Memorabilia
U.S. Navy
I was in the Navy for four years from 1964 to 1968 as a Midshipman who went on active duty for two months every summer. Because the Navy gave me flight training and eventually orders for the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, I owed them four years service as an officer for my time at university plus one year for the Vietnam war plus one year as a pilot. Unfortunately, illness prevented me from completing the program and accepting my commission.
My plan was to recover and regain my commission through OCS (Officer Candidate School) but during my recovery in 1968 the world changed. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were assassinated.
Those tragic events led me down the rabbit hole of political research which eventually caused me to reverse my belief about the righteousness of the Vietnam War.
Nevertheless, I honor those who served, especially those who didn’t return from Vietnam which include a Midshipman in my class Ed Hammerbeck and a Delta Upsilon fraternity brother Ted Edwards.
Memories and Memorabilia
1967 Memory – Kind of an amusing story about dealing with the goons working for WWII Fascist dictator of Spain General Francisco Franco who was still in power in 1967:
“Bud” was a Midshipman from the Naval Academy who was my best mate on the USS MacDonough a guided-missile frigate with the 6th Fleet in the Mediterranean during the summer of 1967. We went on liberty in the Spanish city of Palma, Majorca. Bud and I checked out the big event in the city – a bullfight. As we left the stadium, we saw various women crying near the exit.
Outside the doors, Guardia Civil (Fascist Franco’s national police) were arresting men and tossing them into WWII style troop carriers. I was astonished and pulled out my cheap little “Instamatic” camera to document the chaos. Before I could take a photo, the Guardia Civil saw me. They grabbed my camera and arrested me. I yelled to Bud and they arrested him.
As we rode in the troop carrier packed in with other arrestees, I realized that all of us were foreigners. It turned out to be a scam to get money from tourists by claiming that we all threw our seat cushions in the bullring. Bud and I hadn’t participated in that apparently common gesture of disapproval during a bullfight and I doubt any of the others did either.
While waiting to hear our fate in the interior courtyard of the police station, a Guardia Civil motioned for me to follow him. (They didn’t speak English.) I followed him down a hallway lined with Guardia Civil and arrived in an office filled with yelling people. In the chaos, I saw a German tourist protesting as a Guardia Civil yanked the film out of his expensive Hasselblad camera.
A Guardia Civil handed me my little instamatic camera and made gestures to indicate that I should open it. I realized that he didn’t know how to open the camera in order destroy my film. When he turned away to deal with some other problem, I decided to take advantage of the chaos.
I stepped over to the Guardia Civil at the door to happily and profusely thank him for returning my camera. He didn’t understand a word and ignored me. Then I proceeded down the hall saying gracias to the rest of the Guardia Civil. It was like I was working my way down a disinterested receiving line. At the courtyard, I yelled to Bud to join me and we ran out the front door down the steps to the street and freedom!
1967 Memorabilia – A small greek sword I bought during liberty in Athens.
1966-67 Memory – Video coming soon of my minimal Navy flight training (only 2 hrs solo)
1966 Memorabilia – Official 12×16″ navy photographs of instruments in the cockpit of a T-28 that I flew one afternoon at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi. That flight was a non-solo one with a real pilot in the back seat.