Brian O'Connor's Comments

Hey Brian,  I really don't have many stories that would mean much to anyone but me.. only one "there I was, thought I was gonna die" story. Got lots of shooting stories. From 45 pistol to the 3"50, my favorite. Boom M_____F____ Boom! LOL! Up front 90%  of my service time was boring or BS. But the 10% was exhilarating,  magical abosolutely priceless. If you get hard up I can help you out. But my stories will probably be pretty ordinary. Looking back on some of it, man this farm boy was stupid. Good luck with the book

I got off active in Nov of '76 and at that time scuttlebutt was saying that El Paso was going back into the yards (she came out of a refit in '74) to have the aft mounts replaced with BPDMS, but at the same time scuttlebutt was also saying she was going on a North Atlantic cruise, which is what actually happened. She went in the yards after that and a forward and aft CIWS added but kept the forward mounts.  I believe one of the aft mounts was eventually demiled and put aboard the Intrepid museum ship in NYC. When I was in NYC with my wife in '08 we went aboard and I swear the 3"/50 on display but roped off was my old mount 34 because of some distinctive marks on it. We had a recoil spring shatter in '75 while doing NGFS training with our Marines and it left a gouge in the steel of the barrel.  Not enough to warrant replacing the barrel but enough to be noticed from a distance. I'm almost certain I saw that gouge on the Intrepid mount but couldn't get close enough to be sure.

Looks like you served on one of the sister ships to the gator I served on, USS El Paso LKA-117

Thanks for the reply Brian. I'm looking forward to reading your second book when it comes out. Memories from the days in blue are what I like.

Welcome aboard Brian. Glad to have you along. It looks like you've got a good start on sharing. Keep posting, we like that.