...he'll remember with advantages...

I was asked about the 70’s. The 70’s. The longest decade. Every decade after I spent far quicker, with each accelerating more unkindly than the one before. A painfully true illusion. If it really is illusion.

I spent much of this last odd year in my head, prodding moments nearly half a century old. I know the where and when in broad strokes but have lost some feel for intimacy. Names and numbers of days was never a strong suit for me, no more clue back then. I rebuild with what I know now, the spark of memory, and the feel of the day. Before long I should likely forget all of it. Nothing to see here. Always, all as you were told. You should take their word for it…as all our children surely will.

Do not trust your eyes. I will wander along the way,

I graduated high school in 1971. University is next. That is what you do. You go to school to make something of yourself. You follow your passion, or that of others, and try it on as your life.

Decades fly past, and chasing a dropped cufflink on your knees, fumbling beneath the dresser, it feels less solid now, more video than truth. The past begs attention. How can it be so long ago so soon? A mid game pause that wonders how you came this way. A vignette that concerned me. To arrive and lose the how and why of steps I made.

What do I want to be? I was very good at many things, but not exceptional at any. And every day less certain of what skills I truly held.

Indecision chose appetite and curiosity. Life will show me something new. I will see what I can find. There would be no university in the 70’s.

I worked at a foundry, then a machine shop. I recall very few precise dates. It was an urgent time in life when a day lasted weeks and a month was forever. Neither job held for very long, both left for petty reasons, and warned by one to not use as a reference. One bridge burned for one adventure. Time will prove that the going rate.

School became interesting again. In general, still no path to take. The only goal was not acquiring debt for an uncertain, or unfinished result. I would as likely walk away as walk across the stage. I needed a workable alternative. The GI Bill seemed a good answer. Invest a bit of time, and perhaps discover what I should be when I am free to be.

I’ve found the family name in nearly every military conflict for the country. I did not know that in the 70’s. I knew my parents, whose word I took without question. Whose sparse stories were fact to me. Who met one another in Bremerton after the war and spoke like fellows trapped in the American dream of a better life.

As a family we served. My grandfather in World War 1. My father in World War 2. His brother, whose name I carry, in Korea. The only family legacy I’ve found, passed from generation to generation, was to serve and struggle.

Inside the Kansas City induction center, it was November, cold crowded lines of shivering boys in boxers and briefs. Every step and station hard, slow, deliberate, and effective.

Finally, standing in front of a doctor, poking me…breathe…again…deep breath. He made a few notes, listened to my chest a third time, and motioned a colleague over to confer. He informed me I had a heart murmur, stamped a 4F on my record and pointed me to the waiting area for the bus home. I shivered my way through the door carrying my clothes to the empty wait.

It was dark. Every trip on that bus. Or is it just me. Is the dark on me, my memory makes it so? What do I make of this, of me? Every door open and shut at once. No commitment, no word to honor, but no direction, no plan, and the Army didn’t want me. Didn’t want me. That changed things.

The Army was a vehicle to pay for education; but not wanting me lent it grace and nobility. Making it the secret club I couldn’t join were I allowed in. Something irrational with unworthy the primary color, I was stunned. Not even the Army?

Not even a body bag in Vietnam?

You think that! You’re distressed, drained, distant, and find the worst possible place to stand. That image sticks against your will, smiling, shaking your head, a thin reflection haunting the bleak scenery rushing north beyond the cold glass. An empty seat on a crowded bus in the market for a life. What do I do now?

A computer programming class found me. I was an easy mark for a competent salesman. I wanted to believe people, that altruism was the native state of man.

The newest thing sat at the head of the room. It was a Honeywell 100 something mod something. A large desk sized box with more capacity than would be needed in our wildest dreams. The oldest silicone mantra of all.

The days were disjointed. It looked quite like a business school but felt quite like the little rascals building a school to raise money for a friend. Someone wanted to be a principal, and a business, and teach with no vocation for it.

I left the program. It was too slow, too little, and I’ll not punch cards for a machine to tabulate minutia for a bank.

On my return from the induction center the previous November, mom marched me to our family Doc about the heart murmur. That concerned her more than my lack of direction. Two EKG’s later there was no evidence of a heart murmur. “Perhaps he was nervous?” We left with the paper tapes and diagnosis should I wish to contest the induction center evaluation.

Ten months after the Army classified me unfit; I disputed the decision. Three weeks after my 19th birthday, celebrated at a Dark Side of the Moon show, I’m in San Diego, learning to curse like a sailor.

Late April,1975 I am aboard the USS Coral Sea, in the wind on the South China Sea. Standing on the strut brace in the nose wheel well of an A-6 Intruder, wedged forward in the cramped space, flashlight shaking from tension and the gentle rocking of the plane.

Under way is constant motion. Flight operations compound that experience. A massive block of sculpted steel moving quicker than seems possible. The sea indifferent to the effort, moves our world aboard as a mote upon its back.

Planes tremble from the jet wash of their fellows and the subtle shifting gravity as down follows up. Tie-down chains and wing joints pop and creak in rhythm. Weight gain and loss with every mid-step. The pursuit of balance in motion. It is a dance taught on the shifting deck. It is not unpleasant. With weather, ship and sea as stage and chorus you learn the steps, and to save one hand for yourself.

A step you carry ashore at first landing, your body still moving in time with the sea. The horizon moving to balance, a smile of recognition growing, and a bit sorry when it fades so quickly. It lingers from the journey made, proof the here that looks so like home, is indeed far away. That felt important to remember.

The safety wire clipped off, and with the mounting bolts, slipped in my pocket. I shift the cylindrical box down to my chest and disconnect the threaded plugs. Ducking under the starboard nose-wheel door, I set the platform on the deck. The term platform comes from its purpose. The inertial navigation system provides the plane its place in the world, with up and down where they belong.

I motioned Brad over and pointed to the part. Brad nodded, picked up the platform and headed down to the hangar deck. Brad was a good kid, no more suited to a regimented lifestyle than I, but not quite as good at camouflage, or the job. A blonde California kid stepping down the ladder, and I can’t see his face, not a bit of it.

There are fewer faces I can see from here.

One escapes me, the name to a face I can see. A face when beards were found on nearly every face. Bright smile, generous nature, sensitive stomach, we were roommates. Every Sunday, BBQ or fish, just beyond the back gate in a world more different from today than we could imagine. He would end each day with a hit from the bong, to “give you good dreams”. Ahh…Sutterfield, Chicago. A small ritual unlocks the door. Now we are a handful as safe from time as I remember.

I had maybe fifteen minutes before Brad returned with the replacement.

There had been a lot of activity recently. Re-supply ship a few days ago, too soon, it seemed to me, followed by a helicopter relay moving pallets of munitions from the USS Enterprise. She was just close enough to see, a small hulk on the horizon. You seldom see your escorts, let alone another carrier. Something was in the works. Something we will only know when it has passed.

I am tired, hot, vacant, leaning on the strut brace of a plane during night flight operations. An A-7 Corsair just forward of me wound up to break inertia and throttled back as they moved toward the cats. Usually only a minor annoyance, but this Corsair was directed hard to port, dragging the exhaust close across the plane wherein I mused, my attention lost.

There is a lot of noise on deck. In 1975, there was no attempt at sound suppression on military jets. You worked the flight deck with vests, goggles and protective headgear with earpieces. When launching, the only way to relay ad hoc instruction was to place your mouth on another’s earpiece and yell at the top of your voice. You hope they understood enough to start the job.

I didn’t notice the Corsair until the jet wash blew my right leg from under me slamming me to the strut. My toolbox flew up from beside the nose wheel headed aft toward a line of F-4 Phantom’s behind the Island. That was maybe 10 pounds of tools and hardware. I could never explain the damage that might cause.

I pull up on the strut, and back my way up, my feet just above the jet wash. Bent over at the waist, hard against the bulkhead, and my back as up as I can get, it is tolerable, just. I take a deep breath…HEY HEY FU**…MOVE THE PLANE! My scream as unheard as it would be if my life were at stake. Don’t be stupid. Everyone knows what they’re doing. They usually only stop for a few seconds, relax, take a breath, it will power up and turn away.

Fumes and heat rose in the close wheel well. Corsair couldn’t possibly be any closer than 20 feet, there’s too much wing fold and tail to get closer. This far away it shouldn’t get too hot, right? I can take that for a bit. The fumes though, pulling the neck of my jersey over my nose, that can’t be good.

The fumes close your eyes tight. Fingers marked and nicked by every bracket on the plane begin to ache. You take shallow breaths as it gets hotter. Can’t stay..can’t stay.

I shift to the downstream side of the strut and lower a leg. I can’t hold it on the deck. I need all my weight to stand against it. I jump down, knowing the second I hit the deck, the Corsair will throttle up to move and throw me down the deck.

This is going to hurt.

Bounced hard off a couple of chains scrambling sideways behind the Island as quick as I could. The air wonderfully cool. Leaning against the bulkhead, I made a quick check for injury. I’ll be fine, I think, no blood I can see, joints seem to work. Head on my knees, taking deep breaths, waiting for my heart to slow…Toolbox! Where is my toolbox?

I saw nothing on the first few Phantoms in the line, no paint scrapes, gouges, broken probes, and nothing on the deck beneath them. OK, I see nothing to indicate the box opened. That was a relief. If I had found anything, that would stop flight ops immediately, my ass firmly in hot water. OK, no bits and pieces, so where is the damn thing?

I was lucky. My toolbox was standing on end, still closed, and crammed against the outer net frame. I never knew what ships company called it, but I was grateful. In places around the outside of an American Aircraft Carrier flight deck are catwalks that lead down to maintenance spaces beneath the flight deck. Where there is no catwalk, there is a steel frame and net, maybe 6 feet wide, maybe more, I never measured it, built to catch the odd bits of any moderate size that may be tumbling along, like a man.

Crawling on it to recover the toolbox was an odd thing to consciously do. The dark mass of the water sweeping past, nearly 50 feet below. The steel net moving under my weight as I crawl across, a constant reminder of uncertain purchase. The wind strong across the deck, on my back in the net. Moist, heavy, cooler than the flight deck adding diesel, JP5 and hot metal to the scent of the sea.

I sat a few feet outside the ship the prodigal toolbox in hand. It was not what I expected. It was calming. If the net failed, I would not be found. Not at this speed, in the dark and no one to see the fall. It would not fail, of course, but that last step to the water is palpable. You feel it in your chest when you look down, to the last breath kicking away from the hull as hard as you can. It was calming. I’m certain there is a name for such contrary perception, and sound minds to tell you what to think of it, but the feel of it is understood. I will live until I die.

There is something to the sea. It does not feel like a living thing, not a persona, or intelligence, yet it knows you. An unconscious reflection. The sea is that great background on the globe in grade school. The place where small fingers seldom point except in fearful wonder. It is the abyss. It is where monsters live. It is, above all else, a mirror. You find what you bring, even in ignorance.

Our wake glows behind us. A ship’s wake at night can be iridescent in moonlight. It is bright enough to suggest the light is from beneath the water and not the sky. The turmoil just beneath the surface reflects the pale light in shining layers, the sea dark around it. Your eyes and your logic battle over this, both right and certain, both; and something to see.

The largest things man has sailed, tiny in the sea’s embrace, with a bright tail of glitter to show where we had been. That is the wake of man upon the wild. With criminal confidence that we are master and husband of all, knowing so little.

It is hard to speak of big things in little places.

April 29 1975. My son was 7 months old that day. An ocean away. If not an ocean, a continent, or an ocean and a continent. Never knowing what to say and feeling phony when I do. The clumsy adult in me, stumbling where little steps should be.

A long day.

It was constant flight operations. Launch, recover, clear, arm and launch.

It was not a movie. It is never a movie. A movie is better. The best xharacters, the best intentions, the best view of glory with a tear for what was lost. I love a good war movie, I do. It hits the primal bits of humanity: family, honor, sacrifice, victory, grief, remorse, reflection and affirmation of what is right and good. Only in fiction can impossible truth be told.

On the day, your world shrinks. Your focus shrinks. There is no director, no stand-in, no careful script to follow. Blood spilled lasts forever.

The ritual of the job is the mission. You know what to do. For me, here, a search radar on one plane, a CCU on another, the navigation system locking up, the ballistics computer crashed on launch. It is about functional definable responsibility of a thing, a condition, a component, a decoration, a weapon. You do your job well; the sun may rise tomorrow.

I don’t know how many sorties we flew. It was more than one, and less than all. Enough to give good account of our martial intent, enough to vent frustration and rescue loyal lives, and enough, finally, to go home. Game over.

This story speaks as my fathers before. All the same in different places. The same dance steps to different music. The same selective fog with a bright spot here and there. The same silence when no answer is possible.

A story to be kept, for there is never anything done to make sense of it.

Now, I the old man recalling the young man, and no longer a member of the audience. All parts played. All stories retold with updated geography. All hands reset for the next generation to serve and struggle.

Understanding costs your life.