leaflets from the mind revisited.

18 May 2006

I was on my way to O’Haras for a quick bite and a cold brew at lunch , when I passed an older gentlemen in a Naval Ballcap from a ship….I see them all the time and I always look to see what ship they are from…in case it’s an old shipmate from the USS Luce. This one was from the USS Vincennes (CG-49). I gave him a knowing nod and kept going on my way. When I got to O’haras the METS were on TV , but my mind was elsewhere. I remembered waking up the morning of July 4th 1988 in a hotel near the beach in Cannes France. The Shore Patrol was rounding up US military personnel in the lobbies of the hotels, and we didn’t know why…….we did know we were in no rush to go back to our ship….Not when there was beer to drink and Independance to Celebrate…so we waited for the SP to go to the next hotel and we snuck down the ally looking for a dive bar to drink in…….we found one……we were drinking Kronenbourg for about an hour or two before a new bartender came out from the back room and asked us if we were 7th fleet ? No not us we lied, and continued to imbibe……he knew we were and he knew we didn’t trust him, so he turned on the Television ……on the French News we saw two things that got our attention…….on was a bulletin banner at the bottom of the screen that was scrolling across. Advising that the US Navy was recalling all 7th Fleet sailors to their ships immediately….all leave and liberty were cancelled……why would this be on the French TV ?? the story on the news was showing a lifeboat fishing dead bodies out of the water somewhere….of course we could not understand what they were saying. The bartender kept pointing to the TV and advising us to leave his bar. We did a shot for Old Liberty and a Beer for July 4th and walked back to the pier…….the pier in cannes was Chaos, something huge had happened…there were demonstrators being held back by Police barriers and people were screaming at us and calling us murderers….I thought we must be at war …finally…….when we returned to our ship we learned that the USS Vincennes had shot down an Iranian Jet Airline and killed approx 300 people onboard….accidentally…the Iranian craft was heading straight for them and refused to alter their course…….we went out to sea for the next 2 weeks until the furor blew over. As I sat in O’Haras I marveled at another moment in history were I had a front row seat……