sam smith in the lonely hour target 8th cottage

I, of course, was immediately targeted for all manner of jokes, tricks, and other humiliations quite a lesson. Then, this brash young midshipman, and one from the Naval Academy to boot, shows up, and he’s asking about career patterns and duty assignments as though they were really good things.

They were ensigns and lieutenants (junior grade), and they were not bubbling at all about being in the Navy. There were five other junior officers aboard. Well, that was my first mistake bubbling, that is. As to (“airmen”, who cares?) I found my ship and reported aboard, bubbling with enthusiasm to be part of this enormous Navy armada. (An aside: I don’t know why Marine is always capitalized while sailor and soldier are not, but I don’t object, based on my experiences with them. The port was crawling with American sailors and Marines, since a carrier group as well as the PhibRon was in port.

I don’t remember every step of the way that I took to get to my ship, but I do recall that I reported aboard in Palma de Mallorca in the Spanish Balearic Islands. So, at the age of 21, that’s what I set off to do. I was greatly disappointed, but still, I was determined to make the most of it to have a good experience. A landing ship dock, the Donner could submerge its stern section enough to let various amphibious landing craft float in and out of its “well deck.” She could carry two landing craft utility units (LCUs), which are very large, or a larger number of smaller landing craft. I was headed to the USS Donner (LSD 20) of Amphibious Squadron 8 (PhibRon 8) in the Mediterranean Fleet. When the list of assignments was posted, I realized my worst nightmare – I was to spend First Class Cruise on a lumbering amphibious ship not a dashing destroyer. My class standing wasn’t the best, shall we say, and so I was worried about how I might get assigned for first class cruise. I had already spent youngster cruise on a destroyer based in Mayport, Florida, the USS Turner (DDR 834). While many of my classmates hoped to someday serve in submarines or fly jet aircraft or pound the ground in the Marine Corps, my desire was to go down to the sea in surface warships, preferably in the destroyer force. Both were good training and good experience situations. We had spent a like period after our first year, called youngster cruise, in which we served aboard ships in enlisted men’s billets. The Night I Mooned the Entire North Vietnamese Armyįirst class cruise was about a six-week period in the summer following the third Naval Academy academic year in which we new first classmen (seniors) could serve aboard Navy ships in the capacity of junior officers.

Sam smith in the lonely hour target 8th cottage