"Friends in High Places"

In Which I Luck Out Once Again

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The old saying that “It’s not what you know but who you know that counts” has a big grain of truth in it. Having friends in high places is indeed an important asset. However, it can happen that your ability to draw on such friends involves a certain degree of dumb luck.  In this case, I lucked out once again - and I learned something about leadership.

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After returning from my first tour in WestPac I managed to wangle myself a temporary transfer to the Service School Com­mand at the Naval Training Center out on Rose­crans Avenue in San Diego.  I was working on a fire control system for which I had never been trained and, after repeated requests, I was finally allowed to attend the six-week training course for that system.

I’m about four weeks into the training and enjoying my temporary shore duty.  Too much as it turns out.  I’m downtown in the Panama Bar, a place that has long since disappeared, when the Shore Patrol comes in and starts checking ID cards.  I’m only 20, but I’ve got an ID card that says I’m 21 (and I'll explain how that happened in a bit).

The Shore Patrol checks my ID card, which says I'm of age, then decides to haul me in anyway because  they think I’ve had too much to drink.  Into the paddy wagon I go and down to Shore Patrol headquarters.  After about five hours in the tank, they load me into the paddy wagon again and haul me out to the training center.  My ID card and my liberty card, along with the Shore Patrol report are turned over to the base duty officer and I’m told I’m restricted to the base until disposition of my case.  I wasn’t worried about being restricted because I had my real ID card safely stowed in my locker, along with a spare liberty card or two. 

About three days later, I’m called down to the office at the FT school I’m attending.  I walk up to this guy in a white shirt and black tie and say, “Sir, my name’s Nickols.  I was told to report to the office.”

“Don’t call me ‘sir,’ Nickols!   My name is Chief Thompson.”  I felt like telling him he ought to get his rank tattooed on his forehead because there’s no telling an officer from a chief when they’re wearing blues and they’ve got their blouses off.  But, instead I said, “Right, Chief.”

“Nickols,” the chief says, "do you have your ID card on you?”

Without thinking, I said, “Yep.  Right here in my wallet.”

“Lemme see it.”

I took out my wallet, extracted my ID card, and handed it to the chief.

“Well, well, looky here,” says the chief.  “What have we here?   Two ID cards!  My, my.”

The chief had the Shore Patrol report and my other ID card.

“I was all set to give you back your ID and liberty card,” grins the chief, “but now that I see you have two of ‘em, I guess we’ll just have to send you up to Captain’s Mast.  And I’ll hang on to this,” indicating my second ID card.

This chief was a man who really liked his job.  I had been promoted to third-class petty officer not too long before and I had visions of that crow flying off my arm and being replaced by a set of seaman’s stripes.  At any rate, I’m now a piece of meat caught up in the Navy's legal machinery.

The following week, I go to X.O.’s Mast.  The executive officer screens all disciplinary cases to determine if he should handle them or forward them to the C.O. for a full-fledged Captain’s Mast or, at the C.O.’s discretion, a courts-martial.

Apparently, I'm the only one in trouble at the time because I’m the only one at the X.O.’s office.  I’m sitting in the X.O.’s reception area with the base legal officer, a full lieutenant, who is busily reading me the riot act.  He’s telling me that he’s going to personally see to it that the X.O. sends me to see the Captain; that possessing two ID cards is a big crime; that, all things considered, I must be a worthless piece of dog shit; and, finally, that I can kiss my crow good-bye.  Here, too, was another fellow who enjoyed his work.  I never saw so many highly motivated people in all my life.

After a half-hour wait beyond the ap­pointed time, the lieutenant picks up my service record and the disciplinary paperwork, says, “Let's go, sailor,” gets up from his desk and opens the door to the X.O.'s office.

The X.O. looks up, his eyes get wide, and he says, “Nick!  What the hell are you doin’ here?”  My eyes are just as wide, because the X.O. of the Service School Command is – or was – the commanding officer of my ship when I was trans­ferred to the training center for the course I was attending.  I blurt out, “Skipper!  What are you doin’ here?” 

The lieutenant is freaking out.  Eyes dart­ing back and forth between me and the X.O., the lieutenant can’t stand the pressure of his own curiosity, so he asks both of us, “You two know one another?”

The executive officer of the Service School Command, the full commander I thought was out at the 32^nd Street Naval Station and in command of my ship, replies, “Yes, we do, lieuten­ant.  That’ll be all.  I'll handle this.”

Dismissed, the lieutenant drops my papers on the X.O.’s desk and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

Now I’ve got a pretty good relationship with this commander, the man who was my Captain and was now the X.O. of the Service School Command.  I’m a curious sort and I spent many of my off-duty hours on board ship hanging around other work areas to see what I could learn.  I talked a Radioman into teaching me Morse code and I spent a lot of time hanging around the Sig­nalmen up on the bridge, badgering them to let me apply my knowledge of Morse code via the flashing lights on the bridge.  I got pretty good at sending but I never mastered receiving.

Being on the bridge a lot brought me into contact with the Captain.  This particular Captain had once told me – in front of all the signalmen back by the flag bags – that I was so skinny that a double-barrelled shotgun would make me a good pair of Levis.

With the lieutenant out of the room, I ask again, “What are you doin’ here, skipper?”

“Humanitarian shore duty,” came the reply.  “My wife is extremely ill, so the Commo­dore (the four-striper who commanded our squad­ron of destroyers) arranged for me to be trans­ferred here temporarily.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, skipper.  Is she gonna be all right?”

“I think so.”

“Will you be going back?”

“Yes, probably in about a month.  In the meantime, Lieutenant Commander Lake will be the acting C.O.  Now, what about you?  How the hell did you get two ID cards?”

“Well, just before I came over here to school, I lost my ID card.  I put in a special request chit for a new one and when I filled it out I was wishin’ that I had been born in 1936 instead of 1937 so I’d be 21.  I guess I put down 1936 for my date of birth ‘cause when I got my new ID card, that’s what it said.  So, there I was, with a nice, new official ID card that said I was 21 instead of 20.  Then I found my old ID card down in the plotting room.”

What I didn’t tell him was that I knew the ship’s office was swamped and I didn’t think they’d take the time to verify the date on my request against the date of birth in my service record.  And apparently they hadn’t.

“When are you scheduled to go back to the ship?” asked the skipper.

“Next week.”

“Well, I can’t very well send you back to the ship as a seaman, now, can I?  It wouldn’t look very good to the crew if I came over here for a month and while I was here I had you busted, would it?”

“No, sir,” said I, anxious to confirm the decision in his question.

“I’m gonna give you a warning, Nick.”  Looking at the two ID cards clipped to my service record, he asked, “Which of these ID cards do you want?”

“The right one, sir.”

He smiled, said, “Good answer,” then handed me one of the ID cards which I promptly tucked in my jumper pocket.  He then cut up the other one and threw it in his wastebasket.

Buzzing the lieutenant on his intercom, the X.O. looked up when the lieutenant entered and said, “X.O.’s warning.

“But, sir,” began the lieutenant.

“X.O.s warning,” repeated my skipper.

“Yes, sir.”

On the way out, the lieutenant muttered, “You’re a lucky little bastard, aren’t you?”  I said nothing.

Once outside, I pulled the ID card from my jumper pocket, looked at it and began laugh­ing.  The skipper had given me the ID card saying I was 21 years old.  “Damn,” I thought to myself, “I’d follow that man anywhere.”  And for another year, that’s exactly what I did.