Fond Memories

So I am sitting at work in JC watching Fleet week unfold out my window….a birds eye view of all the Warships sailing into NYC , and I suddenly recall an interesting anecdote from my days as a squid aboard the USS Luce (DDG-38) …….late February 1988 and we are entering the port of Marseille France, we bring the Harbor Master and an interpreter onto the bridge wing, as is customary. As we draw pier side there are two civilian schooners that belonged to Greenpeace blocking our path and protesting our arrival……back in 88 , their gig was to throw paint balloons filled with pink paint at Military ships…….Our Captain , who was a bit of a wuss ( Cdr Lance A Waters) was trying to have the interpreter tell the HM to radio the ships and advise them to keep a safe distance……….they ignored…….The Weapons Officer ( Cdr Knoble) tells the HM , bypassing the interpreter " Tell them to back the F off , or I am going to blow them out of the water"…….The Harbor Master….a real Frog…shrugged his shoulders to act like he did not understand……..The Weapo just smiled, turned his back on the HM and gave the order for the 50 Caliber machine gunners to train their weapons right at Greenpeace……within seconds we have our weapons pointed at their ships and the Harbor Master is talking to them in French and everyone suddenly understood….they hightailed it away from our Ship asap………Cdr Knoble , pointing to our Big Guns and talking to our Captain told em …."Sir…that's the only interpreter I ever Trust".