Memorial Day 2011

 I was in the US Navy in the first part of the 80’s:

I was a GS(M)2, wearing the stripes of an E-5, a Second Class Petty Officer when I got out at the end of 1984.  My specialty was gas turbine propulsion systems on the Perry Class frigates, small escort ships.  There were two types of GS’s, M’s and E’s.  M’s specialized in the mechanical side of the engine’s operations, and E’s specialized inthe electronic side of their use.  Our ship was one of the 53 Perry class frigates built in the late 70’s and early 80’s.  Early in my training for gas turbines, I was given a choice between the frigate systems and the destroyer/cruiser propulsion systems.  Destroyers and cruisers were built on the same hull; cruisers being much heavier and having a lot more Combat Systems and better radars, but both had four engine systems – four LM2500 marine gas turbines, at 21,000 horsepower each, turning two shafts and driving two propellers.  Most all of those ships are nearing the end of their operational lives with the US Navy and are being replaced by the newer, bigger DDG’s that incoporate most of the Ticonderoga Class cruiser’s radar and weapons systems – very capable ships that are replacing all the cruisers and destroyers of the late Cold War era.

The Perry class frigates are nearing the end of their operational lives with the US Navy too; in fact, the Navy has no place for them anymore, since they were designed as escort ships for merchant convoys, replenishment groups, and invasion forces in World War Three with the Soviet Union.  Frigates were built in three shipyards around the US – on the west coast at the Todd Pacific yards, the south coast in Todd/Litton yards in Pascagola, Missisippi, and the place where my ship was built, Bath Iron Works in Maine.

Here’s my ship under construction:

Mine, the USS Klakring, named for a submarine hero of WW2, is in the middle of these three frigates.

The Perry class was built for or by other countries too – the Australian Navy got four, I think, and the Spanish Navy built their own in Spain.  In school to learn about my ship’s plants, I met some Australian sailors, and they were like wild men compared to the Americans around them.  We had some good drunken times with them.

Here’s my ship underway for it’s Builder’s Trials:

They weren’t fast enough to stay with aircraft carriers at full speed – mine topped out at 30 knots, new, and aircraft carriers are faster ships, even though they are huge, compared to my 453 foot ship.

Years ago, I got a certificate from the United States government, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, thanking me, on behalf of the American People, for serving during the Cold War, 1945 – 1991.

This was my station, the Local Operating Panel in the engine room:

 

Controls for both engines and the Controllable Pitch Propeller were on this panel, but control of the engines, after they started, was maintained from the Bridge, after starting them from the Central Control Station, aft of the engine room.  The Propulsion system was completely computerized, reducing the manpower needed for the engineering section of the ship – fewer than 180 people ran this ship, with about a dozen more on board if we carried helicopters.  (2 of them, usually, for anti-submarine work).

I was one of the Plankowners,the first crew that took the ship, new, from the shipyard, for the Navy.  As a new ship and crew, all of my experience on board the ship was involved in training and breaking in the ship.  We spent a lot of time in the Carribbean, as we were Homeported out of Charleston, South Carolina, before that base was closed after the Cold War ended.

I spent two winters cruising in the Carribbean Sea, and we went to Gauntanamo Bay, Cuba, for six weeks of training.  I went ashore there, and rode rental horses over the ground that "Camp X-ray", where prisoners are now kept from The War On Terror, now reside.  The Carribbean, and Cuba, are beautiful places, and I would be happy to see that sea again.

When I joined the Navy, the Cold War was at the height of its late stages tension with the USSR.  My friend Jhni bet me a thousand dollars that there would be a war before I got out, but, while the Cold War was on, it was not a "shooting war" and it didn’t count.  In 1984, the US invaded Grenada.  One morning as we mustered on the flight deck, I saw that most of the other ships in Charleston Naval Base were gone,I didn’t know where, but as a new crew on a new ship, we stayed behind on guard duty.  I never did collect that bet, but I never had to pay it either.

The only time I saw any of the Soviets was at a great distance from fleet operations around Cuba, the infamous Russian Trawlers that trailed

fleet ops and reported back to Moscow.  They were on possible suicide missions, as they targetted US Navy ships for missles, but they would have been some of the first ships sunk in a shooting war – spy ships with a very short life expectancy if it ever came down to war.

I did see a Soviet ship up close, in the Bahamas, where we stopped for a few days:

The Maxim Gorky was a Soviet cruise liner, tied up on the other side of the Harbour on Grand Bahamas island.  The gunners mates on my ship had fun, pointing our 76mm pop gun at them,and the missile guys ran up the training missile on the launcher to point at the Maxim Gorky, but everyone got tired of it pretty quickly, and we co-existed with the Gorky, and enjoyed the fine Bahama rum available there.

My military service was not at all like the people’s in the Army and Marines these days, but I’m glad I did it, if only because the Carribbean is supremely beautiful, and I would never have seen it otherwise.

On Memorial Day, we salute the men and women who have died in service of their country. I served a small part in the Cold War, but I too salute those who died in service for the United States.

 

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