Mazatlan liberty-call (part 1)

 

¡Carnival!

In February of 1973 the Dehaven steamed from our homeport in Long Beach CA, down to Mazatlan Mexico for Carnival.

The voyage took about two and a half days, and we went from a cool Southern California winter  to the tropical climes around the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula.

I was a greenhorn in life and I had no idea what “Carnival” was, and that it is a world-wide phenomenon.  I was the only one among a crew of very excited destroyermen who had no idea that we were steaming toward the biggest party in Mexico, and the fourth-largest Carnival celebration on the planet.

I’ll write more about this experience another time. But this post is about a blanket-peddler and a cliff-diver.

We pulled a three-day liberty in Mazatlan, and the captain extended maximum time-off for the crew.  On the final day, I and two shipmates and fellow-radiomen - Don and Ted - were sitting on the seawall enjoying a beautiful afternoon of watching cliff-divers entertain the tourists.  One of them, a very fit young man in swimming trunks approached us and demanded money to watch him dive…he wanted five dollars.  One of us asked if he would get killed doing it, and he replied that he was so skilled that he would be fine. “Then forget it” was our reply.

We were not the finest ambassadors of our country.

Moments later, a man came up to us selling blankets.  The local blankets are very colorful, and I still have two that I bought on that visit.  His English wasn’t very good, but fortunately Ted spoke Spanish.  The sticking point was the price.  The haggling went on for some time, and we noticed that every time the cops strolled by, he was quick to turn in the other direction, similarly, he only reluctantly allowed us to take his photo…he clearly wanted to stay on the down-low.

I did buy a blanket from him, and when we got the photo developed back in Long Beach, the three of us had a good laugh…our Mexican friend was truly a man of mystery.

Mannie Gentile: dope detective

 

One of my favorite, and funniest, memories of my first ship, the destroyer USS DeHaven (DD-727), comes from a time when things in the Navy were not particularly jolly. The war in Vietnam were winding down for the U.S., the gap between civilians and service members was widening, and there seemed to be a growing hostility between the four-year enlistment sailors and the career men, also known as "the lifers". This was also a time when drug and alcohol abuse was rampant throughout the services, and the 727 was a microcosm of the Navy and many of its problems in those dreary days. That's the deep background to provide some context for this story.

Some time in 1972 we were tied up, as usual, along piers 17 and 18 out on the mole at Naval Station Long Beach (California). It was a typical duty evening on an in-port weekend. I was the duty Radioman (RM3c) having a pretty laid-back evening. We didn't have the radio guard so I had little to do but read. I was still a new guy and was having only limited success making friends with guys in other divisions (remember being the "new guy"?). Along about eight in the evening my boss, and a pretty good guy, the RM1 of the shack came zooming onto the messdecks with a battle lantern ...looking for me.  My boss was the duty Master at Arms (the ship's policeman) that night, resplendent in his new style utilities (those dreadful duds with which they tried to replace the good old dungarees) and his dazzling MAA badge. "Mannie" he said breathlessly, "come with me". 

Now, I was a sailor who was always ready to oblige a shipmate, so without question or hesitation I followed my RM1 off the messdecks up to the radioshack. "What's up boss?" was my only question. He made a finger to the lips gesture to clue me to pipe down and scowled, and sniffed, at the overhead ventilation duct. "Do you smell that shit?" he whispered. "That's 'green smoke', and it can only be coming from one place".  A historical note: For some reason, there were those among the senior enlisted who referred to marijuana smoke and the smell thereof as "green smoke". I even met those who insisted that it was called that because the smoke of burning cannabis is emerald green. Obviously, they'd never imbibed themselves. 

Back to the story. The RM1 moved his intent gaze to me and repeated "there's only one place that that smell can be coming from. Someone's smoking dope in OUR fanroom!".  There was a fanroom just abaft the radioshack on the starboard side. Accessible only with a stepladder through a scuttle in the overhead, it was a space the RMs referred to as "the void" and it was where we stored our supply of teletype paper and tape. For inspection purposes it was the radio crew's property and responsibility. "Let's go!" hissed the RM1 as he handed me that battle lantern and pushed me out the door of the radio shack ahead of him. Had I been a cartoon character at that moment my word balloon would have said something like "buh, buh, buh...ahhh wait a second". Off we went into the dark of the night, the RM1 becoming quite impatient with all of the noise I made as I clumsily followed him.  "Quiet! or they'll know we're coming" he whispered. "That's, sort of the whole idea" I thought to myself.

 We made our way to the main deck, me with the lantern and the RM1 armed with a rickety stepladder which he quietly set up beneath the scuttle. "Now get up there and bust those guys" he said to me.  At that time I was choosing to believe it was merely a request rather than an order. "But boss," I protested, "these are guys that I have to live and work with, and I've got no beef with them, cause, y'know..."  It was as if he hadn't heard me, like a fine hunting dog on the point he was intently staring at that overhead scuttle and just as intently pushing me up the ladder. The "why me?" question was simply one of girth. Without commenting on the robust build of the RM1, I'll just note that at that time in my life my broadest dimension was my post-adolescent Adams apple:

I was the logical choice to go through the scuttle and into the Babylon above. This was to be my show. 

With my head pressed nearly sideways against the overhead as I wrestled with the dog-wheel I could hear indistinct murmuring coming from the space. As the dogs retracted, I slowly swung the hatch down, swallowed hard and poked my head up. The experience was unlike any I've had before or since. If one could stick ones head inside a bong at a frat-party, that might approximate the sensation I had. As my nostrils cleared the coaming of the hatch I became immediately aware of an all too familiar aroma...in spades!  That was one very smoky space and because it was a fan room, that smoke was being communicated throughout quite a bit of the ship. "I don't see anybody boss" was my very lame report. "Jeezus! use the lantern!" he shouted (the need for stealth was now past). I craned my head over and squeezed my arm and the battle lantern through. I snapped on the light, the beam of which became a ghostly and thick illumination of smoke. My head poking through the scuttle, eyes only inches above the deck, I slowly played the beam 360 degrees around the space level with my eyes. That smoky beam revealed fully a dozen pairs of shoes; oxfords, boondockers, flipflops, all attached to pantlegs that extended up into the faceless gloom. The sound was that of breath being held by twelve shipmates caught red-handed (though all I saw was ankles). "Well?" was the sharp one word question from below. Now, remember, I was a sailor who was always ready to oblige a shipmate, so again, without question or hesitation, and with great presence of mind I gave my report: "They musta' just left boss.  Nothing up here but teletype paper." "Dammit!, we shoulda' come quicker!".   

Clearly disappointed at losing his quarry, he stomped off into the night looking for other crime to fight, leaving me to secure the void, the ladder, and the lantern.

 I returned to the messdecks and my book and business as usual, being the new guy, trying to find my way on a ship where everybody else seemed to be friends with everybody else...except that it was never business as usual again after that evening. No sooner had I gotten settled in and resumed reading, than a mix of snipes and deck division types slid in next to me and one piped up: "So Gentile, you just got off Guam eh? Whatcha readin'?". And a lively, breezy bull-session began, of which I was a full partner. Eventually everyone trailed off to hit the rack or relieve the watch. I realized that my status as the new guy was coming to a welcome end. "What a great bunch of guys" I thought, "a great bunch of bleary-eyed guys who smell like they've been fighting a brush fire".

And the rest was pretty smooth sailing.

The Idiot's Guide to Explosive Ordnance Disposal

"Early adulthood: Individuals in early adulthood typically expect a long life ahead of them, and consequently do not think about, nor worry about death."

Lifespan Development, OER Services, Chapter 10, Death and Dying.

How often do you get to hear someone say -

 "It cannot be overstated how foolishly stupid I was."

Here is the proof:

---

In July of 1944, after two and a half years of brutal Japanese occupation, the island of Guam (Guahan) saw an enormous amount of fierce combat as the Americans returned to liberate the island and its people. 

The Battle of Guam lasted from July 21 through the surrender of the last Japanese stronghold on Mount Santa Rosa on 10 August 1944.  The combat was as ferocious as any other fight on the many islands the South Pacific.  Although the battle ended on the 10th, the mopping up continued for months, as there remained 5,000 Japanese soldiers throughout the island who refused to surrender; indeed, the last Japanese holdout, Shoichi Yokoi, wasn't captured until January 24, 1972.  I was on the island when that happened...but that is a story for another time.

I was stationed on Guam from 1971 to 1972, that was when the war was in living memory of most of the adults on the island, and the detritus of the war was everywhere.  

Shot-up tanks, sunken landing craft, abandoned artillery, pillboxes and bunkers were everywhere; and, of course, there was lots of unexploded ordnance still lying around.

Add to the above, and eighteen-year-old ignoramus with a love of history, and you have a recipe for fun, and perhaps, disaster.

I always had a fascination and appreciation for history, including WWII history, so I was almost giddy to be stationed on a battlefield of that war, and I was always on the lookout for evidence of the battle. 

Boonie-stomping

Hiking through the jungles and highlands of the island is called "boonie-stomping", and that is how I spent nearly all of my time off, either with buddies, or usually, by myself.  These solitary hikes remain some of my best memories.  My pals used to joke about how I was spending all of my time on the island staring at the ground, and they were partially right.  Whenever I was going down a trail I kept my eyes peeled for stuff from the war...and I found lots and lots of it (more than my forward-looking friends).

Bullets, shells, shrapnel, buckles, a helmet...my collection continued to grow and grow.

One of my usual haunts was outside the village of Yigo. It was the site of a major battle and a sharp eye would always yield a bullet or two.   

The Yigo battlefield is the site of the Peace Memorial and is a place of pilgrimage for many Japanese who lost family members in the war.

The stark-white monument is a stylized pair of praying hands.  Within it, I'd often find bundles of smoldering incense and small bottles of sake left on an alter-like plinth.  The exposed bluff in the background was where I'd always find bullets, and in the position from which this photo was taken, was a foxhole where I found enough empty .30-caliber shell casings to cause me to believe that it had been an American machinegun position.

After each of these jaunts through the jungle, I'd return to the barracks and sit down with a small file and my trusty can of 3-in-1 oil and start cutting into the shell casings pouring out the powder, rendering the bullet inert...except for the primer, of course. If I were able, I'd extract the bullet from the casing with a pliers, but usually they were too corroded for this technique to be successful.

My Buddies, who had been mocking me, grew increasingly envious of my burgeoning 

collection.

It was on one these boonie-stomps to Yigo, that I did the stupidest thing in my life (to date)...as I mentioned earlier, I cannot overstate how foolishly stupid I was.

Here it comes:

One morning I was walking down a trail through a bamboo grove that I had trekked many times before.  It was a beautiful day with the sun dappling through the bamboo leaves and the trunks bumping together in the breeze making the distinct and mesmerizing sound that they do;  and my goodness!... right next to the trail was a an unexploded Japanese mortar round.  I froze in my tracks.

It was about the shape and size of one of those old aerosol cans of Right Guard deodorant.  It was rusty but fully intact.  On the nose of it was the contact fuze.  This was the type of fuze that would cause the shell to explode on impact...and it hadn't.

The first thing they tell you when you arrive on Guam is NEVER... NEVER EVER... pick up unexploded ordnance...

so, I immediately picked it up.

I was almost breathless with excitement, never stopping to think about the ideas of dismemberment, or worse.  It was heavy in my hand as I started to examine every detail of this lethal debris.

I can't relate what I was thinking next, simply because I can't remember, though I do recall as sudden urge to throw it to see if it would go off.

Sheltered behind a rock, I threw it toward an old concrete slab... the foundation for an antenna or something.

"Clunk"...nothing happened. I tried it a couple more times with the same result.

Now believing it was a dud, I started thinking about the souvenir potential.  Certainly, I couldn't keep it, but I thought that perhaps I could keep the fuze.

Grasping the shell firmly in one hand, I gingerly gave the fuze a gentile nudge...

With surprising ease, it started to turn.  Leaning away from the shell...like that would do any good...I continued to unscrew the fuze, until I had the shell in one hand and the fuze in the other.  I'd done it.

The non-explosive fuze, I happily put in my pocket...the shell, I tossed down a deep and narrow ravine (it is doubtless, still down there).  With that, I decided to call it a day and hike/hitchhiked back to the base.

And that was that. I lived to tell the tale...literally.  Do note though, that when I got back to the barracks, I didn't trumpet this adventure to my friends, as I didn't want to expose myself as the biggest idiot on the island.

Today, the fuze resides in my helmet room, a memento of times past and a reminder that I may not be as smart as I think I am.

That is the whole story...all true.

Now, I invite you to leave a comment (if courageous enough) detailing to my readers, the dumbest thing that YOU have ever done.

And children, that is how I defended Democracy in 1971.

Mannie

Have I ever told you about the time that I got hit by a car?

It was 1974, I'd been out of the US Navy a scant three months and I was happily enrolled at Delta College outside of Bay City Michigan, collecting my GI Bill college education and having a blast finally being a college kid (after a four-year delay).  

I was the head cartoonist on the student newspaper the Delta Collegiate and everything was going swimmingly.  I was the sage veteran, finally out of the disciplined life of the military and enjoying the company of many fun people, including some really cute girls.

One October night the Collegiate crew decided  to head out to a nearby pizza and beer joint for an evening of fun.  What a treat!  The evening was to take quite an unexpected turn however.

The Staff of the Delta Collegiate.

That's my sister Frances, at left, with her feet up on the desk, in her usual "fuck the man" posture.  The beautiful Marsha Ross is at top, third from right - I had a crush on her.  I'm represented by a sketch, at right, that I drew in my hospital bed (more coming).  Finally, at lower left, that's me a few month later, wearing my spare glasses.

This tribe of nearly twenty jolly jokers had just begun the evening, parking across a busy street from the pizza joint. It was dark and a misty rain was in the air.  As we ran to cross the rain-slick pavement - fate came a'calling.

The motorist in question was a young guy with a clean driving record, and was completely sober.  As he rounded the bend of the blind curve he was presented with the sight of a gaggle of collegians mere feet from his front bumper.  With fate casting its ironic smile upon me, I was the one selected for stardom that memorable evening.

I lost consciousness prior to becoming this airborne.

My glasses and boot were found two days later in a cornfield and returned to the custody of my mother.

From the point of impact, my boot was able to actually fly, if only for a moment, a distance of 37 feet.  Considering that it was unaided by wings, I think that the flight of my footwear compared very favorably with the 1903 maiden flight of the Wright Flyer which stayed airborne for 120 feet.

My sister got her wrist broken in that same accident, not by being hit by the car, but by the impact of me as I collided with her upon my takeoff to the stars.

Mercifully, I was never able to recall any of this event.  Its all a total blank, save for the vague memory of a very deep pain and someone resting my head upon a spare tire or something.

The result?  A broken pelvis, a broken collarbone, a severe laceration to my left upper thigh (still somewhat misshapen), a concussion, and abrasions too numerous to remember, let alone mention.

I was in the hospital for seventeen days learning about numbness, anxiety, and boredom.

Eventually, I healed, unlike my poor glasses. 

A month later, I limped back in to the office of the Collegiate, too behind in my classwork to continue on that session.  As years went by I finally stopped freezing up at the thought crossing busy streets,  I graduated from college, and I became the superhero that that guards over all of you today.

Sleep well...

and look both ways before crossing streets.

Mannie

My Guamainian wipeout

Bicycling on Guam in 1971 was one of the many pleasures of being stationed on that beautiful island. 

 One day, after watch, I set out for the beach that was near the Naval Communications Station.  It was at the foot of a long and winding steep road.  It was fun to coast down that road, gaining great speed only to plunge into the surf at road's end.  I'd done this once before.

Guam is rich in culture and history,..

whether 

A. the mysterious latte stones, left from earlier cultures on the island, or

B.  The  remaining Japanese holdout who wasn't captured until 1972, the island was, and remains, one of wonder.

C.  I was pedaling, then coasting, then careening down the coral-surfaced road toward...

D. NCS Beach.

E.  Needless to say I was making great headway.  According to the cigar I was using as an air-speed indicator I was going about thirty-five miles per hour, when, quite unexpectedly, I hit...

F.  some minuscule discontinuity in the road surface which turned the bike into a catapult, sending me hurtling over the handlebars and onto the abrasive coral road surface still at a great rate of speed as the bicycle crashed, rolled, bumped, and clattered down hill with me.

I ended up heaped in a ditch as the bike landed on top of me.  I've no idea how long I was in that position, when I heard an approaching car.

A very nice Chamorro lady, driving by, stopped to give me some water and to summon an ambulance from the base.  Within thirty minutes I was at the base dispensary, quite dazed, having a hospital corpsman removing the coral particles from my bleeding road-rashed arms with a laundry scrub brush.

Although the bike was totaled, I was back to work at my regularly scheduled time, arm in a sling for about three weeks.

And that's what I did in the war children.

Mannie

Transit barracks and new alliances.

There’s a port on a western bay

and serves a hundred ships a day

Lonely sailors pass the time away

And talk about their homes

And there’s a girl, in this harbor town,

And she…

That was as far as the song got before a sailor laid aside his pool cue, strode over to the communal radio, and disgustedly snapped it off.  Romanticized versions of Navy life as envisioned by hippie musicians do not play well in a building filled with bored and irritable sailors.

It was my second day at the transit barracks.  I’d just come off of 30 day leave following a 15-month deployment to the Naval Communication Station at Finegayen Guam in the Marianas Islands.  It was great to be stateside again and it was with some anticipation that I awaited the arrival of my first ship, the destroyer U.S.S. Dehaven.  I was literally “waiting for my ship to come in”.

The Dehaven was out on a two-week reserve training cruise and I had arrived at the Naval Station Long Beach, the Dehaven’s homeport, midway through that cruise.  Upon reporting for duty at the Naval Station I was apprised of the situation and assigned a bunk in the transit barracks to await the return of my new ship.

A transit barracks is an earthly manifestation of limbo, or perhaps more like a very pleasant jailhouse, a jailhouse where the inmates can come and go as they please and order in pizza.  A sailor in transit, if clever, has no duties while in that status, unless, of course, that sailor carelessly announces his presence to the notice of the Master-at-Arms (MAA) the arbiter of law and order in a division or transit barracks setting.  The plan of the canny sailor is to evade being placed upon the MAA’s watch bill, that roster of unfortunates which assigns specific duties to those enrolled upon it.  Generally, a clever sailor can avoid the shackles of the watch bill by spreading the word that he is scheduled for oral surgery.  When morning roll is called and the MAA enquires “Where’s Smith?”  more than one witness will attest to Smitty’s preexisting medical/dental commitment, and generally the matter will be dropped until the following morning.  Usually, after two or three days of this, the elusive Smiths’ ship has come in and he affects his escape from the domain of the MAA, however, such  evasion grows increasingly difficult with the length of incarceration in the transit barracks.

(embiggen through clickage)

Characteristically, it behooves shirkers to stay away from the barracks during working hours, say eight in the morning to four in the afternoon.  Beyond four-thirty the coast is clear and all the prodigals return; swelling the ranks of the barracks residents considerably.  The evening is consumed in going to and returning from the mess hall, watching television, drinking ripple, or smoking tobacco or weed;  sleeping the hours away like stateless nomads, refugees in flight, orphans with nasty habits.

  

The very transient nature of the denizens of the transit barracks is not conducive to forming friendships, or in tipping one’s hand to any great degree regarding personal status or situation.  That’s sort of the jailhouse mentality part of the transit barracks.  However, if you run across another sailor who’s reporting to the same ship as you, that’s an entirely different story.  The two of you, now shipmates,  instantly bond into an unbreakable alliance against all “those other assholes”.   Find a shipmate in transit and it can be very “smooth sailing” indeed.

My shipmate, Rick, was just as glad to find me as I him.  Seems he had broken his glasses, quite severely, one lens was missing and the other was haphazardly held together with a band-aid.  He was a steward, essentially an officer’s valet and cook “I think I’m the only white steward in the fleet” was his bewildered self assessment.  I think he may have been quite right. 

(Rick the steward, lower right)

Rick and I joined forces on that second day and managed to form a fine alliance to get us through the remaining two days of our incarceration.  We’d watch each other’s belongings when one or the other had to leave the building,   we’d take turns making frequent calls to the harbor master’s shack inquiring as to the status or imminent arrival of the Dehaven, and we’d take turns providing each other with plausible alibi’s to explain each other’s absence at morning muster.  We were a working model of how to successfully navigate the rocks and shoals of the transit barracks milieu, a living embodiment of the phrase “shipmates stand together”.  A lone wolf in a transit barracks, a county lock-up, or a family reunion is the picture of vulnerability, easy pickings for the sharks and maiden aunts that patrol such places, shipmates, however are invincible in their unity.

On the fourth day, our deliverance, like Ricks new lenses, was at hand and we were summoned to the MAA’s office with the news that the Dehaven was clearing the breakwater and would be tying up at piers 17 and 18.  After delivering this welcome news, the MAA surveyed both of our faces and enquired, “How long have you two jokers been aboard my barracks?”  Rick swiftly replied for both of us;

“Just got in last night chief”.

Shipmates, stand together!

p.s.
For a really accurate depiction of the transit barracks lifestyle, check out the outstanding Jack Nicholson film, "The Last Detail".

Burt School, Mrs. Robertson, and the end of the steam era

I have always loved a particular little brick building I Burt Michigan.  Burt Elementary School housed grades K-2 when I attended in the late 1950s, and it was less than a decade before that the school was K-8, all in one little building...then came the Baby Boom and directly across the road was build the "new school" of three more rooms, grades 3-8.

The old school two big classrooms, one on each side of the building, and a third middle-sized room directly beneath the stubby bell-tower.

There was also a mysterious furnace-room in the rear of the kindergarten room, that was forbidden territory, though I did get a glimpse through the door once when the Boo Radley-like custodian was getting a shovel or something.

The building was surrounded by a huge "playground"...all grass and huge hardwood trees, mostly maple and oak. That custodian would rake up mountainous heaps of leaves that he'd let us play in before he burned them (I wonder if he checked for stray kids).

About two-hundred yards from the kindergarten side were the tracks of the C&O Railroad; a huge wall of windows faced those tracks. Twice a day the steam locomotive went barreling through and all of us would rush the windows to watch the spectacle. It was a regular thing...our dear Mrs. Robertson didn't even try and restore order, she knew that there was nothing so compelling as a locomotive with all of the smoke and steam and the long shrill whistle...usually she was at the window with us.

In second grade we were in the opposite side of the building, and sometime during that year, C&O switched over to all diesel, the end of the steam era in our area. 

I'm glad that I have the memory of twice-daily experiences with steam locomotives, and of a much beloved teacher.