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Other Memories
Unfortunately, when I left active duty in 1975 the economy was down, and jobs for unemployed marine biology majors and ex-torpedomans mate hard hat divers in Southeastern Massachusetts were a bit scarce. I landed a job as a lifeguard at a state beach in Westport, Massachusetts. Horseneck Beach is very crowded in the summertime, being close to the cities of Fall River and New Bedford and featuring over two miles of fine sand. It is also an exposed barrier beach, and when the weather was windy the sea pushed up choppy surf and formed rip currents. Every summer multiple people needed to be pulled out of the water. This meant that the lifeguard positions were competitive. Candidates had to pass stringent written, fitness, and proficiency tests to be considered. The other candidates were mostly college jocks. I was 28. I've never been much of an athlete, but I was still reasonably fit from my Navy days. The pool test was held at New Bedford High School, and it included swimming many laps for time and demonstrating blocks, releases, and rescue techniques. One of these exercises involved towing a swimmer the length of the pool while keeping him in control while he struggled. I managed to get the 250 pound football coach as my 'victim,' but I somehow managed to get him all the way across, even though my arms didn't quite fit all the way around his body when he began to struggle. The beach testing consisted of more exercises in the surf and ended with a mile swim just outside the surf line.
Each morning began with an hour of physical exercises, alternating every other day between beach running and water rescue/sprints. The beach exercises began with warmup exercises, then a mile run up the beach to the last lifeguard stand on state property. Each stand was 100 yards from the next. We did a series of exercises, such as jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, and squats, then lined up and sprinted to the next stand. He who came in last had to do extra sets while the faster runners caught their breath. I wasn't always last, but it seemed like it. As soon as Slowpoke finished his 'remedial' pushups, it was an immediate other round of exercises and another sprint. Upon returning to the administration/concession building, we then filed back into the dunes, broke into two teams, and ran relay races up and down the steep sand hills. You guessed it, the losing team had to go back again. On the alternate day, we'd practice rescues in the surf, swim relay races, and end with a long swim.
Since I wasn't one of the 'hotshot' guards, I was usually stationed on the far end of the line of stands, well away from the prying eyes of the administration building and head guard. Early mornings during the week were a bit slow way out in the hinterlands. I developed a routine of doing extra situps and pushups when nobody was in the water in front of my stand. We were given a half hour afternoon break, so I'd use the time to jog along the beach to the end and back, a distance of about 4 miles. Needless to say, at the end of the summer I was in the best shape of my life.
Young college guys can be very inventive practical jokers. The new guys soon learned not to eat lunch too close to the administration building, because someone would toss a bucket of water from the flat roof onto the picnic tables underneath. Toward the end of the season, the pranks tended to escalate, as victims plotted to get even. One time, someone sneaked back into the guard room, carefully removed the luncheon meat from a sandwich, and replaced it with dog poop. Another time, a revenge-seeker put a dead skunk into a miscreant's locker, putting his toothbrush into the animal's mouth and his sunglasses over the face. Another fellow had a reputation of taking other people's soap and shampoo, so an offended party replaced the shampoo with hair removing gel. I was a little older and I'd learned that participation in such puerile pranks never ends well, so I was content to observe from a distance.
I can't remember the exact date, but sometime in the summer of 1976 I made a fateful scuba dive at King's Beach in Newport, Rhode Island. At the end of a pleasant dive, I removed my fins and began walking out of the water. As I neared the shoreline, a shortish, gray-haired man approached me and said, "You're a Navy diver, aren't you?"
"Well, yes, I was a Navy diver, but I got out about a year ago. How"d you know that?"
"Your UDT swimmer's vest gave you away. Nobody wears those except for navy divers!"
My cover was blown. I had enlisted in Uncle Sam's Navy in 1970, and I had served on active duty until 1975. I was a Navy diver first class when I got discharged. Since I didn't have enough money to buy one of those new-fangled buoyancy compensators, I used what I had. One of my souvenirs of service, besides a slightly rearranged nose (the result of an unfortunate Cam Ranh Bay bar incident) and a lifetime of 'sea stories' was my faithful, if antiquated, UDT swimmers vest, complete with 2 carbon dioxide inflator cartridges.
My King's Beach acquaintance was TM2 Fred Bergmann, or Bergy for short. We chatted about navy diving for a while, and then he asked me if I wanted to re-enlist. A new diving reserve unit was being established at the Fall River, MA Reserve Center. Since I was working as a seasonal life guard for the stingy state of Massachusetts, the prospect of some added income outweighed my qualms of returning to the world of inspections, haircuts, "YES SIR!" and spit-shined shoes. The rest, as they say, is history.
The new reserve unit was designated as Harbor Clearance Unit 2, Detachment 201. The parent command was headquartered just south of Norfolk at Little Creek, Virginia. Because it was still in the formative phase of development, I became a 'plank owner,' and I served until 1983. The name was later changed to Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit, or as we called it: 'Mudsue.' LCDR Dan Daglio has written an excellent history of MSDU reserve units 101 and 201, and I've uploaded his paper as a .PDF file to my profile on this website.
We drilled at the Fall River Reserve Center for the first few months, spent a few weekends at Fort Rodman in New Bedford, but we soon moved into space at the SIMA (Shore Intermediate Maintenance Activity) Pier in Newport.
Anyone who has served time as a minion of Uncle Sam can tell you what it"s like to stay in the infamous 'transit barracks' as a lower enlisted man. Transit barracks are temporary quarters for enlisted men and usually consist of open bays of up to 80 or so bunks (aptly called 'racks' in the navy), stacked three high. Every fart or buzz-saw snore echos from the walls. At about 0200 the first rowdy drunks slam-bang their way through the corridors. Actual sleep in such an environment is impossible. Transit barracks are the usual accommodations for reservists on weekend duty or ACDUTRA. Fred owned a nice home near downtown Newport and took pity on me. He let me stay with him during weekend duty, and later when I got married, my wife would use Fred's hospitality as well on my duty weekends. For that, I remain forever grateful.
Part of the routine for reservist navy divers included the dreaded Saturday morning physical training. Since I was appointed the unit Diving Supervisor and was in pretty good shape, I lead the torture. We warmed up with such delights as 8-count bodybuilders, pushups, and 'hello-darlings' (my favorite), and then a 4 mile run up the 'Burma Road' on the Newport Navy Base. In the early days, Fred struggled and earned for himself the nickname 'Old Pear Shape.' In the last year of my service, Fred had slimmed down and became quite fit, while the civilian life had been a little too good to me, so our situations reversed. He took glee in that, and he was extremely proud when he completed Phase Training and achieved qualification as U.S. Navy Diver.
I had only returned to civilian life for a year, but I learned that my uniform was already obsolete. On our first ACDUTRA to Little Creek, I had to wear a suit and tie while everyone else wore their dress uniforms on the flight. When we got there, I could switch back to my old Seebee-style greens for daily use. I've recently seen yet another change to the Navy enlisted uniform. I have no idea what possesses the good folks down in Washington, D.C., but I wish they'd stop mucking around with uniforms.
There were now a few reserve detachments of HCU, a lot of ex-sailor volunteers, but not a lot of qualified divers to fill the ranks. I returned to NSDS in Washington in 1977 to requalify as a Diver First Class. Since I was the senior enlisted diver at the time, our CO, LCDR F.B. Montague, appointed me as the first unit Diving Supervisor. Because we were primarily civilians, and the full Diver Second Class course lasted for 12 weeks, relatively few people could get the time off from their civilian employers. To address this problem, Reserve Command established a 'phased' training curriculum in which classroom topics were presented during our weekend drills using study materials provided by the dive schools. The monthly classes were one of my assigned tasks.
The practical waterwork was accomplished during our annual two week "Active Duty for Training" (ACDUTRA) deployments. These stints were always done at our parent command, Harbor Clearance Unit Two, in Little Creek, Virginia. 'Little Crack,' as we not-so-fondly called it, wasn't exactly paradise in late June, as it was always stiflingly hot and steamy. Still, it was a good opportunity to practice our skills using equipment that we didn't have at home. During the early years, we used the heavy Mark V helmets. HCU was headquartered on a large barge moored to a pier, and nearby was a training barge moored over about 20 feet of water. The visibility ranged from a coffee-colored one inch just below the surface to pitch black at 20 feet, and there were lots of stinging jellyfish called 'sea nettles.' Instructors from the dive school ran the water training.
One of the training projects we performed using Mark V gear was to survey, patch, and raise an old recompression chamber which had been re-purposed as salvage project for dive students. There was just enough room to squeeze into the pitch black hatch in 20 feet of water. If you were going to ever become claustrophobic, this was the place it was going to happen. The diver then had to feel every square inch of the interior to find the holes cut into the hull. Then, knots were tied in a line to measure the dimensions of the hole, and a patch was fabricated topside. The next diver would install the patch, close the hatch, and attach the air hose. On another occasion we got to blow stuff up with a little demolition training.
At that time, divers were authorized to wear Seebee-style green working uniforms instead of dungarees. I had kept my hat block from my active duty days and crisply starched my 'cover.' As any old salt will tell you, you don't enter an interior space covered. Instead of having to carry the billed hat, you could simply tuck it into your belt at your back. One day, the unfamiliar mess hall food affected my digestive system, and I had to 'make a deposit' in the worst way. As I rose from the throne, I looked down, and to my horror there was my hat underneath a mound of excrement. Of course, I had no immediate replacement, and I had to rejoin my team back outside. So, I reached in, shook it out, wash my hat with copious volumes of soap and water, and wrung it as best I could. I went into the head with a crisply starched cover, and I came out again with a limp, drenched, wretched green mass on my head. No words were necessary. Everyone instantly knew what happened and burst out in gales of gut-wrenching laughter as I slunk behind the last rank.
PH3 Natoka Peden (later her surname became Hussy), whose nickname was 'Cricket,' was one of the first female Navy divers. Of course, being amongst the first of any group to break into a previously excluded activity means that there are grumblings and reservations from some. She never complained and was able to perform as well as the guys in whatever task was assigned to her. On one dive, in the heavy old Mark V rig, she shut the grumblers up for good. Climbing up a near-vertical ladder with your air control valve shut off isn't easy for anyone. On this particular dive, though, she was coming up especially slowly. You could see the derisive grins starting to form on a few faces as we urged her up each rung. As her tenders assisted her in doffing her diving dress, the legs of the suit gushed water. A leak had completely filled the legs of her suit with water, meaning that she had carried an extra hundred pounds or so up the ladder -- as she was breathing the last of the air in her helmet!
There was a lot to do during ACDUTRA, so we didn't have a lot of free time, but every now and then we'd get a day off. A few of us drove down to Virginia Beach. Because June in Virginia is hot, the beach was pretty crowded. We were enjoying a nice day, with some body surfing and lazing around in the sun, when I noticed that the lifeguards had formed a line a few feet out from knee to chest deep and were walking parallel to the beach. They were looking for a child who had gone missing. One of them bent over and lifted an inert body. In less than a minute, almost everyone for hundreds of feet up and down the beach jumped up almost in unison and raced down to where the guards carried the little girl ashore. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen, and I still remember the incident as if it were yesterday. On the way back to Little Creek, we stopped at a famous all-you-can-eat seafood restaurant called Captain Georges (well, Captain somebody).
We also performed some useful tasks during ACDUTRA. One of our first missions was to inspect the positioning of a vessel in a drydock. This was the last time we used the old Navy spun-aluminum scuba cylinders. Another task involved plugging a sea suction opening underneath the USS Texas (CGN-39) at the Norfolk Navy Base. The ship was huge and the visibility was zero, so my buddy and I (we only had scuba gear) held onto our lifeline with a death grip as we searched the hull for a very small opening in the blackness far underneath the surface (or so it seemed) while sea nettles stung every exposed patch of skin. On another occasion, we drove up to Port Charles Virginia, a short distance up the DELMARVA Peninsula to meet HCU's salvage vessel, the YSD-53. From there we steamed into Chesapeake Bay to an artificial island and assisted a team of regular Navy divers in inspecting the steel sheet piling that held the island together. A team of us inspected the hull of a ship in the Mothball Fleet anchored up the James River and later toured the ghostly interior of one of the deserted ships.
Three of us were assigned to a job which required us to be transported in the back of HCU's well-equipped dive truck. There was Bergy, myself, and another guy from our unit (Chief Kennedy, maybe? Damn, I forget). Anyway, one of us -- I'm not saying who -- had a little gas, just a tad potent. By the time we arrived at our destination, Bergy, who was maybe a little fastidious, was wearing a facemask and was breathing through a regulator from a scuba tank while the other two howled in laughter.
Det. 201 performed useful tasks during our usual monthly duty weekends back in Newport as well. The unit actually received a letter of commendation for a propeller change done for USS Manley DD940 that had to be done in a timely fashion to allow the ship to meet her underway commitment. We dived with our sister detachment, 201 up in Portsmouth, Maine on one weekend. Another noteworthy mission involved inspecting some submerged trackway on a Navy-owned island in Newport Harbor and resulted in a few of us divvying up a large bag of quahogs to take home. They were thick on the bottom and practically jumped into our 'goodie bags.' I had clam chowder for a week! One weekend we drove up to a pond in Lakeville, Massachusetts to locate and mark shallow rocks. A few weeks earlier there had been a tragedy involving young kids, a motorboat, and excessive speed. I don't think the rocks were to blame.
The unit also drove down to the Brooklyn Navy Yard to survey a barge hull. I was very, very happy that I was assigned to be the Dive Supervisor, because New York's East River at the time was nasty. We didn't have surface-supplied equipment available to us, so the guys dived in regular scuba gear. There were brown lumps floating on the water, as well as white absorbent, ah, pads, with bright red streaks in the middle. Fortunately, nobody got sick.
In the early days we used scuba gear despite the obvious drawbacks for certain missions because that was what we had. You're given a mission; you do it as best you can. Our workshop in the SIMA building included several full sets of gear. An active duty person assigned to the Reserve Center was responsible for getting routine maintenance done. It would have been much more efficient, however, if each of us had been assigned equipment exclusively for our use. Instead, it sometimes took half a day to get equipment checked out for a dive and check it back in at the end of the weekend.
The late 1970s marked the transition from the old Mark V and Jack Browne diving systems that had served the Navy for many decades to newer equipment: the Mark 12 helmet and the Mark 1 lightweight band mask. The unit acquired a portable compressed air system called the 'Roper Cart' so that we could deploy surface-supplied operations away from the shore facility.
I spent another summer, 1977, as a lifeguard at Horseneck Beach. Again, I ended the summer in tiptop (well, for me) shape. In early 1978, I was hired as a field biologist for Northeast Marine Environmental Institution. We collected specimens from the sea for various researchers and universities, and we lead field excursions for school groups from elementary schools through the university level. I had many adventures, but none pertain to this essay or this forum. One of my reservist shipmates from Det. 201, Jack Johnson, was employed at the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth on Cape Cod. On one weekend drill he mentioned to me that the current Diving Officer, Mr. David Owen, was retiring in 1980 and that I should apply for the job. I had earlier looked into employment at WHOI and it's sister institution the Marine Biological Laboratory with no success, so I wasn't too hopeful, but what the Hell... To my surprise, I was asked to come in for an interview -- with the entire Diving Control Board individually. In early 1980 I received a letter in the mail informing me that I had won the position of Diving Safety Officer at the WHOI. One of the requirements of my new job was to teach diving to scientists who needed to dive to further their research interests. I started work lacking a scuba instructor certification, but I was given some time to obtain the necessary 'ticket.' After researching the various 'alphabet soup' of scuba certifying organizations, I settled on applying to participate in an ITC (Instructor Training Course) leading to certification in the National Association of Underwater Instructors beginning in August at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Most of my colleagues at other universities at that time were NAUI instructors, and the organization enjoyed an excellent reputation. One of the other candidates at that ITC was my future wife, who later became employed at the MBL and later at WHOI as a Systems Librarian. On March 31, 2010, Maggie and I retired on the same day after a 30 year career. So, my Navy connections lead to my successful career and marriage.
In late summer or early autumn of 1980, an air force warplane crashed into the sea about five miles east of Jonesport, Maine with the tragic loss of both crewmembers. Salvage vessel USS Preserver (ARS-8) steamed up from Little Creek to recover what remained of the aircraft, which had broken apart upon entry and was scattered over a wide area in over 150 feet of water. The ship had been deployed on site for about two months, and the work in the stormy Gulf of Maine was becoming exhausting. Our parent command, MDSU-2 made a request to our detachment for volunteers to augment and relieve the regular Navy divers for a two week deployment. MR2 Marshall Swing, TM2 Fred Bergmann, and I volunteered on short notice, made arrangements at home and at work, and met the ship in mid November.
It was a bit of a drive from Newport up to Maine, but our adventure really started when we got there. Our first destination, the Bangor Reserve Center was dark and closed. We called the Bangor Police department to see if they knew where the ship was, and they sent us on to the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Jonesport. From there, we got directions to the pier where the Preserver was moored.
The water in the Gulf of Maine in November is challenging to say the least. The water is cold, winds can whip up a sea quickly, and at 150 feet it is as dark as night. All of the diving was surface-supplied using the new Mark-12 system. Instead of being inside a round copper dome with four small windows, the Mark-12 helmet was a lightweight yellow Lexan plastic with a large flat faceplate. Communications with topside were excellent, although the hat, having a continuously flowing air supply, was still noisy. The shoulder-zippered foam drysuit was warm and comfortable. In fact, it was warmer to be a diver in the water than tending topside in the bitter wind. A nylon jumpsuit on top of the drysuit provided not only chaffing protection, but it also had pockets for specially shaped lead weights. It was a lot more comfortable, if less romantic, than the old Mark V.
Because of the depth and bottom time requirements, all dives required mandatory stage decompression. Preserver carried a recompression chamber, and the decompression procedure, called Sur-D (surface decompression), involved an abbreviated decompression stop at 40 feet, a five minute time frame to get the diver topside, strip off his gear, into the chamber, and repressurized back to a pressure equivalent to 40 feet in sea water. There the diver could decompress in the relative safety and comfort of the dry, heated chamber while the dive station was made ready for the next team.
In dive school, you exit the water onto the training barge by climbing up a steep ladder. In the fleet, however, ascents and descents are done by means of a stage. After dressing into the gear while seated on a stool, the diver is guided by his tenders to the metal framework stage and stands while holding onto a railing. The other diver in the team enters the stage, and it is lifted by the use of a winched line over the ship's rail and into the water. After a final leak and communications check, the master diver gives the signal to lower the stage to the bottom. If a diver has ear equalization problems, he shouts out "Hold Red" (or yellow, green whatever color identifies him), and the stage is halted until he can clear. On the bottom, the diver shouts out, "OK Red" and the master instructs him to take a vent to purge any excess carbon dioxide from the suit. The divers always back out of the stage on the opposite side to that which they entered, so the umbilical always trails back to the divers' "elevator to the surface." The then search the bottom in the area surrounding the stage, and if something is found, they notify topside and place the object into a weighted bin that is also lowered to the bottom. Anything too large or heavy to be placed in the bin will need a cable or line to be secured to it.
In the week prior to us meeting the Preserver, one of the regular ship's divers had somehow fouled his umbilical underneath one of the aircraft's engines, and it took several hours to get him up. Salvage diving is no easy task.
Our unit received a nice letter of appreciation from the Commander, Naval Reserve Readiness Command Region One.
We were again requested to supply volunteers in 1981, this time as test subjects for an experimental chamber saturation dive at the Naval Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in New London, Connecticut. Steve Faszcza (pronounced "fazz cha." That's OK, everyone butchers my French Canadian name, too), Marshall Swing and I volunteered for one of the two sets of experiments. Ours was called SUREX II, and the other was AIRSAT.
The purpose of the experiment was to gather information and develop procedures "for use in transferring from a pressurized submarine rescue craft to a decompression facility, should a pressurized submarine rescue become necessary, to further knowledge of nitrogen elimination and the relationship to decompression sickness, and to provide emergency surfacing and decompression protocols for both Navy and civilian operational nitrogen-oxygen saturation diving. " (quote from subject information document).
We reported to the Submarine Medical Research Laboratory in Groton, Connecticut in mid-September and spent the first week obtaining baseline medical, psychological and physiological data for each of us. We performed a basal metabolism test on a stationary bicycle while breathing a measured amount of oxygen and expiring a measured amount of carbon dioxide. Then, we entered the experimental chamber, which was an extra-large double lock recompression chamber about 20 feet long by 8 or o feet in diameter. It was roomy, but remember, once pressurized, you couldn't leave. I have to admit to a very strange feeling when the outer hatch closed and I realized that, no matter what, I couldn't leave my metal prison for 8 days. The days, however, were filled with activities and passed quickly. We saturated at 45 feet for 24 hours, then the outside tenders quickly lowered the pressure back to sea level. After a few minutes, we were re-pressurized back to our storage depth. Various physicians and technicians then locked in with us and performed various tests. Blood was drawn to test for gas phase changes. An eye doctor looked into our retinas to look for evidence of tiny bubbles. We performed lung function tests using a spirometer. We tested our hand strength using a calibrated squeeze device. The pressure was increased several times during the week, and the surface excursion and various tests were repeated. So many blood samples were taken that the phlebotomist used our other arms. By the end of the eight day experiment our arms looked like they belonged to a junkie. In the evening, there was a movie. We got to choose our meals from a reasonable list, and the food was sent to us via the small medical lock.
What we didn't have was privacy. Our every move was monitored by cameras, and of course we couldn't get away from our fellow prisoners, err, subjects. A portable toilet was set up in the outer lock, but we were not allowed to shut the hatch to the main chamber. Everyone delayed the first bowel movement for a couple of days, because we all knew that each of us had a camera. Remember, you NEVER trust your shipmates with a camera! Marshall was the first to 'go.' I pity the poor lowly hospital corpsman who had to clean the toilet!
Unfortunately, I volunteered for one project too many. As a new hire, I couldn't get unlimited time off to participate in Navy games. So, I had to miss ACDUTRA one year, and that resulted in having a 'bad' (incomplete) year. I was also concerned that I couldn't progress in rank. For one thing, I'd never worked as a TM, and the training in 'A' school was on totally obsolete WW II-era fish. There was no way that I could or would reactivate to go to 'C' school. Also, the course book had a section of pink pages in the middle: confidential to secret material. This meant that I'd need to commute on my own time to the reserve center to study a subject for which I had no aptitude or interest. I put in a request for a change of rate and extended my enlistment for one year. The request passed from the command to the reserve system to BUPERS in Washington, but it eventually came back denied because the TM rate was 'critical.' So, I was at a crossroads. On the one hand, I had many adventures over 12 years and enjoyed the camaraderie of the part-time Navy, but on the other hand my Navy career was stuck. Others were getting promotions. I had a pretty good civilian career and wasn't as desperate for extra money any more, and weekends were getting more precious. So, I decided that it was time to move on. My last drill was in June, 1983.
My last Navy dive was a search and recovery mission at the SIMA pier in Newport. It seems that a Portapotty had gone missing from the pier, and we were asked to search for it. After swimming the entire periphery of the pier we failed to locate the missing 'shitter.'
I heard a few years later that my good buddy TM2(DV) Fred Bergmann was very ill. He had developed an abdominal cancer. He passed away in the summer of 1986. I received a telephone call from one of the guys in Det. 201 asking me if I'd like to participate in a memorial service and in scattering Bergy's ashes off his beloved King's Beach in Newport. Of course, my immediate answer was "Yes!" before he could finish his sentence.
Bergy was exceptionally proud of qualifying as a U.S. Navy diver, so it was fitting that his old shipmates bid farewell as we committed his remains to the sea. The uniform of the day was diver green work shirt and cap, UDT trunks, and gray coral shoes, just as we wore so often on dive station. Of course, being the packrat I am, I kept the stuff in my old seabag. I carefully starched the shirt and hat, as did everyone else. We were so squared away that you could practically cut your fingers on the sharp creases. We stood in a circle on the beach, while LDCR Simonson played taps with his bugle. About halfway through, a brief, but intense cloudburst drenched us. All the starch in everyone's uniform wilted and ran down in great white globs. To a man, we knew that Fred was up on that cloud having fun with us one last time. Then, we swam out about a hundred yards offshore in a column of two, formed a circle over the deep water, and passed the box containing Bergy's ashes to each man until it was empty, and silently swam back to shore. We then all drove downtown to Bergy's favorite watering hole, a place called Friends, toasted him liberally with his favorite beverage (Mt. Gay rum, seltzer water, and lime juice), and recounted our favorite Bergy stories.
Rest in peace, my friend. You are greatly missed.
Epilogue:
MDSU Two, Detachments 101 and 201 are now part of history, having been disestablished a few years ago. My old ship, the Coucal, was sunk as a target in 1991. NTC Orlando, where I attended TM "A" school, is now a civilian community. The dive schools at San Diego and Washington, D.C. have been moved to Panama City, Florida. Navy Diver is now a rate instead of an additional qualification. The equipment that I used, such as the Mark V and Mark 12 systems, have been obsolete for years. Naval enlisted uniforms have been changed yet again. Even my old rate, torpedomans mate, is no longer, having been consolidated with the Gunners Mate rating. Damn, I feel old! The world moves on, but people and places don't disappear as long as someone keeps their memory alive.
To bring this story full circle, I rummaged around in my basement and discovered that the fateful UDT swimers vest still existed over 3 decades since myfirst encounter with Fred Bergmann at King's Beach. Both the vest and its owner are a little corroded around the edges, but we're still here. By the way, it only has one CO2 cartridge. So much for my failing memory!
My wife and I occasionally get down to Newport. Parts of the city haven't changed at all. We always make it our obligation to walk up to South Baptist Street past Bergy's old house. A few weeks ago, I noticed that the name 'Bergman' is on the mailbox. Nice to see that it was passed to someone in the family.
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Well, dear reader, we've come to the end of the saga about my military life. I hope that I didn't bore you too much. Yes, I realize that I was, shall I say, verbose (some might say, "diarrhea of the keyboard"). But, I didn't write this for you. I did it for me. A few years ago when I started to scan my collection of ancient pictures and memorabilia into digital format, I began to remember scenes of my lost youth, of times, places, and people now gone. As I began to type my recollections, the memories just flooded into my brain, and I couldn't stop until I came to the end. It was a catharsis, I guess. My getting 'stuck' in rate was a disappointment, even though I never intended in the beginning to make it my life. If I could have made E6, I would have stayed in the reserves for 20 years to collect some retirement benefits. If I could have made E7, I would have stayed in longer. But, still, I had some great times and opportunities. How many people can say that they trained dolphins in a war zone, or walked on the deck of a sunken submarine in a 'copper pot?' I found my civilian career and family through my Navy connections. I came back with all of my fingers and toes, no PTSD or other psych. issues (well, maybe some would argue with that), and I collected a lifetime of 'sea stories' with which to bore people.
Thank you, TWS, for allowing me to post my ramblings and photos. I really don't expect too many readers, well, none actually, to pore through it all. After all, with over a million profiles here, there is the anonymity of being in the crowd. But still, they exist here, rather than getting tossed into the trash when I go.
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