Saturday, March 14, 2015

WE DIDN'T BEAT TO QUARTERS

Every day that I was there and we were on task, we just slipped quietly into battle. If you didn't see us there, well, that was kind of the goal wasn't it? We were not like Vincennes and we had some weaknesses.  You could have been there on the bridge wing with me watching Iraqi fighter bombers flying past not more than a hundred feet away, below me. Back in those times we gave Iraqi bombers our positions so they could use us as navigational way points on strikes into Iran. They used that on STARK.

We didn't like Iran.

Well, when I say we,

I didn't mean me.

Some of us never had CAS and STIR and I don't recall having any kind of meaningful anti-air system the whole time I swerved in the Arabian Gulf. Trust me. I'd know. I did serve later for a very long time as the Fire Control Officer on a Destroyer.

Seriously, those planes used to go by so fast at 40 feet above sea level and you'd go, Wo!

yeah, I meant to type that.

I know, my Spruance colleagues will all pile in to say that SPG 60 and RIM7 were not much but they weren't there. Either one was light years better than nothing at all.

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