Part time sailors? There is no such thing

I’m still going through boxes of old paperwork and stuff I have saved over the years. Some of the items include pictures and mementoes from my years in the navy. One item that was in an old album was a faded copy of a Welcome Aboard letter from Charleston’s FBMSTC (Fleet Ballistic Missile Training Center). […]

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The Line (Revisited)

A Great Reunion – Well, Mostly Great

The 2024 Gathering of the Saints is finally over. I have been absent from the keyboard for a while as we executed our latest reunion in Charleston SC. The planning for the reunion started at the end of 2023 and was non-stop until the very last day of the event. One thing about reunions is […]

April 11 2024 – Holland Club

I was honored to have my wife and my Submariner Brothers present last night at the USSVI Charleston Base to see my induction into the Holland Club. I actually wasn’t sure I would ever make it. A special thanks to RADM Mike Sharp and the men from the USS San Francisco SSN 711 that were […]

The American Diver – CSS Hunley

One of my favorite books in my small collection about submarines is one that was written by Robert Hatfield Barnes in 1944. I did an extensive search about Mr. Barnes background and came up short. The copy I have has an inscription in the front that merely says “Dedicated to the officers and men of […]

Off to Alaska – Submarines Explore the Last Frontier

Port Call Alaska 1934 – Just Another Routine Port Call… Or Was It? I love Alaska. I had previously been on one boat that had travelled near the coast of the Last Frontier, but it wasn’t until many years later that I was actually able to see the forty ninth state up close and personal. […]

The Silent Service Needs You (1950’s version)

After World War 2, the US Navy had a surplus of many items from the big war. On both the east coast and the west coast, temporary resting places for many of the ships and submarines were teeming with no longer needed ships and submarines. I remember seeing large numbers of ships tied up and […]

“Air Conditioning? Real Submariners Don’t Need No Air Conditioning”

“Air Conditioning? Real Submariners Don’t Need No Air Conditioning” From the very beginning of the submarine service in the United States, there were a number of constants. First, there was limited space. Priority was given to the machinery and support systems that would make the submarine effective. The engines were small at first but grew […]

Voyage to the Bottom of the Seas – The Nuclear Navy of 1964

In 1964, I was ten years old. The movie, Voyage to the Bottom of the Seas had come out in 1961 but I only remember it from later showings on television when I was much older. The TV series that was born from that movie ran from 1964 to 1968 and I am pretty sure […]

Sudden Impact… Forever Impacted

Sudden Impact… Forever Impacted It was a cold and freezing night. (I’ve always wanted to use that line ever since Snoopy used something similar in one of his attempts to be a novelist. Cartoonist Charles Schulz made Snoopy use this phrase because “it was a cliché and had been one for a very long time”. […]