Cruisin - guest post - Jay Yurth

Gearing up for a 6 month deployment at sea in the Navy.

 

There are so many work related stuff a Sailor has to do on his ship as his ship prepares for a 6 month deployment overseas that I could never remember even half of them, but others sit in my craw. The ship goes through many little in and out deployments which are called work-ups and sea trails, before the actual cruise. In my day, you went out on a cruise for 6 months, came back and stood down for 6 where the 5000 sailors could be rotated through a leave cycle and then you started work ups for the next 6 months, it was an 18 month cycle. These work ups would include each major department ensuring its ship functions and responsibilities basically worked right. Operations would ensure the catapults worked properly. Supply would ensure there is enough food stored and freezers work. The boiler techs would ensure we could make potable water out of the salt water. Engineering would have us go out to sea for a day or two and do high speed test runs. High speed turns as well as full reversals. Those are very interesting when an Aircraft Carrier does it. The Admin. Department disbursing clerks would bring on 6 million dollars of CASH to pay the ships’ compliment for 6 months, because it was 1978 and my shop actually printed the checks on them thar IBM cards but, there were no electronic ATMs around, no debit or credit cards. Everyone had to go stand in line at the pay window, cash their checks and carry their cash around or kept it in their bunks. I actually saw the 4 Marines, all with machine guns, escorting the guy carrying the cash through the hanger bay once. I just stood and watched. Don’t need an 18 year old trigger happy marine capping my knee. When the Fleet inspectors sign off on everything, the ship is ready to go to sea for an extended period of time. If your ship was the best out of all the battle group ships in that rotation it might be awarded a Navy Ribbon called the “Battle E”, for Efficiency. I had two ships that received those which I was then allowed to wear on my dress uniforms.

Along with all that, the sailor must prepare to leave the real civilian world and head for the real, REAL world, which could involve wartime situations.

My first 6 month cruise happened when I was just 19 and stationed out of Mayport, Florida. I really didn’t exactly know how to prepare for it because I was only 19, I had no car because I crashed it, I had left my Bighorn 350cc Kawasaki motorcycle with Joe when I went to boot camp and my drivers’ license was revoked for a year. I didn’t have a steady girlfriend. I didn’t have a house or apartment. I really didn’t have much at all. I only had one pair of blue jeans and one brown shirt. Every single picture of me from that cruise shows that fact. Why? My old fart of a recruiter said if you are under an E-4 on a ship, you can’t have “civvies” or non-military clothes. When was he in the Navy, 1945?  I had gotten the required (I bought into that lie) “Cruise-cut”. This is just where you shaved your head before the cruise because it saved on shampoo, standing in the “free” barber shop line for hours and if any water hours were to happen, due to Jet fuel contamination in the water lines, you wouldn’t have greasy, stinky, flammable hair. Anywho, I just partied as hard as I could right up to and including the night before the “ships movement” day.

Yes, I learned a lot and I grew up a bit maybe on that first adventure at sea, so I was prepared for my next cruise.

Now, heading into my second cruise, I had a car 1979 Renault, LeCar after I got my drive’s license back. I left the car with my new girlfriend’s mom, but that turned out to not be such a good idea as everyone in her family was driving it to the tune of 8,000+ more miles being on it when I got back. I had gotten a bunch of back pay since they (the Navy) forgot to automatically advance me to E-2 or pay me for it, so with so much cash in hand, ($1,100 like 4 months’ pay back then) I cut an allotment to my bank in St. Joseph and was getting just $18 paychecks every two weeks because I had learned how to loan shark out that back pay money very entrepreneurially. Really, I lived off the money that everyone was paying me back for the entire cruise, which of course was like 25-50% interest. Hey, I was young, please don’t judge, no one balked at the interest rates!! I had bought a number of other civilian clothing and except for the hard goodbye with the girlfriend at the pier, I was prepared for my 2^nd 6 months in the Mediterranean. Of course if you have gotten any of my other “Stories”, you know this cruise was extended to 7 months and 1 week due to the Iranians holding our Americans hostage and all that tension involved at that time. Well, I lost the girlfriend upon returning and then we find out the ship is going to change home ports to the Philly ship yards for dry-dock for an overhaul called SLEP or Ships Life Extension Program. I decided that I didn’t want to load up my car on the flight deck of the Aircraft Carrier, so I drove it back and parked it at my dads’ house in Missouri while I took my leave there, then flew back to Philly and bought a $100 Toyota Corolla from Frank C. to fart around in. I sold it to Tom S. for $100 shortly after that as I was preparing to fly back to Missouri to get my LeCar. I can’t understand why I left it there in the first place though. I may have misunderstood what dry-dock was and thought it was a place where we didn’t need cars. It’s a mystery.

Shortly after getting to Philly in October 1980 we find out that our Captain was going to decommission the ship so that anyone who wanted to live OFF base and out of the barracks, could get an extra housing allowance. I put in my chit and quickly moved into a really small 1 bedroom apartment with a yard worker dude in Paulsboro, New Jersey, right across the Delaware River from the base. I could take a ferry every day to go to work. .  I remember I was riding to the ferry with my roommate on December 8^th 1980 when the radio said that John Lennon had been shot. Other than that, all is looking good heading toward 1981.

Oh Snap, I had met my future 1^st wife in November 1980 at an “Old World” rally (this was some Double Diamonds in Amway that started a new multi-level company of their own- it died quickly). Now I needed my car back and quick, this bumming rides with my roommate is getting old, but the Navy didn’t want me taking leave so close together so I had to wait until early 1981. Well, the guy I was renting with was named Bandy. Yup Bandy, the part time rodeo clown and full time ship welder. Now, he had a mother who wrote the Horoscopes that were published in one of the papers in Philly and she was a palm reader too. Interesting. Bandy said that I should meet her one day. OK. I went with him over to her house right before I was flying back to Missouri to get my car and drive it back. She met me at the door and shook my hand but held it longer than would be normal and said, “Let me read your palm.” Sure, I’m game. She hems and haws a bit and says that she has NEVER seen a life line as long as mine. She said I will have a health issue about here (pointed to a little spur crease in the middle) but make it through easily and live well into my hundreds. Right, whatevers! I bet you say that to everyone…

Then, still holding my hand (uncomfortably) she said why don’t you ask your fiancee` to come with you next time and I’ll do a joint couple reading of your astrological situation next time, you know, past, present and future. All she needed was both of our birthdates and the state we were born in. Wait a dog gone minute, I never told you I was engaged and I had not told Bandy either, that was kinda weird, but I provided mine and Irene’s to her right then and there.

So, Bandy carts us both back over to her house 2 days before I was to fly out  which was late January 1981 and we sit down to a table full of books, maps and charts that depicted the solar system, planets, constellations and such. She starts with my past. She said something happened that was a sharp turn in your life from one direction to another, these usually mean a divorce around mid 1971. I am trying to remember what year my folks divorced as she starts going on to 1977. I stop her and told her that my parents DID get divorced that year but she just kept going as if it wasn’t a big deal for her to know that about me. Then she said oh, my, late 1977 the same thing happened. A sharp direction turn in your life. She looks at me for conformation this time and I quickly state that I had a big crash on September 2^nd 1977 and was in the Navy by October 30^th. That was a MAJOR change in my life’s direction.

Irene was sitting there with her eyebrows up but asked where the bathroom was and left the room. The lady leans over and said, I am clad she is gone because you will have two wives. (I have had 3 marriages, but the 1^st one really wasn’t legal-I forged documents) On she goes to the future, since she was already predicting a divorce even before I was married. She said “twos” have come up and will continue to come up in my life at a rate that she has never seen before. (If you read my book, you will note that I run with that numerology thing as a subtext to the story line) She said I would have two careers, wives, etc. etc. I would be wealthy but not rich. I said what is the difference? She said being wealthy means to have what you need and you do not worry about getting what you want, where rich means you have too much money and cause pain to yourself and others trying to get more. I never forgot that.

Then as Irene came back in the room she went on to reading my “present”.  She said well this is a bit of a concern, I see death in the very near future, I would suggest you not travel for the next month or so. You, someone in your family or someone very close to you will die very shortly. I told her that I had airline tickets in hand and was flying out in a couple of days. She WARNED me not to go. She said you should really postpone this trip. I mean really, she warned me in a strong tone of voice.

Well, I couldn’t really take her advice and so I did fly out and got my car and drove back to the East coast. I DID think about what she said though…and I mean a lot. I thought about it on the plane and as I drove the speed limit on the highway, which as you know is not my style.

Well, I get back zip over to Irene’s house. We are getting ready to head to another “Old World” meeting but I opened my pile of mail I had brought with me before we go. I read the little postcard from St. Joseph from one of my very good friends’ parents. It said that Greg had died on February 1^st from a motorcycle accident in New Zealand...

All I could think about was what that lady had said and she was right. I was flabbergasted as it was only 5 days after she had warned me.

But I digress…

Other strange things that happened to me or I saw as I prepared for my next two cruises were:

-I worked with a guy named Charlie McCabe who had 5 GTO’s. He shaved GTO into the top of his head before the cruise.

-We had a guy who married his 13 year old cousin, something about not wanting the baby to be a bastard, (That’s what you’re worried about?) and she was bouncing checks all over. He was called in as the Navy makes you responsible for your wife. Seems he put her on his account and showed her how to write checks before he left which was a new thing for her. He tried to tell her that there was no money in the checking account but she told him in no uncertain terms that she had about 40 checks right there in front of her. Back to the drawing board.

-We had one guy named Rocky that was really overweight as we headed out for our 2^nd cruise on the Saratoga. He wanted a girlfriend so he decided to only smoke Marlboro’s and drink coffee for the entire cruise. Ok, he did eat some, but the guy lost about 150 pounds with zero exercise. Upon returning, I went with him to buy his “girl catching” dream car. A 1980 MG Midget. He paid cash with all $20 bills.

-I couldn’t leave to go to sea when I was married to my second wife Barb, without her starting a fight. Now it did not matter how much I tried to not fight with her because she just could not FEEL happy with me leaving. She HAD to feel bad about it. So she would start a fight no matter what. I always had to leave her with her being mad at me. Without exception. Once I tried just not responding to her but she got mad at me for not listening to her. I was very worried about leaving anything in her hands, you cannot imagine how worried I was… she was just nuts.

-I never saw Melody cry until I was leaving for my 1 year isolated duty tour in Diego Garcia only 3 years into our marriage. (Not a cruise but even a longer time away from family) The airline lady, here in Honolulu said all persons boarding on my flight number must now stand inside the gate. As I walked to the gate, Mel grabbed my hand, looked at me and the tears came full on. That was so sweet!!!! I never worried a bit about Mel handling anything while I was gone but the first thing she handed me when I got home was the check book. She said, “Here, I am sick of doing the bills.”