An excerpt from the
forthcoming part memoir and part transitional-advice book, intended for the civilian employer as a way to better understand the
transitioning veteran
From
the middle of May to the first part of July, I partook in my first underway
period to Perth, Western Australia. Upon
returning to Japan, I started my new position, divisional yeoman. While keyboarding or typing is pretty much a
given in the 21st Century’s military, in the early 1990s, having a
junior enlisted sailor with this skill set was rare. One lunch period on the Australian deployment,
my division officer and LPO walked by the galley. My Div-O called for me with a folder in one
hand and waving at me with the other.
“Stone, come here for a second. I
met with my Div-O, Mr. Jerome. “Little
Joey”, we called Mr. Jerome affectionately and behind his back, was a graduate
from Vanderbilt University’s ROTC program and the Navy Supply Corp School in
Athens, GA. Mr. Jerome was a newly
promoted LTJG that came onto the ship about 18 months before me. He had been a division officer at the
Disbursing office, S-4 division. In his
new role, he had become accustom to the support of the veteran enlisted
personnel, like my LPO and others in key positions in S-5. The Navy, being cyclical in nature was seeing
some of these key people rotating off the Indy.
This was the case with the division’s current yeoman, Petty Officer
Third Class Pelzer.
“Stone,
I have been reviewing your personnel file and noticed that you took typing in
the 10th grade. “Yes sir,
that is correct.”, I replied with proper military bearing. “Very good.”, Mr. Jerome replied with a
relieved look on his face. My LPO chimed
in, “The day after tomorrow, the Indy will be back in Yokosuka and at that
time, I want you and Petty Officer Pelzer to do a turnover. Pelzer will be transferring off the Indy
before we deploy to the Persian Gulf later this year.”
Just
like that, I was the division’s new yeoman.
The thought of not having to get up at 0500 and working in the hot
galley was a relief and I was thanking my stars for Mrs. Olsen’s typing class
at Riverside High School. In Yokosuka, I
celebrated Independence Day on the Indy with inport 24-hour duty. This was a Sunday, and with my first weekend
back in Japan, the new bond that happens with sailors when they serve together
on an underway period such as the Australian deployment created a pack of guys
that were thick as thieves. The Saturday
before, I decided to burn the midnight oil as we hit the Keikyu Line north to
Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station transferring to the Yamamote Line, getting off at the
Ebisu Station and taking the subway to the unofficial junior enlisted man’s
headquarters, Roppongi. Of course,
before leaving the base in Yokosuka, there was a stop by the package store
where cheap bottles of “Mad Dog 20-20” were purchased and consumed on the
train.
The
night out was like the previous times before the Australian deployment. Get to Roppongi by 8pm, hit all of the bars
and night clubs that start to charge a cover later in the night to get their
stamps allowing free access later that night, and justify our presence in these
places by adhering to the facilities’ rule, “Having a drink in hand at all
times”. I must have done this two or three
times a month from July to September. At
one of these excursions to Roppongi, I met a Japanese woman, who was from
Saitama.
While
I had a great time painting the town with my newfound brothers on the ship in
the big city of Tokyo, I made good on my commitment to the job by reporting to
duty the following morning on time, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed despite not
leaving Tokyo till 5am. This was by
virtue of the trains resuming service at that time after being stopped from
11am the previous morning. To this day,
99% of your everyday veteran in the civilian workforce will find a way to get
to work on time despite the obstacles that they may have faced. I guess a bad thing to point out about this
was feeling the need to blow off steam on an all-night excursion knowing that I
had to be on duty the next day. This
discrepancy is something that is commonly done after long periods of hard work
on the high seas and a good thing about this is this sort of indulgence is out
of the transitioning veteran’s system by the time they reach the civilian
workforce. Lastly, another good thing
about veterans is that most can pick up and go with a new assignment and can
make changes to their routine on the fly despite the misconception that
veterans struggle in the civilian world due to the military world being overly
structured.
Are you a fan of coming-of-age stories of about everyday guys from small town USA discovering themselves on war machines such as aircraft carriers in far off places and the like? If so, I would love to hear from you:
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