Interestingly, my enlisted time coincided with a period of intense change for the Navy. Also, the military is truly the land of overused acronyms, so I’ll try to put meaning to any alphabet soup that ends up in this.
When June rolled around I’d been talking to the recruiter for a month regarding various rates and GI Bill things. But being as I was only 17, I needed my parents to sign a waiver before I could enlist…
This turned out to be easier than I thought it would be, and if I was a tiny bit more cynical I’d guess they saw it as an easy out to get rid of me. Anyway, I took the ASVAB in June and scored well enough to get into any advanced technology rate I was interested in…
Initially I was angling toward the Navy’s Nuclear Power Program, but after hearing some of the horror stories of the schools involved, I passed on it. For example, everything is classified so there is no note taking in class – you have to hardcore memorize all of the formulas while not getting any sleep because if you’re not in class you’re standing watches. I also didn’t figure training to run a reactor will lead to a very large pool of jobs post-Navy.
I eventually settled on Radio – specifically in submarines.
Submarine radio makes heavy use of computer systems, electronics, and has the added bonus of a top-secret security clearance – which I’d heard will be a golden ticket when my four years are up. And submarines are about as close as anyone can get to space travel without being an astronaut, and I was pretty jazzed about that too.
Eventually, on July first, 1986, I raised my right hand and became wholly owned by the United States Navy.
For the next eight weeks I attended RTC (Recruit Training Command – bootcamp) in Great Lakes Illinois, which while it wasn’t ‘bad’, it isn’t something I’d like to do again. I quickly discovered the secret to bootcamp success was to basically become a robot; do what you’re told to do exactly as you’re told to do it even if it’s wrong.
And, in my 17 year old super-genius opinion, they were wrong – a lot – so it was incredibly frustrating to stop thinking and just follow orders.
Our first two RDCs (Recruit Division Commander – essentially drill sergeants) were replaced about two weeks into it, and the second pair of RDCs were either missing entirely or were trying to sell us embroidered company jackets and other stuff. I guess they were trying to capitalize on the elation of success much like class rings and yearbooks…
The latter two RDCs for my company were actually taken to captain’s mast for this as we were shipping out… Welcome to the Navy I suppose.
Anyway, bootcamp passed in a blur; marching, medical, marching, PT, marching, classes, marching, service week, marching… But it was soon over, and I was standing at parade rest for an hour at graduation. My company was one of the last to use the old WWII era barracks building we occupied, which would be a huge quality of life boost for the companies that came after us.
My parents showed up for graduation as they were on the way to Ohio to visit with my grandfather, so we chatted for a half an hour or so before they needed to get going.
The next day I hopped into a rented limo with a half-dozen guys from my company, all in dress uniforms, and we headed into Chicago.
I bailed on them as soon as things turned to hookers and whatnot, preferring to walk about downtown for a bit; I stood next to the Sears tower, looked up, and got vertigo – and then did a little shopping before getting a cab back to base… I picked up a Casio “World Time” wristwatch because I could end up anywhere on the planet, and a Sony Walkman WM10 because it was slightly smaller than a cassette tape and I’d been told space was a premium onboard a submarine.
On the 3rd of September, 1986, I checked in at the subbase in Groton Connecticut and moved into the newly built seven story Thresher Hall barracks building. Thresher Hall was an incredible step up from the buildings in use at Great Lakes and was, in many ways, reminiscent of my old High School, Skyline. The rooms were nice and furnished with new GSA (General Services Administration) wood furniture, my roommate was pretty cool, and there was a literal arcade in the commons area on the fifth floor.
Being as my BESS (Basic Enlisted Submarine School) class wouldn’t begin until the 30th of October, I was placed in a TDU (Temporary Duty Unit) that reported to the parking lot at a building just down the hill to the south of Thresher Hall every morning. From there we would be assigned various busy-work projects ranging from cleaning some space (space: Navy term for a room) somewhere to lawn maintenance.
I participated in this for about a week before discovering that the daily rollcall was a green-bar printout of a list managed from a PC-XT running DOS in an open office located in the above-mentioned building. And that the list was updated daily as sailors moved into or out of classes with no real oversight, access controls, or change management.
Ten minutes later I had removed myself from said list – and then spent the next two weeks before BESS walking around the base, hanging out in my barracks room, or playing video games in the common area.
My BESS class took place at the McNeill Hall Submarine School, and was the last class to be held there as the new BESS building, Bledsoe Hall, opened for the next class in December.
BESS was simultaneously very interesting and incredibly boring. Learning about things like CORD (cascade orificial resistive device) which are used to reduce hydraulic cavitation noise was fascinating for the 15 minutes it took to explain it, but then there was the other 4.75 hours needed to make sure everyone else understood it that bored me to no end.
It was during BESS that I have my first security clearance meeting with a couple of NIS (Naval Investigative Service) folks. This is where I was asked all sorts of uncomfortable questions and then asked to provide contact information for family and friends… Unknown to me, for a top-secret clearance they interview you, your family, your friends, and friends of your friends… It’s incredibly thorough.
Anyway, BESS was six weeks long and ended mid-November, at which time I moved into the TDU for SUBGROUP2 while waiting for SSBN 735 to reach a point where people were needed. This also meant that I moved from the very modern Thresher Hall across the base to the 60’s era Scorpion Hall, and I was an actual submariner now.
One of the nicer things with being an actual submariner is that I could leave the base. So, after buying a few polo shirts, a pair of jeans, and some new sneakers at the base exchange, I started hitching rides over to the Crystal Mall over near New London and other places out in town – like the comics shop…
I also started standing watches at the Group 2 buildings, which aren’t as regimented as bootcamp and I got some time to catch up on a few comics; “Unicorn Isle” was a big favorite at the time, with its curious blend of high fantasy and science fiction…
It was about then that I had my second interview with the NIS folks for my clearance. This one is where they asked me about what they discovered… I spent a good half an hour explaining role playing games and how it was just a hobby and not a lifestyle. Yes, they even found out that I played D&D…
I did eventually convince them that I wouldn’t sell out the US for a really cool set of polyhedron dice though, and I got my clearance.
Finally, Christmas rolled around, and I took a week of leave to head home in early-December – I wasn’t high enough rank to actually take Christmas week off, but I could get close… When I got home, I discovered that my parents had sold or disposed of pretty much everything I owned except my computer and a few bits of clothing.
I packed up the few things I had left and took them back to Connecticut with me.
Once I made it back to the base, I discovered just how lucrative taking duty for guys on leave could be; I think I made an extra $1200 a week that December… It was enough that I figured I’d just not take Christmas leave again for the duration of my contract.
Anyway, now that I was settled into Scorpion Hall and seriously doubted my drunken roommate would do much more than sleep, I unboxed my Atari 800XL and got back to my programming efforts between duty rotations.
1987
One fond memory I have was on one of the routine trips to the Crystal Mall. It was January and it had snowed a fair bit, and one of my buddies had an older Bronco II… So, we decided to go snow-bashing… This is a pastime where you find a place with a big parking lot that has piled up snow into small mountains, and your job is to redistribute that snow back into the parking lot without getting arrested.
We did this for a bit before getting noticed by the mall cops in their K-car, and let them chase us around a bit in as much as the no-traction sedan could muster. We eventually get high-centered on a mountain of snow though, and I’m out in front to the Bronco pushing as my friend rocks it back and forth and the mall cops slowly approach… We did manage to get free and scoot out of the mall parking lot by the skin of our teeth though.
I remember Europe’s “The Final Countdown” was playing in the truck at the time. Apropos I suppose.
It was right after this that I decided to pick up a late Christmas present for myself at the base exchange; a Panasonic RX-CD70.
I think this was about $500 in 1987 dollars ($1200 in 2022), but it was worth every penny…
After acquiring a CD player, I started acquiring CDs. At the time I was very much into ‘new age’ and was collecting NARADA stuff pretty heavily, and this prompted me to get a cheap Casio keyboard and learn to play a bit.
In February I acquired a $100 Chevy Citation from another sailor who was shipping out. It lasted about a month before the input shaft on the transaxle disintegrated.
In March I acquired a $250 Chevy Chevette from another sailor who was shipping out, and it was pretty reliable. Apparently $250 was the least you could spend for reliable transportation in 1987.
It was the 17th of April, 1987, when my duty station changed once again; this time to General Dynamics – Electric Boat (E.B.) in Groton – about ten miles from the base.
Here’s a handy map to visualize things:
My new barracks was a building right near the south entrance to E.B.
It was new but was also little more than a two-tone brown corrugated steel outbuilding converted into a shared berth, communal showers, a laundry room, and a break room.
The beds were the bunk-bed style things from bootcamp, as were the lockers between each set of beds. This means there wasn’t a lot of storage, so I sold my keyboard and my Atari 800XL, boxed up my comics and the art I’d been doing in my free time, grabbed my CD collection along with the boom box, and headed for my new barracks.
When I arrived at E.B., there was literally no one to check in with, so on May 7th, 1987, I arrived aboard PCU Pennsylvania {SSBN 735}. This is when I discover that I am the second person to arrive – the first being the Yeoman I checked in with… The USS Pennsylvania, for the time being, was a floating navy barge that had been converted into office spaces and tied up a short walk from the barracks.
For the first month or so it was just me and two other guys in the barracks. One of the other guys had an Apple Macintosh which he had set up in the break room, and this is my first exposure to a desktop GUI and a 68000 CPU that wasn’t dedicated to scientific research – the machine was literally magical, and I now really wanted one… But they were still too expensive for me.
(Hi, it’s me from the future – I finally have one!)
Most of my time at E.B. was spent working on my submarine qualifications, working on my radioman rate exams, working on the new IR2 (Integrated Radio Room) system that 735 is pioneering, getting the daily traffic (teletype hardcopies – like primitive email) from the subbase and delivering it to our temporary radio office on the barge, standing watches on 735, and countless other odd jobs as required.
The radio room made use of a couple Sperry/Univac AN/UYK-20 computers which were really primitive… You bootstrapped them with a series of toggle switches to set bits, and then a momentary that set that register in magnetic core memory. Once booted the system interfaced to a tape drive, but to get there you basically carved commandments into stone tablets… There was a couple of AN/UYK-43‘s as well, which had cool amber gas plasma displays and used tape, but I didn’t use those as much as the Yuck 20’s.
The daily traffic runs were interesting… I’d leave the south lot of E.B. in my Chevette at about 0500, arrive at the base at about 0515, check in at the radio room on base to receive and sign for all of the communications that came in since yesterday morning, then head back to E.B. and get everything ready for the day by 0600.
To do this I had a lanyard full of ID cards, about a dozen total, for everything from access to the base, E.B., the assembly area for the boat, and the radio building on base, as well as my security clearance IDs – one of which allowed me to assume control of any police officer anywhere for an immediate lights-on escort to the nearest base.
And standing watch on a submarine that was still being built was essentially science fiction you can wander around. When I stood watch on the 735 at E.B. there were still accessways in the sides of the boat and large sections of the hull rings were still being assembled. All of the interior spaces were still full of temporary lighting and wiring, piping, ventilation, etc. was strung everywhere… On watch my Navy issue “dog bowl” was replaced with a hardhat that I’d artistically embellished a bit and wasn’t regulation in the slightest.
One of the aft ballast tanks had my name and a little unicorn painted on one wall as well… I’m sure it’s been stripped and painted since though… We got away with a lot at E.B. because our command was still being put together and there wasn’t a lot of supervision.
I spent Christmas 1987 standing watches for other sailors and making a ton of extra cash.
1988
For the most part, my life centered around the 735 and getting the radio room ready to go. And christening and launch day was coming up – which would be a full-dress event. I was still working on my submarine qualifications, which was a bit tricky given that some of the systems I needed to qualify on were still being built.
On an early morning on the 23rd of April 1988, I endured the most detailed inspection of my entire military career. Once my Master Chief was satisfied, and my Captain was satisfied, and some Admiral was satisfied, we filed onto the pier to stand at either attention or parade rest for several hours while a bunch of ‘important people’ talked about ‘important things’.
I kinda zoned out and don’t remember much of it…
Eventually the USS Pennsylvania was smacked with a bottle of champagne, the crowds were shuffled off, and the 735 was left all alone, floating next to SSBN 736…
Being as we were all dressed up and had nowhere to go, the crew posed for a couple of photos.
With 735’s launch came a small change of command; up to this point Captain Oltraver has been in charge of us, but he was retiring after launching the Pennsylvania, and we were getting a new captain.
And now that the boat was in the water, reactor things started to happen which meant we needed our reactor crews…
In May I met up with Doug Aubenque, one of the newly arrived nuclear engineering folks on the 735. It turned out that he, too, was into roleplaying games and through him I was introduced to Bill Whitehouse, Brian Dorricott, and John Flaherty – and we collectively adventured our way across whatever fantastic setting caught our attention.
Bill and John were in the barracks at the sub-base, and no one could get into E.B. without clearance – so our gaming nights were at the subbase for the first few months.
I got a bump in paygrade in July, which was my two-year anniversary, and I got a chance to move to a place in-town… Doug and Brian had a 1 bedroom place over in New London and Brian was shipping out, leaving Doug the place – so I packed up to move.
In August I moved to a rundown apartment ‘in town’; 177 Jefferson Ave, #2 in New London.
It was a 1-bedroom place where Doug got the bedroom in the back and I got the living room in the front… Navy guys are accustomed to small, shared spaces, so this living arrangement wasn’t odd in the slightest. And once Doug and I had the apartment, some of our gaming nights moved there.
When I moved in, I didn’t have anything at all to my name other than my car, my boom box, and a small box of knickknacks – so the first order of business was using the increased space to start building a nice stereo system for myself.
My typical day after moving was getting up at 0500, getting over to the base by 0530 to pick up traffic, then to E.B. by 0600. I’d then do navy stuff until 1800 or so, drive back over to the base and get dinner at the chow hall, and then either head over to the barracks or the apartment for some gaming for a few hours before calling it a night at 2300.
The thing with being in the Navy was “remain flexible” as you’re just a small cog in a big machine, and that machine doesn’t care one iota what your plans are… So, some nights we’d go long at the base and I’d find an open barracks room to crash in, and do the above routine from there. And about once a week I’d end up on some late night watch on the boat where I’d crash at the barracks at E.B. and do the above routine from there.
It was one of these late night watches where I was returning from a walk around the pier and was headed up the aft gangway to take the aft LET (Logistics Escape Trunk) down to maneuvering (the control room for the reactor, power, and propulsion) to log the tour.
The boat was having the “patch” over the reactor checked out to verify the welds after fueling. The steel hull of a submarine is understandably pretty thick and made of some pretty advanced steel, and welding that is a pretty specialized skill. And the QA of this requires a high-power radioactive “camera”.
As I was approaching the LET I hear a loud CLANK, CLANK, CLANG – SPLASH followed by an equally loud FUCK! from the cordoned off area over the reactor. I then hear one E.B. guy tell another that they just lost a 100 curie cobalt-60 source over the side…
I continue on my way, head down the trunk and wander into maneuvering where the nuke folks live. I casually say “Hey, guys, how dangerous is a 100 curie cobalt-60 source?”
The bust out a couple of calculators and start giving me exposure distance and time numbers, then pause and ask “why?”
“Oh, they just lost one over the side” I say deadpan as I wave a thumb at the outside of the boat.
About 5 seconds pass as they process this, and then they all explode into motion to do measurements of everything before the NRC showed up.
I chuckled and continued on to make my log entry.
E.B. had to bring in this specialized diver guy and pay him some obscene dollars per hour to go get the thing – fortunately the shutter on the source had closed and there wasn’t any excessive radiation to create three-eyed fish.
The next big event for the boat would be sea trials next year, and then commissioning, and once the boat was commissioned it’d be moving to King’s Bay Georgia.
I had decided that because my time at E.B. was counting as ‘sea time’ and I would hit my two-year sea/shore rotation in July of 89, I’d rotate back to the subbase and take a bunch of computer and electronics classes before deciding if I want to re-up for another four years.
Doug wouldn’t hit his rotation for another year or so and would therefore have to move with the 735 after commissioning. So, it’s decided that I’ll take over the apartment when Doug leaves, move to the bedroom, and someone else would move into the living room.
1989
The next couple of months were a blur as both the 735 and I lurched towards Sea Trials.
Sea Trials are where you take the boat out to the hundred fathom curve, submerge, and then do some angles and dangles (navigation maneuvers) while making sure the boat doesn’t leak and everything works. it’s also an interesting method of doing Q.A. in that about two dozen E.B. folks who worked on the boat go out with it. So, someone who did the welding is actually in the boat when that weld is subjected to hundreds of pounds per square inch of pressure.
Sea Trials happened on June 3rd…
The boat passed sea trails with flying colors… I mean, we did find a toolbox one of the E.B. folks left in the overhead on emergency blow, which was exciting. And I learned that sleeping on a Mk48 torpedo is perfectly acceptable if you’re tired enough.
With the Sea Trials out of the way I finally finish my submarine qualifications and get everything signed off on June 23rd. It’ll be a week or two for all of the ink to dry and paperwork to get shuffled though, so to celebrate I buy tickets to the Doobie Brother’s show in Danbury on July 2nd.
My Chevette is starting to show its age though and isn’t super reliable for long trips anymore, so I borrow Brian’s Z24 Cavalier for the trip. On the drive there and back I loop Queensryche’s “The Warning” on cassette about a dozen times.
On July 7th my official squid papers come in…
And I spend the day getting my dolphins ‘tacked on’, which is a ritual hazing thing.
See, the dolphins are a pin, and once you get them pinned to your uniform, everyone you run into that day punches them – impaling the pins in your chest over and over.
And, being smarter than the average bear, I had prepared a special dungaree shirt for the event and stashed it in the office… I’d bought a dolphin pin at the base, clipped off the stabby bits, and used some milspec black adhesive to affix them to a shirt. So, after the pinning ceremony I quickly retreated to the office and changed shirts, and the resulting pummeling wasn’t too bad.
I have both the dolphins I was presented and my cheater dolphins – I think I value the latter more as they saved me a lot of pain.
On July 16th, 1989, my duty station switched back to Groton, where I started radio, electronics, and computer classes. So, I was either in class, holding down a desk, or standing watch somewhere most days of the week.
In August I traded in my “Little Red Chevette” as the down payment on a 1989 Chrysler Le Baron. It’s my first new car and I’m absolutely in love with the thing. I immediately rip out the stock 6×9’s in the back deck and the 6″ers in the doors and replace the lot with Infinity Kapas.
It was well after dark on Sunday, September 3rd, 1989, in New London when I returned to the apartment after a 16-hour day at the base. Doug and Brian had spent the weekend up in Boston at WorldCon.
When I arrived home, there were a half dozen people in the living room / my bedroom having a grand old time finishing some adventure they’d started at the convention. This adventure was being run by “Canth” who was being attended by her boyfriend Pete (Kreiger), and there were two other new folks there as well. One was another submariner who went by “T”, I don’t think I ever got the other fellow’s name…
Anyway, being tired and cranky I pulled Doug aside and pointed out that I was tired and cranky and would really appreciate some peace and quiet. His response was that they had found this GM and she was the greatest thing since sliced pre-wrapped peanut butter, and that I should join in.
I snorted derisively; an amazing GM eh? I’ll be the judge of that…
I didn’t get any sleep that night and was a literal zombie in classes at the base the following day.
I’d also met my future ex-wife.
On September 9th the 735 was commissioned, which involved Greenpeace and water cannons. Being as I wasn’t part of the crew anymore; I wasn’t there for the commissioning. And a week later the 735 was gone.
It was about two weeks before my ex and I had hooked up and it took another few weeks for Pete to move on and stop hanging out in the back stairwell of the apartment pining for her at all hours…
My ex also convinced me to finally get a 68000-based machine; an Amiga 500. They’d been out for about two years at that point, and I managed to score a used one with a monitor for $500 at a nearby computer store… This was the true beginning of my digital art life, and between the two of us that 500 got a serious workout.
By October things had started to level out; my ex was running games with everyone I knew and doing art of it all in her spare time, I was attending electronics and computer classes on the base, and things were looking like a smooth ride to my separation date.
Doug didn’t move out until October as he was on the off crew and was able to move to King’s Bay at his leisure.
My ex and I were putting a lot of miles on my car with trips up to Framingham to either gather stuff from her ex-husband’s parents place or just hang out with folks she knew up there. I recall that the trips tended to use the Transformers movie soundtrack and the new Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe album as driving music. One trip back to Connecticut the music was replaced by my ex’s cat, Merlin, yowling into the car’s vents to hear himself amplified.
One place we’d visit every time we were in Framingham was Fun N Games.
I remember buying a Sega Genesis in October of ’89 and playing a stupid amount of “Ghouls N Ghosts” on the thing with the crew over that Halloween.
The rest of the year was pretty much more of the same – classes, watch rotations, and other Navy Things, interspersed with roleplaying games, art, and road trips.
We left the apartment open for anyone who didn’t have anywhere else to go for the holidays. So, Christmas 1989 was spent at home with my ex and a half dozen random sailors. The big gifts were sets of Laser Tag gear I picked up at the local KB Toys.
1990
I turned 21 in February, and my birthday present for this year was a massive Laser Tag battle over in the Connecticut College Arboretum.
We all took our Laser Tag VERY seriously and the various teams would spend the week working out strategy to either take or hold “the base” depending on who’s turn it was.
My ex was incredibly proficient with dual Starlyte pistols while I was more into my Starlyte rifle that I’d fitted with custom glass optics, an IR detector for near misses, and an amplified microphone and earphone setup for hearing creepers in the underbrush.
My job was to provide overwatch for my ex as she madly charged the Base and slaughtered everyone…
I also carried a backup Starlyte pistol, which I still have.
In July, my four-year contract with the Navy, by my count, was supposed to be up on the first – but due to some fuzzy government math it turned out I had a bit more to go.
My ex and I were married in our living room by a justice of the peace on July 31st, 1990.
After a series of unfortunate events, I stepped through the main gate of Groton subbase for the last time on the 18th of October, 1990, after having served my four-year contract (and then some).
Due to those unfortunate events, I lost my Lebaron along the way, so my ex acquired a Chevy S10 from a friend. Once we’d loaded everything that would fit into it, we headed for my parent’s place in Colorado…
In the span of about ten hours, I left behind what was essentially my entire life up to that point…
