” and he walked away. 

 I couldn’t believe it – what ELSE could possibly go wrong?  The instant that thought crossed my mind, I regretted the fact that I’d thought it – that was a sure way to make things even worse!  Being the resourceful fellow I was, I walked back to my locker, naked and wet, and pulled out the t-shirt I’d been wearing and used it for a towel.  It did the trick…sort of, and what water it didn’t get off, I just put my clothes on over.  I tossed my t-shirt and dirty boxers into the gym laundry cart – a little “gift” from me to them, and walked out of the gym, going commando. 

 I climbed in my car and drove off base as fast as I could.  I headed toward Northwestern, and only got lost once, as I found my way to Kendrith’s dorm in a little under a half hour.  She was waiting for me when I pulled up and told me that she had a surprise waiting – we were going to her friend’s apartment for a big dinner party!  Sounded good to me, because I was hungry enough to eat a horse.  Unbeknownst to me, there would be no horse, or any other four-legged animal for that matter, served at Kendrith’s friend’s place.  Kendrith’s friend was a vegetarian – something Kendrith had neglected to inform me - and she had prepared an entire dinner party’s worth of vegetarian dishes.  It was like walking into the very gates of Hell.

 I’m sure that Kendrith’s friends thought I was about as weird as I did them – here was a hat-and-boots-wearing cowboy sitting in a room full of hemp-wearing vegetarians, eating four different kinds of beans and tofu.  It was utter Hell, and I was doing my best to bite my tongue.  They were all drinking wine – no beer, no whiskey, not even any soda.  I am deathly allergic to wine, so I had to choke down the bean sludge without the benefit of any liquid to wash it down (she said her sink gave rusty water, so we couldn’t drink it). 

 I tried my best to be polite, really I did, but finally I couldn’t take it anymore.  I began to regale the guests with stories of my bloodiest antelope, deer and elk hunts, and stories about eating red meat every day.  The things I couldn’t think of, I just made up.  It was fun to watch the expressions on their faces as I talked about gutting out a deer and watching the organs steam in the cold fall air.  You’d have thought I’d been talking about beating babies or something – their outrage was evident.  And I loved every second of it.  Kendrith finally stepped in and said

 “Okay, well, it’s been fun, but now we have to go” and she politely ushered me toward the door. 

 I saw her mouthing a heart-felt “I’m sorry” to her friend, as she got her heathen cowboy friend out the door and back to the Stone Age from whence he’d come.  I was all too happy to oblige, and on the way out of their apartment, I said (loudly enough for everyone to hear) 

 “Good, let’s go get some beef.  I need REAL food!” 

 Kendrith shut the door behind me and escorted me down the hall.  By the time we made it to the front door of the apartment building, we were both laughing hysterically.  It was a pretty funny scene, I suppose.  We headed toward downtown Chicago, with me driving and Kendrith playing tour guide.  My nighttime tour of Chicago was great – I couldn’t wait to come back some day and see it in the daylight!

 We drove past Soldier Field and the Museum of Natural History.  Kendrith showed me all the sights, and then she directed me over to someplace called “Rush Street”.  On the way, we stopped by a McDonald’s, and I got another Big Mac.  It tasted great!  Kendrith was kind enough to buy me dinner, and after we ate, she showed me what Rush Street was all about. 

 Basically, Rush Street was like a U.S. version of Magsaysay Boulevard.  It was lined with bars, and people were walking drunkenly between them.  I must admit that even though I was completely exhausted, the thought of a wild night of partying in Chicago did manage to pep me up some.  As we walked down the street, I began to notice the fact that people were openly stopping and staring at us.  I hadn’t given it a second thought, but I guess the fact that I was in my cowboy gear from head to toe, and the fact that Kendrith was a dark-skinned, six-foot tall black woman did make us an odd couple.  I’m not sure what they thought about us, but I’m sure that most of the thoughts were other than kind.  I didn’t care though, Kendrith and I had been buds for a long, long time, and I was looking forward to hanging out with her and getting a little crazy. 

 We walked into the first bar on the block and proceeded to drink with a wild and reckless abandon.  After the second or third bar, Kendrith ran into some friends, and they ran off to a couple more bars, while I stayed and drank at the bar I was in.  She had slipped me a $20, even though I told her not to, and I ordered up a beer.  Then another and another and another.  The bartender never asked me for any money, so I kept drinking.  I looked at my watch and saw that it was almost one – I figured closing time would be coming soon, so I abandoned the beer and went straight for the Beam and Coke.  I had graduated to tequila shots – hoping to be passed out by closing time, when Kendrith came back in.  She and her friends wanted to go get something to eat, and they wanted me to go with them.  I agreed – as long as I could buy booze there.  She said I could, so I got off my bar stool – and promptly fell flat on the floor!  I was drunker than a skunk!  I picked myself up and thanked the bartender, who never had asked me for any money.  Kendrith later told me that the guy was probably gay and had been hitting on me all night.  I was too naïve to realize it, and just thought the guy was being generous.  It was probably a good thing that we’d left when we did, because I have a feeling that if I’d stayed long enough for the bartender’s plan to come to fruition, I’d have been in jail for beating the crap out of a gay bartender!

 I stumbled into the restaurant with Kendrith and her friends, and promptly ordered up a beer and a Beam and Coke.  When it got to the table, I looked at my watch.  It was 03:00 in the morning!  I was absolutely shocked!  They were still serving booze at 03:00 in the morning!  I LOVED CHICAGO!  I asked Kendrith when closing time was, and she just laughed at me – “This is Rush Street, silly – there isn’t one!”  I couldn’t believe it – no closing time!  It WAS like a Stateside Magsaysay!  I finished my drink, and before I could order another, Kendrith told me she was ready to go home.  Probably a good thing, too, because I had to be back on base in less than four hours, and I was really, really drunk. 

 I gave her the keys as we walked back out to the car, and then promptly passed out in the passenger seat as she drove us back to her dorm.  She managed to pour me out of the car and get me up to her room, where she helped me into her bed.  Her roommate was supposed to have found a different place to stay that night so that Kendrith and I would have the room to ourselves, but something had happened, and her roommate was asleep in the top bunk.  Kendrith was upset – she and I had always teased each other with plenty of double entendre and innuendo, and this was the night to put the teasing away and actually see what, if anything, would happen.  It was no use – her roommate was there, and I was so drunk that I couldn’t have done anything if I’d have tried!  We made small talk for a couple of minutes, and then I passed out.  I’m sure Kendrith was disappointed, but I had truly enjoyed our time together – she had shown me a great time in The Windy City.  She set the alarm for 05:30 – less than an hour away, and fell asleep beside me.

 When the alarm went off, I sat up straight, ready to go.  I jumped out of bed and threw my boots and jeans on and grabbed my hat.  I was ready for my last day in town – raring to go after just an hour of sleep.  And then the booze spoke up.  I wasn’t even hungover yet – I was still drunk, and I promptly fell over a chair and landed on the floor.  I got up, somewhat woozily, and gave Kendrith a sleepy hug goodbye.  I thanked her for everything and told her I’d send her some money to make up for it when I got home.  She told me to forget about it and gave me another hug and sent me on my way.  I managed to stumble my way down to the lobby and out to my car, which took me a while to find, and then started driving toward the base.  I’m sure that, had a police officer been watching me, I’d have gone to jail for D.U.I..  I was weaving and crossing the line and trying to drive with one eye closed.  It was the LONGEST trip I’d ever made – through early-morning rush hour traffic in Chicago, drunk and exhausted from having less than three hours’ sleep in the last three days! 

 Somehow, I managed to find my way back to the base, and got to class on time.  The rest of the class got there soon after, and as the instructor began his lecture, I closed my eyes and drifted off – sleeping through the morning session once again (snoring much quieter this time).  At lunchtime, we didn’t even try to get into the galley – we just went over to McDonald’s, where they bought me lunch again.  The rest of the guys in my class were a lot of fun.  We had a bunch of laughs, and pretty much just blew off class after lunch, turning class into a big B.S. session until it was time to go at 1600.  As the final bell rang, we all shook hands, and everyone wished me luck as we parted ways and headed home.  All I could think was that this Weekend From Hell was almost over – I was headed home!

 I walked out of the classroom building and found my car.  My plane wasn’t supposed to leave O’Hare until 21:00 that night, but I wasn’t taking any chances.  I figured I’d just go drop off my car and sit in an airport bar until it was time to leave.  I found the map I’d been given to the rental car office and drove off of the Great Lakes Naval Training Center, never to return.  I followed the map, and had no problems finding my way to where I was going.  I had saved a little of the pocket money Kendrith had given me at the bar the night before, so I didn’t have to run the gate at the toll booth this time. 

 I was soon at the rental car office, and as I prepared to pull in to turn the car over to them, I looked at the gas gauge – it was almost empty!  I knew they were going to charge me some outrageous fee to put gas in it, so I quickly scanned the area looking for a gas station.  I spotted one directly across the street from the rental car place, so I changed lanes and pulled in.  The sun was going down, and it was getting really cold outside.  I wished like Hell that I’d had my peacoat on – but it was still sitting inside my seabag…wherever that was.  I was truly regretting the decision to put it inside my seabag at this particular moment, as I stood outside in the bitter cold wind, filling the gas tank in my rental car.  I couldn’t wait to get inside and get warm, and that thought was occupying my mind when it happened…

 A Navy van from the Training Center was trying to pull into the gas station to fill up while I was standing there.  As he tried to stop, the van hit a patch of ice and began to slide.  I caught it out of the corner of my eye – he was sliding right towards me!  I somehow managed to jump out of the way, just as the van PLOWED into the back of my rental car!  I couldn’t believe it – I’d just been rear-ended while I was parked at a gas station…by a NAVY van, nonetheless!  I reached over and shut off the gas pump, which luckily hadn’t spilled, and I screamed at the driver of the van,

 “What in the HELL are you doing?!?” 

 He climbed out slowly, “Oh man – are you alright?” 

 “Yeah, I’m fine, but what about the damn car?!?”

 I was having visions of thousands of dollars’ worth of bills from a rental car company in my mailbox.  I just knew I was screwed now – a perfect way to end a perfect weekend.  A wrecked rental car – great.  I drew a breath, told the guy who’d just slid into me to go call the cops, and I turned to walk over to the rental office and tell the guy what had happened.  As I turned, I saw him running across the busy street toward me. 

 “Oh man – are you alright?” he said. 

 “Yeah, I’m fine – but the car…” 

 “Don’t worry about it, that’s what insurance is for.  Just fill out the accident report form and you’re free to go.” 

 I couldn’t believe it – how easy was THIS?  The policeman showed up a couple of minutes later, and after a half hour of questions and paperwork, I was on a shuttle bus headed towards O’Hare.  I was still pretty amazed by how smoothly that had gone and was a little worried that something would catch up to me later – a bill, a ticket, something.  Nothing ever did.  It was the one NICE surprise that I had that weekend.

 When I got to the airport, I checked with the lost baggage office and, just as I suspected, they hadn’t seen my seabag.  They told me that it was probably still in Cheyenne, and they apologized for any inconvenience it may have caused.  The evil, mean thoughts coursing through my head did nothing to help my already-frazzled state of mind.  Rather than get into a pissing match with some minimum-wage earning lackey, I just turned and walked out of the office, muttering under my breath that my seabag better DAMN WELL be in Cheyenne, or there was gonna be Hell to pay! 

 I stormed up to the concourse and found the gate I would be leaving from.  I still had about two hours before my plane was scheduled to leave, so I went over and found a bar.  I had fifteen bucks in my pocket – enough for about three beers and five bucks left over to buy gas for my Jeep to get me from Cheyenne to Laramie when I got back.  I drank the three beers in about a half an hour and then sat and tried hard not to fall asleep before I left.  I had a long hour to wait before they let us board the plane, and I knew that if I fell asleep I would miss it.  I fought sleep – I fought it hard.  And then the word came over the intercom – our flight would be about an hour and a half late due to bad weather in some other part of the country.  Shit.  Oh well, at least it would give me a chance to get a nap in, so I gave myself the mental “O.K.” and nodded off. 

 An alert gate agent woke me up when it was time to get on the plane, and I found my seat and settled in for the trip home.  Thankfully, the flight was uneventful back to Denver, until we hit the turbulence just outside of town, but even that wasn't too bad.  We landed at Stapleton International Airport at around midnight local time, and I headed directly down to the United Express gate to catch my connecting flight to Cheyenne.  But there was a problem – there was nobody at the United Express gate, and there were no lights on.  According to the monitors, the last Cheyenne flight had left at 22:00 – I had missed the last flight home, and was now stranded at Stapleton International Airport in Denver.  It couldn’t possibly get any worse than this! 

 I marched up to the United ticket counter and asked what the Hell they were going to do for me because it was THEIR delay in Chicago that had caused me to miss my connecting flight.  The agent was very nice to me, and offered to put me up at a hotel for the night, then get me on a flight in the morning.  I agreed, and then stepped outside and got on the shuttle bus for the hotel.

 The hotel they put me up in was nice, and they gave me a private room.  I was excited at the chance to actually sleep on a real bed!  My flight left at 08:00 the next morning, so I had to be up at 06:00 to get to the airport on time.  It was just after 01:00 in the morning, and the thought of actually getting 5 hours of sleep was heavenly!  I took off my clothes, which were nearly standing up on their own by now, and I collapsed into bed and fell immediately asleep.  When the wake-up call came, I drug my sorry carcass into the shower and stood under the water to wake up.  It worked – I was soon wide-awake, and the great thing was that THEY HAD TOWELS!  I dried off completely, put my four-day old clothes back on, and went down to the lobby to catch the shuttle to the airport. 

 I grabbed a Danish and a cup of coffee on my way through the lobby, thinking I’d eat them on the bus – bad move.  About a block away from the hotel, we hit a bump, and I spilled the entire cup of coffee in my lap.  It was hot – and I wasn’t wearing any underwear.  I was too far gone to even jump at this point – I just sat there and took the pain, figuring it was just the latest installment in what had to be an entire weekend’s penance for the previous three years of sin and excess. 

 We got to Stapleton, I found my gate, and got on my plane.  The “Vomit Comet” lived up to its name once again, and we landed in a Cheyenne very similar to the one we had left four days earlier.  It was cold, windy, snowy, and generally just nasty outside.  I turned my shirt collar up against the wind and hustled from the plane steps to the door of the terminal, where I went immediately to the ticket counter to inquire about my seabag. 

 “Have you guys seen a seabag floating around here – maybe since Friday or so?” I asked the guy at the counter. 

 “Oh – is that YOURS?  We were wondering.  Looks like we forgot to put it on the plane!  Sorry.” 

 He reached behind the counter and produced my seabag – untouched since Friday.  I have never been so angry in all my life.  There was my peacoat, my gloves, and my uniforms and my money.  All things I had desperately needed three days and a thousand miles ago!  And some jerk in Cheyenne had simply “forgotten to put it on the plane…tee hee”.  I was so mad, I couldn’t speak.  I just grabbed my seabag and walked away from the counter.  I opened it up, dug out my coat, put it on and headed for the parking lot.  I was going to go home and go to sleep for three days!  I had already missed class for one day – what was another couple?

 I fought the wind and blowing snow across the parking lot until I got to my Wagoneer.  I dug into the pocket of my peacoat and found my keys, tossed my seabag into the back seat and climbed in.  I knew my heater wasn’t working, so it would be a cold ride home, but at least I WAS headed home!  I slipped the key into the ignition and turned it….click…..click…click.  Nothing.  I couldn’t believe it!  My battery was dead!  After everything else that had gone wrong, NOW my battery was dead!  I looked down at the dash and saw the problem – my headlights were still on.  I had left the lights on when I parked it the day I left.  I cussed long and loud, then climbed out and opened the tailgate.  I rummaged around and found a set of jumper cables, then popped the hood and waited to flag someone down to give me a jump. 

 I didn’t have to wait long – one of the airport maintenance guys saw me and came over with their snow removal truck and gave me a jump start.  I fired it up, thanked the man, then climbed back in and headed home.  It was yet another nasty, cold, messy drive over the hill, and the 45-minute trek took me more than an hour and a half.  By the time I hit home, it was about 13:00 in the afternoon.  I was tired, cold, hungry, angry, dirty and just a mess in general.  I didn’t say a word to any of my roommates, I just walked in, headed downstairs, threw my seabag on my floor and collapsed on my waterbed. 

 It had been the longest weekend of my life.  I had survived – barely, but I wasn’t happy about it.  By the time I had regained consciousness a day later, I was angry.  Very angry.  I sat down and fired off a letter to the CO of my Reserve Center, to the CO of Great Lakes, and to the head of the Reserve Training Command.  I didn’t know if they would do any good, but I just wanted to let them know the B.S. I had to put up with that weekend.  I never heard from anybody about it, so the letters were probably filed in wastebaskets - but they made me feel a little better.  The only thing I got out of that weekend (despite a nasty rash from not wearing underwear) was a very biased view against the entire Reserve system.  From that moment on, I decided that I would do whatever I could to get out of the Reserves.  No more volunteering for anything and no more weekend drills.  I just wanted out.  Unfortunately for me, the Navy saw things a little differently.

CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT:  MY SECOND A.T. – BACK HOME AGAIN

The weekend after I got back from Chicago was the Cheyenne Reserve Center’s drill weekend.  Since my Chicago trip had counted as my monthly drill, I wasn’t required to go.  I decided to drive over anyway and tell them about my crappy experience, and also tell them that I was done doing weekend drill.  I got there and found the recruiter in his office.  I informed him of my decision, and he tried to give me the hard-sell about how “I couldn’t just quit” and that “I owed the government time”.  I pulled out my copy of the Sea College Contract that I’d signed (and been smart enough to bring with me) and I showed him EXACTLY where it said that I didn’t have to do weekend drill.  He backed off his rhetoric a bit, and we struck a compromise.  Since I had decided to spend the summer working in Jackson Hole as a wrangler at a guest lodge, and wouldn’t be able to drill anyway, we agreed that I would do weekends until May.  After that, I was free to go.  When he asked about when I would do my two weeks’ AT, I proposed that I might go at the end of the year, maybe during my Christmas Break in December.  The recruiter said that would be fine and told me he put my name in for an open billet in December, eleven months from then.  Thinking everything was in order, I shook his hand and drove back to Laramie (but not before I mooched a free lunch with the guys who were actually drilling that weekend). 

 February’s drill went fine.  It was the same old routine – get a motel room, get drunk, do drill, get drunk, drill some more and go home and wait for a check.  Truth be known, it was getting really boring.  Then, a couple of weeks later, my phone rang. 

 “GMG3 Peterson?” 

 “Ummm…yeah, I guess so”

 Being called by my rate and last name threw me off a bit.  It was the Reserve Center recruiter calling.

 "Did you serve aboard the USS Fresno?” 

 “Yes”

 “Well, I just got a message asking for any ex-Fresno Gunner’s Mates in the Reserve System to come do a two-week A.T. in Long Beach starting next week.  Would you be interested?”

 I thought about it for a minute.  Go back to the Frez?  It was tempting, but I was in the middle of the school year, and mid-terms were coming up. 

 “Gee – sounds fun, but I’ve got mid-terms coming up, so no thanks.” 

 The recruiter agreed with me and hung up the phone.  I couldn’t believe they were trying to get me back on the Fresno!  Wouldn’t that have been a kick in the head!  I laughed to myself and went about what I was doing.  I’d like to say I had been studying, but truth be known, I was probably halfway through my first bottle of the day.  I didn’t give it another thought until the phone rang again two days later.  This time, it was the Reserve Center CO. 

“GMG3 Peterson?”  

 “Yes, Sir.” 

 “Pete, we’ve got a little problem here”

 Which translated to mean that I had a little problem here. 

 “What’s up?” 

 “You remember that gig aboard the Fresno that they called you about?” 

 “Yes, sir.” 

 “Well, it turns out that you are the ONLY ex-Fresno Gunner’s Mate in the reserve system with experience on their systems, and they HAVE to have you to pass a refresher training to keep her as part of the Reserve Fleet.” 

 “What?!” 

 I had a hard time believing that I was the ONLY Gunner’s Mate in the ENTIRE Reserve system that had experience working on those antiquated old 3”50’s.  Of course, I did know all the tricks and shortcuts to making the Fresno’s cantankerous old guns work, so maybe they were half right. 

 “Okay…so what do they want?”  I asked the CO. 

 “They’re asking that you volunteer for a two-week A.T. starting Monday.” 

 “And if I don’t?” 

 “They’ll probably give you another week, then try to recall you to active duty or something like that to FORCE you to go anyway.” 

 I couldn’t believe it – I was being forced to go back to the Fresno to train.  I could have fought it – I don’t really think they had a leg to stand on, but the way my semester was going anyway, missing two weeks couldn’t hurt me much.  Besides, one of the weeks I’d be gone was Spring Break.  Sure, I’d miss my mid-terms, but the professors would let me make them up – I thought. 

 “Okay, I’ll go.  When do I report?”  I told him. 

 “You just be here at the Reserve Center by noon on Sunday.  We’ll have your orders and plane tickets and everything ready.  Thanks.” 

 I hung up the phone.  Sunday – only two days away.  I told myself that it would be a lot of fun to go back to the Fresno and see some old friends.  I told myself this, but I lied.

Noon on Sunday found me standing inside the Cheyenne Reserve Center, picking up yet another of those infamous manila envelopes with my orders and plane tickets inside.  I was to leave the Cheyenne airport at 14:00, fly to Denver, then on to LA where I would catch a shuttle to the base and report aboard the Fresno prior to 0700 on Monday. 

 “Not a problem” I thought, as I read through the orders. 

 The CO shook my hand and thanked me for going.  I told him it was no problem, but if things on this trip were anything like my Chicago experience had been, I was going to come back and kick his ass.  He just laughed (he was a good guy) and told me to have fun.  I smiled and headed out for the airport. 

 Somewhat surprisingly, the flight was completely uneventful, and I reached LAX without a hitch.  Even my seabag was waiting for me!  Things were already heads and tails above Chicago!  I walked outside the LAX terminal and flagged down a Super Saver Shuttle to take me to the Long Beach Naval Station and climbed in.  The driver was a black lady, and there were about five other sailors in the shuttle with me – all heading to ships in Long Beach.  She pulled away from the airport and got us on the freeway. 

 About ten minutes into our drive, she turned to us and said,

 “Y’all mind if I make a quick stop first?” 

 Before we could say anything, she pulled off at the next exit, and then stopped at a 7-11, where she jumped out and got on the phone.  She then walked over to a car that was sitting there and started talking to the driver.  Several of us in the van saw her hand the driver of the car some money, and he handed her something in a small bag.  I didn’t really want to know what it was, but I had a feeling that we’d all just witnessed a drug deal.  Our shuttle driver was a crackhead!  We were outraged – not only had she wasted twenty minutes of our time to feed her drug habit, but she had put us in the middle of a drug deal in a bad L.A. neighborhood.  “I Love L.A.” my ass! 

 When we finally got to the base, she pulled up to the pier where, oddly enough, all five of us were going.  As I stepped out of the shuttle, I looked up and saw that old familiar 1-1-8-2 painted on the side of the ship in front of me.  The Fresno – like a long, lost friend you’d hoped would never find his way home again!  But here I was – standing on the pier, seabag in hand, ready to set foot on those decks I knew so well.  My reverie was broken by the shuttle driver asking for $40 a person.  We grumbled but paid what we owed.  None of us tipped her though, a point she made with the loud, sarcastic comment,

 “Oh thanks – I’ll send my kid to college on y’all’s tip”, to which the First Class who had been with us replied,

 “You’d just spend it on crack anyway.”. 

 It was a great comeback, and she shut her mouth and got back in the van.  I smiled and turned toward the job at hand – getting on board the Fresno.  I walked past the pier sentry and then up to the gangplank on the pier.  I strode up the steps and turned to salute the flag flying from the stern.  When I turned to salute the Officer Of The Deck, he was some boot Ensign that I didn’t know – but the Petty Officer Of The Watch was SN (now BM3) Anderson – a guy from Grenada that we all called “Coconut Junior.” 

 “Pete!” 

 “Coconut!” 

 I shook his hand and told him why I was there. 

 “Welcome Home” he said, and it hit me – I was home again.  Kind of.

 In the almost two years that had elapsed since I left her, the Fresno had changed a bit.  She had been sent to the Reserve Fleet just a couple of months after we got back from WestPac, and now her mission was to keep the sailors of the Naval Reserves trained and ready for assignment to other ships in the event of war.  I had been a part of the Fresno’s very last deployment, and a part of the very last crew to sail her into a foreign port.  It was a kind of cool connection with the old girl, who I looked at with much different eyes than I had when I’d first seen her.  I think the main difference was that I had spent those two weeks aboard the Valley Forge, and I knew what the “New Navy” was supposed to be like.  The Fresno was a definite throwback to the “Old Navy” and she had more character and personality than any of the new ships would ever hope to have.  Her dark corners and worn out decks, combined with thirty years’ build-up of paint, grease and floor wax all combined to make the Fresno an aging part of Navy History.  But there was something about her that was comfortable.  Something about the knowledge of the rough times we’d spent together – the typhoons, the emergency port call in Guam, drydock in Japan – it all came together and made me feel as though I’d truly returned “home” in a sense.  I hadn’t wanted to go back when I got my orders, but now that I was back, I was glad I’d come.  This would give me my chance to say goodbye to her in my own way – not preoccupied with the return from deployment, or a Tiger Cruise.  I could spend the next two weeks getting to know her again and remembering all the great times I’d spent as part of her crew.  I was beginning to look forward to it.

 I was assigned to First Division Berthing.  Since I knew my way around, they told me just to go on down and find myself an empty rack.  Reservists coming and going were now a daily part of the Fresno’s life, and there were only a few guys permanently stationed on her.  I knew a few of them, but most of the guys I’d sailed with were now at other duty stations or out of the Navy all together.  Jim Lusher was still there, and a couple other guys, but most of my buds were gone.  Jon Grace was gone, as was Dave Benton and Kent Pulling.  Bob Powell and Steve Haulin were at home, along with Jon Hickersham and Kenny Arrington.  Darryl Cravens had been transferred to a ship on the East Coast, and rumor had it that Scotty Bale, our old Postal Clerk, had gotten a divorce, then been caught embezzling money orders from the ship he’d gone to after he left the Fresno.  They said he was doing time in the brig for that one.  Poor kid.  For the life of me, I can’t remember if Jerry Ford was still on the ship or not.  I know that I did get to see him fairly often, because Jim Lusher had married his sister-in-law’s sister (or something like that – at any rate they were “family” now).  Jim and I got ahold of Jerry, who in turn got ahold of John Sorby, and we spent a couple of nights out on the town.  It was a lot of fun to see those guys, and to catch up on who was where, and what they were doing now.  I hadn’t missed much, evidently, and life went on without me. 

 The two weeks went by quickly, without incident or truly memorable story.  About the only things I remembered were the girl who I met in a bar the night I went out with Ford and Sorby, a skiing trip, and a promise I made to Jim Lusher that I never lived up to. 

 The girl was just another typical story in my ongoing “me and girls” melodrama.  We met her in a bar that was playing all country music, and she and I seemed to hit it off.  We danced most of the night and proceeded to get pretty good and drunk together.  She told me that she was a barrel racer, and I let her live with the lie.  I didn’t care if she wanted to tell me she was a bodybuilder – just as long as I got laid!  Things didn’t work out quite that way, but she did promise to call me the next night and take me out to a “real” country bar.  I spent the next night, stuck onboard the Fresno, just waiting in vain for that quarterdeck phone to ring.  It never did.  She never called me, and I never saw her again.  I don’t know why I got my hopes up so high – guess I was hoping for one last “Fresno success” story.  It wasn’t to be.

 The ski trip was another excursion up to Big Bear Mountain – the same place we’d gone in ‘89.  I don’t recall who all went, but I do seem to remember another incident at the rental shop about getting my bindings tightened.  I didn’t do another helicopter this time, but I remember that the skiing was great and I skied alone all day, because none of the guys I went with would go to the top of the mountain where the moguls were.  It was a fun day, and another good reason to get off the ship for a while.

 The incident with Jim Lusher started innocently enough.  We were talking one day while working on the mounts, and I happened to mention the fact that I was looking forward to going antelope hunting that fall.  Jim said he’d always wanted to try it, so I told him that if he’d send me the money, I’d go get him a license, and he could come hunt with me.  He thought that was a great idea, so he gave me his address and phone number so I could get ahold of him when I got back to Wyoming.  Well, I did, and he sent me a check for $125.00 to buy an antelope license.  Unfortunately, I procrastinated sending it in to the Game and Fish Department, and when I finally looked to see when the deadline was for getting the application in, I realized that it had passed the day before!  I jumped in my Jeep and drove over to their offices in Cheyenne, thinking I could talk them into taking it anyway.  I couldn’t, and they didn’t.  I held on to Jim’s money for a couple of months, then told him that he hadn’t drawn a license, and that I would send his money back to him when I got it back from the state (which was a lie, because I’d already spent it on booze).  Well, to make a long story short, I never did send Jim’s money back to him, and to this day I still owe him $125.00!  I feel really bad about it, and someday, when I find him, I’m going to pay him back.  Hell, I’ll probably just invite him out to go hunting again…on me.  I can’t believe I did that to him.  I'm a complete ass for that.

 The one thing that I did make sure I took care of while I was on the Frez again was an attempt to get my Shellback Certificate.  For some reason, I had never received it after I got off Active Duty.  I was upset about that – I had earned it, and I wanted it hanging on my wall!  I went up to the Pass Office to get some answers.  One of the same PN’s who was there when I was helped me.  We looked up the records and found that I was qualified to get the Certificate.  He couldn’t tell me why I hadn’t received it, but he promised that he would put my name in again, and they would send it to me.  He did have a blank Shellback wallet card in the office, and he filled that out for me.  So now I had a Shellback Card to carry with me to prove that I was a Shellback, but I had to wait again to get the one for my wall.  I was sure they would get it to me this time though, and satisfied, I left the Pass Office knowing that the “check was in the mail” so to speak.  

Soon, the training time was over, and it was time to leave the Fresno…again.  This time, I was completely ready to go.  I had spent all the time I wanted to on her, and was ready to bid her Fair Winds and Following Seas.  As I stepped off the quarterdeck one last time, I turned back to look at my old friend. 

 "Goodbye, Old Girl” I said, as I walked down the pier one last time. 

 Unlike the last time I had left her, I had the time to be a bit wistful.  As I got into the shuttle van to the airport, and watched the Fresno disappear into the distance, I felt a door close on my past.  My time on the Fresno was over for good, and I was closing in on the end of the time I would be associated with the Navy in ANY way, shape, or form.  I looked on it as a good thing.  I had given the Fresno two hard living years of my life, and she had given me a way to see the world.  An even trade – we’d call it a draw.  I was satisfied and ready to go home now.  Truly home.  Back to Wyoming, where I now knew that I belonged.  The flights home were easy, and my Jeep started when I put the keys into the ignition.  I drove home, stowed my seabag and then, with my days aboard the USS Fresno a distant memory, I began the business of getting on with the rest of my life.

CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE:  THE SHELLBACK CERTIFICATE

 

After I got back, and had finished my last drill weekend, I put my uniforms away and called it quits.  I knew that I had one more two-week AT to do, but that was next year, and I wasn’t too worried about it.  I left to go work in Jackson Hole, determined to put the Navy far behind me. 

 At the end of that summer, I got in a pretty serious car accident, and spent the next few months trying to rehab and get my life back in order. 

 I got a nice surprise late in the Spring of ‘93, when my old Fresno shipmate, Jerry Ford, called me up. 

 “Hey Pete, what ya up to?” 

 I hadn’t talked to him forever and was glad to hear from him.  He told me that a friend of his was taking over a bar in Cheyenne and had asked him to come work there.  Jerry had agreed, and was taking the Greyhound from L.A. to Laramie, and asked if I would come get him at the station.  I agreed, even though I didn’t have a valid Driver’s License (I had lost mine for 90 days because of my first D.U.I.), and would be breaking the law, but anything for a shipmate!  He called me when his bus arrived and I went to pick him up.  We spent the afternoon catching up, then spent that night barhopping.  The next day, I took him over to Cheyenne, and helped him find a room in a downtown motel.  I told him I’d come visit him soon and headed back to Laramie.  I fully intended to see him again, but by the time I made it back over the hill a month or so later, his friend at the bar told me that Jerry had gone back to L.A.  Evidently, he just couldn’t quite get used to Wyoming.  I laughed and went home.  I didn’t hear from Jerry again until almost ten years later, in 2002.  He told me that he just never could get comfortable in Cheyenne, and it was way too cold for him – he was a California boy, after all.  Wyoming ain’t for everyone, I guess!

 When the Reserve Center called me in May of ’93 to remind me of my one remaining two-week commitment, I was a bit hesitant to reply.  I knew that, because of a car accident I’d been in the previous summer, I wasn’t in any shape to be going out to a ship and trying to function.  The recruiter then told me that they could just have me come over to Cheyenne and play Office Assistant for a couple of weeks.  I could handle that, I thought, so I agreed. 

 In June, I headed over the hill for two weeks of hanging out in the Reserve Center Office.  I wasn’t too upset about it, because I knew that this would be my very last Navy function…ever.  After this, I was done.  The recruiter at the Reserve Center had figured it this way:  I was supposed to do two years on active duty, four in the active reserves, and two more on inactive reserve.  I had joined the Navy as a Delayed Enlistment in August of 1987, and my official EAOS was August of 1995 – eight years.  The way he had it, my active time lasted until 1990, and since I was supposed to get out in ’95, and I was to do two years on inactive reserves, then that must mean that my one year of Delayed Enlistment would count against my four years of active reserves, meaning that I only had to drill from 1990 until 1993 – 3 years.  Whew! My head was spinning as I tried to decipher what he’d just told me.  But the one thing I grasped was the fact that this was going to be my LAST A.T., and then I would be done for good!  I could handle that.

 My two weeks in Cheyenne went by quickly.  They put me up in a motel in town for my entire stay, and I went back to Laramie to work at the bar on the weekends.  It was working out well, and before I knew it, we were down to our last day of my A.T.  I had become fairly tight with the staff at the Center, and we all decided to go out for drinks that Friday after work to celebrate the end of my service.  It sounded good to me, so at 16:00 that afternoon, we all headed out to Uncle Charlie’s bar in Cheyenne for drinks.  We had a good time sharing stories and telling tales of our Navy exploits.  As the evening wore down, the inevitable conversation with the CO began.  

 “So – you really want out?” 

 “Yes sir.” 

 “Is there anything that I could do to make you decide to stay with us?” 

 “Not that I can think of, Sir.” 

 He then tried to shift tactics – “So, is there anything that you regret about your time in the Navy?” 

 I thought about that for a minute…”You know Sir, the only thing that I regret is the fact that I never got my Shellback Certificate.” 

 I never HAD received my wall certificate, even after my visit to the Fresno.  It still ate at me – it was the one thing I wanted more than anything out of the Navy, and I had earned it, but somehow it kept missing me. 

 “Your Shellback Certificate?  Did you earn it?” 

 “Yes, Sir – I crossed the line on the Fresno, but they never sent me my Certificate.” 

 “Hmmm – who was your Commanding Officer?” 

 “Commander Worrell” 

 “James Worrell?” 

 “Yes, Sir.” 

 “Well you’re in luck – he’s my detailer!” 

 I couldn’t believe it – my old CO was my new CO’s detailer (a detailer was like a personal career counselor for officers).  What a small world it was.  The Reserve Center CO got a twinkle in his eye –

 “I’ll make a call first thing Monday.  If I can get you your certificate, will you give reenlistment a thought?” 

 I patronized him with a “Well sure…IF you can get it.” 

 After my previous experiences, I was sure he was just another zero trying to blow smoke up my ass.  We shook hands and left the bar.  They went back to the Navy, and I went home a civilian.  It was a sweet, sweet trip!

 About a month later, a large, flat envelope showed up in my mailbox.  I was absolutely mystified – then I saw the US Navy return address. 

 “Aaah – my Honorable Discharge certificate” I thought. 

 I opened the envelope, and a letter fell out.  I picked it up and read it.  It was from the “Desk of CDR James Worrell” – my old Fresno C.O.!  I was shocked!  He wrote about a phone call he’d received from my Reserve Center CO, and how he told him about the fact I’d never received my Shellback Certificate.  Commander Worrell agreed with me that it was a terrible oversight, and he apologized profusely.  He went on to say that the Fresno had recently been deactivated and was now sitting in mothballs in Pearl Harbor.  He said that the Navy was deactivating all of the LST’s, and we were about to become part of Naval History – much like the diesel submarine sailors, or the battleship sailors.  It was a really nice letter, and inside the envelope, I found what I’d been waiting three years for – my Shellback Certificate!  I was ecstatic!  I finally had that piece of paper to hang on the wall, just like my Granddad’s.  The only thing it didn’t have was the ship’s seal (since the Fresno was no longer really a Navy ship), but I didn’t care.  The rest of it was correct, and there was my name in black and white, proving that I was a proud Shellback.  

Shellback Certificate - FINALLY!  

I had never been prouder of any certificate I’d ever earned in my life.  I called the Reserve Center CO to thank him in the morning, and his response was to ask me if I was ready to reenlist yet.  I told him I’d think about it, hung up and laughed out loud.  Reenlist – HA!  I was done with the Navy forever!  Or so I thought...

CHAPTER SIXTY:  NOT SO FAST – I’VE GOT A HERNIA!

It was now the fall of 1993.  I had finished my Navy service and was just kind of coasting through life.  I hadn’t returned to school since my accident a year earlier, and I had been put on academic suspension after the Spring semester of ’92 anyway (I had followed up my sterling 0.6 GPA semester with a glorious 0.5!)  My life was a shambles.  The only good thing that happened was that I met the woman who would become my wife around this time. 

 Jan and I met a couple of days before I went to Cheyenne for my last A.T., and we started dating when I got back to Laramie.  She was a brilliant girl – a good student and a member of the Chi Omega sorority.  I have no idea what she saw in me – a worthless drunk with no money and no real future.  She must have seen something, because she stood beside me.  With her help, I petitioned my way back into school part time, and I was actually making an attempt to curb my drinking and become at least a halfway decent human being. 

 As the Spring semester rolled around, I enrolled part-time once again, and began to settle into a bit “calmer” lifestyle.  Things were going fine for a time.  I was working full-time as a cook, maintenance man, bouncer and DJ at that same club I’d been a bouncer at since I got off of active duty.  I was making an attempt to return to school full-time in the fall of 1994.  Things were going well in my civilian life.  The furthest thing from my mind was the Navy.  And then I got a very familiar-looking manila envelope in the mail.  Those damn manila envelopes! 

 This one was from the Naval Command Center in New Orleans, Louisiana, informing me that they had received a “completion of Active Reserve Requirement” form from the Reserve Center in Cheyenne.  The only problem was that, according to THEIR records, I wasn’t finished!  Apparently, the recruiter in Cheyenne had added it up wrong, and hadn’t realized that my year of Delayed Enlistment didn’t count against my four-year requirement.  What it all boiled down to was the fact that I had to do ONE MORE two-week A.T.!  I couldn’t believe it!  Would I EVER be finished with the Navy?  I was insanely pissed for a minute, and then I realized that maybe this would be a good thing – I was completely broke, and two weeks of Reserve time meant a month’s pay!  I could use an extra $1500, I thought, as I called up the Center in Cheyenne.  I talked with the recruiter again, who acknowledged his screw up, and did apologize to me. 

 “Look” I told him, “I just want to get this over with.  Is there anything coming up in the real near future that I could go do?” 

 He thought for a minute…”No, nothing I can think of.” 

 “What about me coming over to Cheyenne for a couple of weeks?” 

 “Ummm…I don’t know – let me check.  I’ll call you back.” 

 A couple of days later, he called me and said “We’re not supposed to let you do this, but everyone here likes you, and it’s a slow month.  Can you be here by Monday to start your two weeks?” 

I agreed and then realized – I had thrown out most of my uniforms.  I told him what I had done, and he told me that it was okay – he’d order me a new seabag and have it waiting for me when I got there.  I hung up the phone and got ready to go play sailor…again.

 When I reported to Cheyenne the next Monday morning, everyone seemed glad to see me.  There was a new seabag waiting for me full of brand-new uniforms (for two weeks of use!).  I put on a new pair of dungarees and settled into the mind-numbingly boring routine of life in a Navy Reserve Center office between drill weekends.  Things went quickly and quietly for the first week, and I was looking forward to one more week of the same.  But somewhere on that weekend between the two weeks of A.T., I came up with an evil little plan. 

 I had been having pretty serious problems with what I knew was a hernia for about a year.   I knew I needed surgery, but I had no health insurance, and I couldn’t afford to get it fixed.  There were times when it hurt so bad I could barely move, and I knew I had to get something done about it soon.  That weekend I decided that I would use the Navy just like I felt they had used me.  I decided that, when the time was right, I would fake an injury and have to be taken over to the emergency room at the Air Force Base where they would “discover” my hernia!  It was an ingenious plan, if I do say so myself!  I had planned to hurt myself mid-week, so as not to arouse any suspicion that I might have done it on purpose during my weekend off.  I chuckled to myself over how clever I was and then got into my Jeep at about 0500 on Monday morning to drive over to Cheyenne and prepare for my “injury”

 Fate has a funny way of kicking you in the head, however, and Karma is a real bitch.  Someone up above must have decided to give me a little taste of humility, because about halfway up the big hill on I-80 just outside of Laramie, my right rear tire blew out!  I managed to keep it under control, and got over to the side of the road, where I jumped out to inspect the damage.  The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of my car was that it was cold – DAMN cold!  I looked at the tire and saw that it had absolutely shredded.  I opened the tailgate, got out the jack, the tire iron and the spare.  I changed the tire as quickly as I could, but it was so cold out that my fingers were soon rendered useless.  I got back into the car and held them up to the barely-functioning heater vents to warm them, then headed back out to try again.  It took me three or four attempts, but I finally got the tire changed and hit the road.  By this time, I was deep-chilled and hovering on the edge of being hypothermic.  The heater in the Jeep didn’t work very well, and the trip just kept getting colder and colder as I went. 

 By the time I made it to Cheyenne, I was frozen and couldn’t feel my fingers, my toes, my nose or my ears.  I stumbled into the Center and tried to thaw out.  They guys brought me coffee and some blankets to try to warm me up, and after about an hour I began to feel a little better.  I told them I was ready to go to work, and after the Doc at the Center gave me the okay, they gave me my assignment for the day.  I was to move a loaded bookcase from one side of a room to the other.  The idea was for me to take the books OUT of the bookcase, move the case, then put the books back IN.  I had about half of the books out, when it struck me – this was a heavy piece of furniture – if I could somehow injure myself trying to move it, it would be a TOTALLY believable way to get my hernia fixed!  My plan was to try to lift the half-loaded bookcase just enough to feel a little strain on the hernia so that I could tell the doctor where it hurt, then fall over and scream in pain.  That was the plan.  What really happened was much, much more believable.

 I made sure no one was looking, then stepped up to the side of the bookcase and grabbed ahold.  I put some pressure on it to test the weight, then I gave a real, good effort.  As I strained with the weight, I could feel my hernia begin to ache.  And then it happened – the ache suddenly gave way to a sharp “POP!” and I felt pain like I had never felt pain before!  I immediately dropped the bookcase, and hit the floor, screaming like a little girl.  The guys from the front office ran in to see what was wrong, and I just laid there on the ground, clutching my groin in pain!  I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew that it hurt – BAD!  One of the guys ran and got the Doc, who came in and started poking and prodding. 

 “Does this hurt?” he asked as he poked around my lower abdomen. 

 “HELL YES!” I screamed. 

 “Hmmm – I think you just ruptured a hernia!  We’d better get you to the hospital!” 

 Perfect – the injury I was trying to fake had actually HAPPENED…in spades!  By the time we got to the base hospital, I was in overwhelming pain.  They got me in, put me up on an examination table and took a look.  Sure enough, they said – it was a ruptured hernia.  They were going to have to operate!  I was to come back in a couple of days for the operation. 

 “A couple of days?” I said.  “can’t you fix it NOW?!?” 

 The doc just smiled and told me that there wasn’t an opening in the schedule for two days, and since I wasn’t in imminent danger of death, I had to wait.  Jerk.  They helped me off the table, and back to the Reserve Center.  I told them what had happened, and they agreed to give me the rest of the day off.  I called my girlfriend, Jan, and told her what was going on.  I had told her about my little “plan” before I left, and she just thought that it was all going accordingly. 

 “Umm – no” I told her, “I really did hurt myself.  I’m going back to the motel now – can you come help me”

 She agreed, and left Laramie, and her classes to come take care of my dumb injured ass.

 The next two days couldn’t go fast enough for me.  The Reserve Center had told me not to worry about coming in.  They said that they would take care of the paperwork to finish up my A.T. and then get my medical pay stuff in order.  I didn’t really care WHAT they did, as long as I got this hernia fixed! 

 Soon enough, it was Thursday, and time for the operation.  Jan took me over to the base hospital, and helped me get checked in.  It was to be an out-patient procedure, and I would be able to go home that night.  I couldn’t believe that something that hurt SO bad was just an out-patient procedure!  The operation went smoothly – it was over before I knew it.  Jan was there waiting when I came out – and I was glad to see her.  Once I was cleared to leave, the Air Force doctor gave me a sheet of paper that said when I was to come back for a check-up and that I was to avoid work for a month while I healed.  I was a little concerned about missing a month of work, but I figured I’d get by somehow.  I had Jan drive me back to the Reserve Center so that I could check out for good.  Everyone there was pretty worried about me, but they had taken care of me in more ways than one.  Not only did they have all of my paperwork finished up, and my final AT signed off as complete, but they had another, more interesting piece of paper sitting there.  It was a medical pay allowance that said that since I was on active duty when I got hurt, I would receive active duty pay until I was completely cleared by a military doctor!  How cool!  I was going to get active duty pay during my entire recovery time!  That was a good thing, too, since I would be laid up in bed for the next couple of weeks.  Jan actually had to drop a class or two to take care of me. 

 By the time all was said and done, I had drawn almost six weeks’ pay for my trouble, AND had my hernia fixed.  Sure, it had cost me some pretty severe pain, but it was worth it!  I was cleared to go back to work on May 8^th.  Of course, being the idiot I was, May 9^th found me at work in Jackson Hole, throwing 70 pound hay bales around all day.  Needless to say, common sense was not one of my strong points at the time, and I soon found myself back in a doctor’s office, as I had begun to re-tear my newly repaired hernia.  They put me on prescription steroids for the next three months, and I gained 50 pounds of mass, which I have never been able to lose. 

 Looking back on the whole hernia experience, it was a plan (however flawed) that worked.  It didn’t work out the way I had expected it to, but it had the same end result – I got my hernia fixed, and as a bonus, I got an extra six weeks’ pay out of the Navy!  But the thing I was happiest about was the fact that I was now COMPLETELY DONE with my time in the Navy Reserves…FOR SURE!  I had finished two years of Active Duty and four years of the Reserves.  All that was left was a year and half of inactive reserves.  The only thing the inactive reserves did was get their name put on a last-ditch call-up list.  That list was for if we went to war, and things went really, REALLY badly.  I wasn’t worried at all about having to go back and drill, or do another AT or anything.  I was done with the Navy.  And I was ecstatic about it.  For some reason – probably past experience, I didn’t get too worked up about it however.  I just knew that if there was a chance, however slim, that I might end up back on Active Duty, then the party must wait.  The party must wait for my absolute final Separation Date - August 18^th, 1995

CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE:  AUGUST 18^TH, 1995…AT LAST!

 

The next year and a half went by in a flash.  I got married, went back to college full-time, then got divorced.  Through it all, the Navy remained a silent part of my life.  I was constantly aware of my approaching separation date, and had even joked with some friends that, when the day came, I was going to dance around the room with my ID card in my ass, just to prove that I was done (and a moronic drunk).  As time got closer, and school got back into full swing, I forgot about that little “promise”, but my friends didn’t.

 The night of August 17^th, we were having a party at one of my friends’ apartments.  We were drinking and laughing and having a great time, when my friend looked at me and said

 “Hey, Jerry – it’s almost midnight!  Got that ID card ready?”  

 I had forgotten about that, and had kind of hoped they had too, but a promise is a promise, so when the clock struck twelve, and it officially became August 18^th, 1995 - I did it.  I dropped trou, stuck my Reserve ID card between my butt cheeks, and ran around the room, whooping and hollering!  Like I said – a moronic drunk.  After the laughter died down (and my ID card had been returned to my wallet where it belonged) I politely excused myself from the party and went home. 

 When I got home, I laid on my bed and thought about what all the Navy had done for me over the course of those eight years.  It had been a long, long trip, and had definitely lived up to the slogan, “It’s Not Just A Job – It’s An Adventure!”.  I had seen and done things that NO 18-year old kid from Wyoming had a reason to.  I had come of age in an atmosphere of drinking, patriotism, hard work and hedonism.  It was an education, to say the least, and I was damn glad I’d been there to get it. 

 I had started out as an 18-year old virgin.  I was an Eagle Scout, active in my church, and a hardcore band geek.  I didn’t smoke, didn’t drink or cuss much.  I had never so much as kissed a girl and was painfully shy in social situations.  Upon the completion of my Navy obligation, I had been transformed into a tattooed, raging alcoholic who cussed like a truck driver, drank like a fish, had a bad attitude, and hung out with loose women.  I’m surprised my mother recognized me!  Gone was the shy little 17-year old boy who had enlisted in 1987.  In his place now was a very self-assured, outgoing and gregarious 25-year old man.  I regret nothing, admit to less and enjoyed it all!  I’m glad I did it – I wouldn’t do it again, but for a young kid like me, the Navy was both the best and worst thing I could have done.  True, it helped pay for college, but then again it directly contributed to the fact that it was going to take me  7 ½ years to earn my 4 year degree!  As I thought about all of this, and slowly drifted off to sleep, I realized that whatever it had been to me, it was all in the past now.  From this day forward, I would be known as a “Vet” and not a “sailor”.  I was now officially “ex-Navy” – I had survived. 

 

Thank God.

All that's left is the Epilogue.  I put that in part eleven....but eleven just isn't enough.  We'll call it Part 1182 - Epilogue