Some Interesting People

by Bob Mullins (ex MN3)

While I don’t desire to re-enlist (as if my age didn’t preclude the venture), I must say that the Navy did give me the opportunity to do and see things that I never would have and probably never will again. One of the really worthwhile (and, yes, sadly, sometimes worthless) benefits is the people one encounters. For any non veteran types reading this you may not understand the closeness that a crew will develop in a very short time or the variety of people that will comprise a military detachment. I had good friends from all over America of widely varying backgrounds and some (only a very few I think) enemies. I’m not really as interested in this composition about naming and pining over long ago friends as I am in talking about the most well known man that I met in my naval career.

This sea story begins with a young, naïve, disillusioned sailor in the tropical paradise of Oahu, Hawaii. Ammunition depots are traditionally and with good reason set out away from anything important. Should there be a catastrophic incident, the damage would be limited to the depot (and crew) and not other more strategically critical equipment (like an admiral or something). NAV MAG Lualualei West Loch Branch was surrounded on three sides by sugar cane fields. A body of water (West Loch) where the ships docked and loaded or unloaded weapons as they entered or left Pearl Harbor bordered the other side. One of the grinds of military life is that it can become a never ending or changing routine. This can lead restless young men to do otherwise foolish things like...volunteering! One fine morning (as so many of them were in that climate) the Chief (J.J. Sbei of New York I think) read to us during morning quarters a request for volunteers who knew the island and could drive. I unhesitatingly leaped at the chance (everyone else knew that to volunteer was usually a dumb thing to do) to break the monotonous routine that I had become mired in. In a short period of time I was reporting to CINCPACFLT motor pool and assigned a car (a pale blue Plymouth) and a Filipino general to drive around for different conferences and souvenir hunting. He was a nice enough guy but I didn’t think he was all that interesting. It did get me out of the box I was in and afforded me to live in Main Base Pearl Harbor and compare lives with other sailors for a week. I was never a grand photography bug but I regretted not having a camera when I was able to line up a full moon between the masts of two destroyers just as the sun rose. A romantic and inspiring sight. After my return to the Mines Division, another man (MN3 Vince Severs) went and upon his return informed me that he was happier where he was at and that I could have all the driving that came along.

A couple of weeks later, the call came again and I was only too happy to oblige. This time I was quartered on Ford Island and had to take a launch back and forth to catch a bus to the motor pool. This lead to the morning that I got to see the CVA Corral Sea (that’s an aircraft carrier) from the water level up as she pulled into the harbor. It blotted out the entire universe, or so it seemed and the whaleboat that they used to ferry us back and forth was suddenly so terribly small. A very impressionable sight that I remember to this day. I made some pleasant acquaintances and was assigned some guys to drive around. This time, instead of foreign officers, they were members of the American Ambassador Corp. I drew the Ambassador to South Viet Nam (this was before the fall of Saigon) the Honorable Graham Martin and the Head of the Diplomatic Envoy to Peking (Richard Nixon had started normalizing relations with China) the Honorable George Herbert Walker Bush. At the time, I had no idea of how close I was to greatness. I remember that Mr. Bush loved to play tennis and that I had the privilege of backing that stupid Plymouth into a flower bed at CINCPACFLT Admiral Gaylor’s residence after one of their matches. There were no witnesses so I avoided punishment and never admitted it to any one til now. Also, the always personable one-day-to-be President Mr Bush took me with him to visit some friends at the Hanama Bay Country Club. It was interesting to hear the other occasional passengers in the car refer to Henry (Kissinger) in an informal manner. Ambassador Martin had to return to Viet Nam early during the conference so that I had little contact with him. As Mr. Bush’s political career carried him to ever lofty heights of power and prestige, I often remembered that I got to meet and converse with a great man and will probably never have that type of opportunity again. It is amazing to me that I have met Admirals and future Presidents (ok, just one) all the while being a little old third class petty officer from a fairly small Texas town.