Christmas and New Year in Scotland

In 1988 when I was stationed in London the end of my tour was quickly approaching.  I put in for a 1-year extension but that was declined.  I did get an offer to transfer to Skaggs Island California to attend a 40-week technical school.  Skaggs Island is located in Sonoma and was located halfway between Sears Point and Vallejo just off of highway 37.  Highway 37 skirts the northern edge of San Pablo Bay which is the northern part of the San Francisco Bay Area.

By the time the orders came, I was in a very serious relationship with Rachel and we decided that we would marry before my departure and then transfer together to California.  The process of making this happen took a few months because I was in the Navy and since Rachel was British, the normal investigation timeframe took a little longer.  Anyway all was in order and we set our "official" wedding date at the local registrars office in Ealing for the 12th of November and also planned for our white wedding on the 14th of January, 1989.  I was scheduled to depart London on the 29th of January so I needed the time to process the necessary paperwork for Rachel to accompany me to California as my "military dependent" and two weeks before my departure would've been a bridge too far for her to come with me without paying substantial out of pocket costs.

On the 12th of November we went to the registrars office and were required to have two witnesses so we had Rachel's mother and her next oldest sister, Sarah go with us.  It was a very surreal experience because I really couldn't comprehend the fact that I was getting married!  To this day, my only memories of the day was listening to "Crazy" by Icehouse while I'm ironing my clothes before we went to the registrars and standing next to Rachel as we recited our vows to each other.  The rest of it, a complete blur.  By this time, my new father-in-law, Rachel's stepfather had been assigned to the USS Los Alamos in Holy Loch Scotland so for the Christmas and New Year's holiday we went up there to visit them in Dunoon where they lived.  Dunoon is a small town that sits on the Firth of Clyde across from Greenock about 35 miles from Glasgow.

Rachel with our Son Matthew and Daughter Olivia in front of her parents house in Dunoon that they lived in from 1988-1990 - Photo taken in 2012 during a mobile home vacation to Scotland

With Rachel's sister Sarah in tow the three of us boarded a train at King's Cross in London and went up to to Glasgow where my father-in-law picked us up for the drive and ferry over to Dunoon.  It was the 23rd of December, two days after Pan Am Flight 103 exploding in the air over Lockerbie so driving up was not a good option because the A74, the main thoroughfare between Glasgow and England at the time was closed for forensics until after Christmas.  When we arrived, one of Rachel's other sisters, Annette and her husband had arrived a few days earlier.  They drove up and actually went through Lockerbie the morning of the disaster!

When we arrived at the house, my in-laws had decorated the house, it started to snow and we were all feeling very festive!  I remember us spending the next day, Christmas Eve hanging around the house, drinking wine and beer and enjoying each other's company.  We did actually go into Dunoon and take in the Christmas Market that they had.  It was really a magical time!

Christmas Day in Scotland was spent with family.  This was the second year with my new family and first time since getting married so it felt like I was home!  During Christmas my sister-in-law and her husband told my in-laws that they were expecting.  We were elated for them but we also had a secret to share.  We had just received the news before we came up to Scotland and were waiting for the right time to tell them.  We had no clue that Annette was expecting so I'm sure this came as quite a shock to hear that two of their daughters were expecting around the same time!

In between the holidays we got out and explored the immediate area around Dunoon but at that time of the year, the winds coming off the Firth were bitter so we didn't stray too far.  One day we did catch the ferry over to Greenock and then the train into Glasgow to look around.

For New Year's we hosted "hogmanay" at my in-laws house.  What the Scottish did was they would stay in their houses until the New Year rang in and then they would bring drink with them and go around to neighbors houses to celebrate.  It was a very cool way to bring in the New Year holiday and I won't forget the hospitality of the Scottish as they welcomed in 1989.

Unfortunately we had to get back to London on the 2nd and we rode back with Annette for the long drive back down to Southern England.  We left early in the morning before the ferry's started to run and as a result we had to go around the Firth of Clyde on the northern side, a detour of nearly 50 miles.  However, since it was still the holiday season, the roads were clear and we had no trouble with traffic and were back on the A74 before we knew it.  The A74 was a dual carriageway (divided highway) but the Lockerbie disaster caused the highway to be closed in one direction so when we went through the town it was a very surreal scene.  Houses were destroyed, you could see the large crater where the middle section of the 747 of Pan Am 103 crashed into the houses and it looked like a war zone.  It was very shocking to see the results of this cowardly terrorist attack!

We arrived home in the early evening and were looking forward to what January had in store for us.  We had the "formal" wedding to plan and also had our departure from London to California to plan and look forward to.

London 1987

When I was based in Iceland I had the advantage of getting a preferential choice on my next duty station.  This was because of the fact that Iceland is considered a remote duty station.  What the criteria is, I'm not sure but I can certainly attest that as a 20 year old Iceland was remote!  Anyway, the time came for me to list my duty station preferences and I put London down as my first choice.  I had a pretty good chance of getting it because there was a large contingent of fellow Cryptologic Technicians based there.  The time came for my career counsellor in Iceland to call the detailer about my next assignment and they stated that I could go to London if I agreed to extend my time in Iceland by two months.  60 more days on this damned Island?  Hell yes for London!  I didn't even think about it and quickly jumped on the opportunity!

I was so excited, I had to wait on the official orders to come through, it was a matter of the detailer making the time to prepare them (keep in mind this is before the internet) which meant he had to type them up, put them into official US Navy Message format and then place them in a queue to be electronically delivered to me via standard message traffic at the lowest priority.  This process normally took around 2-3 weeks to be finalized with a hardcopy of the orders in my hand.  Because of the time zone difference, we spoke to the detailer on my last evening shift before my three day break and to my surprise, my orders were waiting for me when I returned for my next shift after the break!  Once I had them I could get everything started, a passport, the move, my advance money for civilian clothes and a sponsor in London that could help show me the ropes my first few days in town.  First things first, I had to get my passport and in Iceland that was no easy task.  First of all I had to get a photo for the passport.  On the base there was a person that took them as a side job and he was booked up for a few weeks.  Once I had the picture it was a matter of the base officials sending the passport application package over to the US Embassy in Reykjavik to get it issued and then sent back to me via the base officials.  The process took about a month in total.  I got on it and once I had booked the photo I felt that I was getting somewhere!  I had the picture taken and this is how it turned out....

                                          My first passport photo, 1987

Since I flew up to Iceland on a military transport with a military ID and orders I wasn't required to travel on a passport but London was completely different.  Because there was no direct military transport to my next duty station in London I flew commercial from the US to London so having a passport was the prudent thing to have when I arrived at the passport control in Heathrow.  Additionally civilian clothes were worn at my duty station in London, the US Naval Forces Headquarters for Europe which at the time was located across the street from the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square.  Because of this there were sensitivities to seeing a bunch of US military folks wandering around central London in uniform.  So, in order to prepare for this, the US Navy gave me a clothing allowance of $800 to buy the appropriate attire to work in.  The appropriate attire was business suit with tie which for a 21 year old was awesome.  Living and working in London across the street from the US Embassy wearing a suit and tie?  The gods were smiling on this Illinois farm boy!

Anyway the time came to leave Iceland and considering where I was going, I couldn't wait to get going but first, some well-earned leave after being there for 14 months!  I went back to Illinois to visit family and friends and had a great two weeks before leaving.  While I was up in Illinois, I visited my sister Georgann up in Peoria and this is where I bought my suits.  They were without a doubt JC Penney specials because much to my chagrin I didn't realize how little $800 would buy me! Not only did I need to get suits but I also had to buy shirts, shoes, a belt and ties for this new wave Dave look that I wanted for London!  Fortunately I had just enough fashion sense to at least not look like I suited up cheaply.  Once I got to London top shop, tie rack and other Oxford street shops became my friends....fashionable clothing in London was so much cheaper and one of the things that my shipmates would laugh at was how American we all looked when we first got to London!

After two weeks of hanging out in Jacksonville and the rest of Central Illinois it was time to get on a plane and go to my next adventure.  I left St. Louis but had a connection with a Pan Am flight out of JFK for an overnight flight to London Heathrow.  I arrived in England the next day and once again I was fortunate enough to have my sponsor waiting for me.  A really cool guy named Bobby.  Bobby met me at the airport and we grabbed a cab to my hotel, the London Elizabeth which was near the Lancaster Gate Tube Station.  The London Elizabeth Hotel (LEH) is a Vicorian-era hotel that has been relatively untouched by time.  It is still in operation but in 1987 when I arrived, it was under contract with the US Navy to provide some of its rooms to Sailors that were either arriving in or leaving London.  There were several hotels under contract but since I was a single Sailor it made more sense for me to start my adventure in Central London nearer to the duty station.  I had a small room at the rear of the hotel below ground level, my window was at the top of the wall but I could see the building next to the LEH so it wasn't all that bad.  Besides, I wasn't planning on being in the room that much anyway because I had things to do!

                                         The London Elizabeth Hotel, Lancaster Gate W2

So my first few days were a blur but my priority was finding a place to live.  The US Navy had a housing support office which was a one-stop shopping place for flats, houses and barracks assignment.  Since I was a Petty Officer, I had the choice of living in Barracks or in my own place.  That was a "no-brainer".  When I went to the housing office I first met a nice young lady named Rachel who pointed me in the right direction for the customer service representative that would help me out.  Her name was Liz, Elizabeth Bartholomew to be exact.  The Rachel I just mentioned was, you guessed it, my future wife Rachel Mooney.  Anyway, I searched around several different locations and finally settled on a location near the Preston Road Tube Station.

                                         My flat was on the 1st floor above the Indian Restaurant

This flat had a view of Wembley Stadium.  Little did I realize at the time but my future sister-in-law's current boyfriend, Kingsley Black, would be on the winning side of the 1988 League Cup final with his team, Luton Town.  I was most likely at my flat during this time....small world!

My life was really looking up, it was 1987, I was in the heart of the 1980's music scene, I was commuting via the tube and I was working a schedule that allowed me to work 4 days on followed by 4 days off.  Life was good!

About a month into my time in London I had an opportunity to buy a car from a departing shipmate so I jumped on it and gained more freedom.  The car was a 1977 Ford Capri.  It was a British spec car, complete with a right-hand steering wheel.  When I bought it, I took ownership at the Navy building in central London and I had to figure out how to get to Preston Lane on my own.  This was a terrifying ordeal.  However I did discover the trick to driving in London really quickly because it allowed me to really understand the city and actively participate in the bustling party scene that my shipmates were all engaged in.  The trick to driving in London (in 1987) was to keep track of the road signs and understand the different "cities" that make up the boroughs of London.  For those of you who have never been there The City of London is literally a 1 square mile borough in the center of London.  Over the centuries, other neighboring cities grew into and connected with the City of London and were eventually annexed into the greater London that we know today.  Therefore, in 1987 if you knew how they all connected and where they are roughly located next to each other, you could get around quite easily.  Another trick was knowing inside and out the tube map schematic and how all the stations interconnected.  Usually the tube station would also have a corresponding road sign associated with it so conceptually I learned how to get around London and still have no issues driving in the city now.

                                         Same color and year as my 1977 Ford Capri

So now with all of this amazing freedom I was really getting around and enjoying my life to the fullest.  I arrived in London in April of 1987 and this was probably one of my favorite years of my life.  I was living in a major city, with an awesome job, freedom galore and meeting new friends and really enjoying everything the english culture had to offer.  My friends and I had a great party scene which usually started out the Navy club on RAF West Ruislip.  This club was called the "Flagship".  It was a converted storage building but on Friday and Saturday nights it was packed with Sailors and the locals all out to have a great time.  We would all congregate there and then decide where the party was after we had our cheap drinks.  Since I had a car, I would usually have a few folks come with me as we would all leave the club for our next adventure.

Kids - this is how I met your mother........

One particular night.  November 6th, 1987 to be exact was the night that we all met at the Flagship as usual and as I already mentioned it was time to go to the next party which was in central London.  My friend Bill was with me and he met up with two girls at the Flagship and they decided to come with Bill and I to this next party.  The two girls were Jackie, who was a Sailor and her friend Rachel who worked at the housing office.  Rachel was an English girl and I remembered her from my early days of going into the housing office.  Anyway, that night they got into my car and we went to the party in central London.  It was a bust so Bill decided to host a party at his house in North Wembley.  I was all in for this because it was a lot closer to my house over at Preston Road.  Somehow during the course of the night Rachel began to flirt with me.  It must've been my personality because she was drop dead gorgeous and I couldn't believe that she would pay attention to a guy like me!  I started to flirt back to make sure that I wasn't reading the situation wrong and when she responded inside I got very excited because I felt that I wanted to go for it and ask her out on a date.  Something inside me told me to go for it because if I didn't I would regret it for the rest of my life.  Boy am I glad I did that.  We have been together for 32 years and it gets better every day!

We exchanged addresses and phone numbers and the very next day in the early afternoon before our date she dropped by my house with a bottle of Mateus wine.  I felt really privileged to have caught the attention of such a divine creature!

Oh yea, my pickup line the night I met her...."would you like to go see Creepshow"?  Who the hell would say that for a pickup line?  I must've been throwing out some hormones that had her name on them because looking back.....what the hell was I thinking?

After that almost every waking moment not dedicated to work I was with Rachel.  By Christmas we were a hit and I was invited over to her house in West Ruislip for Christmas Dinner.  I was nervous because her whole family was there.  I had the most amazing time and felt at home for the first time since I joined the Navy.  I was head over heels in love with this woman and was scared to death of what would come next! 1988 was just around the corner and with that the end of my tour in London would be over in early 1989 at the latest.

Let me go back to my Ford Capri.  Thank you for everything you did for me.  Without you I wouldn't have met the woman of my dreams, my soulmate!  I'm sorry I had to leave you behind when we moved to California.  I hope that your final days were filled with great oil in your engine and an easy-shifting driver who took care of you!

Paperboy

Being a paperboy used to be a great job during my childhood.  You made some extra money, got out of the house with a purpose and were able to gain some freedom at the same time.  Not too bad for a young teenager!

The town I grew up in, Jacksonville Illinois has the Jacksonville Journal Courier as its daily publication for the citizens of the city.  When I was growing up it was actually split up into two daily editions, the morning edition was the Jacksonville Daily Journal and the afternoon edition was the Jacksonville Evening Courier.  At that time almost every resident in the city subscribed to either publication and I would guess that 75% did in fact subscribe to the evening edition because it was delivered about the same time that most folks were getting home from work for the day.

The main office and printing press location on State Street just off the city square in Jacksonville Illinois

The Junior High that I was attending would occasionally get the publishers of the papers over to talk to the students of the job opportunities working for the Journal-Courier.  Most of the jobs for teenagers was managing a route as a paperboy/papergirl for either the morning or evening editions of the paper.  During one of these visits I put my name in the hat hoping to get the opportunity to have one of these coveted jobs.  It was a matter of luck, where you lived in the city and what routes were available at any time.  Within a few weeks I was contacted and asked if I'd like to deliver the morning edition, the Daily Journal.  The route started a few blocks from my house but since it was a morning route I had to bike nearly three miles to deliver to nearly 100 customers.  One of my other friends had the afternoon route in our neighborhood and his route was roughly 4 city blocks by 3 city blocks - that was the difference in density of the customer base for the two editions.

Approximate area of my route in Jacksonville Illinois  for the morning edition (left) compared to the approximate size of my afternoon route (below)

Anyway, the paperboy that I was taking over from lived about three blocks from my house and he had just started high school so the demands of the workload were taking its toll on him and he needed to focus on his studies.  I rode with him for two weeks learning the ropes and also receiving a list of all the addresses of customers so I could take over as effectively as possible.  Additionally other tasks that I learned from him was the weekly collection for paper fees - at the time, unless the customer "paid in advance" or PIA'ed with the paper company directly we had to go door to door to personally collect from each customer.  On my route I had around 15 PIA's so I had to really buckle down and get out there to collect the fees.  Additionally, I bought a paper bike from the newspaper company.  These bikes were big and sturdy and came with two baskets in the back and a basket which provided support to a large burlap bag that went on the handlebars.  They sold it to us for around $150 and we would pay them every week around $7 until it was fully paid off.  Sunday editions of the paper were the largest and many times I'd have to make two trips to deliver all the papers.  All told, when fully loaded I was carrying around 60-80 pounds of newspapers on my bike.  No helmet, no elbow or knee pads - I just got out there and did it!  At the end of the financial week (Saturday) we had to perform all of the collections.

Same color and type of bike for my paper route.

November 4th, 1979 was my first day on the job and I was terrified!  I woke up around 5am shortly after the newspaper company delivered the papers in two bundles on our doorstep.  It was the Sunday edition and I had until roughly 9AM to get all the papers delivered before customers would start to complain so I had enough time.  The process for delivery was as follows:  Keep in mind this was a single-person operation....I had a large bag of rubberbands that I purchased from the paper company that would use to wrap up the papers into rolled up bundles that resembled a baton and as I wrapped up the papers I would toss them off into a large pile that I would eventually then pack onto the bike.  At first I had to use the address list provided to me but over the first couple of weeks I learned the route and knew every customer name and address from memory.  Usually starting Thursday or Friday afternoon after school I would start my fee collections and usually around 10AM on Saturday I would go to the Newspaper office and reconcile my account.  95% of the time I had collected more than enough to pay the paper what was owed for customer accounts, my bike payments and supplies such as rubber bands and plastic covers for when it was raining.  On the weeks where I fell short, they would simply add this to my next week's bill.  I never got too far behind on this because I wanted to get paid, therefore I was very motivated to lean into the system to maximize my earnings.  I would say that the weekly subscription was 80 cents, the paper charged me roughly 65 cents per customer per week so after receiving a 20 cent tip from each of my customers every week and after paying off my bike payment and paying for supplies I would net around 30-40 dollars a week for around 15-20 hours of work.  This was like hitting the jackpot!

Over time the job became a bit mundane - I was 13 years old but I was committed to the job for the long haul for two reasons.  The first one was that my friend had the sweet route that I really wanted - eventually I got it and also I remember clearly the first day of my job as November 4th, 1979 because if you remember your history, this was the day that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and when I would get down on my job I made a commitment to myself that I would keep the morning paper route at a minimum until they were all freed!  I did keep this promise to myself and almost by fate after 444 days the hostage crises ended, my friend quit his afternoon route and I took it over and for a short time had both routes until my replacement for the morning route could be found.

Some of the best times of my childhood in Jacksonville were from this time.  I was learning how to be independent and usually on Saturdays after I would pay the bill I would gather at the local pizza joint with some of my friends (we all had paper routes) and it was during the early days of video games so we would spend the afternoon playing games at the pizza joint, eat pizza drink coke and listen to music.  We would all hang out until it was time to go home and I did this religiously for about a year!  The pizza joint was Pizzan's Pizza and Pasta located in Lincoln Square Shopping Center but unfortunately it has been closed for a very long time.  I believe that Dominos now takes up space where Pizzan's used to be.  I remember they had the best pan pizza around and I'm sure that if I tasted it now it would most likely not live up to my sophisticated pallet but I choose to think of it as the bar for my pizza since and I'm not going to move off this perception!  If after settling our fees at the Newspaper office we were really hungry we would go around the corner from the office to Leo's Pizza.  Leo came from Sicily and his business still operates today.  They have the best thin crust pizza on the planet and this has been verified many times since I was a kid growing up in Jacksonville.  We make it a regular stop whenever we are in town.

Leo's Pizza located just south of the Jacksonville Town Square

As fate would have it, I eventually grew out of my paperboy job and moved on to other things in life, mostly girls, cars and a real job working at Hardees.  If I could only bottle the happiness during this time and sell it I would be a millionaire!

Keflavik Iceland

When I joined the Navy I went in the delayed entry program (DEP) and as a result of this I had greater choice of what career field I could join.  I was offered an opportunity to become a Cryptologic Technician (Maintenance) (CTM) which opened the door to many career possibilities.  It was also a cool career field in that I had access to leading-edge technologies and the technical schools for this were over 18 months before I finally joined the fleet.  The catch to all of this great schooling?  I had to enlist for 6 years in order for the Navy to recover its investment in me....looking back on this and how this training set me up for life, a very fair trade!

One of the cool things about going through the technical school - in this case the CTM training or "A" school was that you would be assigned to a cohort of fellow CTM wannabes and you would progress through the pipeline together.  Obviously you would discuss with your fellow classmates the potential duty stations that you wanted to go to and during the process you filled out your "dream sheet" of duty stations that you'd like to go to.  This dream sheet is passed to the CTM detailer and if your desires meet the needs of the Navy, you have a good chance of getting what you want.  However, if the needs of the Navy do not fit into your desires you have to suck it up and go where ordered.  During my Navy career I was very successful in making sure that my desires matched the needs of the Navy and I was very lucky to be assigned to some of the most interesting missions and locations possible!

About a month before the end of CTM A school you get your orders.  Like I mentioned before the CTM career field had a lot of technical training options and it could be possible that I would be "ordered" to attend more advanced training - in some cases up to another year of school was possible with no idea where my first duty station would be.  A few of my classmates received these type of orders and I was thankful at the time because I was really itching to get out to the fleet and make a difference.  Anyway, when it was time for our cohort to receive our orders the career counsellor came in to our class and started calling out names and then telling us our next assignments.  My heart was pounding through my chest when my name was called, I answer with "yes Chief?" and he responded to me, "how do you like the cold?  Iceland!"  Iceland?  Holy cow!  I didn't see that one coming!

I had heard nothing but great things from other Sailors that had been stationed in Iceland but nothing prepared me for this news.  I was excited about the possibility of going there but also terrified about the prospect of leaving the US for the first time in my life and I was doing it on my own at 19 years of age!  However, as part of my assignment to Iceland I was also ordered to Ft. Gordon Georgia for 4 more months of advanced technical training.  This training prepared me for the specific systems that I would be responsible for while assigned to the land of "Fire and Ice".

I arrived in Iceland via military transport in January of 1986.  I left in March of 1987.  During my tour two significant events occurred while I was there that put Iceland (and the Keflavik Naval Air Station in particular) on the world stage.  The first was the release of Tom Clancy's novel "Red Storm Rising" and the second was the Reagan/Gorbachev summit.

                                         I flew Arrow Air from Philadelphia to Keflavik Naval Air Station

At the time the Keflavik Naval Air Station also doubled up as the international airport for Iceland.  The capital, Reykjavic is about 30 miles away so the airport was within and hours drive of nearly half the population of the country.  The Naval Air Station closed in 2006 but has since been supporting NATO operations.  As recently as last year, the US Navy has based an anti-Submarine squadron there.  Keflavik is a small fishing village located just off the base and it is located on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland.  I was assigned to a small tenant station located off the main base about ten miles away near the Rockville Air Station location.  

                           My first duty station location.  The large building right center of this picture

Being assigned to this duty station was very interesting.  For starters, every time we went on and off base we had to go through customs.  Because everything was very expensive in Iceland, the risk of contraband (cigarettes, alcohol, coffee, etc) being sold to the locals was very high and the Icelandic government wanted to avoid that.  Also, because I was only an E4 at the time, I was subject to a  curfew and could not be off the base (unless in an official military role) after 10PM.  This curfew applied to all personnel E5 and below.  The only exception was if I had a special request authorized by my commanding officer.  The reason for this was simple demographics, think about it.  In one corner of an island with only 300,000 inhabitants was a military base that had over 5,000 foreign troops.  It would be devastating to the country and economy if we were all allowed to run amuck and marry the locals and take them off the island.  If this was allowed, there would be a gender gap that would take generations to recover!  In US numbers, think about the impact if there was a military base with 5 million foreign troops located 30 miles from New York City and you quickly get the impact potential!

Since it was January when I first arrived in Iceland it was dark when we landed.  I do remember as the plane was taxiing to the gate that way off in the distance across the Flaxifloi Bay I could see the twinkling of the lights of Reykjavic.  Because it was cold and windy, the lights from this distance seemed to dance around and invite me to explore it, however I was very tired and hoping to god that my sponsor would be there to pick me up and get me to my barracks room as soon as possible.  He was and I was very thankful for that.  His name was also Dave so that made it easy to remember.  Dave picked me up, took me over to the barracks to check me in, took me over to the club to get something to eat and then took me back to my barracks room with a plan to meet me in the morning to take me out to the site for in-processing.  The next couple of weeks were a blur but while I was getting used to the routine of the shift that I was working I do remember that at some point the sun would rise in the late morning and set not much after noon.  This was very hard to get used to but I was on an adventure and really digging the change of scenery.  Only 360 more days till I left!  

The job was pretty routine, I performed preventative and corrective maintenance on the equipment I was trained on and also picked up other tasks as required by my supervisor.  Our shift schedule was known as a "2-2-2-80" which meant that we worked two 8-hour day shifts and after the second day shift we would come back 8 hours later and work two 8-hour mid shifts and after the second mid shift we would come back 8 hours later and work two 8-hour evening shifts.  After the second evening shift we had 80 hours of "liberty" and then would start the cycle all over again.  The Navy has many different types of work schedules to cover down over a 24-hour day.  I've seen them all but this one was by far the most brutal to the body.  Fortunately I was very young and resilient and didn't really need that much sleep - there was too much to see and do and partying was my top priority!

Several of the things I did while based in Iceland:

- See the geysers

- Experience the Blue Lagoon before it became a tourist attraction.  Basically all the buildings in Iceland are heated with geo-thermal heating from the earths crust.  Iceland sits on top of a large rift zone between continental plates and as a result, the magma is near the surface.  All of Iceland is a recent volcanic lava field and everywhere I went on the island, there was evidence of recent eruptions.  The Blue Lagoon is actually a lake that receives "exhaust water" from a geo-thermal plant that supplies heating to most of the southwest Iceland region.  When we went, the lagoon was not developed for tourism and we could literally drive up to the waters edge, take off our clothes and get in the water.  I remember vividly my hair being frozen while being in water that was at least 100 degrees Fahrenheit while looking up at the northern lights!

- See the Fine Young Cannibals and Madness in concert in Reykjavik.  It was one of the most amazing concerts I've ever been to.  Simply an out of this world (and body) experience.

- Go 4-wheeling on a glacier near Thingvellir National Park.  We literally stayed in one of the houses in this picture.  

- Be a witness to the Reagan/Gorbachov summit.  They both flew into the international airport and I was fortunate enough to witness both motorcades as they left the base on their way to the Hofdi house in Reykjavik.

While I did many other things in Iceland most of the time was spent working and getting my certifications necessary for job advancement.  Before I knew it my tour was over and because this duty station was considered a remote overseas tour I had the advantage of getting preference on my dream sheet for my next duty station.  I wanted to get to London and fortunately there was an available billet.  I was so excited about this next chapter in my life.  Little did I know at that time but London was to shape my life in ways I never imagined!

Bootcamp 1984

Many things in my life changed during this month and little did I know at the time that my life would never be the same.

First of all, I graduated from high school on Friday the 1st of June from Greenfield High School.  My graduating class was only 37 people, a very small high school indeed.  I grew up in the rural midwestern town of Jacksonville in central Illinois.  Jacksonville is known as the birthplace of the ferris wheel and in the town's main intersection of Morton Ave and Main Street there is an old ferris wheel that was built during the town's heyday.  When I was a junior at Jacksonville High School my parents decided to buy a house 21 miles south of Jacksonville in a little hamlet called Athensville.

Athensville is a small farming community and is located about 10 miles north of Greenfield.  My time at Greenfield High School was consumed with my attempts to fit in and since I came from the "big city" of Jacksonville I was able to partially reinvent myself.  My senior year was a wonderful time - I actively involved myself in sports, the plays, quiz team and the high school life.  The good times kept coming and I enjoyed every minute of my senior year....however, I had a damocles sword hanging over my head and that was the summer before I joined the Navy and was on delayed entry for a whole year while I finished high school.

In 1983 at the age of 17 when I joined the Navy in the delayed entry program, I was only interested in one thing and that was impressing my father.  He was an Iowa farm boy that joined the Navy shortly after the end of World War II and before his enlistment was up he got caught up in the Korean War.  He was a Machinists Mate and served onboard the USS Bexar, APA 237.  The USS Bexar was named after Bexar County Texas, the site of the Alamo.  I grew up with my dad's Navy stories and was enthralled by them.  He was a proud man who never went to college and managed to work his way up to store manager in Jacksonville of a large midwestern grocery chain and he felt that college was a waste of time and pushed his children into believing this as well.

Anyway, June of 1984 comes along and I graduated from high school on the 1st of June, I was very happy to be done with school and on the 2nd, my parents held a party at our house in Athensville for our graduating class and parents.  My dad bought a keg of beer and even though the drinking age was 21 in the state of Illinois, nobody seemed to care.  I didn't have time to breath because on the 6th of June, I left Illinois (at the time didn't realize it was for good) for bootcamp.

The morning of the 6th of June started early for me.  I had to be at the recruiters office in Alton - 50 miles south at 7am for my trip over to the military enlistment processing station (MEPS) in St. Louis for 8am.  My mother took me to the recruiters station and as she dropped me off, she was crying and this is the first time it really hit me, I was leaving home!

The morning at the MEPS station was spent in-processing for the military and at the end of all of this I was given a plane ticket to Orlando where bootcamp awaited me.  There were about 3-5 of us going to Orlando, others were going to Great Lakes or San Diego or if they were in another service, elsewhere.  Our small group formed a tight group as we departed for St. Louis International for the Ozark flight that was awaiting to take us to our fate.  I remember arriving in Orlando late in the day, catching a bus over to the Recruit Training Center (RTC) and once we got off the bus being yelled at. We were issued bedding and sent to a temporary barracks where I assume now was a holding area until there were enough recruits until a new company could be formed.  For the rest of the evening, more recruits were coming into this temporary barracks so it was not peaceful.  Obviously the company was complete by about 3am because this is when we were introduced to our company commanders.  I was awoken by the sound of a 50-gallon garbage can being thrown down the aisle between the bunks, getting screamed at to collect our personal belongings and bedding, being lined up and marched to our new barracks.  That day I became a new recruit in company C173.  That morning we received our haircuts, issued uniforms, immunizations and packed up our personal belongings to ship back home.  We also were required to prepare and send to our families our first letter informing them that we were alive and safe in the world's greatest Navy.  Then we practiced more marching, PT and getting yelled at.  This was undoubtedly the longest day of my life!

I had a plan of just getting on with things and keeping my head low in bootcamp so I could pass my time and get on with things.  In order to do this, you need to volunteer for just enough to not be classified as a slacker but not too much where you get "volunteered" for a leadership role in the company.  The leadership structure in bootcamp was as follows:

Recruit Chief Petty Officer (RCPO) - The recruit responsible for everything that happens to the company 24/7.  This person is always on the hotseat!

Chief Master at Arms (CMAA) - The recruit responsible for everything that happens in the barracks.

Port and Starboard Watch Petty Officers in Charge - These two recruits were responsible for half of the recruits when marching.

Several other minor roles which included the one that I volunteered for - religious petty officer.

In this role it was my job to ensure that literature of all faiths was distributed within the company and I also escorted the recruits that wanted to go to church on Sundays to and from church.  Going to church was a real escape and I enjoyed doing this.  Because of this duty, I was exempt from several of the "ash and trash" duties, like mid-watch around the barracks and other tasks that took away from precious sleep time.  This job was bliss!

At the time bootcamp was 8 and a half weeks long.  Each day was denoted by the week and the day of the week fore training purposes.  So if it was the second day of the 1st week of bootcamp it was known as 1-2 day.  Our goal was to get to 8-3 day which was the last day of bootcamp.  On 1-5 day, we had our first barracks inspection.  This inspection was an open invite from our company commanders to all other company commanders to come in and inspect us.  This is a hell day and we all knew it going into it.  What they made us do was stand at attention in front of our racks and they proceeded to walk up to us, scream at us, tear up our racks, provide us with a personnel inspection and check for us to flinch - discipline in ranks.  If they found something wrong with us, they would make us speak to every recruit.  In actuality I found it quite amusing but did not let it show.  I stood there ramrod straight until I was the last (out of 84) recruits standing.  They actually told me to leave the barracks room and stand down because they could not find an issue with me, my rack or my military bearing.  My company commander told me this was the first time in his time as a company commander that a recruit made it through.  The following week on 2-2 day we had our first academic test.  This test was about the Navy's culture, traditions and customs.  I aced the exam and once again was the only one in my company to do that.  I had by now, blown my strategy of just "getting by" in bootcamp and on 2-3 day while we were out marching they asked our RCPO to halt the company, called me out of the ranks and gave me the anchor for the RCPO position.  Holy cow did I screw up!  I was now in charge of the entire company and was going to have a very long summer!!!!  I couldn't wait for June 1984 to end!

Shortly after moving to Tampa in 2015 my wife and I went to Orlando to find the location of the RTC.  The base closed several years ago due to the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.  In its place is a subdivision (Baldwin Park) and Bluejacket Park.  This park is dedicated to the Sailors that passed through the RTC and Naval Training Center (NTC) Orlando.  While none of the infrastructure exists I could still see in my mind exactly where everything was and took my wife on this tour.  I salute the thousands of Sailors that passed through those gates hoping to better themselves and also as a first step to serve their country.

Oh yea, one more thing - my company commanders whom I will never forget, they are true Americans and were a very positive influence during my initial two months in the Navy.

Boiler Technician Chief Cotham and Boatswains Mate Chief Capaldi.