Note to HEGSETH: Ur no Admiral ZUMWALT - (beards were emblematic of something else, not "grooming" )

[UTUSN]

8. Both of mine, too.

Last edited Wed Oct 8, 2025, 01:41 PM - Edit history (2)

The LST was built in 1945, a little too late for WW II, then served in Korea, at some point decommissioned then recommissioned and on to Vietnam. It was rusted and leaky by 1967 and we called it "benjo maru" (Japanese for "s**t ship" ) . It stayed on till 1971 and was brought back the last time and the outcome is murky, something about sold to a country south for use as a freighter. The bell, below, is honored at a Marine base.

My second was brand new, not finished when I got on it at the Bremerton, WA, shipbuilding place, so we spent seven months with per diem to rent in Seattle until it was ready. Oh, Seattle, the remains of the World's Fair, riding the monorail there for concerts and a movie premiere, and my first and only opera and ballet. "Schooners" goblets of beer. First time for snow. Bookstores and antique shops, riding the ferry across the Sound daily to the ship. We were the Commissioning crew, known as Plankowners (named for the "planks" of wooden ships) , eligible to claim a piece of the ship when it would be scrapped, supposedly, because at the scrapping the contractors are only interested in their work and getting paid, not sentimental traditions. So when it was ready, proceeded the Shakedown Cruise, like a new car, breaking it in - down the coast, stop at San Diego, stop at Acapulco, through the Panama Canal, over to Guantanamo Bay for six weeks of running around exercises, beer at the base green from (formaldehyde?) preservative, Liberty stopovers at New Orleans and (Navy humor: ) Haiti - amazing that 30 and more years later Haiti and Gitmo stayed in the news. Stopover at Mayport/Jacksonville, finally to the destination, homeport Norfolk, VA - any explanation for building a ship on one coast and homeporting it on the other?

I never thought I'd see my new ship decommissioned and scrapped, given that the first one was used to the last piece of rust.