Hard to believe 30 years ago now the battle group left Norfolk, Va. towards Charleston to merge with the groups out of Mayport/Jacksonville and Charleston to head for the Med. On the 23 of Oct we got the message that changed Everything. With enough time onboard the ships you can tell if something is going on by the sound of the engines. The first clue was the sound of engines 3 and 4 lighting off, gas turbine not steam, and the feel of the ship surge forward picking a lot of speed. When all the ships repeators for speed hit 30 knots and stopped working we knew something was up. All the Chiefs not on watch were in the Chiefs mess BSing about what was up when the word came across the 1MC, general announcing sys, for me, and my leading gunners mate and my leading CIWS tech to lay to the Officer Mess. We knew shit was about to hit the fan. The first words out of the Captains mouth was what kind of load did I what in the gun mounts. That was when I learn of the island of Grenada. Needless to say the next 2 weeks of my life was different, I learned to sleep behind my console in CIC and learned that the Captain would let only me handle the guns aboard ship. That made the next 6 months very interesting as Beirut was our next stop.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 16:06:36 +0000
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