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Bob Eaton welcomes all pictures, historical data, and personal information related 
to the ship and crewmembers. We want inputs from wives, children, and or anyone
with knowledge of crewmembers.

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I like the Navy

I like standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face
and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe -
the ship beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drive her
through the sea.

I like the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe,
the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh
squawk of the 1MC, and the strong language and laughter of sailors at
work.

I like Navy vessels - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet
Auxiliaries, sleek submarines and steady solid carriers.

I like the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, 
Coral Sea - memorials of great battles won.

I like the lean angular names of Navy 'tin-cans': Barney, Dahlgren,
Mullinix, McCloy - mementos of heroes who went before us.

I like the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside 
speakers as we pull away from the oiler after refueling at sea.

I like liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port.

I even like all hands working parties as my ship fills herself 
with the multitude of supplies both mundane and exotic which 
she needs to cut her ties to the land and carry out her mission 
anywhere on the globe where there is water to float her.

I like sailors, men from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest,
small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and 
the prairies, from all walks of life. I trust and depend on them as 
they trust and depend on me - for professional competence, for 
comradeship, for courage. In a word, they are "shipmates."

I like the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word is passed: 
"Now station the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters 
for leaving port", and I like the infectious thrill of sighting home again, 
with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting 
pier side.

The work is hard and dangerous; the going rough at times; the parting 
from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, 
the 'all for one and one for all' philosophy of the sea is ever present.

I like the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying
fish flit across the wave tops and sunset gives way to night.

I like the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead lights, the red and
green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence 
of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and join with the mirror 
of stars overhead.

And I like drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and
small that tell me that my ship is alive and well, and that my shipmates 
on watch will keep me safe.

I like quiet mid watches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood
of the Navy - permeating everywhere.

And I like hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes
racing at flank speed keeps all hands on a razor edge of alertness.

I like the sudden electricity of "general quarters, general quarters, all
hands man your battle stations", followed by the hurried clamor of 
running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors 
as the ship transforms herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful
workplace to a weapon of war - ready for anything.

And I like the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters 
clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers 
would still recognize.

I like the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them.

I like the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut,
John Paul Jones.

A sailor can find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and
country, mastery of the seaman's trade.

An adolescent can find adulthood.

In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still
remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods - the
impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water 
surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of
stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the
bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of 
hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief's quarters and mess decks.
Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, 
when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was ever over 
the horizon.

Remembering this, they will stand taller and say,

"I WAS A SAILOR ONCE. I WAS PART OF THE NAVY,
AND THE NAVY WILL ALWAYS BE PART OF ME."

Credit to:  Vice Admiral Harold Koenig, USN (Retired)

This is dedicated to 

Ralph H. Muntz  USN, BRONZE STAR with V for VALOR, our Leading Chief
and all the other Regular Navy Chiefs aboard the Hadley.

Navy Life .... Getting better every day! 

OLD CHIEFS 

One thing we weren't aware of at the time but became evident as life 
wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples 
any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. 

They were crusty bastards who had done it all and had been forged 
into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had 
time on the planet. 

The ones I remember wore hydraulic oil stained hats with scratched and 
dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out 
of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather 
pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. 

Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force 
them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic. Most of them were 
as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life 
they lived. They were and always will be, a breed apart from all other 
residents of Mother Earth. 

They took eighteen year-old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards 
into sailors. You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been 
born a Chief's kid. God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a 
return option. 

A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was 
nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters 
on earth. 

We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins in my 
day... Hard-core bastards, who found nothing out of place with the use 
of the word 'Japs' to refer to the little sons of Nippon they had littered the 
floor of the Pacific with, as payback for a little December 7th tea party they 
gave us in 1941. As late as 1970 you could still hear a Chief Petty Officer 
screaming at you in boot camp to listen to him, because if you didn't, the 
damn gooks would kill us. They taught me In those days, 'insensitivity' 
was not a word in a sailor's lexicon. They remembered lost mates and still 
cursed the cause of their loss... And they were expert at choosing descriptive 
adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed. 

At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of 
hard-earned worn and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that 
one and that one?" "Oh Hell kid, I think it was the time I fell out of a hookers 
bed, I can't remember. There was a war on. They gave them to us to keep 
track of the campaigns we had in country. We got our news from AFVN and 
Stars and Strips. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you 
couldn't pronounce most of the names of the villages we went. They're all 
gee-dunk. Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor. The Purple one on 
top? ok, I do remember earning that one. We knew who the heroes were 
and in the final analysis that's all that matters." 

Many nights we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups 
of coffee and listening to their stories. They were lighthearted stories about 
warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal hooches at 
rear base landing zones, where the only furniture was a few packing crates 
and a couple of Coleman lamps. Standing in line at a Philippine cathouse or 
spending three hours soaking in a tub in Bangkok, smoking cigars and getting 
loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because 
they were our heroes. 
When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you 
would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were 
not men given to the prerogatives of their position. You would find them 
with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to-shoulder with you in a stores 
loading party. 


"Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we 
can get all this crap aboard." "Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands." 
"Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old fart." 


"Shipmate, when I'm eighty-five, parked in the old Sailors' home in Gulfport, 
I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the 
screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't 
bullshitting. They trained us. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it 
wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Naval Force. 


There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted 
forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer. They 
were born as hotsacking seamen and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls 
and steaming jungles over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jaybird 
could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 
jerks come and go for so many years, they could read you like a book. 


"Son, I know what you are thinking. Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't 
be worth it." "Aye, Chief." Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys 
at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks 
for peanuts. Appreciation of what they did and who they were, comes with 
long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of 
his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership 
or lets say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, 
you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others. They 
had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. 
They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen 
to Singapore. They had given their entire lives to the United States Navy. In the 
progression of the nobility of employment, CPO heads the list. 


So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to 
wherever the big CNO in the sky assigns us. If we are lucky, Marines will be 
guarding the streets. I don't know about that Marine propaganda bullshit, but 
there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat, a cigar stub clenched in his teeth 
and a coffee cup that looks like it contains oil, standing at the brow to assign 
us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... And we will all be young 
again and the damn coffee will float a rock. 

 
Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart 
enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no 
longer can. If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you 
succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So thanks 
you old casehardened unsalvageable son-of-a-bitches. Save me a rack in 
the berthing compartment. 

This author is unknown.