USS FLINT (AE 32), Part I

It's January, 1990.  I've recently reported onboard the USS FLINT as a non-designated Seaman in Concord, California and life pretty much sucks.  To clarify exactly what a non-designated Seaman is, it's pretty much nothing.  "Lower than a whale's night soil" they say.  You know, lower on the food chain than the whale poop that resides on the bottom of the ocean.  Yes indeed.  I was able to enlist as an E2 because I had some college credits under my belt, but I ran into a little problem at the recruiters office when it came time for me to pick my career path.  I scored insanely high on the ASVAB test in the mechanical areas, so that's what they offered me.  Mechanical jobs.   Machinist's Mate, Boiler Technician, Electrician's Mate.  Uhhhh, NO thanks.  I didn't understand what exactly those jobs entailed, so I didn't want to get roped into one that I wasn't going to like.  "Why do I have to pick NOW?", I asked the recruiter.  Well, turns out I didn't.  I was a recruiter's dream candidate.  He told me all I had to do was pick a general area and I could pick a job once I got to my first duty station.  Sounds awesome, right?  Ahhhhhh, little did I know what was in store for me.  My three choices were Seaman, Fireman, and Airman.  It was an easy decision for me, I chose Seaman without even batting an eye.  I didn't join the Navy to fight fires or fly planes, I joined to do ship stuff on the ocean.  And boy-howdy that's what I did.

If you think about a big ship and all the grunt-work it takes to make it run, you wonder who does all that dirty work, right?  Well, let me tell you.  It's those of us who came in the Navy without a career path.  If you are a Seaman, you stand watches 24 hours a day, you paint everything in sight multiple times, you clean everything in sight, you apply non-skid, you grease wire rope, you splice lines, you inventory life jackets, you go over the side and then you go aloft, and you perform routine maintenance called PMS on every single item onboard the ship.  You swab decks, clean chocks, haul in lines, take out a heck of a lot of garbage, work in the chow hall, and you do it all on about three hours of sleep a night.

See all these wires, winches, and all that haze-grey paint?  Somebody has to take care of all of that, and those somebody's would be the Deck Department Seamen.  See how high you have to go to get to some of that stuff?  That used to be my favorite thing to do.  "Go aloft" it's called.  They would strap you into a harness and hoist you up and you would clean wire rope or paint.  So let's put this into perspective for a second...

A:  I loved going aloft.
B:  I'm deathly afraid of heights.

I would have much rather been aloft hanging from a line in the solitude of the ocean wind painting in the silence than down below listening to the useless jabber of my shipmates.  Truth.

I'm sweeping.  See my bangs?  That's the wind.  And I'm sweeping.  Non-stop sweeping, even in gale force winds.  Busy work to keep out of trouble.  Surely there is nothing to actually sweep, and whatever there is is blowing all over the deck anyhow.  But you go and sweep Seaman Bowen.  Sweep, sweep, sweep.  

Our ships Deck Department was broken down into three divisions.  First Division handled the maintenance of the forward decks of the ship, Second Division handled the aft decks of the ship, and RASE Division handled the mechanical winches and wires of the ship.  I was part of First Division.  First Division had about 25 non-designated Seaman attached to it at any given time.  Some of the Sailors were like me in that they just came in without a job, and others were Sailors that were being punished for something, or that had lost their job permanently due to punishment.  Yes, that's right.  Deck Department was somewhere you went when you were being punished.  Sounds like fun, right?

I've spoken with considerable amount of negativity about my experience in Deck Department, but in reality, it was a tremendous learning experience and I enjoyed some aspects of it.  The guys were dumb, funny, and there was never a shortage of laughter.  They were always fist-fighting just like teenage boys, and they partied hard.  They were mostly fun to be around as long as they were sober, and although there were a few bad eggs in the group, we all became close out of necessity.  But most importantly, I turned into a grown-up onboard this ship.  It absolutely changed my life.  It altered my path, my personality, and my destination.  It was HARD, it was TOUGH, and although it sucked, I wouldn't trade that experience for anything in the world.  Going back, I'd do it all over again.  I'm a much better person for it.

We were scheduled to get underway on a routine deployment in the summer of 1990.  In the six months prior to a deployment, there are work-ups, inspections, and mini-cruises that prepare your ship and crew for a long period of underway.  I was young, single, and none of that phased me.  I LOVED being underway, and I always looked forward to the days we pulled out of port.  I lived onboard the ship 24/7 so I wasn't leaving anything or anyone behind.  

FLINT was a supply ship.  Ammunition, to be specific.  We supplied ammunition of every sort to the other ships in our battle group.  A battle group is a group of ships that deploy together and stay together throughout the deployment.  

This is the MIDWAY battle group.  Battle group's are named after the Aircraft Carrier in the group.  MIDWAY is in the middle, and the mighty battleship IOWA is in the front.  There are cruisers, frigates and supply ships that round out the group.  This is steaming in formation, which doesn't happen all the time.  Most times the group is spread out enough that you are within site distance of each other, but far enough away to have your own steaming space.  

I remember very specifically the day that our deployment went from routine to other wise.  We were nearly through with our deployment and were headed toward the direction of home.  It was late in the evening and I was in my rack.  Suddenly I felt the ship do a hard turn and I remember having to hold on to keep from rolling completely out onto the floor.  We turned around, and we did it quickly.  I only had to wonder why for a second, and the Captain came across the 1MC and explained to the crew that we were headed BACK to the Persian Gulf, and this time it wasn't routine.  Operation Desert Shield had just begun, and since we were the closest Battle Group to the gulf, that's where we were going.  

Cool, I thought.  I mean, I didn't have any reason to go home.  I was living at home right there on the ship.  The gravity of what was happening didn't hit me for a few more days when things started to change around the ship.  The closer we got to the gulf, the higher the tensions of the senior member's of the crew.  And the more things changed.  We were issued gas masks, and had to keep them on our persons at all times.  We switched to "Condition three" steaming, which was wartime steaming.  But what we did that really drove it home was load up on ammunition.  And I mean load up.  We were heavy, and we were full of everything from "special" bombs (you figure it out) to bullets.  There wasn't space for not one more bomb or bullet onboard her when we headed out towards the gulf.  Our job was to make sure that the other ships in the battle group had plenty of ammunition, as well as the temporary land-bases in the gulf.  There were two ways to distribute ammunition on a ship.  Underway Replenishment, or UNREP for short, and by helicopter.  We were a busy busy ship.  We had helicopters going back and forth day in and day out, and we were hooked up to other ships providing ammunition, food, and fuel constantly.  

My first job on the UNREP team was the signalman.  I got to hold these paddles that looked like ping-pong paddles with different colors to signal the team of the other ship with what action to take next.  Basic stuff like go, stop, etc.  Eventually though, I made my way through the different stations and had the great opportunity to be a Rig Captain.  The Rig Captain was the guy referred to as the "Yellow Hat" on the UNREP station.  He was in charge of that evolution at that station.  He gave out the orders and was responsible for the safety of the team.  Onboard FLINT, we could feasibly have six UNREP stations going at once, three on each side of the ship.  Confused?  Here's a picture.

This is my ship, but it's an older picture.  Do you see the tall posts?  Those are UNREP stations.  Before I checked onboard, the two stations at the very front of the ship were removed so they didn't exist on my tour.

Here is a close up of an aft UNREP station transferring ammunition.  If you refer to the chart below, you can tell by the helmet colors what each person is responsible for.

But let's talk about the actual UNREP process for a second.  After you've done it a few times, it's just another day at the office.  But, it's actually a very detailed process with a lot of room for error.  It's also really COOL.  Most people would likely assume that when ships get supplies or ammunition that they pull into a port and get loaded up.  Not true.  That's what UNREP is for.

An UNREP team consists of the following people:

An UNREP starts with a snipe firing a shot across to the other ship, which has pulled alongside.  The shot is attached to a line that is hauled in by the line handlers of the other ship.  Once that line is secured, then the proper apparatus can be secured and the supplies can be transferred.  It can be ammunition, or fuel.  Fuel is transferred directly from one fuel tank to the next, just like a gas station.  Insert the hose, start pumping.  

Here is a picture of the fuel line being hauled across from the supply ship to the receiving ship.  Looks  a little hairy, no?  It was hairy.  

 And even people were transferred.  Mostly officer's, sometimes enlisted folks if they were needed in a pinch to assist another ship in the battle group.

I desperately wanted to be the Rig Captain.  The Rig Captain was awesome.  I was sure I could handle it, and I pestered my Chief until he gave me a shot at it.  I will say that having women onboard was a difficult time, but each Chief wanted their women to be better than the rest.  Sort of like a sexist contest.  But it was good competition for the Chiefs and at the time the women were none the wiser.  I just wanted to be a Rig Captain, and my Chief saw that as an opportunity to prove his awesomeness as a Chief.  I mean, if he can teach a GIRL to be a Rig Captain, he must be some sort of Chief, right (eye roll)?  

Anyhow, I was officially the FIRST female Rig Captain onboard the USS FLINT.  Proud, I was.  Excited, I was.  And thankfully nothing bad happened on any of my rigs.  And my Chief was pretty much The Man.

Yes, that's me.  Dirty, tired, and on the UNREP station.  This picture actually ran in the Oakland Tribune with an article about women serving onboard ships.  It was pretty exciting news back in those days.

All right, why so much talk of UNREP?  Well, because that is pretty much ALL WE DID for months at a time.  We were underway so long we had two consecutive beer days.  

Beer days were glorious.

If you were underway for 45 days at a time, a beer day was authorized.  And with it came what was called a "Steel Beach Picnic".  We so looked forward to those days.  We would typically starve ourselves for days so the beer would provide more of a buzz than if consumed on a full stomach.  I recall two beers per person, but I could be wrong about that.  It's been a long time.  Hotdogs and hamburgers were provided, and we would get to enjoy the afternoon unless you were on watch.  In addition to Beer days, we also had Swim Call a few times.  

Well, everybody else did.  NOT ME.  

Have I mentioned I'm scared of the ocean?  

Yes, yes, I am indeed scared of the ocean.  Actually I am scared to death of any water that I cannot see through.  If I can't see through it, I'm not getting in it short of a shipwreck.  Even then I'm guessing somebody will have to knock me in the head to shut me up and just let me float unconscious until either a shark eats me or I get rescued.  

SO, the girl who loved being underway is scared of the beautiful ocean.  She does not participate in Swim Call.

See that boat?  That boat has Gunner's Mates in it.  Guess what they are doing?  Watching for sharks, and big giant jellyfish.  There is also a rescue swimmer in the boat, just in case somebody has trouble.  

Two long deployments and probably four swim calls and not a single toe of mine touched the Indian Ocean.  I never regretted it, and I'm still scared of the ocean.

We worked long and hard hours underway.  We were all absolutely exhausted.  We pulled into some great liberty ports but we all just sat in the bars and drank until it was time to get back underway.  That Navy was different than today's Navy, and the liquor flowed freely in port.  I'm glad I was a girl, because the hookers flowed freely too and the girls had no part of that action.  Amen to that.  Yuk.

We pulled into Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman, and probably some more I'm missing.  We spent a lot of time in the Philippines because that is where we replenished our ammunition.  Funny thing about being on an ammunition ship... we were never allowed to pull into port.  We had to anchor out of almost every liberty port because places were scared we'd have an accident and blow their country up.  Valid concern, but a pain to have to take a liberty boat everywhere except the Philippines.  They allowed us to pull into port, but waaaayyyy back on the island about a 30 minute bus ride from the rest of the base, where they kept the ammunition bunkers.

I was doing my mess-decks time the first go-round in the Philippines.   Mess-decks time was also known as mess cranking, and when you were mess cranking you were known as a crank.  Yes, a crank.  You did dishes, cleaned the mess-decks, and worked like a stinky dog all day and all night for 90 days.  I was assigned to the Wardroom, which meant I got to work in the officers galley.  It was much better duty that the general galley, and I was fortunate that's where I went.  Anyhow, back to the moral of the story.  Since I was cranking, I got to take out the trash every day while we were in port in the Philippines.  That's a complete tragedy.  Why?

Monkeys.  These are the monkeys of the Philippines.  They are EVERYWHERE.  This picture was taken on the base, monkeys just chillin'.  WAITING FOR YOU TO TAKE OUT THE GARBAGE.

HOLY COW.  I hated it when it was time to take out the trash.  The dumpsters were about 25 yards past the brow, and although you could only see a couple of monkeys, they were there by the dozens.  They were waiting for you to run at warp speed down the brow to the cheer of your shipmates above, to throw the trash into the dumpster as quickly as you could before the monkeys jumped ON YOU to get to the trash.  

You had to be fast.

 I didn't do a whole lot of partying in ports.  I opted to stay onboard the ship, and "take duty" for the guys.  The guys liked hookers and they liked to drink, and all the ports we pulled in to were guy friendly and they paid me well to take their duty and stay onboard in their place while they went out and patronized the hookers and the bars.  I didn't mind, the locals didn't really like the girls anyhow, they felt we were taking their business from the local hookers.  Yes, that's right.  The local's didn't like the women onboard the ships either.  It was just easier to stay onboard.

Penang, Malaysia

After our extra-long first deployment, we finally got the go-ahead to head on home.  I was a little sad, I loved being underway.  But I had grown up enough to know that there were a lot of lonely men onboard.  Men that missed their kids and their wives.  Tensions started to run high, and they needed to go home.  

So home we headed.  The pier was crowded.  I was so happy to see all those families on the pier, and I was happy for my shipmates.  It was good to be home, I looked forward to buying some new clothes, and to seeing a movie or two.  We were finally finished with our deployment and weren't scheduled to go out again for another year. 

And so ended the first adventure I was a part of onboard the USS FLINT.  At the time we pulled into port, I was unsure whether I would be around for the next deployment.  Although it was mostly a miserable trip, it was also character building and I grew up really quickly.  I had opportunities to do some things that I would have never dreamed.  I worked hard, made a bunch of mistakes, but thankfully grew from them and matured into a fairly decent Sailor.  

 And let's see, where were we.

Oh yes, we had just pulled into port after an extended 7 month deployment and weren't scheduled to deploy for another year.

Right?  Wrong.