Virtute et armis - By courage and by arms -- (Veteran’s Day 2009)

Virtute et armis - By courage and by arms -- (Veteran’s Day 2009)

By R.J. Godlewski

November 11, 2009, All Rights Reserved

Author’s Note: This article is dedicated to the victims and survivors of the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas on 5 November 2009, the latest victims of runaway Islamic terrorism. My heart and my prayers go out to all and to those who have ever honorably worn the proud uniform of the United States Armed Forces.

    I had begun this particular article as something of a semi-autobiographical tribute to the Navy and a photomontage of my active service from boot camp on through separation of service. While I have included these photographs at the conclusion of this piece sans the descriptive commentaries from each shot, I’ve found that I simply cannot write about my service alone. In my eight years plus several months of service (four years active, the remainder in various elements of the Reserves), I cannot attest to anything of enough importance to toot my own horn as it were. In fact, I am quite embarrassed to speak of my two Honorable discharges for contrary to the advertisements running at the time on television; I viewed the U.S. Navy as simply a job and nothing more.   

    My association with the Navy began in the frigid cold of Great Lakes, Illinois during that infamous holiday season of 1981/1982 when the mercury dropped to minus-45° F. without the wind and eighty-five below with wind chill. During Christmas, recruits were granted parole for the day and allowed to leave the base with our families but the electricity was out in Waukegan and so my parents, grandmother, and youngest sister ate in the local Denny’s frozen to our seats (of what food there was without power to prepare it, I cannot remember).

    Graduation was not much better, and I stayed in Great Lakes to attend Basic Electricity and Electronics School (Modules 1-25) and Electrician’s Mate Class “A” School after the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, informed me that I would become an electrician and that I would like it or else. I didn’t; not really. I blew a test midway through “A” school and got bumped from the nuclear program.  Eventually, I did get orders to Pearl Harbor, which in itself thawed out my rump but I did not realize that my first command in the fleet, the U.S.S. Jason (AR-8), was once torpedoed by the Japanese during the Second World War. 

  It was only during our brief deployment to the Western Pacific in 1983 that I felt as if we were making a difference on the world stage. The Soviets had shot down Korean Air 007 when we were docked in Japan and the Jason repaired the ships that were out searching for wreckage. Other than that, I served mostly as a tourist as being in Japan for three straight months (in Yokosuka, then a brief spell in Sasebo after we returned from a month in Subic Bay, Philippines and a week in Pusan, Korea) provided us with an opportunity to peruse the oriental nation.

    After my tour with the Jason ended, I was assigned to the U.S.S. Worden (CG-18). I didn’t like it for I was used to a non-combat ship that with women aboard seemed a bit like a cruise ship than a veteran of battle. That and the fact that I had given up on drinking (heavily) during the weekends meant that my attitude needed adjustment. I also developed a reaction to something, probably just psychosomatic and sent on medical hold for a month while they analyzed me to see if my body was functioning properly. It was, but being away from my command for a month sent me on orders to the U.S.S. Benjamin Stoddert (DDG-22). After only six weeks aboard the Worden, the next year aboard the Stoddert made me fall in love with the ship. It was, in my opinion, the best command in the fleet – the Benny Sweat, “Pineapple Fleet’s Finest!” as our command flag pronounced as we passed the Papa Hotel buoy inbound at thirty-four knots.

    Unfortunately, aboard the Stoddert, I had only a year left in the Navy and I knew that it wasn’t quite the military service that I had envisioned long before as I snuck into the adult section of the Detroit Public Library as a five-year-old to drool over photographs of B-52 bombers. The truth is, I wanted to become an Air Force pilot after college but could not afford tuition and with my eyes going bad, chose my other great love – the sea.

    My service was before push button anything and we used to stand twelve-hour switchboard watches aboard the Jason in 140 ° F. temperatures as the engine room was located directly above the fire room. Usually, we handled the heat by stripping down to our underwear until the skipper showed up for inspection or we were training one of the women.

    Then, my service ended with a whimper. Two years inactive Reserves and I received my first Honorable discharge. Six years later, during the lead up to Desert Storm, I wanted to return back into active duty but on the day that I was scheduled to take my physical, the Navy cancelled all rescores (transition into another rating). I knew that we steamship electricians were useless but the Navy correctly assumed that it would be cheaper to train someone from scratch than Navy veterans and so I entered the Reserves as Electrician’s Mate Three Class (eventually for all of seven years!) Godlewski and assigned to Mine Division 125 out of Charleston, SC. They were the harbor minesweepers and therefore considered a shore duty station, which I earned via normal sea-shore duty rotations.

   There were three things that I remember from the Reserves. 1.) Because the Southfield, Michigan Reserve center was small enough to be located on the Army site, my unit drilled in a church convent (yes, sailors sharing the halls with nuns and priests!), 2.) During my first and only active duty two-week period, the Soviets tried to overthrow Gorbachev and the military went on alert; and 3.) During my active duty for training period I lived in the Marine barracks, (God bless the Corps! – Great bunch of guys! ;o) ).

    Then they decommissioned my unit, I moved to East Lansing to attend Michigan State, and the Reserve center there wanted nothing to do with another electrician’s mate. Ergo, my last year in the military saw me living as if I was a civilian, though I had met Sara a few months before I received my second Honorable discharge.

    As I have said, my service in the Navy was pathetically boring. I actually feel embarrassed whenever someone thanks me for my service. Perhaps because of this, I have subsequently dedicated my life to doing whatever I could to help this great nation of ours. My efforts to combat terrorism arise from this need to contribute back to the country that I love deeply. I realize how insignificant my own service was because, among other things, many of my fellow classmates at American Military University are presently serving on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    I find it extremely difficult understanding how they could fight a brutal war and still find an opportunity to further their education. They should be teaching us! Myself, I am having difficulty just trying to convince my Muslim professor that Islamic terrorism is not America’s fault or that Israel is not the bane of the world. These people are out there in an honest to goodness shooting war!

    Then something dawned upon me. Here I am studying about terrorists blowing themselves up and taking as many of us along with them as they can. I am learning the intricate art of improvised explosive devices (IEDs), improvised nuclear devices (INDs), and can shoot and fieldstrip AK-47s and AR-15s amongst other weapons and, yet, I cannot relate to those currently protecting our lives. How much further removed, then, is the mind of the rest of America?

    Can we truly comprehend what these fine soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines are going through? Can we, for the briefest of moments, imagine what their predecessors accomplished in battles too numerous to recall here? My generation simply did not pass the torch from our brethren in Vietnam to our friends who served gallantly from Desert Storm on through the present wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere throughout the world. We merely handed off a thimble of smoldering embers. They took our infinitesimal gift and restored it to the roaring fire of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

    As seemingly inadequate as my own naval service seems today, even more so appears my gratitude to these fine men and women who I shall always admire and appreciate. I have been a writer for three full decades – the same length of time that represents my personal crusade against Islamic radicalism – and yet I cannot find words adequate to show my appreciation to those who are currently serving or have served honorably within the greatest military force the world has ever seen. Towards this end, I shall abdicate and resort to cliché:

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND ALL WHO SERVE HER PROUDLY!

THANK YOU ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Pictures below the fold:

Figure 1. R.J. Godlewski in Boot Camp ~ 1981.
Basic boot camp survival dictates that one make light of his introduction to “psychological warfare” and so here I am hamming it up in my underwear.  Embarrassing? Yes. Expensive? Damn straight. Ever smuggle a Polaroid into basic training during the height of the Cold War?

 
Figure 2. R.J. Godlewski (arrow) writing home from Boot Camp in 1981.
Okay, now I’m fully clothed. Just dig those glasses; I went through about a dozen pairs because every time we ran into people during “competitive” marching they shattered against my face.

 
Figure 3. Company 407th "MASH" during graduation. January, 1982.

Figure 4. Seaman Recruit R.J. Godlewski (arrow) marching in formation during Pass & Review. January, 1982.

 

Figure 5. Fireman R.J. Godlewski hamming it up in our "A" School barracks. Great Lakes, IL.  1982.

 

Figure 6. U.S.S. Jason AR-8.
My first fleet command (1982 to 1984). That porthole just aft of the anchor (where you see the red hose coming down) is the anchor windlass compartment. That was my Sea & Anchor detail station and as luck would have it, the electrical controls were right next to the porthole so I sat on an angle iron in front of the controls and got to see firsthand the ports we entered while all the other electricians were down in the shops or standing watch in the 140° F. engine rooms.

 

Figure 7. U.S.S. Jason AR-8 Electrical shop.
This, I think, was EE01. I served in EE04? which was one deck below just above the aft engine room.

 

Figure 8. R.J. Godlewski in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. 1982.

 
Figure 9. R.J. Godlewski standing in front of Pearl Harbor chapel.
Boy, was I tanned or what?

 
Figure 10. U.S.S. Jason AR-8 Engineering berthing.
The arrow points to my bunk for two years and I use to leap up to about the height where you see those boots on top of our lockers, grab the curtain rail, and swing my carcass up into bed. Did I mention that I was in good shape back then??? 

 
Figure 11. U.S.S. Jason AR-8 Captain O.C. Martin bestowing letter of appreciation upon Electrician's Mate Third Class R.J. Godlewski ~October, 1983.

    This official U.S. Navy photograph was taken somewhere in the Western Pacific, in Japan if I remember my records correctly. I received two letters of appreciation that day – one for outstanding service during the Jason’s Routine Overhaul (ROH) and one for rebuilding the ship’s brig. That girl that you see over my right shoulder and I rewired the brig but our First Class Petty Officer (who rarely showed up during the work) received a letter of commendation for his “work” in the brig.

 
Figure 12. U.S.S. Jason returns from deployment to Pearl Harbor from deployment to Western Pacific. November, 1983.

 
Figure 13. EM3 R.J. Godlewski home on Christmas leave 1983.
That’s my mom and our collie Sandy (standing behind her in the kitchen). Of more importance, however, I’ve got that very rocking chair right behind me now in my office. Never, ever give up a comfortable rocker! ;o)

 
Figure 14. EM3 R.J. Godlewski underway aboard U.S.S. Jason AR-8. July, 1984.
I’ve lost that 28-inch waistline, but I’ve still got those binoculars (purchased at the base exchange in Yokosuka, Japan) sitting on that aforementioned rocking chair at this very moment.

 
Figure 15. U.S.S. Worden CG-18. Fall, 1984.
My second command, a guided missile cruiser. Only spent about six weeks aboard so there’s not much to tell. Went on medical hold for a month and was re-assigned to a different command.

 
Figure 16. U.S.S. Benjamin Stoddert DDG-22. Underway off Hawaiian Islands ~ 1985.
My last active duty command. I absolutely loved the “Benny Sweat”. She was most definitely “Pineapple Fleet’s Finest!” as our command flag heralded.

In the lower center of the photograph, you’ll see a hatch leading below. If you took that hatch down one deck and proceed forward, you would run into the engineering berthing compartment (electrician’s, machinists, and boiler techs). My bunk (as in all three ships, third high) was right against the hull on the port side. The missile launcher – that circular monstrosity that you see in the center right of the image – formed our berthing compartment’s aft bulkhead. They used to test that thing that all hours in the morning or night and whenever the launcher would rotate it sounded like a zillion garbage cans being hit with sledgehammers!

Just aft of that hatch – probably beneath where I was standing when I took the photo – was the electrical shop where I worked when not servicing everything else aboard the ship. It was about the size of a small office, so we basically just mustered there in the mornings and left on our assignments.
I once saw the Stoddert, long after I left the Navy, as the background for some exercise program on television. She would eventually sink while being towed to the scrap yard. Fitting, good ships should never be broken down and now she’ll always be part of the sea.

 
Figure 17. R.J. Godlewski arriving Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
I’m not 100% positive, but I believe that this is when I arrived home after being separated from active duty service ~ November 13th, 1985. I had a couple days of separation leave and so left on the 13th instead of the 16th.
I was happy to get out of the Navy then, but today I am extremely sad. It was a great life for someone just out of high school but the wisdom and maturity of age would have had me do a few things differently. For starters, I would have chosen something a bit more appealing to both me and the Navy than being an electrician. Not that I held any misgivings over the job that I did do, just that I might have been able and willing to stay in until retirement had I truly made a difference. Then again, without electricity, the ships I served aboard wouldn’t have gone anywhere.
ONCE NAVY, ALWAYS NAVY! GOD BLESS THE SAILORS OF THE GREATEST NAVY IN THE WORLD!

Comments

[Skunkfeathers]

God Bless our true veterans; to hell with the traitors and their appeasement-oriented voices in the media.

[Debbie]

God bless them "all but one" (Maj. Hasan)

[Maggie Thornton]

Thanks RJ for this very personal tribute.

[R.J. Godlewski]

Thank you everybody!

It is quite apropos that both Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day surround Thanksgiving, when we offer appreciation for our many blessings; Christmas, when we congregate to spread good will amongst all men; New Years, when we all look towards a brighter future for ourselves, our families, and our friends; and Easter, when God Himself died upon the Cross to make us holy as those who died serving us have made us free.

Not to sound melodramatic, but without those in the military none of these things would be known to us.

R.J.

[nancz]

Thank you, Veterans - with the exception of those who brutally turn on our TRUE VETERANS in a an izzie-tizzie. God forgive me.

[Tim (highboy)]

Happy veterans day to you and yours. Thanks to Rj and everyone else like him. Great post for the holiday.