Navy Base Charleston, South Carolina
Driving down to report in to the Lafayette in the flotilla building, I was in for two surprises. One was driving over the old Cooper River Bridge which span then had only two lanes. Driving up this bridge, the two lanes together didn't seem wide enough for me to feel safe then what should appear coming over the hump of the oncoming lane but a semi-trailer with a wide load! I remember taking a deep breath as I glanced to the right at the drop into the water and literally closed my eyes until I heard the trucker roar past me. The rest of the time I was stationed in Charleston I hated that bridge and was glad when I read of the newer span (pictured above) and now an even newer (and wider) bridge with separate spans in each direction.
The other surprise occurred when I reported in to the ship's office; the sailor on phone watch asked if he could do anything for me, when I responded with my name, rank and that I was reporting in for the Blue Crew, he looked puzzled. Rifling through the stack of faxed copies of orders for those reporting to the Lafayette (this was in ancient times before emails/the Internet, etc and the command you were leaving would fax a set of your orders to the command you were in transit to, in my case the Lafayette. The guy looked at me and said that they didn't have any record of anyone by my name reporting in that or any other day. I showed him my orders and after reading over them he got up and shouted out, "The bet's off, the new EM-3 is actually named Shook!" There was a cacophony of groans and assorted comments; my puzzled look must have been all too obvious at this 'welcome' as he told me that the faxed copy of my orders had my name spelled S-P-O-O-K and they had a pool going on whether or not I would be black. Yeah, kind of not 'politically correct', but considering our mission we regularly found humor in some often off color ways to alleviate the tension. |
Allow me to spend a bit of time speaking to the mission of such submarines as the U.S.S. Lafayette. Starting with the U.S.S. George Washington, SSBN-598, these war ships were equipped with ballistic missiles designed to deter our adversary the Soviet Union from launching a nuclear attack against our nation. Each sub had two crews who traded off in order to maximize the time the submarine was at sea. During the off-crew period the crew underwent refresher training to prepare them for the next patrol, usually 3 months off and 3 months on.
The patrol itself involved operating on a war footing, keeping in constant contact with those who would, should the occasion arise, order us to launch at pre-determined targets within the Soviet Union. The tension of waiting for an order to launch or the electro-magnetic spectrum to go silent (in the event that a nuclear warhead explodes it generates a 'pulse' that can disrupt television and radio broadcasts). In recognition of such patrols, the SSBN Deterrent Patrol pin was created and awarded to all who manned these vessels. As part of the "nuclear triad" (missile silos scattered through the northern Great Plains, aircraft [including the B-52] maintaining a 24-hour alert and armed with nuclear bombs and the SSBNs) we were a strategic shield protecting our nation and its allies from a nuclear attack. Much of what happened on these patrols is beyond the understanding of most who will never serve in that capacity and also something that I'm still not sure what I can share with others almost 40 years later. |