My Navy Journey: Going Ashore

Part 5

The Navy tries to maintain a “sea/shore” rotation when issuing orders to officers and sailors. People will alternate between sea duty on ships and shore duty, which is simply a place that doesn’t cast off all lines and get underway. This is a bit of a generalization, but you get the idea. The other services (for the most part) don’t need to worry about this rotation because they don’t have ships. They have deploying and non-deploying units and I think they try to maintain a rotation between these units, but I’m not really sure. In any case, it was time for me to go ashore for a few years. Time to get some predictability, take a breath, do something different, and recharge the batteries.

Obviously, Patty and I as well as the kids were looking forward to this time. I flew home from my shortened deployment in July of 1979 not knowing that everything about every deployment I would make in the future was to be changed by the deteriorating situation in the Middle East. But that will be reflected in future posts.

We had been in our home for a while and we were looking forward to some predictable time to enjoy being together. Patty had really been living a life of a single parent for long stretches of time and I was eager to reestablish myself in our family. But she was much more than simply a single parent. There’s a saying that the toughest job in the Navy is the Navy wife. Unless you’ve been there you really can’t appreciate how true this is. Of course we intellectually knew that deployments would be difficult, but until you live it, it’s tough to understand it. Patty had two children to care for, the pursuit of her own profession, and all of the mundane and hectic day to day things that came with managing a family first and foremost every day. She had learned to navigate the ups and downs of military life very well and I was extremely proud of her. She had everything very organized and they were thriving, but I had missed a lot. Coming home this time was a bit different than the previous time. I knew I wouldn’t be packing for sea anytime soon. I knew we could establish a strong routine in our family. There were a few hiccups as you expect as I reinserted myself into our family life, but those faded quickly. It was just so great to be home and be together. There was also the added dimension of me being a Naval aviator. It’s a dangerous job and every time I walked out the door, whether on sea duty or shore duty, we knew things could happen that would change her life and the life of our kids dramatically. I will also admit that something had changed in me during my time at sea. They say it gets in your blood and as much as I missed Patty and the kids while I was gone, in a weird way I knew I’d miss life at sea. But that was something to put away and think about in the future.

I reported to the the SH-3D training squadron HS-10 (known as the RAG and located just across the hangar from my previous home of HS-8). HS-10 at that time was known as the “Taskmasters” because they were in the training business. HS-10 had a sister squadron in Jacksonville, FL designated HS-1. Between the two squadrons they trained all USN SH-3D pilots, aircrew and maintenance personnel going to fleet squadrons and other stations flying the aircraft. The squadron was about 3 times the size of HS-8 in terms of personnel and aircraft.

When I started at HS-10 I was inserted into their Instructor Under Training (IUT) syllabus and flew several flights to learn how to be a flight instructor. I already had the designation as a post-maintenance check pilot so that designation transferred over and I also was able to get a lot of hours doing that mission. When I started at HS-10 I had about 1200 flight hours and when I left in July of 1981 I had a little over 1800 flight hours. I really enjoyed being a flight instructor. Taking someone who had never flown the SH-3D and helping them advance to the point of moving to a fleet squadron was rewarding. The pilots going through the syllabus were for the most part either brand new and as wide eyed as I was just a few short years ago or more senior guys returning to a fleet squadron as a Department Head or XO/CO tour. By far I enjoyed the new guys the best. With the new guys I was always diligent in being as professional and yet empathetic with them. There were more than a few that struggled and I did my best to get them through a flight with me and advance in the syllabus. It didn’t always happen and no one liked it when someone struggled, but that was sometimes part of the job. The more senior guys were sometimes difficult because they relied on experience, sometimes dated experience. But I learned ways to exert my authority as pilot in command. As in my fleet squadron I participated in all kinds of flights. Day and night familiarization, instrument, tactical, formation, ship qualifications, and cross countries were all on the syllabus.

Being in HS-10 was much more like a “regular” job than being in a fleet squadron. HS-10 wasn’t deploying anywhere. As I said the squadron was larger so it was less likely to develop the relationships I had in HS-8. It was sometimes a difficult dynamic because everyone who had been in the fleet was used to a rather frenetic pace. That wasn’t HS-10. Most everything we did was predictable. Another thing that was different was that there were women in the squadron and it was the first time I had experienced a coed organization. At that time it was just at the beginning of widespread acceptance of women in the military. HS-10 was a shore duty squadron that didn’t deploy so we had a lot of billets that would accept women. It was a bit different at first and I won’t say that there weren’t growing pains, but that is true with any change. Because we were a vertically structured military organization we had some relationship issues, but I think that was just part of figuring out how to make it work. Frankly, I was oblivious to a lot of that dynamic.

While it was a very different dynamic at work, from my perspective it was great on the homefront. Like I said previously, there were a few growing pains but the happiness of being home generally outweighed that. We were able to inject some predictability and normalcy in our lives together, really for the first time in a long time. Patty had gone back to school while I was on sea duty to get her California teaching credential, her Special Education credential, and her Resource Specialist Certificate of Competence and had reentered the workplace. So dealing with all the things involved with our family like child care, schooling, extracurriculars, finances and all the everyday, mundane issues were things we worked on together. Chris had started Kindergarten and of course we thought he was the smartest kid in the school. He was all boy. He wanted to try every sport offered. He already loved the Chargers and Padres. We had him join Cub Scouts and as he advanced I signed up as a Webelos leader. He and I worked on a Pinewood Derby race car and competed in the big race. It was great. Tara was in a pre-school at a local church and I don’t mind admitting had me wrapped tightly around her little finger. She was just so cute and had a personality to match. She also was into sports and didn’t take a back seat to her brother in anything! And when she went around as a Brownie selling Girl Scout cookies, no one could resist. Patty was the cookie coordinator for the troop and I swear that at one point our whole garage was taken up with cookies. During this time I also bought a new car. I had it in my mind that it would be cool to have a sports car to commute to work so I bought a used two-seat TR-6. As has been the case in some other things, I really don’t know what I was thinking. It was hugely impractical with two kids and it was a British sports car so it had constant problems, especially with the electrical system. At one point the only way I could start it was to park it on a hill, roll it downhill and pop the clutch. And has been the case in other things, Patty was right when she put her foot down and said we had to sell the car! So off it went for something more practical. But I loved that car! I’ve tried to buy a refurbished TR-6 a few more times over the years, but I get the evil eye from Patty and drop it quickly.

The social life in HS-10 was also much tamer. We still regularly had social events but both CO’s I had while there didn’t ascribe to many of the social requirements I had experienced in HS-8. My first CO was a tactical maniac and cared much more about work than play. He was very, very focused on the anti-submarine mission (ASW) mission. In fact, one day at an all officer’s meeting, he told us that even if we had a flight early in the syllabus with a new pilot, he expected us to head to sea in the training area off the coast and conduct ASW training. ASW in the SH-3D consists of putting the aircraft in a 40 foot hover over a point in the ocean and lowering a sonar transducer on a winch on a 400’ cable to search for submarines. The aircraft is built for it and the aircrew train for it but it is not something you do with a rookie in one of the seats up front. I will admit to ignoring his expectation and most others did also. And we never heard anything about it. At some point during his tenure we were slated to receive new versions of the SH-3 called the SH-3H. There were a lot of upgrades to the aircraft but the biggest was an advanced tactical navigation system. When we received the first aircraft we received training on its systems. Almost immediately he wanted to test it out. So I got to be the lucky guy who was scheduled to co-pilot a flight to go on an actual ASW mission. Submarines routinely participate in training off the coast in instrumented ranges and we were scheduled for a period on the range on the west side of San Clemente Island which is about 55 miles off the coast. So the flight was scheduled at night and the weather just so happened to be terrible. I occupied the right seat meaning I would do most of the flying and he would operate the navigation system. During the preflight he had everything set up to get us to the training area. At least I thought he did. About half way there he told me to climb to a certain altitude so we’d miss the mountain on San Clemente because he wasn’t sure where we were! It was dark and we were in a driving rainstorm! But we had radar contact from the controlling agency so we pressed on. We finally got to the op area and descended to start our search. I was still flying. He was still struggling. Luckily we had a TACAN fix on San Clemente as a backup so I wasn’t too worried. We then commenced to do about 2 hours of flying around at 150’ and 90 knots going from hover to hover to deploy the sonar. It was still dark and we were still in a driving rainstorm. He was so fascinated with making the damn tactical navigator work that his head was down most of the time. Finally, without finding the sub, we reached the appointed time and headed home. As we were transiting home he finally looked up and said, “oh, is it raining?”. I could’ve throttled him. But he was the CO so my reply was muted. Probably because I was so tired. The next day I told the schedules officer to not schedule me with him again.

The other CO I had was a total introvert. He was the antithesis of everything I had seen up to that point in a leader. He kept a coffee pot in his office so he didn’t have to go to the Wardroom for coffee. He really didn’t like much of anything about leading the squadron. During the time he was in the squadron he never got qualified as a flight instructor. He had several flights, but he didn’t proceed through the syllabus. He didn’t like socializing with the rest of us. I asked someone who knew him in a previous squadron how he got to the position of CO of the HS-10, which is called a ‘bonus command’ and is given to someone who had already had operational command, and he didn’t know. It was truly strange. But…it was a really good lesson in how not to be a leader.

As I have stated previously, Naval Officers are not just pilots or ship/submarine drivers. They also have another job in whatever organization they are assigned. Upon arrival at HS-10 I was informed that I would become the Legal Officer. The Legal Officer is the legal advisor to the CO and conducts all legal affairs of the squadron including Captain’s Mast, courts martial, and assisting personnel with wills and other legal procedures. It is a big job and I got sent to school for 6 weeks to learn the ins and outs of the job. It was a huge learning experience and I got a pretty fair exposure to all aspects of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). I had a yeoman (administrative specialist) assigned to me to do all the paperwork involved with the job. She was literally indispensable. I had a pretty significant chunk of my time taken up with flying and she was very detailed oriented. Every job I had in the Navy provided a learning experience but this one was not only that but also gave me a great window into how a leader and a command would treat people who didn’t live up to the standards set by the Navy and the UCMJ. Some cases were cut and dried. If someone went AWOL, committed a crime, or did drugs then there were standards for punishment. But when you are dealing with a squadron full of young men and women, their behavior can sometimes go off the rails. I learned that while holding people accountable is important, it’s also important to sometimes offer nuanced and creative responses to allow people to come back from a mistake. It was a lesson I would take with me for the rest of my life. After about a year I was reassigned as the Avionics Division Officer. It was similar to the Aircraft Division Officer job I had in HS-8 and I really liked it. A big benefit was that I also had a great Chief Petty Officer leading the Division and I continued to learn leadership lessons from him.

During my time flying in HS-10, I had several very interesting flights. One that I remember was flying under the Coronado Bay Bridge. I was returning from a flight at NAF IB doing field work and flying up the bay. All of a sudden we got a call from the tower and said that someone had jumped off the bridge and we were tasked with searching for the jumper. I descended and started to do a methodical search when we received another call clearing to fly under the bridge. I asked and received verification and spent the next 30 minutes or so searching and flew under the bridge several times. We never found anything but it was sort of unique and fun.

One of the ways the Navy moved aircraft around the country was with a “ferry” squadron designated VRF-31. But sometimes they would run out of pilots or have some other issue and ask for help. So several times I flew ferry flights to other locations. One day I got scheduled to ferry an SH-3D to NAS Whidbey Island, Washington. My copilot was a Lieutenant Commander student who was ultimately bound for Whidbey. His family was already there and he really wanted to see them. So off we went. We spent the night at Mather AFB near Sacramento and figured to make the second leg in the next day. When we woke up the weather had turned bad to the north. I was ready to stay at Mather and wait for the weather but my copilot really wanted to go. So against my better judgement we took off to the north. At about Redding the weather got much worse and we should have turned around. But all of a sudden we saw a clearing and blue sky above us. They don’t call holes like that sucker holes for nothing. The next thing I knew we were on top of a solid cloud layer with no good plan. So I call ATC with my tail between my legs and asked for help. The problem was with the height of the mountains all around us we couldn’t get high enough for radar following. So the controller gave me a vector north toward Salem, Or, which was in the Willamette Valley and told he that the weather was better and he’d let me know when to start an enroute descent to land at Salem. He said that based on pilot reports we’d break out at about 1000’. A little while later we got the call and I started the descent. Sure enough we broke out at 1000’ and saw Salem ahead. It was a monumental relief. We spent the night and the next day completed the short flight to Whidbey. That experience was a huge learning experience for me. I was pilot in command but I let a senior officer talk me into something against my better judgement. Never again.

HS-10 had all kinds of students. Like I said previously we had rookies headed for the fleet as well as soon to be department heads and CO’s/XO’s. We also had foreign students. While I was there we had Germans, Peruvians and Iranians. The Iranians were, as a group, terrible. As I had experienced back in Pensacola, they were rich kids who didn’t bother with ground school and were much more interested in fast cars, women of a certain persuasion and hard partying. They seemed to view showing up for a brief or event as optional. I tried to avoid flying with them whenever possible but sometimes it was unavoidable. Every time I flew with them I considered myself to be flying a single piloted mission and did only the minimum required.

During my time in HS-10 I had a couple of big things that impacted my career. As an attendee at Aviation Officer Candidate School I was a Reserve officer. Unlike USNA or ROTC graduates, my status as a Reserve officer put me in a rather tenuous position from a career perspective. Patty and I had had long discussions about staying in the Navy or moving on and we both wanted to stay. So I applied for augmentation to the regular Navy and after several months it was approved. It was almost like becoming a real member of the club. The other thing that happened about half way through my time in HS-10 was that the Navy was having a problem retaining aviators and they came out with a bonus program. While several of my squadron mates debated the merits of taking the bonus, I really didn’t have to think much about it. Show me the money!!!

When I arrived at HS-10 in July 1979 I had orders for 30 months to depart in early 1982. In early 1981 I received a letter from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, CA that informed me that I was eligible to attend NPS to study for a Masters degree in Computer Information Systems Management. It was out of the blue and I really didn’t have time to do an 18 month curriculum since I was going back to sea in a year. I was a little dumbfounded at this as I hadn’t applied or even thought about going back to school. But I knew that, whether or not I ever used it, getting an advanced degree would be beneficial for my career. After discussing with Patty, I decided to see if there was a way I could take advantage of the opportunity. So I went to my CO and asked if he would agree to me leaving 6 months early for NPS if the detailer (assignment officer in Washington DC) would agree to a delay in returning to sea duty. After he said yes I called the detailer and after some discussion we were all in agreement. So in June 1981, I left HS-10 bound for NPS in Monterey, CA.

During this time we had a horrific experience that impacted the family for years to come. Early one Monday morning we received a call from the Mom one of Chris’ best friends. She was calling to tell us that he had drowned in a tide pool at Coronado beach. To make matters worse he was there with his 16 year old sister. It was a devastating call that impacted all of us. Patty had taken the kids to swim lessons from the time they could walk and we felt like they were relatively water safe but this was a wake up call. As we emerged from the fog of the tragedy, we became determined that our kids would learn to be strong swimmers and be totally water safe.

We decided to rent the house for the 18 months we were in Monterey as it was highly likely that we’d be back for the next sea tour. Patty was coming to the end of her student teaching and eager to get a job in her profession, but that would be put on hold for the time being. We rented the house, packed everything up, and headed north. Monterey is a delightful town about 90 miles south of San Francisco and right on the coast. NPS was established in 1909 in the historic Del Monte Hotel in downtown Monterey and over the years has evolved to a modern campus providing graduate education all services. Here’s a short description from their website.

WHO WE ARE: NPS is a Naval command and a defense graduate university. We are defense educators, subject matter experts and staff serving those who serve our nation.

WHAT WE DO: NPS develops warrior talent and research solutions through Master’s and Ph.D. programs for the Department of the Navy, DoD, U.S. Government, partners and our allies.

WHY IT MATTERS: NPS ensures the technological leadership of the future force. Our graduates have the technical and intellectual edge to deter and prevail in the all-domain battlespace.

Virtually everyone who is a student at NPS is in the same boat. They are coming from a command somewhere and are only there temporarily. They are from all the services and there are international students. They are all studying for a post-graduate degree. Most haven’t been in school in a long time and have forgotten about going to class, study habits, taking tests and everything else that comes with being a full time student. And most have families. In their wisdom, the Navy created a housing area about a mile from the school where most people lived. The housing was pretty basic and where you lived depended largely on rank. Since I was a Lieutenant we rated a 3 bedroom townhouse and it was clean, but very basic. When we got the key and walked through the door, Patty cried. We had just come from the house we had bought and made into our home, we had left our parents behind, it was highly likely that she couldn’t get a teaching job while we were there and we were in an unknown, alien environment. But very soon our household goods arrived and we made this place into a home. Our townhouse had a linoleum flooring. It was pretty cold. But there were carpet stores in Monterey that specialized in selling carpet remnants that could be cut to fit a room. And they had the sizes of all the rooms in Navy housing. So most people would visit a store and buy right sized carpet for the rooms in their houses. It was pretty different.

The housing area also had its own elementary school. All the kids were military kids whose father, or less frequently mother, were attending NPS. It was a great school and the kids were happy there. Chris was 7 and in second grade and Tara was 5 and started Kindergarten. Patty was able to be a substitute at the school and that worked out well. She was also asked to be the room Mom for Tara’s class and that turned out to be more work than anticipated.

I started school soon after arriving and with a little bit of adjustment settled in just fine. Information Systems was pretty alien to me but, like any other training or education I had experienced, it was a building block approach. I enjoyed most of the classes and don’t remember having much difficulty. We did have to take programming classes as part of the curriculum and I found that pretty mysterious. I got through it but this was the early 80’s and coding was not something I ever thought I’d be doing.

Very soon after arriving we searched for a good swim lesson class. We found one in the town of Seaside just north of Monterey and enrolled the kids. It wasn’t long until they were like fish in the water and we were approached to have them try out for the swim team. Mind you, they were 7 and 5 so we didn’t think it was a big deal. But they loved it and got more and more involved. Pretty soon we were going to swim meets on weekends and taking the kids to swim practice several times a week. And the more we took them the more they liked it. Their best friends were other swimmers. Little did we know at the time that they both would be competitive swimmers for all of their school years through high school and Chris even swam at the Naval Academy for 3 years. Swimming became a huge part of all of our lives from that time forward.

We all loved living in Monterey. It was an idyllic little community and there was always something to do. I took a sailing class at some point and so every Saturday I was out on Monterey Bay flailing around in a sail boat. We both made great friends. We had dinners together all the time, went camping together, and had a fun social life. Patty joined a sewing circle called ‘stitch and bitch’ that met on Thursday nights and all the guys were the babysitters. We still have great memories of exploring the Big Sur coast as often as possible. We routinely visited some of the quaint restaurants in Carmel and enjoyed just strolling around that wonderful little town. We still remember our whole neighborhood going to brunch one Sunday at Pebble Beach. We were all poor, young Naval Officers but we splurged like there was no tomorrow. I’ve always wanted to play golf at Pebble Beach but have never gotten the chance. But we went to several tournaments there and walked the course.

Too soon our time was coming to an end and it was time for me to look for the next thing. I was graduating in December, 1982 and we all wanted to go back to San Diego. At that time the Navy had a policy of sending aviators to what they called a “disassociated tour” away from aviation for their second sea assignment. They would assign aviators to an aircraft carrier or an amphibious ship as a part of ship’s company for two years to “broaden their experience” in the surface navy and fill aviation related billets on ships. It was something that very few, including me, wanted to do, but it was in the cards. There were a wide variety of ships and assignments so I really didn’t know what to expect. Basically I was hoping to avoid it and somehow miraculously be sent back to an HS squadron. So I called my detailer in the Fall to discuss the next assignment. Because I had gone to NPS, I owed the Navy some time so I didn’t have a lot negotiating power. And because I was an aviator due for sea duty it wasn’t likely that they would send me to a billet to “pay back” and use my graduate degree somewhere. When I called and asked about orders to a squadron, he made it clear that wasn’t in cards. It was going to be a ship for me. So if it was going to be a ship I wanted a ship home-ported in San Diego. That turned out to be not too difficult. I was given several choices. I wanted to do whatever I could to get back to flying so that meant going to a big-deck amphibious ship. These were LPH’s and LHA’s and had a UH-1N assigned to the ship for the six aviators in ship’s company to fly. That didn’t sound too bad. So I chose orders to the USS Tripoli (LPH-10) based in San Diego. I would be the Assistant Air Officer and Safety Officer. That didn’t sound too bad. I could make the best of it. We’d be back in San Diego in our house and could get back to our lives before they were interrupted by our detour to Monterey. Little did I know what I was in for. But that is the next part of the story!