The New Navy

Somehow I found myself on Wikipedia looking at Operation Praying Mantis. I was part of it, I was a Corpsman for VF-213, which is now called VFA-213, the Blacklions. So I figured I'd look up the squadrons of friends I had back then. Jerry Andris' VF-114 Aardvarks are no more. And Mike Tulley's VAW-117 Nighthawks are now called Wallbangers... what a fucking stupid name. They're called the Wallbangers now yet they have the same insignia, a bird flying among the moon and stars. Well, to me it looks more like a bald headed eagle, but that's closer to what a Nighthawk would look like that whatever the a fucking Wallbanger is or might look like.

Crazy times. For a while I'd maybe get an hour or two of rest during work days. I'd only get sleep on weekends and when I had duty because I'd go visit my girlfriend after work and we'd be up all night.

Mike Tulley and Jerry Andris... I know I probably annoyed them at times, but we had some really good times. The drunkest I've ever been in my life was while we were in Fallon (piece of shit town) Nevada. I hate Fallon, what kind of idiot do you have to be to willingly live there? Well I'll tell you, drunk, because there's nothing else to do there except drink. Well, it may be different now, but I still hate the place because while I was just trying to pass out/rest my eyes in the back of the car, a couple of Fallon's finest came upon me and decided to get me out of the car and to the police station. I didn't cause any trouble, I didn't do anything except, be under age. doh! I was in the Navy and too young to buy a beer, yet totally drunk out of my gord.

You see, Jerry and Mike were in there 20s already so they knew their limits, what to do to keep from puking I guess since they never puked. And we were in the bar drinking pitchers of beer, and in between the pitchers we'd do shots. We drank all the Shnappes they had, all the good kinds anyway, fuck peppermint, and the bar tender told us he had something new for us, that he'd let each of us try a shot of for free. We're like, sure! He goes to his little freezer and pulls out the bottle telling us, "It's called Jaegermeister." Yeah, it's common now, back then it was just making its debut and starting a reputation. So we take a shot, and we're like, more!

I'm not sure if we drank it all, we probably did. But the next thing I know is that I'm pretty fucking drunk and feel a puke coming on. To Mike helps me out and I go outside and puke alongside a telephone pole or something, who knows. I'm surprised I didn't pass out and have acute alcohol poisoning. But if I had, I knew I'd be ok because my two friends were good corpsmen too. Mike helped me in the car and I was happy to be resting my eyes.

So now I'm at the police station. They put me in a chair in some hall outside their main little office. I didn't know it at the time, but I'm sure they were videotaping me. Luckily for me I'm not an asshole when I'm drunk, so I just sat there quietly. I guess they got bored and realized I wasn't going to incriminate myself, and what do ya know, shore patrol comes in. Great. Keep in mind I've been in handcuffs since they took me out of the car. Shore patrol puts on their own handcuffs and takes me back to the base, where once again I'm put in a chair and wait. Nobody talked to me or anything, they did their own thing, playing cards all night long. Great job shore patrol. Anyway, they finally take the handcuffs off in the morning and tell me I need to report to my Master Chief Petty Officer [tangent - wish I could remember his name, he seemed like he was one of those people who could either be your best friend or worst enemy. Lucky for me, we talked for a while when I first reported to the squadron and reminded me of my grandpa. When he'd come to Medical I'd make sure he didn't get any BS and helped any way I could. One time on the boat, a senior chief got on my case unfairly, so I went and griped to my master chief about it. Holy crap, I didn't know he'd come down to Medical and verbally bitch slap the senior chief. They came out the senior chief's office and I could tell he was not a happy camper. That guy NEVER said anything cross to me EVER again. I could tell he wanted to though, but he didn't. I wish I could remember his name too, I'm sure he was just having a bad day and here I am, some punk kid, what the hell did I know? He had the same last name as an actor that popular at the time... anyway...].

So I go to him and he's a little upset, not too much though, to be honest I really don't remember to what degree except I know he wasn't spitting mad anyway. But ya know what, I never heard anything regarding that night from my squadron ever again. It was like it never happened. Come to think of it... maybe master chief saw to it that it never went any further. He was the best. Vickery? Something like that.

The worst person was the new flight surgeon, Menendez or something like that. What a cry baby. He complained about me, something I did or didn't do, I really don't know. They had me sign some shit while I was recovering from wisdom teeth removal and after some meeting. I really don't even know what was said or anything. I learned my lesson though, I've never let pieces of shit like him get over on me ever again. I'd have no problem putting him in his place now, if only I knew then what I know now. Oh well, shit happens, live and learn.

One person I know I bugged the hell out of was Morgan. Ty Morgan I think. We were in the same C school class and he was ship's company on the ship my squadron deployed on. Morgan, Stillion and I would go to the beach all the time while in C school. Stillion was ok except I will never forget him throwing my brand new knife at a door and the tip breaking off it. He never apologized, I think he said he wouldn't apologize because he was an atheist. Either way, pretty shitty of him, but other than that he was really cool. He had some hot chicks, that's for sure. Maybe that's how I got started on only dating hot chicks... who knows.

Weird how names start coming back... Aarowhead, Cherry, Bourne (reborn as one guy would say), Ridley or Riley... he was on duty when that guy came in one evening and died later that night, had to be one of the more gory deaths to look at. The guy who didn't see the propellers was kinda gory too, and we had the privilege of wiping down his bits and pieces off the plane, VAW-117's. Ah, Miller, from VA-95. He was really nice because he wrote up a letter of appreciation for me when I looked over his squadron during some picnic they had. I also woke him up one night so he could stick his finger up some guy's butt, because I certainly had never done it before and... come on, it's just gross. Yeah, good times.

Hehe, speaking of gross, there was the time we went to lunch and were talking shop. I don't even remember what were talking about but it was really nothing we considered to be in poor taste. But this guy comes over and asks us if we could not talk as loud or change the topic because he was trying to eat and we were grossing him out. Good times.

Stillion and I playing a practical joke on Morgan by forwarding time for him, on his watch and alarm, so that he goes and reports for duty an hour early... waking up some guy in the process and getting chewed out a little. Good times!

Guido and me throwing a frisbee around listening to Guns and Roses before their album was even out... his dad was some record company guy and sent Guido the tape asking what he thought about them. Guido was like, this rocks, from the very get-go. Close to year later, Morgan says to me, you gotta listen to this, you've never heard it before... it was Guns and Roses of course, and yeah, not only had I heard it before, I already knew what song I liked best on the tape. It was weird because we had been listening to it for so long and it was like, getting old, but everyone else was thinking it was so new.

Yeah good times were had, but there was a lot of shit too. And the only thing that made it all bearable was Watonka. Looking back, man I was an idiot for letting her go, for letting my mom influence me into letting her go. Now I have neither. Brilliant! Watonka has two kids now I think. If she got divorced, I'd want her again. I think so anyway... would we be so different now? My first true love. She's the best. Sometimes I still dream about her. Weird. I can still remember a vivid dream I had about her, we were in a house. Anyway, I guess love never does really die all the way out, proof of its power, the only thing immortal among mortals. I asked her to marry me, she said yes. I didn't have a ring... ugh. But damn I sure loved her. My mom said it was infatuation. But infatuation only lasts a month or so, I've since learned. It was powerful love because we were together almost a year and a half. I didn't know... damn me. Would that I could change what happened back then. If I could go back in time, I think I can now say that I would have gone back to San Diego or kept her with me in Houston. Either place, as long as I was with her. She's the only person who ever really knew everything about me. I told her absolutely everything about me that I know of. I only fed her some BS a couple of times, but I think she knew I was each time, but they were no big deal, I'm such a bad liar to begin with that I know I better not do anything too bad. Yeah... I'll always have love for her in my heart until I die. I'm sure if I die slowly enough, she'll be in my final thoughts. Yeah, I certainly can't say that about other women I've seen or the even fewer I've had love for. Certainly not Sheri, if I think of her in my final thoughts, it's because I'm having a heart attack and I'm thinking of how similar the pain is in the way we broke up. Of course, there's one other... but I can't even talk about it because it's incomplete, and likely always will be just that, even though I know it could be, or could have been, something just as powerful as what Watonka and I had. But that's just a guess, maybe a wish, it's something I'll never know. Maybe a better wish would be to have Watonka back, as unlikely as it seems.