Chapter 2

Sea Detail was set the next morning, around 1000. Everything was low key with no last-minute drama. Almost everyone, including Eddie, was sad to say goodbye to New Zealand and Australia, as they were ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences for most sailors. It had been a hell of a ride for Eddie and Al, but they knew all good things must come to an end. Now, that was a lot of platitudes in such a short paragraph, but it was how they felt. Al and Eddie stood on the 01 level as the lines were singled up and finally hauled aboard. No cheering women saw them off this time, but they hadn’t expected it. Now, all they had to do was follow their daily routine for the next week or so. They would have preferred to sail directly to Japan, but the State Department had tasked the ship to make diplomatic visits to Vava ‘u, Kingdom of Tonga, and Pago Pago, American Samoa. Their ship was only spending one day at each stop, so Eddie and Al doubted they would even bother going ashore if Eddie didn’t have duty.

Tonga is actually a large group of mostly smaller islands. To reach their destination, the couple of ships chosen to visit had to travel through miles of estuaries, between the verdant hills of Vava ‘u Island. As the ships traveled, the shoreline would sometimes reveal huts built among the lush tropical foliage and Tongan natives would watch from the shoreline. Eddie finally got bored just looking at the scenery, so he went below. When the ship moored, he went out on deck to give the town a look. It was very small, as far as he could see, and nothing struck his fancy, so he returned below. For those who went ashore, there wasn’t much for a sailor to do, though the local town tried to organize a dance. No one bragged about having a good time. The major comment from those who ventured forth was:

“It was okay!”

When the ship pulled out the next day, Eddie didn’t even go topside. He had to try to get those damned evaluations at least roughed out. He’d had too much fun, south of the equator, and now it was time to get back on-task. He had a great team of techs and he wanted to write a personalized write up for each one, not just an assembly line of platitudes. Since his techs were in and out of the electronics shop, he took his file of blank evaluation forms and sequestered himself in an auxiliary radio equipment room. Unless there was an equipment failure, or preventive maintenance was scheduled, that room was seldom entered. He spent four solid hours composing from notes he’d kept on each of his men, and at the end, he’d written evaluations for half his division. He felt good about those he’d written and vowed to complete the remainder prior to arriving in Japan. He still had a month before they were due, but he’d never liked being a ’bell tapper’. One of his watch words, learned from a warrant officer when he was a PO2, was a turnabout on the expression: ‘better late than never’. He’d learned: better ‘never’, than late!’ and he’d taken it to heart.

The trip from Tonga to Samoa was a little over 500 nautical miles, but at the best economic speed of Eddie’s frigate, and a little war gaming along the way, it took them nearly three days to get to Pago Pago (pronounced: pong ho pong ho). Samoa was just as tropical as Tonga had been, though spread out more and not as much jungle right down to the ocean. The ship would be there just overnight, so the duty section lost out on hitting the beach. Al and Eddie ventured out and hardly made it past the pier. Merchants had set up stands within fifty yards of the brow, and they were doing land office business. Eddie decided he wanted to see a little more, so he caught a bus that was idling at a bus stop. He rode it for a couple miles, thinking he would see a city center somewhere close, but in talking to an older Samoan man on the bus, found out there wasn’t that much to see, so he hopped off at the next stop and road a bus back to the pier. Al was still wandering around the stands, so Eddie joined him and ended up buying ‘authentic’ Lavalava Samoa, the traditional kilt or skirt worn by both men and women. He purchased one for each of his family in a variety of colors and designs, thinking he’d let the family fight over who got which one. Then, Eddie decided he’d seen enough and went back onboard, knowing it would be his last solid ground under him until the ship reached Japan.

Traveling north, the ship had to cross the equator once more, and the half-dozen crewmembers who had flown down to meet the ship had to be initiated. Eddie and Al let the other Shellbacks do the honors and they stayed in the chiefs’ mess during the ordeal. Although the Pacific Ocean can have their horrendous storms, Eddie’s frigate, in the company of their Battle Group saw nothing but beautiful sunrises, sunsets and mostly calm seas. It could be said it was boring, although few have ever seen the ocean as sailors routinely experience. This is not to say the battle group didn’t conduct exercises, to justify their existence in an otherwise tourist’s paradise.

Two days out of Samoa, Al came to Eddie in the chiefs’ mess and asked him to go with him to sick bay. Figuring the chief corpsman just wanted talk privately with him, he followed without question. Once inside Al’s workspace, he turned to Eddie: