Comments

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  tommy allen October 11, 2008 at 6:12pm

  Thanks for the sendind the e-mail welcoming me aboard
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  tommy allen October 11, 2008 at 6:10pm

  hey doug can you look up a shipmate for me who was on the l y spear as-36?her name is beth a cleveland, we were onboard together i think in1985
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  Arnel October 5, 2008 at 12:18am

  Good Day!
  
  I'm looking for Butch Preston ( a US Navy Officer) , son of the late John Preston a US Navy World War II US Navy Veteran. We lost in touched with them for a long time. Im hoping that you could help me out find him in this site. I will appreciate any assistance you could extend. Thank you.
  
  
  Arnel Preston
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  william c. henry September 28, 2008 at 4:32pm

  thank you
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  Earnie Collins September 23, 2008 at 11:13pm

  Hello Doug,
  I received my bumper sticker in today's mail. You can bet that it will be on my van tomorrow. Thanks a lot, Doug.
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  WILLIAM BARLOW September 19, 2008 at 11:29am

  About the funky browser issue. What do I need to do to correct it? Is there a plugin or something I can do? What format are the pictures in?
  I'm also having troubles with figuring out how accept friends on my friends list and vice versa. Surely small glitches that are my fault.
  I'm thinking I may not have the same homepage as others, if that makes any sense. I read a comment to you where someone had said it was an impressive design. On mine I just have a list to scroll down with a bunch of empty squares. The home page doesn't look much different than My Footlocker page. Are they supposed to be different?
  I'm looking forward to enjoying your website, meeting up with old shipmates, making new friends, and just swapping sea stories and yarns.
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  WILLIAM BARLOW September 18, 2008 at 3:53pm

  Oh yes. While I am technically a Viet Nam vet I never did go there. Half my bootcamp company went to the west coast and I presume saw Viet Nam. I was in the half that went to the east coast. By the time I made it to the west coast several years later the war was all over with. So I wish to commemorate all those who were actually in Nam.
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  WILLIAM BARLOW September 18, 2008 at 2:19pm

  So you were on the Sparkle City, huh? Many of my sea stories come from that ship. Though I was only on it for two years those were busy years. In that 2 year period we made three trips to the Med, two midshipman cruises to Halifax, Nova Scotia (did she still make that cruise every spring break when you were on it?), at least two roughtra (is that right?) cruises to Gitmo for annual qualifications to make sure we remembered how to be manned and ready for GQ in three minutes or less, a couple libery pot calls in Nassua, Puerto Rico, Hatti, and some I'm proably leaving out, a trip down to Guatemala, and several other operations off the coast of N.C.
  I remember standing lookout watch nce during the hurricane Gladys with the winds blowing 99 knots per hour. That calculates to 113.9 mph. It was all I could do to hang on and the rain felt like rocks pelting me. The rain went through my rainsuit like it wasn't even there. We used to play games on the bridge during storms to see who could ring the bell the loudest. I think it took a thirty something degree roll to ring the bell. We saw 48 degree rolls once up in the North Atlantic. That was one rough riding ship. I remember we'd con the newbies into tieing themselves into their racks. One time someone tied themselves into their rack and omebody took a can of shoe polish and set it on fire and held it up to their face and we all began yelling FIRE! It was a sight. I thought the ol boy was gonna have a heart attack.
  We also would try to make a 360 degree turn on the helm during storms without being caught by the co nning officer or the OOD. One guy actually made it but not without being caught first. He was at 180 when he got caught so he kept swinging it around to get back on course. When we weren't playing around on watch we were actually pretty good at keeping on course during storms. I think 10 or 15 degrees either side in big storms. Sometimes it was hard to stay behind the wheel when the ship took a heavy roll. You'd hang on to the wheel and your feet would slide all the way out from under you.
  Sometimes standing after lookout watch the waves might be 20-30 feet above you when we'd go down in a trough. I remember once being held over in Rota for an extra week due to 100 foot seas. One of the carriers tried to go through that storm and after three days they had to turn around because they couldn't make any headway.
  We had seabat watches every time we got new marines on board and they'd line up at least a hundred at a time and I swear 50 would go through the line before the rest finally figured out it was a prank. I'll never forget the navy commander who went to see the seabat. He went to the bridge telling the CO he wanted to put the BM2 on report for striking an officer. The old man asked him what he was talking about. He told him he'd gone up to see the seabat and was struck from behind with a broom. The CO laughed at him and asked him where he'd been his whole navy career. The commander went to his room and didn't show his face again until we hit port. They had to carry chow to his stateroom. I've seen marine officers actually tell some enlisted marine in line he's an officer and has the right to cut line and go up there. One marine enlisted was so dense that he bent over three times to see the bat. When he'd get hit he'd say leave him alone so he can see the seabat. Each time he got hit harder. The third time he had tears in his eyes and said F* it I didn't want to see it anyway. Crazy!
  We used to get two or three guys and form a line in a passageway. After awhile there'd be a hundred grunts lined up and we'd leave. An hour later you come back through and they'll still be there.
  I felt sorry for one guy who spent most of the night on mail bouy watch because they forgot he was there. Then they told him he'd missed it and for about two weeks he didn't have any friends because they thought it was his fault they didn't get mail.
  We had good times on that boat when we weren't working. In deck division we worked about 18-20 hours a day at sea. It was tough. I remember once we pulled into Cardiff, Wales for three days with Cinderella liberty and most of deck division was too tired to go out on liberty that first night.
  Enough of the seastories for now.
  I like your website I'm still trying to figure out how to view pictures and accept friends. I'll get it figured out sooner or later.
  Thanks for the reunion. BILL
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  Billy P. Hrbacek September 16, 2008 at 1:09pm

  Thanks Doug for the welcome aboard. I look forward to getting to know how to navigate the Navy Vets pages and locating some old shipmates. Thanks again.
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  Dave Paul September 16, 2008 at 6:32am

  Thanks for the opportunity. Very nice site...impressive design!