USS Texas - The Next Generation
I served on the third USS Texas, the nuclear cruiser, and I can bet that the new crew will have a lot of fun in Galveston.
I arrived onboard in 1981 when the few original crewmembers (called "plankowners") still onboard regaled nubs ("non-useful bodies") like me with fantastical tales of shore leave in Galveston on their maiden voyage. Apparently Texans go ga-ga over anything named Texas. For example, a USS Texas ball cap -- a mere $5 in the ship's store -- could get you a night of free drinking at any bar in town. The same ball cap could inflame the ardor of most any true Texan woman, or so I was told. Clearly, sailors had to learn their priorities -- or else carry around a lot of hats.
Some sailors gave away Zippo lighters emblazoned with the ship's crest with the same effect. But, as the lighters cost $7.50, crewmembers turned to ball caps to get more bang for their buck.
Prior to their return trip to Galveston, the ship's store tripled their inventory of ball caps -- and sold them all. Who said sailors aren't trainable?
Ross H. Perot, at the time known only as a millionaire Texan, offered to build the Texas its own facility in Galveston, if only the navy would make Galveston the ship's home port. That's quite a lot of money, given the pier, the connections, the munitions and radiological facilities necessary for a nuclear cruiser. But the navy said no. Instead, Mr. Perot gave the captain a glass case with two chrome-plated, pearl-handled, Colt .45 revolvers. The case was inscribed, "In case of missile failure, break glass." Those revolvers were on display in the trophy case (port side, aft of the mess deck) when I left in 1985. I occasionally wonder what happened to them.
I wonder because CGN-39 was decommissioned and chopped into razor blades in 1993, after the navy decided not to give the ship its 15-year nuclear refueling. It seems that cruisers with new gas-turbine engines were cheaper, more effective targets for enemy missiles. The role of the cruiser, you see, is to "take one for the team" in order to protect the carrier's flight deck -- a fact which seriously affected my re-enlistment plans. Of course, submarines like the new Texas have much less to worry about there.
My advice to the newest Texas plankowners: stock up on ball caps. After all, you have a tradition to uphold.
New Navy nuclear sub debuts in Atlantic - Yahoo! News
posted by Eric 3.0 @ 12:31 PM
4 Comments:
So, you were a sailor. That explains a lot ;-)
You have no idea just how much it explains. :-)
Do Colts work under the water?
If they do, they're a helluvalot slower than in air.
I occasionally wondered (taking Perot literally) what real-life circumstances would require breaking the glass.
For example, not long before I boarded, the Texas was the closest ship to the Gulf of Sidra when Gaddafi/Qadaffi/that Libyan guy threatened the U.S. A fighter wing from the Nimitz shot down two Libyan MiG fighters. Meanwhile, on the Texas, all four missile-launching rails were down for repair, and one of the two 5" - 54 caliber guns jammed. Sailors at battle stations were writing their wills.
Maybe that was the right time to bust out the Colts -- one on the fo'c'sle, one on the fantail, blazing up into the night sky, cursing everything Libyan.
That's how Chuck Norris would have done it, anyway.
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