ANCHORS AWEIGH Chapter One

Today begins a New Short Continued Story -

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You're In the Navy Now

 

I was excited, I was in the Navy. I had joined for two years and was immediately sent to training school.  Since I wasn’t considered officer material I finished my basic training in four months.

For the next few months I had what could be considered menial duty. I was working in the preparation of the mess and cleaning up after “Slopping the hogs.”

There was still a year of my enlisted time left when I was given sea duty. My job didn’t change while at sea but every so often I got to see the sea or ocean we were on.

I can still feel the jarring in my stomach of the rough seas as the ship was tossed about. I wished I had been on a carrier or cruiser instead of the destroyer I served on.

When we anchored off Busan, South Korea, I was excited and thought I’m going to see another nation which was the reason I joined up to see the world.

The message came down that only a few mates would be allowed to go ashore for the ship had to stay on alert. So we were set for another week on the ship anchored without moving.

Borrowing some field glasses I was able to see the dock workers scrambling around but no women were in sight or they were dressed like the men and I couldn’t tell the difference.

For months I had been hearing about the amazing adventures of those who had gone on shore but so far I hadn’t even been near the shore.  After a week we shoved off and headed for Osaka, Japan.

During that trip the guys that went to shore in Busan told of their exploits while on shore.  I didn’t care if they were lies or not for they captured my imagination.

The word was there would be passes for everyone while in Osaka, not all at once but while we were there. 

 

Everyone was given double duty on the trip to Osaka for they wanted the ship to be spotless when we arrived.

Even though we weren’t one of the larger ships, our captain was a proud skipper and he wanted his ship to impress all who boarded her.

It looked like leave was to be divided into four segments with one fourth of the crew at a time going ashore. I was in the last segment. As the guys came back from leave they had stories that made it that much harder to wait my turn.

Their stories of sexual exploits made the rest of group four extremely anxious.

I thought this was what the navy was all about.  After three weeks waiting for the last returnee from segment three to return to the ship, we heard those most hated words that can be uttered from the bridge “Now hear this.”

Immediately my heart dropped, I knew it; it was too good to be true. Our turn for leave was going to be cancelled. Naturally it would be a good reason but I didn’t care about why my fun time wasn’t to be.

In the background of my thoughts I heard the captain say; “Prepare the ship for sailing.”

Upon hearing those words men began flying in all directions. I was barely moving till the chief petty officer grabbed me and said, “Heave to sailor.”

I didn’t know what “heave to,” meant but it put fire into my feet and I ran to my station and got it ready for sea duty. Once we were out to sea the captain came on the intercom and said the ship was overdue for retrofitting and the parts they had waited a year for had arrived and the ship was ordered to Pearl Harbor immediately.

 

He said he was sorry that some of us didn’t get to go ashore but we had to obey our orders.

When we arrived at Pearl Harbor for the retrofit most of us were sent back to the States for re-assignment.

Since I only had a short time left to serve it was back to the mess hall for me. 

To be Continued