pendennis

Dennis, according to Haze Gray and Underway, LPH-4 was a converted CV (CV-21) from WWII. Iwo Jima (LPH-2) was a keel-up different design. It was the first amphibious assault ship (commissioned 26Aug61).

Here's a link to the info: http://www.hazegray.org/danfs/amphib/

Fair winds and following seas!

gray_ghost2 Loc: Antelope, (Sac) Ca.

As a welder on LPH 10, USS Tripoli, for 2 tours to Vietnam then went to Scotland to repair submarines as a Nuc Repair Co-Ordinator. I would sit on the flightdeck after flight ops and gaze from horizon/horizon experiencing the vastness of the Ocean. Occasionally you'd see a figure of a container ship in the shipping lanes on the horizon but mostly your companions other then your shipmates were the dolphins. But preparing for war on a surface ship is different with the Submarine crews. In Scotland my job also was different. Writing procedures and supervising the repairs to the submarines Nuc power plant gave me a tiny look into the life of a submariner. Although asked by the Subs Captain to go out with the Nathaniel Green, SSBN 636, for sea trials, my ships Captain wouldn't allot me the privilege to accompany these men. Although part of the Navy, the sub crews have a different perspective of their duties. Surface Navy gets to see the horizon daily while the submarines only get a brief glimpse of daylight before diving down to patrol depths for their duration of patrol. Never having experienced that way of life, under the waves, I won't embarrass myself trying to describe their lifestyle other than to say it takes a special sailor to become a Submariner. I loved my Navy time. Although making my advancements on time and without any Captain's Mast, I wish I was able to retire from their but my family was growing faster then my pay. Support all Vets.

jlocke Loc: Austin, TX

Enjoyed that rather serious writing about being at sea in the Navy. I served 6 years, aboard the USS Voge (FF-1047) and the USS Julius A Furer (FFG-6). An FF is a frigate, slightly smaller than a destroyer. Here's something I saved about how to simulate shipboard life...


Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.

Repaint your entire house every month.

Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack".

Renovate your bathroom:
Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub and move the showerhead down to chest level. When you take showers, have someone use and flush the toilet repeatedly, make sure you shut off the water while soaping.

Put lube-oil in your humidifier instead of water and set it to HIGH.

Don't watch TV except movies in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch then watch a different one.

For former engineers: Bring your lawn mower into the living room and run it all day long, simulating proper noise level.

Have someone under the age of ten, or the paperboy, give you a haircut with sheep shears.

Once a week blow compressed air up through your chimney making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.

Buy a trash compactor and only use it once a week. Store up garbage in the other side of your bathtub.

Get up every night at around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (Optional is canned ravioli or cold soup).

Make up your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

Set your alarm clock to go off at random times during the night. At the alarm jump out of bed and get dressed as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.

Once a month take all major appliances completely apart and then reassemble them.

Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

Invite at least 85 people you don't really like to come and visit for two months. Don't leave the house for the first month. Then take all but eight of them out binge drinking for three days. Make the other eight stand watch over the house while you're out.

Have a fluorescent lamp installed on the bottom of your coffee table and lie under it to read books.

Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills on your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.

Lock-wire the lug nuts on your car.

Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing really thick to level it off.

Every week or so, throw your cat or dog into the swimming pool and shout "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

Run into the kitchen and sweep all the pots/pans/dishes off of the counter onto the floor then yell at your wife/husband/kids for not having the place secured for sea.

Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready." After an hour or so, speak into the cup again “Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoe box.

Every other night sit in a chair in front of the furnace and/or water heater getting up hourly to walk around the house to make sure it isn't on fire.

Do laundry once a week, keeping the dirty laundry in a bag at the foot of the bed.

Self righteously declare to your kids the dangers of alcohol while drinking and/or drunk.

Disassemble and inspect your lawn mower every week.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week so no bathing will be allowed.

Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house (i.e. dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc).

Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up."

Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 am while she reads it to you.

Submit a request to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 PM.

Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not. Announce, “Now sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all trash cans over the fantail”.

Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.

When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, shouting that your home is under attack and ordering them to their battle stations.

Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.

Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.

Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "shore leave". At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been cancelled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.

jlocke Loc: Austin, TX

At the risk of being rather long winded, here is another list of Navy 'truisms' that I collected...


• A Sailor will walk 10 miles in a freezing rain to get a beer but complain about standing a 4
hour quarterdeck watch on a beautiful, balmy spring day.

• A Sailor will lie, cheat and scam to get off the ship early and then will have no idea where he
wants to go.

• Sailors are territorial. They have their assigned spaces to clean and maintain. Woe betide
the shipmate who tracks through a freshly swabbed deck.

• Sailors constantly complain about the food on the mess decks while concurrently going back
for second or even third helpings.

• After a cruise, a Sailor will realize how much he misses being at sea. And after retiring from
the Navy considers going on a cruise and visiting some of our past favorite ports. Of course
we'll have to pony up better than $5,000 for the privilege. Just to think, Uncle Sam actually used
to pay us to visit those same ports years ago.

• You can spend three years on a ship and never visit every nook and cranny or even every
major space aboard. Yet, you can name all your shipmates and every liberty port.

• Campari and soda taken in the warm Spanish sun is an excellent hangover remedy.

• PO2 / E-5 is almost the perfect military pay grade. Too senior to catch the crap details, too
junior to be blamed if things go awry.

• Never be first, never be last and never volunteer for anything.

• Almost every port has a “gut.” An area teeming with cheap bars, easy women and partiers,
which is usually the "Off-limits" area.

• Contrary to popular belief, Master Chief Petty Officers do not walk on water. They walk just
above it.

• Sad but true, when visiting even the most exotic ports of call, some Sailors only see the
inside of the nearest bars/clubs.

• Also under the category of sad but true, that lithe, sultry Mediterranean or Asian beauty you
spent those wonderful three days with and have dreamed about ever since, is almost certainly
a grandmother now.

• A Sailor can, and will, sleep anywhere, anytime.

• Yes, it’s true, it does flow downhill.

• In the traditional “crackerjack” uniform you were recognized as a member of United States
Navy, no matter what port or part of the world you were in. Damn all who want to eliminate or
change that uniform.

• The Marine dress blue uniform is, by far, the sharpest of all the armed forces.

• Most Sailors won’t disrespect a shipmate’s mother. On the other hand, it’s not entirely wise to
tell them they have a good looking sister either.

• Sailors and Marines will generally fight one another, and fight together against all comers.

• If you can at all help it, never tell anyone that you are seasick.

• Check the rear dungaree pockets of a Sailor. Right pocket a wallet. Left pocket a wheel
book.

• The guys who seemed to get away with doing the least, always seemed to be first in the pay
line and the chow line.

• General Quarters drills and the need to evacuate one’s bowels often seem to coincide.

• Speaking of which, when the need arises, the nearest head is always the one which is
secured for cleaning.

• Four people you never screw with: the doc, the DK (disbursing clerk, ie paymaster), PC (postal clerk) and the ship’s barber.

• In the summer, all deck seamen wanted to be signalmen. In the winter they wanted to be
radiomen.

• Do snipes ever get the grease and oil off their hands?

• Never play a drinking game which involves the loser paying for all the drinks.

• There are only two good ships: the one you came from and the one you’re going to.

• Whites, coming from the cleaners, clean, pressed and starched, last that way about 30
microseconds after donning them. The Navy dress white uniform is a natural dirt magnet.

• Sweat pumps operate in direct proportion to the seniority of the official visiting.

• The shrill call of a bosun's pipe still puts a chill down my spine.

• Three biggest lies in the Navy: We're happy to be here; this is not an inspection; we're here
to help.

• Everything goes in the log.

• Rule 1: The Chief is always right. Rule 2: When in doubt refer to Rule 1.

• A wet napkin under your tray keeps the tray from sliding on the mess deck table in rough
seas, keeping at least one hand free to hold on to your beverage.

• Never walk between the projector and the movie screen after movie call and the flick has
started.

• A guy who doesn't share a care package from home is no shipmate.

• When transiting the ocean, the ship's chronometer is always advanced at 0200 which makes
for a short night. When going in the opposite direction, the chronometer is retarded at 1400
which extends the work day.

• When I sleep, I often dream I am back at sea.

• If I had to do it all over again, I would. TWICE!

GOOD SHIPMATES ARE FRIENDS FOR LIFE!

RoswellAlien

Was an ATN2, E5. Perfect!!

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

I joined the Navy in May 1968 and rode FBM submarines for 8 years, then spent my working career with Electric Boat in Groton, CT. Surface ships (aka targets) like subs are light years different than when I poked holes in the Atlantic and Med 50 years ago. Very interesting write up.

bobmcculloch Loc: NYC, NY

a bit of exageration, but just a bit.

fstoprookie Loc: Central Valley of California

I truly enjoyed the writing of Dennis 2146. I can tell the Surface Navy made a life long impression on him. I'm a 20 year Navy Air-dale. I loved The ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) part of my job. It was hard on my family as I know it was on the Surface Navy sailors familys. my wife says "You'll never grow up The Navy made a kid out of you forever". Now I'm 75 and still would go back in a minute to experience the camaraderie and feel the pleasure of crew accomplishment. Something I never experienced in civilian industry.

Chief Rob

Thank you! Your description of sailing on a Navy ship is as I remember of those long years gone by for me.

My first ship was CVS-39 USS Lake Champlain (CVS = Carrier, fixed wing, anti-submarine) and while at sea and when refueling the Destroyers (and smaller Destroyer Escorts) felt and continue to think those sailors deserved sub pay! Additionally I served on four additional carriers and STILL MISS IT - I retired from Antisubmarine Squadron 32 (VS-32) then assigned to CV-67 USS John F Kennedy on September 01, 1976 (the day before they sailed on a North Atlantic cruise while preparing for a nine month Mediterranean cruise.

For you a FAIR WIND AND FOLLOWING SEA!

John7199 Loc: Eastern Mass.

Dennis
I would definitely say that you earned your pay, and then some, as a door gunner on a helicopter.
My daughter did 4 years on the LSD Gunston Hall (In the 1990's).
Thank you all for your service!

usnret Loc: Woodhull Il

And just how much do you actually know about the defensive as well as offensive capabilities of tin cans are? From a previous response to a post I made, is seems as though you have some sort of unwarranted bias against tin can sailors. I knew the risks when I joined. They were explained to me in detail during indoc. ASROCS etc. In many different capacities; aren't we all participating in the defense objectives of our country. If sailing the seven seas in the great depths works best for you then I commend you for endeavoring to do so. Poor Guy?? Poor choice of wording!

Greg from Romeoville illinois Loc: Romeoville illinois

I have served on the USS Kennedy, USS Kitty Hawk, and the USS Kalamazoo. Been around the world 7 times. From the time you pull out to sea until pull back into port, the only thing you can do is eat, sleep, write letters, read old news, read letters that may be up to 4 months old and work .

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Thank you so much for the information. I did not see much for the Boxer on that link but apparently there a few LPH-4 Boxer's in Naval history. I went online to find the one I was on which was decommissioned in 1969. There was a lot of information regarding the USS Tripoli though including my squadron, HMM-265.

Going to Vietnam on board the Boxer in 1966 was my first time at sea. Like you I would go to the flight deck and look out on the ocean and realize it was one huge place.

Interesting to look back. It sounds as if you had an interesting career.

Dennis

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

And thank your daughter for HER service. She deserves it.

Dennis

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

Thank you my friend but I did not write the post but only posted it from someone else. Thank you for your service.

Thanks to everyone for their service to this great country.

Dennis