The Plane's on Fire!

This short tale relates my experiences with several in flight emergencies while working for the NSG. The story takes place at the Naval Air Facility in Atsugi, Japan (NAF Atsugi).

So what exactly was the NSG?


NSG:
NSG stands for the Naval Security Group.  Which was the over-arching command that directed the Navy's crypto-techs and overseas intelligence operatives (It no longer exists.  It was merged into another command in 2005 for the war on terror and the post Cold War challenges.)

The NSG oversaw and directed the various detachments of operatives world wide.  Including our aircrew detachment at Atsugi.

While working for the NSG Detachment at Atsugi (see my previous posts), my main duties were to fly reconnaissance missions for Naval Intelligence and the National Security Agency.  But when I say "fly" I don't mean pilot the plane.  I was an enlisted aircrewman and flew as a crew member in the back of the aircraft.  Fiddling with dials and switches.  That's about all I can say about it.  Since I really don't feel like sharing a room with Edward Snowden in Russia!

From Atsugi, we performed intelligence gathering functions for various alpha-bet soup agencies and the Navy.  We did this from a number of platforms including the EP-3 Orion aircraft.  However, we did not operate, maintain, or fly the planes.  That was what the reconnaissance squadron did. 

Hell, technically we weren't even part of the Naval Aviation community.  NSG and the crypto community were "black shoes".  Meaning we were fleet sailors.  Fleet sailors wear black shoes and their Naval Aviation counterparts wear brown shoes.  To set themselves (aircrew) apart from the common, low brow, fleet sailors.  Like NSG.

Which begs the question, so who flew the planes?

Answer, VQ-1 did.


VQ-1:
VQ-1, also known as the 'World Watchers'.  And an apt name it was.  They were the first squadron assigned for electronic warfare missions.   Over the past several decades, "the Q" has operated from locales as various as Japan, South Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand.

The squadron was moved to Atsugi in 1960.  The same year it was re-designated as Fleet Air Reconnaissance Squadron-1 (VQ-1 for short, or just the 'Q 'if you're being informal).  Although not a combat squadron, working for the Q had its dangers.  In 1969, one of the Q's Super Constellation aircraft was shot down by a North Korean fighter, as a birthday present for Kim Il Sung, with the loss of life of all 31 crewman on board.  Including numerous NSG personnel.  In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a VQ-1 aircraft.  Tearing off the nose of the plane and nearly killing the crew.

(A little known factoid, during the 1950's and 1960's, being a spook during the cold war was the most dangerous job in the armed forces.)

But the Q flew the planes.  They also hangered and maintained the aircraft.  They did everything for them.

We did nothing.

We just showed up at mission time.  Walked on board.  Did our thing.  Then walked off at the end of the day and staggered home to pass out.  Not a bad gig.

So that's the personnel backdrop.  But what about the plane itself?


EP-3E Orion:
The primary airframe we used was the EP-3E Orion.  Also known as the ARIES (Airborne Reconnaissance Integrated Electronic System).  Yes.  They worked hard to come up with that acronym.

The EP-3E was an intelligence gathering platform designed for long (and I mean LONG) missions over target.  It was a basic P-3 sub-hunter, from which they stripped out all the sub-hunting gear.  Then packed it full of as much electronic surveillance tech as they could cram into it.

But the main thing you need to know about the Orions was....they were old.  And I mean old with a capital O-L-D.  They were literally older than the pilots who flew them.  One was so old, it had flown over Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.

And with age, came problems.

Overall the planes were sturdy with four turbo prop engines to keep them airborne.  They also had a strong airframe with stiff landing gear.  They could weather a lot of abuse and keep on flying.  But their extended service life was catching up to them.

In particular they had a bad habit of CATCHING FIRE!!!

Now I'm not talking about blazing infernos roaring down the fuselage or wings engulfed in flames.  A bit milder than that.  But at 30,000 feet, off the coast of some nation that's less than friendly to the U.S., flying over seas with ambient water temperatures of 33 degrees, with the nearest help hundreds of miles away... any type of fire/air emergency is enough to make your hair turn white.


The Missions:
I flew around a 100 missions while at NSGD Atsugi.

And by my count, 10 of them experienced some sort of in flight emergency or fire.  Nearly 10% of all the missions I flew.  That's not a good percentage!

The missions typically took off at Oh-Dark-30 (butt ass early for you civilians)  In the pitch black, before anyone else was even thinking about waking up.  I'd typically roll out of bed.  Flip on radio Yokohama and get ready.

(I wish I had a count for how many times I turned on radio Yokohama and 'Pump Up the Volume' by Graham Blvd came on.  I swear they had it on permanent rotation during the midnight hours.  To this day, I can't hear Pump Up the Volume with out having a flash back to Atsugi.)

I'd get ready.  Throw on my nomex, flame retardant flight suit.  Pick up my helmet bag, stuffed with food.  Throw it into a back pack then walk out to my bicycle for the mile ride to the flight line.  The bike rides were nice.  They woke my ass up.  And a cool ride through the dark, predawn hours was actually relaxing.  At the Detachment, our crew would gather and do a quick mission brief.  Then we'd catch a ride in the detachment van to the hanger area, hop out, walk onto the flight line, and find the bird.

Once in the plane, three things always hit me.  One, the noise.  The noises of men (and women later) prepping the plane and their gear.  The echo of sounds rolling down the open fuselage and scattered conversations.  And the smells.  The first smell that hit you was plane fuel.   It was always there.  It permeated everything.  The other smell was of old leather seats and metal.  Yes metal has a smell.  Very hard to describe but it's there.

After prepping our gear, we'd strap into the seats at our various positions and await take off.  Then the fun began.

Trouble rarely developed right after take off.  No, it would let you get way out into the Sea of Japan.  Hundreds of miles from shore.  Then it would rear it's ugly head.

In Flight Emergency-1
The most common problem to strike the plane were engine fires.  The four turboprops were work horses but they had hundreds of thousands of miles on them.  And every now and then one would over heat.  Or catch fire.

The plane had fire sensors in the engines and the first thing you'd hear would be the pilot over the intercom.  "Gentlemen, we've got a fire warning light on number one.  We're shutting it down."  Not the most comforting thing to hear.  But the Orions could fly on just two engines if needed.  As long as they had one working engine on each side.

However, if you lost both engines on the same wing...

I'd estimate about half of my in flight emergencies were of this variety.  It could stress you but it wasn't a reason for panic.

In some ways I actually felt safer flying in the military aircraft than I ever did (or do) on civilian flights.  On the military birds I was literally festooned with survival gear.  We had chem lights, flashlights, radios, signal beacons, flare guns, reflective mirrors, emergency energy rations (read Chiclets), environmental cold suits, inflatable vests, and of course a parachute.

By contrast, I feel distinctly naked anytime I board a civilian jetliner!

In Flight Emergency-2
The other common type of fire was electrical.  The planes were crammed with advanced electronic gear of every description.  Gear which required a lot of juice to run.  And that juice could over heat and cause shit to burn up.

You could usually smell it before it actually burned up.  And then shut it off.

In Flight Emergency-3
The last variety of emergency was smoke of unknown origin.  This was the one that sent my pulse racing into the stratosphere.

Smoke of unknown origin meant something (usually electrical) was on fire or about to catch fire and producing smoke that was now filing the cabin.  This is bad.

You usually didn't know what piece of gear had caught fire or where it was located.  All you had was smoke coming into the cabin.  Sometimes you could spot where the vapors were issuing from but often you couldn't.

When this occurred, the pilot would announce, "Smoke of unknown origin, Smoke of unknown origin!'.  Then you could panic, or semi panic at least.

All work came to a screeching halt.  You grabbed your nomex (flame retardant) gloves, pulled them on, and started tearing everything apart in a desperate attempt to locate the burning gear or wires.  You had to find them before they caused a real conflagration.  A full out fire inside of a flying tin can is about as bad as it gets.

I'd say I had about five of these happen over my three years at Atsugi.  I was lucky though.  With the entire crew disassembling the plane, we always found the source of the smoke quickly and put it out.


The Kent Incident
One flight however, wasn't so lucky.

The incident happened with another team of spooks at the Detachment.  We were divided up into several teams and this infamous emergency occurred on Team-1.

The team was headed up by a First Class Petty Officer I'll call Kent, also known as "The Legend".  Kent was hands down, the best spook in the Detachment.  Maybe in all of NSG.  It wasn't even a contest. Nobody else was close to him in terms of raw spook talent.

And Kent loved the work.  In fact he loved it so much, he wouldn't take the advancement exam for First Class Petty Officer.  He was afraid that if he was promoted, he'd be stuck with the day to day administrative details of running a team rather than working as an operative.  So he always opted out of the exam.

Until the command forced him to take it.

The command was not pleased with Kent's lack of ambition.  So they ordered him to take the first class advancement exam.  To add insult to injury, Kent's infamous commanding NCO (Non Commissioned Officer) then gave Kent a bad evaluation.  Just prior to the exam.  And your eval factored heavily into your final promotion rating.

This did not please Kent.

So Kent decided to get a little payback.  He walked in and put up a perfect score on the advancement test.  That's unheard of.  It's akin to a perfect score on the SATs, except maybe harder.  The perfect 100 advanced Kent to First Class Petty Officer and put him in charge of his team.

So what was Kent's first order of business?  He then delegated every administrative duty to all the other members of his team.  Completely freeing himself for work.  Score one for Kent.

Another Kent story, I once walked into the Detachment to take over the midnight-shift and ran into Kent on his hands and knees, down on the floor.  He had papers (of a variety I shall not disclose) taped together for the entire length of the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented Intelligence Facility).  I looked at the papers.  I looked at Kent on the floor, busily making measurements and marks.  I looked back at the papers.  Then turned to Kent and said, "Kent, what are you doing?"  Kent looks up and says, "Oh, I'm plotting (censored)."  I digested that for a second, then turned back to Kent and said, "Kent,  How the hell do you know (censorsed)?  No, wait.  Don't answer that.  I don't want to know."  And then I walked off.  ... I really did not want to know!

One final Kent story.  Kent was a creature of habit.  He ate the same thing every single day.  His meal was always packed in the same bag and he ate it off the same paper plate.  Which brings me to the subject of the story.  The paper plate.  Kent had folded the paper plate into a perfect isosceles triangle.  With all the folds being exactly equal.  And if you think that's easy, I DARE you to try it.

Ok, I lied there's actually one more Kent story.  The one about the in flight emergency.

Kent was directing his team on one of our routine intelligence missions when smoke of unknown origin began to fill the plane.  The pilot radioed the SoUO drill and everyone pulled on gloves and began ripping apart the aircraft.

Everyone that is except...Kent.

Kent, stayed at his Pos.  Busily working away.  Jotting down notes and spinning dials.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew was unable to find the source of the smoke.  Smoke had now filled the cabin to the point where it was difficult to see down the length of the plane.  This is very, VERY BAD.  Near panic, escalated to panic.

Kent's reaction?  He looked up from his Pos, fanned his hand in front of his face to clear the air and says, "Do you think you guys could find that piece of equipment so I can work?"

Classic Kent.

Thankfully, the burning electronics were located and the plane saved.


Two Engines Down:
 There was one other noteworthy emergency while I was at Atsugi.

It actually occurred the first week I arrived on base.  I was fresh in country.  Just arrived and settling into my barracks room with my two other roommates.  About my fourth day there, one of my roommates took off on a routine scheduled mission.

But the mission soon turned into anything but routine.

Several hundred miles out an engine overheated and had to be shut down.  No big deal.  It happened all the time.  But then a few minutes later, the other engine on the SAME WING started to overheat.  The engine fire-warning-light on the second engine kept coming on for a few seconds then turning off.

The pilot had advised the crew, and my roommate, of the situation and to say the plane was tense would be a world class understatement.

Finally, the pilot came over the loudspeaker and announced, "Gents, the engine warning light just flickered on and off again.  If it comes on one more time, we ARE bailing out of this aircraft.  Everyone don parachutes and standby."

Hundreds of miles from shore, over freezing waters, next to hostile territory, this is not what you want to hear.  Everyone pulled down their parachutes and strapped them on.

(A quick side note - it was so cold in the Sea of Japan that if you had to bail out, then once you hit the water you had five to ten minutes to pull on your environmental suit.  If you were unable to get out from under your parachute, remove the environmental suit, and then put it on in high seas in this amount of time.  YOU WERE DEAD.)

The crew then took their seats and prayed the pilot would not come back on the intercom.  It was a very quiet ride the rest of the way home.

They made it.  The light didn't come back on and no one had to test their maritime survival skills.

But the incident shook up my roommate.  He was, and is, a standup guy.  He'd come all the way through the training pipeline with flying colors and had been doing the job for close to a year before I even got there.  But he'd had enough.  The next morning he walked into the commander's office and laid his wings on the desk.  ALA Cougar in Top Gun.

He continued on as an analyst at the Detachment and no one ever thought less of him.  And if anyone ever said otherwise, I'd hunt them down and kick their teeth in.

It was a stressful, dangerous job and we were all volunteers.  A number of our brethren died while I was on duty.  It was a crash in the Mediterranean (another story for another day) and on top of the mechanical mishaps, we were routinely intercepted and "bumped" by foreign fighter pilots (again, another story for another day).

We all served with distinction and it was my honor to fly and work with the men and women of NSGD Atsugi.


Post Script:
 - Some quick thoughts on minor annoyances with marathon duration flights on the ARIES aircraft.

* The electronics had to be cooled to run efficiently, so the planes were not heated to any appreciable degree while at altitude.  Which meant they were butt ass cold.  My toes got so cold inside my steel tipped flight boots that I took to kicking the metal struts holding up the work tables just to keep some feeling in them.

* The missions were not only long but demanding and stressful.  At the end of a mission you always felt like you just walked off the field of a two hour rugby match against the New Zealand Blacks.  They were physically crushing.  I knew a number of shipmates who would come back to the barracks, strip down, then sit in their shower and turn on the hot water.  They'd just fall asleep there in the shower.  For an hour or two with the hot water pouring over them.  Washing off the stress and exhaustion.  Some of my shipmates were so wiped out they would even relieve themselves while asleep in the shower.  Then let the water clean everything.  It's hard to put into words how much a long mission could take out of you.

* Another quick vignette.  Our missions were routine and frequent.  The bad guys, at that time the Soviets, also ran the same missions against us.  Their missions were also routine and frequent.  In fact, our missions were so routine that on one occasion, the Soviet spy plane and our spy plane nearly collided head on while returning from their flights.  Talk about ironic.  The planes were flying directly at each other and only the Q pilot's quick reactions averted a head on crash.  The two planes came within 50 feet of a mid-air impact.  The Soviet plane never changed course.


Post Post Script:
- While I was flying at Atsugi, I never really thought much about the dangers.  I felt they were there but manageable.  I also had a certain degree of confidence in the military, my training, and all our survival gear.

But it got to me, even if I didn't realize it.  After I finished my tour, I started having recurring nightmares about the plane catching fire.  The nightmares lasted for two years.  Right in the middle of the dream, I'd always jump up out of bed and yell, "The Planes on Fire!"  Which really freaked-out my girlfriend at the time!

The Newport Music Hall: (or my short life as a bouncer)

This story is a recap of my brief experience as a bouncer at 'America's Longest Running Rock and Roll Club'.


Where:
The Newport Music Hall - Ohio State University.

The Newport is located at 1722 N. High Street, Columbus, Ohio directly across from the Ohio State University.  It sits on the heart of High Street in a central location.  Right on the main commercial strip servicing campus.  Everyday, thousands of students walk past its doors on their way to and from classes.

Known as "America's longest continually running rock and roll club".  The Newport opened in 1923 as a movie theater.  In 1970 it was converted into the Agora rock club.   Then in 1984 it was purchased and renamed the Newport Music Hall.  Much of the original decor from it's theater days still survives.  The interior today is a dark, smokey concert style hall with a small wrap around balcony.  Beer and hard liquor is served in the back.  The sound station is situated in the center of the main aisle way.  Right in the middle of the seats.  The stage is a small raised area up front and the backstage room is even smaller.  Its billed as seating around 2000.   But having worked there, I'd estimate its max capacity at closer to 1200.

Oh, and one last thing of note.  The bathrooms are horrible.  And that's coming from a guy who served five years in the Navy's 7th fleet.  They were so bad, you could smell them from 15 feet away.  Through closed doors!  I don't think they ever got cleaned.  I certainly never saw them cleaned (not even once!) during the entire summer I worked there.

For it's christening as the Newport, Neil Young was brought in to play.  Other concerts of note there, U2 opened their American tour at the Newport and John Lee Hooker gave his last concert there before his death.

Basically, its hosted anybody and everybody in the music business at one time or another.  But it never gets anybody at the height of their popularity.  Its only books bands who are on their way up or their way down.

(One exception to that rule - Blue Oyster Cult:  BOC routinely rolled into town, at the height of their powers, and played the Newport.  But not under the BOC band name.  Instead they would book under their original name.  Soft White Underbelly.  So if you weren't a hardcore fan, you didn't realize who was playing.)

But I'll say this about the Newport.  It had a certain air about it (and no I'm not talking about the perpetual cigarette haze!).  The place had history.   You could feel it when you walked in.  And at 1,200 max capacity with a tight 1920's theater layout, the concerts were close, intimate and personal meetings between the fans and bands.  It was a great place to see a group.  The floor area went right up to the stage.  And the stage was small.  You could get close enough to your favorite rock god to smell their breath if you wanted.  You'd be smashed in like a sardine from all the other people on the floor pushing up but it was there if you wanted it.

My Summer at the Newport:
So how did I wind up working there? 

I was back from the Navy and attending classes at OSU.  At that time, I lived off campus and was using a gym on North High Street to work out.  One day at the gym, I was approached by a guy who worked out around same time I did.  He introduced himself as Scott.  The manager at the Newport.  He said they had an opening for security and wanted to know if I was interested.

It didn't pay much (in fact it hardly paid at all) but it sounded interesting and the cash would come in handy for beer and dollar gyros from Bar Louie's.  So I said, "Sure".  Scott told me to show up that weekend.

I did.

I got the nickle-dime tour, a rough job description and an introduction to the rest of the crew.  The rest of the crew consisted of about six other security guys, two ticket booth workers, a couple co-ed waitresses/barkeeps, and one male OSU student in charge of the main bar downstairs.  And of course Scott.

Scott ran a pretty tight ship, despite it being a near 100 year old campus bar/concert hall.  But he was fair and looked out for his employees.  A decent guy to work for.

Duties:
    Underage Drinking;
As a security employee, one of my main duties was to watch out for underage drinkers.  They were a problem.  The club wasn't trying to be an ass to anyone but we routinely had liquor agents coming in during venues.  If we lost our liquor license, it would have been a death blow to the business.  So Scott really got after us to watch for people stamped low at the door with drinks.

If I found someone at a table or group stamped low with a drink, I'd talk to the whole group.  I'd tell them, I knew someone stamped high had bought the drink.  Then I'd ask them how much they paid for all their tickets.  After which I'd explain our position with the liquor agents.

By now I'd have everyone's undivided attention. Worried they were all going to get thrown out and have a couple hundred dollars of tickets go down the drain.  Not to mention missing their band's show and who knew when they'd be back to play again.

Then I'd take the drink and tell the group not to let it happen again (or I would throw them all out).  This was always followed by looks of utter relief.  It also earned a lot of good will.  I never had to throw anyone out for getting another drink.  And I often had people I'd caught, or their whole group, come up after the show and thank me.

   Keeping it Copesthetic;
In addition to underage drinkers, we were to work the floor making sure there were no disagreements between customers.  To ensure everyone had a good time.  If disagreements broke out, we tried to solve them diplomatically.  If they couldn't be solved diplomatically...well, then you were going to be asked to leave.  If you wouldn't leave voluntarily?  Then you got assisted out the door.

Your level of assistance depending on your level resistance.

But during the summer I worked the Newport, I never once saw anyone get punched or hit by a security worker.  On average we would escort out a couple people per show.  And every now and then, we'd have to wrestle a drunk student out to the door.  But that was it.  The only people I saw throw or attempt to throw punches were patrons at other patrons or at us.

   Stage Divers;
The last main duty was stopping stage divers.  "But Ben", you say, "What's so bad about stage diving?  It's just some harmless fun."

WRONG.

In fact, you couldn't be more wrong.  It looks cool on TV, people diving into a giant crowd and being passed around.  But the reality is much different.

The worst injuries sustained by patrons came, not from fights, not from being hit with glass pitchers, not from being stomped on, or even stabbed but from....yes, you guessed it.  Stage divers.

People get up on the stage and try and dive into the crowd up front.  Which looks like a blast, and it can be, but what they don't realize is the amount of kinetic energy they generate.  A 200 pound guy diving six to eight feet out, from above, onto a crowd of people, generates an unbelievable amount of force.

Invariably, there would be a co-ed not looking, and some guys knee would hit her in the head like Stone Cold Steve Austin coming off the ropes at a WWF wrestling match.  Cracked skulls and broken bones could happen in the blink of an eye.

At one concert, I was walking the floor and wound up talking with a young lady.  She was wearing an eye patch.  I asked her what happened.  She casually responded, "Oh, a stage diver".  She'd lost her eye.  She was standing almost exactly where we were.  By the right side of the stage where the brass railing ran separating the next level.  A stage diver hit her while she wasn't looking.  It drove her head into the railing.  The corner of the railing.  And popped her eye out of the socket.  Permanently blinding her in that eye.

We did not like stage divers.


Bands I Worked:
During my summer at the Newport, they had a constant flow of bands coming through the doors.  Usually, several a week.  National and international bands, country bands, punk bands, rock bands, local bands.  You name it, it came through the Newport.

I can't remember all the shows that I worked but here's a few of them:

Squeeze,

Dave Matthews Band,

Tori Amos, 

Henry Rollins,

GWAR,

They Might be Giants,

Alex Frehley of Kiss,

(I also recall a number of Death Metal and Christian Death Metal bands that summer.

Yes.  There is such a thing as Christian Death metal.  But here's everything you need to know about the differences between regular Death Metal and Christian Death metal. 

There are none. 

They BOTH suck!  (and the worst fans).  Death Metal fans would routinely throw shit at you from the mosh pit floor or try and spit on you.  Yah, the Christian Death Metal fans too.  Apparently the Jesus Loves message somehow got lost in all the growling lyrics!)

The shows were interesting to work and it was great to see the musicians on stage and to mix with them a bit back stage.  Get a feel for what they were like when they weren't performing.

SQUEEZE;
Fantastic band.  Most bands that came through really didn't have much talent.  And if you didn't have talent, there was no way to conceal it on the small stage at the Newport.

Squeeze had loads of talent.  It was oozing out of their pores.  Probably the best band I saw come through.

THE DAVE MATTHEWS BAND;
If Squeeze was the most talented then Dave Matthews was a close second.  Another A-list band that put on a great show.

TORI AMOS;
Wow, what to say about Tori....  Probably talented but not my style of music.  On top of that, what an ego.  Ok, to be fair maybe she just had a bad night.  But she stopped the show (twice) to chastise the crowd for not paying enough attention to her.  Then threatened to walk off the stage.  Yah, whatever.  At least her yelling at the crowd woke them up from her snoozer of a show.

HENRY ROLLINS;
The renaissance man himself.  Punk rocker, poet, TV star, movie star.  Maybe not the most talented musician to appear that summer but no-one could match his energy level.  Unbelievable.  Rollins came out wearing nothing but a pair of spandex biker shorts.  Got down into a horse crouch.  And stayed there for two and half hours while he sang non-stop.  Amazing guy.

...And he hates stage divers.

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS;
Another really good band.  Very down to earth guys as well.

In the middle of the show, between sets, the lead singer walked over to me while I was up on the side of the stage and said, "This is my fourth show in five days.  Man, I really don't want to be here."  He looked exhausted.

Then he walked back out, turned on the charm, and proceeded to pump out the songs at 110% energy.  Those guys were professionals.  They knew you had to perform whether you wanted to or not.

GWAR;
If you have never seen a GWAR concert, they're like...jeez, how do you explain GWAR?  The best comparison I can come up with is, think KISS, but gone horribly wrong.

They do put on a show though.  Complete with blood canons and severed limbs (fake, not real ones).  Their fans are pretty loyal too.

During their show, I was working up front to keep fans off the stage.  The lead singer grabbed the blood canon and started spraying it straight on me.  Sort of a, 'Stick it to the man/authorities gesture' for their rabid fans.

Pissed me off.

And I'd been through far, Far, FAR worse at Survival Evasion Resistance Escape (SERE) training. (A story for another time).

So I turned around, without moving out of the way, and stared at the guy with a "Are you done yet?" look on my face.  He gave up and moved on to spraying the crowd.  After the show, Scott came over, high fived me and gave me the 'Stud of the Night' award.

ACE FREHLEY OF KISS;
Saving the best for last.

Not the most talented, although he is a hell of guitar player.  Not the most energetic, although the show nearly brought the Newport down to its foundation.  But holy crap, what a night.

Ace Frehley, the guitar player from KISS, was touring for his solo album.  Ala Slash from Guns and Roses.  They'd booked the Newport for one night.  And we drew every red-neck, rocker in a three State radius.  The line was around the block before opening and people were showing up from outside Ohio, trying to get in, right up to close.

From the minute we opened the front door, till the time we locked it up, the show was one continuous running bar fight.

We spent the whole night breaking up fights, throwing people out, wrestling people out, and dodging punches and projectile vomit!  HOLY CRAP.  It was exactly what you imagine when you think of 80's, Sunset Strip, rock and roll.  Except it was the 90's at the Newport!

They brought their own security too.  A guy named 'Bear'.  And he looked like one.  Tree trunk legs, barrel chest, hair everywhere, with a beard and mullet down to the middle of his back.  He looked like a giant fur covered brown bear.  And he had the disposition of one as well.

During the show, a fan at the front of the stage reached up and got a hold of the cord to one of the mike stands.  He started slowly pulling the mike over to the edge of the stage.  Standing there, his head was just above the stage floor.  Like a football all teed up.

Bear spotted him, ran over from back stage and tried to kick a field goal.  A 60 yarder.  Into the wind.  The guys head snapped back and when it came forward again, it had instantly swelled to twice its normal size.

Later, another moron, who apparently didn't see what happened to the first moron, tried to finish pulling the mike.  Bear spotted him.  He ran over, reached down and grabbed the guy by his shirt front and proceeded to lift him bodily out of the crowd with one hand.  Aka - Darth Vader.  Except he grabbed the wrong guy.  He had him half way off the floor, with ONE hand, when his buddies convinced Bear he grabbed the wrong person.  I think the guys life flashed before his eyes.

Not long after that, I was working my way through the crowd, trying to avoid the pools of vomit and beer, when I saw one of our guys, Mike, in a wrestling match with a patron.  The patron and he were locked up with their arms.  But I could see the patron trying to get his right arm loose.  So he could come around with right hooks at Mike's head.

I jumped down onto floor level and grabbed the guys right arm.  Holding him in place.  The two of us then wrestled him over to the double side-doors off the back stage.  The patron was small but incredibly strong.  I don't know if he was hyped up on drugs but the two of us (and we weren't small) took every ounce of our strength to get him over to the side doors.  Several times he almost broke free.  Still trying to come around with right hooks.

We got him up to the double steel doors.  But we couldn't let go to open the doors.  Not without getting punched.  Not a problem though.  The doors had a push bar handle to open them.  So we shoved him into the push bar and through the doors.

Except ...

Someone, in an effort to maintain crowd control on the door, had latched the bolt at the top.  Problem.  He hit the doors and rebounded off like a ping pong ball.  Which took some of  the steam out of him.  We grabbed him, and while he was still dazed, threw the bolt.  Back into the doors he went, except this time through and out.  We slammed the doors shut behind him.  Which latch from the inside but are locked from the outside.  However, if you hit them hard enough from the outside it would pop the latch and spring open the doors.

Soon the patron started banging non-stop on  the doors.  Yelling, "Let me in Mother F#$%rs!!!  I'll kick your assess!"  And other similar crap.  After a couple of minutes of this, Mike pulled out a canister of mace, which he always carried, cracked the door and sprayed it in the guys face.

A short pause, then more banging on the doors.  "Let me in @ssho!#4s!!!"  And other similar crap.  After a couple more minutes of this, Mike again cracked the door, stuck the mace out and sprayed the guy in the face.

A much longer pause, then slow weak pounding on the doors.  "Let me in.....F@#$rs....I'll.....kick your...@ss&$#s".

Mike cracks the door, out goes the mace, long spray, Mike closes the door and ... no more pounding.

(Mike and I left the bolt unlatched.  It was a fire code violation.  Not too mention it made our jobs harder.  We also told off the person who latched it.)

But the worst incident was still to come.

About an hour after mace man, I was walking the floor when a guest grabbed my arm and said, "You need to come quick!  A guys been stabbed!"

Perfect.  Just what I need to round out the night.  A stabbing.

The guest led me over to the left side of the Newport where a patron was face down on the floor.  I bent down to get a better look in the gloomy light and examined him.  Sure enough.  The guys face down with a large pool of blood spreading out from under his head.

Crap.

I waved over one of the other security guys.  Showed him the guest and had him call for an ambulance.  While he ran to call the squad I stayed put to keep people from trampling the patron.  While I waited, I examined him again.  Looking at the chest to see if he was still breathing.  Yup, going up and down.  Some good news there.  Then I notice the half dozen popcorn puffs/kernels in the pool of blood.

Wait a minute.  We don't serve popcorn...

So I pulled out my mag-light and turned it on the pool of blood.  Nope.  Not popcorn.  It's his freaking TEETH!!!

Right about then the squad arrived out front.  There are always ambulances close to campus on the weekend.  Thank god for fast response times.  Two paramedics came back with a stretcher.

They turned the guy over and examined him.  No knife wounds.  Instead, the guy had gotten so drunk that he passed out in mid-drink from a bottle of beer.  He fell face forward.  Landed on the beer bottle, smashing the bottle while lacerating his face and knocking out all of his front teeth.

Blood was everywhere.  His face and lips were severely cut and through the bloody mess of flesh you could see the broken teeth behind.

The paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher and hooked him up to an oxygen mask.  They then started wheeling him out the to the front door.  I cleared a path in front of them through the crowd.  Once curbside by the ambulance, they retracted the wheels on the stretcher and began loading him.

But during the walk out to the curb, the O2 had done its job.  The pure O2 flowing into the guy brought him out of his passed out state.  He sat up in the stretcher.  Ripped off the O2 mask.  And yelled through his mangled lips and teeth, "Ace Frehley ROCKS!"

Then he passed out again and slumped back onto the stretcher.

I turned to the paramedics and said, "Man, I hope he feels like that in the morning."  That brought a smile and a laugh to the paramedics.

The concert finished soon after.  We rolled the last drunk out the front door and began the process of cleaning up the war zone.  What a night.


Post Script:
Once fall quarter started, I focused on classes and quit working at the Newport.  It was interesting.  I enjoyed working there.  But it basically didn't pay.

Also my ears were taking a beating.

There are no noise restrictions at the Newport.  You can crank up the sound as far as you want.  And many bands did.  There were literally 10' high walls of speakers on stage.  Some concerts I spent entirely in front of the speakers.  Trying to keep stage divers from making it up.  My ears would ring for days afterwards.

I've been back to the Newport twice.  Fairly recently as well.  I went back to catch Zoso.  A Led Zeppelin tribute band. (I'm a big Zep fan.  Jimmy Page is hands down the greatest rock and roll guitarist, living OR dead, to ever pick up a six string.)

It was the same old Newport.  Smokey, dark, close, but a great place to see bands.  The sound was so loud for the Zoso concert, that every time the sub-woofers on the speakers put out for the drums it created a sound wave strong enough to ripple your clothes and make your pant legs flutter.

Oh, and the bathrooms were still horrible!

One last note on the Newport.  During my time there, they had a policy of letting in the local girls from the strip clubs for free.   Every big show, back stage would have a group of strippers from the Blue Diamond watching the band from backstage.

And no, I never saw anything like that happen backstage.  So get your heads out of the gutters!  Management liked having attractive women in the club.  It was good for business.  And the bands didn't seem to mind either.

It all added to the Sunset Strip vibe the Newport exuded.  If you ever have a chance to see a band there that you like.  I highly recommend it.

Vasectomy Gone Wrong

After the birth of our third child, my wife and I decided three was enough.  It was time to take permanent steps to keep anymore of our spawn from over running the earth.  And draining our bank accounts.

So after a long and thoughtful talk on the pros and cons of both male and female contraceptive techniques... I was ordered to get a vasectomy.  To which I retorted with all my male bravado, ... "Yes dear".

Two weeks later I had an appointment with a doctor located via the local phone book.  And my thoughtful, loving, and all too cheerful for the occasion wife drove me to my doom.  I have to give her some credit.  She did offer to sit with me in the operating room.  But I really didn't want her there, witnessing the evisceration of my manhood.  So I thanked her, but said no and I'd see her shortly to wheel me back to the car and a weekend of frozen peas and ESPN.

I checked in with the receptionist and she directed me to the treatment room.  There she instructed me to strip down and lie on the patient table.  She said the nurse would then be in to shave me.

Yeah, down there.

I looked over at the nurse standing at the other end of the office thinking, "Please don't be hot.  Please don't be hot.  Please be a 50 year old, 300 pound German iceberg".  Nope, she was hot.  Crap.  Now on top of everything else, I had to worry about embarrassing reactions to too much handling in that sensitive area.

With fear, and now a little anxiety, I shuffled into the treatment room.  I shut the door, stripped down, laid on the table and awaited my fate.  A few minutes later, the nurse came in and shut the door behind her.  She introduced herself while she got out shaving gel and a straight razor.  She then walked over to the table holding the gel and razor in her hand.

Suddenly, I realized an embarrassing reaction was not going to be a problem.  The sight of the straight razor approaching my nether regions stopped that issue dead in its tracks.

The nurse got to work quickly and efficiently.  In a few minutes I was fully prepped and ready for the doctor.  She walked out to retrieve the physician.  Leaving me alone in the room.  For the first time I allowed myself to focus on something outside my impending pain and I looked around.

The 'operating' room, if you could call it that, was a small rectangle about 15x12 or so.  A patient table was in the center.  Where I was currently laying.  And several trays and working counters were around the outside.  The walls were bare except for a poster showing the male reproductive organs. Overall, very sterile, very white and I realized very cold.  I was starting to get the shivers.

Part of  the feeling of cold was the actual temp but part was no doubt due to an involuntary reaction the body experiences when injured or preparing for injury.  Several hundred thousand years of evolution have developed a survival reaction in humans.  If you become injured, or the lizard portion of your brain thinks you might get injured, your body triggers a response that pulls blood from your extremities into your core.  By pulling blood to the torso it helps your core, essential organs to survive extreme trauma.  But at a cost to your arms and legs.  One of those costs is the lack of blood in your limbs makes you feel cold.  It can also make you pass out if it drains too much blood from your brain.  That's why some people faint at the site of blood.  Also, the taller you are the more pronounced the effect.  Which is why tall people pass out more often at the site of blood.  Repeated exposure to the site of blood, or trauma, can help a person overcome and control the effect.

On an aside: I'm one of those people who faints, not at the site of blood, but from needles.  Usually needles drawing large quantities of my own blood (Ok, so maybe that qualifies as 'site of blood'). 

In the Navy, I once had to see the base flight surgeon who extracted what seemed like about a dozen one quart vials of my blood. I promptly passed out and hit the floor like a sack of wet potatoes.  They had to revive me with smelling salts.  The flight surgeon thought it was SO funny, that he called my Commanding Officer to regale him with the story.  The next day the CO and XO summoned me in to the CO's office to harangue me about it.  I never lived it down.

But back to my nether regions;

The doctor soon came in with the nurse and began prepping instruments for the operation.  The first part was a local anesthetic.  Administered via a veeery long needle and syringe. 

The doc reached down and hit me with the syringe.  Right in the left jewel.  Straight into the heart of my left jewel.

Holy crap did it hurt.

It felt like I'd been hit with a cattle prod directly in the jimmys.  Shooting about 50,000 volts of current through my body.  With a firehose's worth of wattage driving it.

My whole body arched up until the only parts touching the table were the back of my head and the heals of my feet.  After what seemed like an age but was probably only three or four seconds, he pulled the needle out.

My body collapsed back down on the table and my spirit came down off the ceiling and reentered my wilted body.  Whew, ok.  That's got to be the worst of it...pain killer is in.  Just a walk in the park from here out.

The doc put the syringe down and got out the scalpel.  He bent over and made the first incision on the left side.

AND I FELT IT.

The numb nuts mis-dosed me.  I wasn't anesthetized at all.

The scalpel went in and I let out a low grunt as a wave of pain rippled through my groin.  I could tell both he and the nurse realized their mistake immediately.  I saw the whites of both their eyes as they widened in surprise.  With a speed bordering on panic, they spun back to the tray table and began frantically prepping another syringe.

The doc then swung back over to me and without so much as a 'how do you do' hit me in the left testicle for the second time.  Needle in.  Body arcs up.  High voltage electricity rifles through me.  Needle out.  Collapse.

He then went back to the scalpel and widened the incision.  Very slowly.  While asking, "you alright?".

"Yeah, doc.  Just finish it up".

Things then proceeded somewhat normally.

He made the incision, got out a pair of scissors and made the appropriate cuts.  Another instrument to tie off the severed tubes.  He wrapped this up fairly quickly.  Put down the tie off instrument, and reached over to pick up the next tool.

Which looked suspiciously like a Radio Shack soldering iron.

He turned it on.  Heated up the business end then stuck it inside me.  After about 30 seconds or so, gray wispy tendrils of  smoke began to rise up.  About 10 seconds after that, I began to smell burnt flesh.  My own burnt flesh.

Now THAT is something you DON'T smell everyday.

A minute later he wrapped up and put down the Radio Shack soldering iron and sutured me up.  All told about 10 minutes from first incision to last suture. 

I made it.  Not bad.  Even with the screw up, I survived it relatively intact.  Now I can limp out of here and go home to my TV and comfort food.

Then the doc walked around to my RIGHT side..........ah, crap.

SEALs Take Two

This story is a follow up to the January 23, 2014 post, SEAL Tryouts.  The event I'm about to recount actually predates the previous post by about three years.

Before, I took my shot at making the Teams at Great Lakes, I had an earlier brush with joining the SEALs.  But not as a SEAL.  I'll explain...

I was two years into my tour with the Naval Security Group Detachment at Atsugi, Japan when a notice came in over the secure, message line.  It was from SEAL Command in Virginia Beach.  The SEALs were requesting two operators from the NSG to augment SEAL Teams in the field.  The idea was to attach/imbed an individual with our unit's unique talents directly into a squad of SEALs.  The operator would provide direct support for missions which took them close to countries that were, ah shall we say, less than friendly to the U.S.

[A short side story: The Naval Security Group is not the same thing as Naval Security.  Naval Security are the guys and gals that provide the physical security on the base.  We'd often get calls from people on base trying to fix traffic tickets.  For awhile the guys answering the phone would try to explain, hey that's not what we do.  But eventually we got tired of repeating ourselves over and over.  So whenever anyone called to fix a ticket, the routine response became, "Yah, no problem.  We'll take care of it."  Click]

The secure transmission went out to the NSG Aircrew Detachments.  The theory being Aircrew members would be fitter than their surface and sub-surface counterparts.  And therefore better able to keep up with the super-fit SEALs.

Our Senior Chief, 'Skip', the Command Operations Chief at Atsugi, called an all hands meeting at the SCIF (Sensitive Compartmented  Information Facility, also sometimes referred to as the SeCure Intelligence Facility).  With all hands present, he outlined the jist of the communique and asked for volunteers.

I raised my hand.  Along with several other of my shipmates.

Senior Chief made an on the spot call and picked myself and another Aircrewman.  The other volunteer/selectee was a junior petty officer with about a year under his belt at Atsugi.  A stocky blond kid (for the life of me I cannot remember his name) whose idea of fun was to load up a backpack with rocks, then run the five miles from the Atsugi Naval Air Facility over to Army Camp Zama, grab a quick bite, then run back.

For the next week or two, he and I started conditioning and honing up our professional skills.  Then Senior Chief called us in and told us the operation was off.  So what happened?

Apparently, in typical SEAL fashion, the SEAL High Command decided they needed our support and sent out the request.  ... Without asking or clearing it through anyone at the NSG Command.

The Admiral in charge of the Naval Security Group naturally got wind of the request and called over to Virginia Beach.  The word for word conversation has never been relayed to me directly but this is what I gathered...I'm going to take a little creative license at this point but the storyline is true to what was relayed to me.

Admiral NSG:  Ah Admiral, we've received word that you sent out a request for several of our
                         operators to be re-assigned to the SEALs.

Admiral SEAL:  Yes that's right, is there a problem?

Admiral NSG:  Well, a little communication would have been nice.  And yes we do have some
                          concerns about what your proposing with our sailors.  Our guys have a large
                          amount top-secret information stuffed into their brains.  If they were to be captured
                          it could cause serious damage to the country's national security.  We're not so sure
                          this is a good idea.

Admiral SEAL:   Not a problem Admiral.  We've already thought of that.  If it looks like
                          our guys are in danger of capture, a SEAL will shoot your man in the head
                          before that can happen.  We've got it all worked out.
                     

I KID YOU NOT!!! 


Shoot us in the head while we're not looking?  Wow.  I'm certain that if you'd ordered a SEAL to shoot another SEAL in the back of the head, he'd tell you where you could go.  And maybe punch your ticket for good measure.  But apparently we were expendable.

The Admirals' conversation turned rather frosty at that point and ended quite abruptly!  As did my assignment/selection.  ... needless to say, the SEALs did not get their way.

Post Script:
Another short SEAL vignette.

When I was training at Goodfellow Airforce Base in Texas, one of the guys a couple weeks ahead of me decided to take the SEAL PST entrance test.  A SEAL grader was coming through recruiting and was going to administer the test at the base.

The advanced student and my two roommates all decided to all go and give it a shot.  My roommates, Dave and Ed, were just going along for the fun of it and to encourage their buddy.  However, their buddy, the advanced student, was actively trying to get into the SEALs.

But Ed was a stud.  He was an East Coast kid whose hero was Bruce Lee.  He worshiped Bruce Lee.  And tried to live his life by Lee's code.  And one of Bruce Lee's codes was, "I forge my body in the fire of my will".

And Ed had a lot of will.

He ran marathons as warm ups.  Then after he was done running, he'd do hundreds of calisthenics.  He was also blessed with the body type where running didn't make him skinny.  It built him up.  He had legs like tree trunks and a total body fat of about 2%.

Ed wasn't a swimmer though.  But his conditioning was good enough to score him a passing grade on the swim portion.  After the swim, he blew the test away.  The SEAL grader came over to Ed with drool running down the side of his mouth.

He told Ed he'd put up the highest score (outside the swim) the grader had ever seen by a non SEAL.  He then started hard selling Ed on the Teams.  That's when Ed told him he was color blind.  The recruiter paused, then said.  "No problem".  You just can't go into explosives but you can still be in the Teams.

That's when Ed told him about his food allergy.  Ed had an allergy to certain nuts that was potentially fatal.

The SEAL grader walked over with drool on his mouth and walked away with tears in his eyes.

....Ed was my roommate for almost two months at Texas.  And he had some of the most unusual eating habits.  Habits that had nothing to do with his allergy.  He ate Gerber's Baby food out of the jar.

Because he liked it.

He drank Pepto Bismol straight out of the bottle like it was Pepsi.

Because he liked it.

And man could he eat.  Once, after a mid-shift training session on base, I watched him and Dave polish off two dinner entrees at Denny's (that's two entrees for each of them). After finishing their dinners they then ordered the entire dessert menu.  Yes, the ENTIRE dessert menu.

The waitress was staring at them like they were crazy and then sarcastically asked, "And what would you like to drink with that?"  Without a seconds pause, Ed answered, "A diet Pepsi".

Yah, a DIET Pepsi to wash down the entire dessert menu.

The waitress then gave him the "Ok, now I know your NUTS" stare, while her mouth hung open.

Ed shot back, "Hey, I like the taste of the Diet".

They ate it all too.

SEAL Tryouts

Where:
This story takes place at the US Naval Station - Great Lakes (NAVSTA) in Chicago.

Great Lakes contains the Navy's Recruit Training Command and Training Support Center.  It's the United States Navy's largest training station.  It's located in Northern Chicago and sits on Lake Michigan.  I didn't see much of it.  But what I did see was a sprawling base that stretched on and on.

The particular patch I wound up on was the Aquatic Center and fitness track.  Both located not very far from the front gate.


What:
I found myself there during springtime in the early 90's.  I drove up from C-town to take the Navy SEALs Physical Screening Test.  Or PST as it's commonly called.

The winter prior, I had completed my active duty tour and enrolled in classes at OSU.  My master plan was to use my reserve status (I was still listed as inactive-reserve even though my tour was done) to take the SEAL PST.  If I didn't pass or some other gremlin kept me from qualifying, then I'd return to campus, finish my degree, and begin life as a civilian.

If I did pass, then it was off to San Diego and 6 months of hell.

So on a Friday during Spring quarter, I told my professors I would miss Monday's class and made travel arrangements to Chicago.  It's a five and a half hour drive up to Chicago and the PST started at 8:00 am.  There was no way I was going to head out at 2:00 am, drive five and half hours and then attempt to pass the physical fitness test from hades.  So I made a hotel reservation and drove up the Sunday before.

Physical Screening Test
So what exactly is the PST?

It's the basic physical fitness test that all would be SEAL recruits must pass in order to qualify for training.

If you pass the PST (and meet all the other medical, psych and IQ requirements) then you're off to Basic Underwater Demolition School.  Commonly referred to as BUDS.  A six month training program in San Diego.

The PST itself consists of five events.  Each event must be completed to at least the minimum standards or you fail.  A No-Go in Navy parlance.

The events are, in order:
1 - A 500 meter swim.  The swim had to be completed in 12 minutes and 30 seconds or less.  You were only permitted to use two strokes on the swim.  Either a combat sidestroke or the breast stroke.  Meaning the crawl, the fastest stroke, was verboten.

2 - Two minute timed push-ups.  You had two minutes to complete a minimum of forty-two push-ups.

3 - Two minute timed sit-ups.  You had two minutes to complete a minimum of fifty-five sit-ups.

4 - Pull ups no time limit.  You had an unlimited amount of time to complete a minimum of eight pull ups.

5 - And the last event was a 1.5 mile run.  The run had to be finished in 10 minutes and 30 seconds or less.  The run also had to be completed while wearing boots and long pants.

The above standards have changed slightly back and forth over the years.  In terms of number of push-up, sit-ups, etc..  But when I took the PST that Spring morning, this was the standard in place.

So I drove up Sunday and checked into a cheap hotel on the North side of Chicago.  I found an Italian restaurant, loaded up on carbs, then went back to the hotel for an early bedtime.

The alarm went off the next morning at O'Dark 30.  I threw my gear in my ride and drove North to the base.  It was early spring and a bit of fog was hanging over city from the lake.  The temperature wasn't bad though, dawn was just breaking threw and it was cool but not cold.

I pulled into the front gate and showed the guard my reserve ID.  Then I asked for directions.  The guard pointed back down the main road to a turn and said to follow the turn along to the left till I saw the indoor aquatic center.  So with some trepidation I eased the camaro down the road, past a grove of trees, and into the aquatic center's lot.

I un-assed the car, grabbed my gear and slowly walked up to and through the doors.

I knew the test was administered by SEALs and I had mentally prepared myself to be met by a phalanx of hulking spec-op warriors with bad attitudes.  I couldn't have been further off the mark.  A quiet group of men, maybe six or seven, sat around a table waiting for us hopefulls to file in.  They were soft spoken and looked ... well, very average.  If you had walked past them on the street you would not have given them a second glance.  They were just regular Joe's there to do a job.  To do a job professionally, and to exacting standards.

I was directed to a locker room where I could change into swim trunks.  I changed quickly and filed back out to the pool.  There were eight of us total there that morning to take the test.  Myself and seven recruits from Great Lakes who were in boot camp.  A total of eight, middle-class white kids with aspirations to become steely eyed killers. (I thought I knew what that meant then, but as I grow older I'm not so sure I did)

The Pool Phase
The SEALs lined us up into our pool lanes and explained the swim portion.  They then asked if we had any questions.

[At this point I need to skip back for a hot second to my first footstep into the center.  I expected to find a large indoor pool with cool air and cooler water.  Boy was I wrong.

It was a large indoor pool.  I got that part right.  But the SEALs had turned up the thermostat to sub tropical levels.  I stepped through the door and was hit by a wall of steamy moisture.  It was like the world's largest indoor sauna.  You could literally see the water moisture hanging in the air.  My initial thought was, "This is great.  I'm not going to freeze my ass off and get the shivers.  That's pretty nice of them".  ... I would change my opinion...]

Nobody had any questions, we were a pretty quiet and subdued bunch.  So the SEALs had us hop into the water (you were not allowed to dive in, which would have given you a free half lane of pool real estate) and take up a position on the wall.  In addition to not being allowed to dive in, you also were not allowed to push off after completing each pool length.

Then they yelled "GO" and we were off.

It wasn't a race in the sense of competing against the guy next to you.  You were only racing the clock.  I started off with sidestroke which is a faster stroke.  But laying sideways in the water with a narrow build (front to back) and heavy body mass it took a lot of energy to keep moving.  I quickly switched to breast stroke with the frog kick and double arms. And I laid out flat along the top of the water for better buoyancy.  The breast stroke also let me glide for a short length after each stroke.

It was right about then that I figured out why the SEALs had cranked up the heat.  And it wasn't to be nice.  Oh, no.  It was because they were total bastards.  After swimming a couple laps, cool air would have been perfect to suck in large lungfulls of and power on.  The sauna like, moisture laden soup that passed for 'air' in the center was like sucking in oxygen through a hot wet rag.  You just couldn't get enough O2.

The air was so laden with steamy water that I had difficulty telling when my mouth had cleared the surface of the pool and it was safe to breathe.  That is not an exaggeration.  I actually had trouble figuring out if my mouth was out of the water.  So I started lifting my head a couple extra inches higher when I came up.  Just to be sure.

I finished around 12 minutes.  Towards the back of the pack.  I knew the swim portion was my weakest event.  And honestly I was just happy to come in under the mark.  Most if not all of us were still in the game.

Push Up Phase
After completing the swim, the SEALs had us line up along the front of the pool.  They then placed us into the push up position.   With a SEAL grader in front of each us.  It was then that it hit me what a double whammy the heat was.  Not only had it made it a bitch to breathe but it acted like a sauna on the muscles.  The heat had turned our arm and leg muscles into hot, limp wet noodles.

And just in time for push ups.  Bastards! (yes, this will be a recurring theme!)

As we got into the push up position, a SEAL grader laid down on the deck in front of each of us.  Each grader then extended his arm, with a clenched fist, out and under each our chests.  They explained that in order for your push ups to count, you had to lower your body until it touched the grader's fist.  You then had to extend and fully lock out your arms in the up position.  After the completion of each good push up, the grader would count out the number.  That way you could keep track of where you were during your two minute timed phase.  They said "Go" and we were off.  I started knocking out perfect push ups.

But there was one small problem.  Emphasis on the word "small'.

The SEAL grader who was counting my push ups was the smallest, shortest SEAL in the building.  The guy was so short, he looked like a SEAL hobbit.  I think the name tag on his uniform said "Baggins".  Not only was he short in height but he had little short hobbit arms.

The guy's outstretched fist only just cleared my adam's apple.  It didn't come anywhere close to being under my chest.  So as I lowered my body down, my chest wasn't hitting his fist.  I'd knocked out ten picture perfect push ups and he had only counted one.  In desperation I started slamming my entire body down onto the deck in an attempt to get the furry footed bastard to count my f-ing push ups.

They called time.  I looked up at Baggins and locked eyes with him.  By my count I was in the upper 80's.  He looked back at me and said, "42".  The bare minimum.  My chest ached but I'd passed.  Later that night when I took off my shirt, I'd find black and blue ribs all along both sides of my chest.

Sit Up Phase
With the push ups complete, we were instructed to roll over into the sit up position.  Our graders then held our ankles and explained what constituted a sit up.  We were required to touch our shoulder blades to the deck then sit up until we laid our chests flat against our thighs.  While training for the test, I'd been coming up until my elbows, with hands locked behind my head, touched my knees.  Then back down.

This was going to be a lot harder.  Bastards!

They said "Go" and we were off.  I was consistently scoring in the 120's during my training (this was one of,  if not my strongest event) under SEAL standards I knocked out 65.  But still ... a passing grade.

Pull Up Phase
We then stood up and walked the short distance over to a set up pull up bars which were bolted into the side of the pool's far wall.

The SEALs explained the standards for pull ups.  You were to jump up and grab the bar.  Then you were to hang there until your body came to a complete rest.  Once your body was still, the grader would call out, "Up".  You were then to pull yourself up until your collar bones touched the bar.  Once the grader was satisfied that you were far enough up he would call out the number of the pull up.  You were then allowed to lower yourself down.  You then had to wait until your body was completely still and the grader once again gave you the 'up' command to attempt the next repetition.

Most people when practicing pull ups get a rocking motion going to help propel themselves up.  Not here.  No way baby.   Bastards!

But I finished with ten and moved on.

Run Phase
With the pull ups complete, they gave us a short break to change into long pants and boots.  We were then to muster back out on the pool deck.  This was our first rest.  All of the four previous events had been done back to back with almost no break time in between.  The breather was welcome.

We came back out and they went over our scores.  Only two of us were still in the game.  Myself and a very tall, lanky recruit.

They then took the eight of us and marched us out of the center and across to the outdoor track.  We had 10 minutes and 30 seconds to run 1.5 miles in boots and long pants.  As a reservist, I'd brought light weight, panama style jungle boots and light weight, jungle cammies for pants.  Cammies, also known as BDUs or Battle Dress Uniform.

The other seven guys were all "boots" still in basic with no options but what they'd been issued for basic training.  Clunky boon docker, mid calf, heavy leather boots with thick rubber soles and steel toes.  And bell bottomed dungaree work pants.  I looked over at the lanky recruit who was still in it and knew he'd never make it wearing that stuff.

They walked us out the the track at a fast clip and got us started.  I finished well under time then looked back to see where the lanky recruit was.  I got a shock.  He was hauling ass in boon dockers and dungarees.  But it was going to be close.  The SEAL grader and I started yelling at him.  Urging him on.  He was doing the best he could in those giant boxy boon dockers but he came across the line a couple seconds over.

However, the good thing about the PST...  It's not a one shot deal.  If you don't make it you can try again.  I had no doubt this kid would give it another shot after boot camp with some better gear and make it.


Post Script
The test was over and I'd made it through.  I was beat to hell and it was a rough drive back to C-town.  But I'd made it.

Just one last hurdle.  The medical exam. ... and I failed it.

My left eye was over the uncorrected vision limit.  And in the early nineties, lasik was not yet perfected or accepted by the military.  Neither could I get an eyesight waiver.  It was possible to obtain one, but at this time there was a glut of recruits and all waivers were stopped.

In fact, I called a shipmate from my unit who had just arrived at SEAL training and asked about getting a waiver.  He told me a guy checked into the quarterdeck that afternoon with an approved waiver in hand and the command told him don't even in-process.  Instead they turned him around and sent him straight to the transiting personnel barracks.  Right back to where ever he came from.

And that killed my dream.  That's not to say, if I'd gotten a waiver, or been born ten years later when lasik was accepted, that I'd have made it through.  Hell, half the guys who go to San Diego wash out.  So who knows?

But, when God closes one door he usually opens another.  And so he did with me.










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