Mess Cranking Is 4 Months Of Sleep Depravity

        This post will be similar to my previous post because it will also contain photos taken while serving aboard the USS Fletcher DD-992 from 1993 through 1996. Specifically, all the photos will contain images of my former shipmates and I… Nothing but people for this post. So, the above picture shows, from left to right, McClenndon, Smalls & York.

1993 Captain’s Birthday Cake USS Fletcher DD-992

        I was mess cranking in the wardroom for this event. For you non-navy people, mess cranking is a joyous time of washing dishes, serving food and washing dishes… For four months. The worst time I had in the navy was while I was mess cranking. The wardroom is where officers eat, so it was the cushiest mess cranking job but it still sucked balls. The cook on the left is MS3 Galan, and the other cook I only knew as “Lucky.”

Mata At Rest

        Once I was done mess cranking, I was sent back to 1st division for a life of chipping and painting. From time to time, shipmates & I found hidden areas to relax in.

Everyone Has To Paint In The Navy – Even Cooks

        I knew this cook as Robo. It was impossible for him to have a bad day or take it out on some one else if he was. It was always fun to have him around.

After I Mess Cranked I Stood Watch

        If you do not have a rate when you enlist in the Navy, you will be a part of 1st division, and we are the ones that chip and paint all day. If the ship is out to sea, then you ALSO get to stand watch for four hours at a time. That’s me on the left and McClenndon on the right.

Sweepers, Sweepers, Man Your Brooms

        Everyday, twice a day, in port or at sea, the ship got swept. If it was raining, you had to sweep “standing water.” Yep, we swept up water as it fell from the sky. Uh, yeah. Asher is seen here sweeping up some deadly dirt from the ship.

Aft Lookout On The Mighty Warship Fletcher DD-992

        I found that a lot of my pictures were taken while I was on watch or taken of other people on watch. I carried a small point and shoot camera around with me a lot in the early days of my navy career, but nothing above the level of “snapshot” was ever produced.

Workman Pointing Out A Contact

        Being out in the middle of the ocean is fun, but when you are standing watch and looking for contacts out there, it’s not like finding birds in the park. The ocean is so big and anything on it is barely a speck. It is tedious and boring to stand watch, but it was to be done, day & night everyday.

Marjuro, Marshall Islands 1994

        Majuro was my first exotic port during my time on board USS Fletcher DD-992. The drink in front of me has whiskey in it. It wouldn’t be for another week or so that I would discover rum, which would be drink of choice for years after that. I’m on the left, McClenndon in the middle & Pannkoke on the right.

Marjuro, Marshall Islands 1994

        Going to exotic places and sipping cocktails in beachside bars was something I really looked forward to doing while in the navy. There were a few shipmates that were deep into hobbies like scuba diving, golfing and sailing, but most everyone else would hit bars and clubs in every port. It was so much fun to do that, and there are so many things to do in all these ports around the world that there never was a dull moment when you are on a Western Pacific deployment. Above, from left to right are: Hanrahan, James, Coleman (Big C) & Pannkoke

Sailors From USS Fletcher DD-992 Marjuro, Marshall Islands 1994

        My trip to Majuro in 1994 has always been especially etched into my memory because it was my first port of call in the Navy. It was a very friendly place, and there were children that would follow us from time to time. The image above has three shipmates in it and one mysterious hand that I just cant explain (in the the right/center part of the pic). They all loved having their picture taken. McClenndon is at the top/center, Hales in the middle, and unknown on the right.

President Bill Clinton In 1993, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii

        This post contains photos I took in 1993 & 1994 with a variety of different point & shoot cameras. I was serving in the Navy at the time, so these pics are of the “look where I am” variety as opposed to trying to create art. The military is not conducive to independent or free thinking. Looking back, it really didn’t permit thinking of any sort. The photos I present to you in this post are presented in the order I took them, to the best of my recollection. The photo above was taken in July of 1993. President Clinton is in between the two white uniformed people in the center of the photo. I think one of those people is Admiral Charles R. Larson, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Command at the time. All of the sailors you see on the forecastle of the ship on the right of the photo were in the Persian Gulf less than a year later. As a 19 year old teenager serving aboard the destroyer USS Fletcher DD-992 at the time, it didn’t seem weird to me that men (no women) that would be dead in less than a year were kept at such a great distance from the president, while the men ( again, no women) that sent them to die ate breakfast and shook the hand of President Bill Clinton.

Self Portrait Taken Moments After President Clinton Was Out Of Sight

        In the photo above, I was bright eyed, bushy tailed and ready to go to war for President Clinton and my country. At the time, I had no concept of war other than WWII Navy movies. I hadn’t seen Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, or Apocalypse Now, just the romanticized navy & war flicks that came out during the two decades after WWII. Mr. Roberts, Operation Petticoat, Victory At Sea and The Sands Of Iwo Jima were all made when America was still swelling with pride and patriotism, and so was I when I saw them. There was no such thing as an anti-war movie back then, so I bought it hook, line and sinker.

Before We Made War, We Painted The Ship

        With or without war, the Navy has a weird compilation of priorities. Appearance to outsiders is the biggest one. The Dog & Pony Show is what happens when a non-military person in a position of authority is expected on board a naval vessel. Those of you that had to clean their rooms when grandma was going to visit may understand what I mean. The bed you sleep in was always fine, until that one day when your parents beat the shit out of you for not making it because Grandma is due for a visit. Since your superiors ASSUME you know what they know, they ALSO assume you know WHY you are having the shit kicked out of you for not having a clean room.

The More Enlisted Men You Have, The More People You Can Blame

        There is one very important thing you must understand about the military… SHIT ROLLS DOWNHILL. For those of you that don’t understand what that means, I will simplify it for you: If you are the new guy in the room, you will feel something being shoved up your ass when something goes wrong.

Standing Watch Provides A Scapegoat

        If we imagined ourselves as amnesiacs instead of patrons of American evening news, our involvement with Iraq began in 1989 when Iraq invaded Kuwait. Without elaborating on that point, we have been at war with Iraq for 20 years. Iraq has the third largest OIL RESERVES on the planet, while America is the first largest CONSUMER of oil on the planet. With consumption like that, you need to have young men, standing a visual, naked eye watch on the horizons of war zones. That way, you never have to blame failures of any sort on equipment, or those friends of government officials we call contractors that manufacture that equipment.

USS Fletcher DD-992, February 1994 Ported At Kwajalein, Marshall Islands

        Kwajalein was a great place to visit. USS Fletcher-DD992 was there as part of a WWII anniversary celebration, but I was there as a teenage sailor, looking to make trouble. I had to limp back to my ship by 10 or 12 pm (I forget what time curfew actually was) and even though I was late, my division officer was the Officer Of The Deck at the time, so he let me slide.

Anchor Detail Onboard USS Fletcher DD-992 Phuket, Thailand

        When you are 19 years old, like I was when I snapped the pic above, logic and reason are not your strongest points. Even if you have the temperance of age, and the logic & reason that age and experience bring, The Navy has a way of reducing it to alcohol and whores. For example, my ship’s last port, before heading to do battle in The Arabian Gulf was Phuket, Thailand. Phuket has no piers, facilities or reason to accommodate a Spruance class destroyer, yet in early 1994, USS Fletcher-DD-992 was parked 1000 yards or so off the coast, and for three days our “Liberty Launch” shuttled American sailors to the beach and turned them loose on the bars and women of the city. At the time, I didn’t care why we were allowed free reign in a tropical pseudo-paradise infested with drugs, whores and alcohol, I just knew that in a week I would be in a warzone, so I better live it up.

Asher, Mata, Workman & I

        Here is the ironic thing about my time in the Navy… I was at the pinnacle of my vanity. While I was serving, I felt the urge to do my own thing more than I ever had, before or since. My hair was way longer than regulations allowed, and I was already beginning to understand just how easy it was to manipulate the military to get my way.

Steel Beach Picnic, USS Fletcher DD-992

        The fantail is the ass end of a ship. On my ship, USS Fletcher DD-992 it was a good 3600 square feet, so it was a natural place to have a picnic. The ship is made of steel, so if we imagined the ocean around us as the ocean and our ship as a beach, you wound up having a STEEL BEACH PICNIC.

After We Ate, We Spread Democracy

        Being in the Persian Gulf was a little bit different than other places than Navy had taken me. For starters, there is nothing there but oil, so we were there for no other reason than oil. Reason? The 90 days my ship spent there as part of the Carl Vinson Battle Group was for the sole purpose of defending America’s oil interests. Nothing wrong with that in and of itself except that we were told at the time that ensuring the liberation of Kuwait was our reason for being there. Do you hear that world? If you have oil, America will send it’s citizens to die defending your sovereignty. If you don’t have oil, we will report your troubles for 16 seconds on the evening news.

Now Muster A 30 Man Working Party On The Pier

        The Persian Gulf, The USS Fletcher DD-992 and sand comprised the 3 months I spent in the Persian Gulf. Just to give you an idea of how stupid the military is, I offer the following. When visiting dignitaries of ANY creed, culture or race came to my ship, while in port, American sailors were made to sweep the sand off of the gang plank AND the pier! As the winds of the Arabian desert blows sand ALL THE WAY to North America, American teenagers had to ensure that Arab Sheiks and American Congressmen had a sand-free path from their chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz cars across the pier to my ship.

A Haircut And A New Naval Job

        Strange things happened to me just as we reached the Arabian Gulf in March 1994. The first was my new naval rate, personnelman. No more chipping and painting for me, at least on the OUTSIDE of the ship. I got a haircut and dove in to learning my new rate. The strange artifact of working the new job in the ship’s office was some regularity in my schedule, and day to day routine. Sailors with no rate (job) in the navy spend their days working in 1st division. This division is controlled by boatswain mates and you never know what you will be doing from one day to the next BESIDES chipping and painting. 1st division does all the lookout watches, anchor details, line handlers and anything else that requires late hours and heavy lifting. All that changed when I started working in the ship’s office because it was a regular 9-5 type gig. The actual hours were longer than that of course, but I didn’t have to stand watch anymore and quitting time was at the same time everyday.

USS Fletcher DD-992 In Dry-Dock 1995

        My new rate, along with the mighty warship being mired in dry-dock following our return from the Persian Gulf is what ultimately turned me into a person that didn’t like the navy. It was really sad because I thought the USN was going to be different in the way it handled employees compared to the civilian sector. A ship in dry-dock is absolute murder on the crew. We stood fire watch for 12 hours a day, lived on a barge on duty days, lived on an island on non-duty days, and that didn’t change for 18 months. The navy just doesn’t care about wasted potential. I begged my command to allow me to go on a deployment with another battle group that was leaving about the same time my ship entered dry-dock, but was told no because my replacement would not know the ship’s routine as well as me. Firewatch was the ship’s routine. My replacement would not be able to watch a civilian contractor weld for 12 hours as well as I could. It was at that moment that I realized how stupid the navy is, and just how naive I had been.

Aloha from Palm Springs, California

          A three day weekend is a pretty good reason to drive from San Diego to Palm Springs, California.  I never set foot in the pool and came out ahead in the casino so it was an oddly perfect weekend.  My fellow loungers were the perfect company and made the trip what it will be remembered as being.  For now it was an epic road trip from San Diego to Palm Springs, CA, with the photos here presented as a record of things that were seen, and might have otherwise been forgotten.

You must play with purpose!

          As we do not have air hockey in San Diego, we took full advantage of the tables.  As Palm Springs caters to the rich & famous, the pucks are made of solid gold and beautiful women bring you cocktails of blasphemous potency.

Different windmills currently in use in Southern California.

          Clean, renewable energy should be one of everyone’s favorite things.  Recycle cans, use permanent plastic water bottles instead of disposable plastic bottles and do what you can to get wind and solar in to the mainstream.

          Traveling through the colossal windmill farms of southern California was electrifying and terrifying.  So much energy is generated by the windmills, that the nighttime desert floor glows in a site so indescribable that no photographer has ever been able to spoil the view by looking through their camera’s viewfinder to take a picture.

          This vacation gave me a chance to remember that I love to create art, just for the sake of doing it.

          My friends and I were on a mission in Palm Springs, and we failed to complete it.  As warriors in a hazy battlefield of glass, fire and liquid we ultimately returned home defeated in war but soaring higher than any living things have before in spirit…  We had become The Trifecta.

The day we left for Palm Springs, this perfectly aligned throw took place.

          With a start like this, we knew it would be a good trip and that there would be some great photography taking place.  Our Triangle Zen arrives when the disc is thrown.

Unfortunately, even famous photographers must deal with traffic.