It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, Black Friday, as it's called in the world of retail, but not being a big shopper myself, I find myself relaxing in a hotel room in Canton, Ohio. I'm dropping off my teenage son tomorrow to audition for the Ohio Bluecoats, a precision drum and bugle corp of the marching variety. He's a fury of percussive energy on the practice pad next to me, but I have a few minutes to relax and reflect, and catch up on all the tasks I've been ignoring lately with the pressures of the current project. One of which happens to be this website.
The day after Thanksgiving. Reflecting on things to be thankful for, and truly thanking God for the ability to be thankful. Thankful for surviving a four-year tour on the Bates, including some close encounters of the worst kind, a few conflagrations that threatened to either sear us alive or smoke us to death, and a few 'training' incidents that turned into genuine 'survival' training. Thankful for the boys at Pascagoula that paid enough attention to welding so that when the depth gauge in Control read 50 feet above test depth and the one in Manuevering read 50 feet below test depth, the old girl held together long enough for a rapid reactor restart and restoration of depth control. Remind me to tell you about that one.
Thankful for a crew of professional sailors - the ones I served with, not to mention the ones before and after, that didn't panic when the smoke was so thick you couldn't see your hand in front of your EAB, didn't panic when the Engineroom filled with a mist of flammable hydraulic oil, didn't panic when the depth gauges in Maneuvering and Control differed by 100 feet, with test depth in between, and didn't panic when we had serious 'water in the people tank' problems, so to speak, in the sense that sinking in 12000 feet of water was a 'problem', and did their jobs, just as we had trained, and made sure that our number of 'goes ups' was always greater than or equal to our number of 'goes downs'.
Thankful for a CO that taught me great things about leadership and discipline and commitment, and especially about getting the job done.
I'm thankful that you've found this site, and made it a place to reconnect with old shipmates, and meet some new ones. Thankful for for a collection of friendships that have survived almost 30 years, and a few brand new ones that have resulted from those that have visited this site.
There are too many names to mention here, but for each of you that has granted me the privilege of your friendship, for that I am most thankful.
May God grant us peace, and many years to enjoy these friendships that have been purchased at so high a cost.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Never forget.
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