(Click on all photos to enlarge)
Aboard USS McFAUL (DDG-74):
On days in my kayak when my mind is not cluttered with the multitude of world problems, our amply shared human foibles, or other depressing thoughts, I’m able to relax and entertain pleasant ruminations such as my last assignment with the Program Afloat for College Education (PACE).
In July 2008, I accepted an assignment aboard USS McFaul, DDG 74, a Guided Missile Destroyer. A Destroyer is quite a bit smaller than an amphibious assault ship such as the Kearsarge (my previous teaching assignment). There are normally only about 23 Officers, 24 Chief Petty Officers, and 291 sailors on a Destroyer, and McFaul was undermanned.
Central Texas College (PACE) flew me to Odessa, Ukraine, where I went aboard McFaul and set about preparing to teach four writing courses. This time, I was the only PACE instructor on board, and I was lucky to have the Executive Officer (X.O.) offer the Commanding Officer’s At Sea cabin for my berthing and work space. It was very compact, but it had a sink, toilet, pull down bed, which provided a large worktable when stowed and, best of all, privacy – something almost unheard of on a Navy ship. I immediately became a part of the crew when a female officer, Lt. Nicole Valentine, invited me to join a group of officers and sailors who were going, with the X.O., to run the infamous Odessa Steps. We left the ship and ran the mile and a half to the steps, ran up and down the steps three times and ran back to the ship. Since I have been running steps since 1979, I had no problem with the run and that fact played a large part (especially in view of my advanced age) in my being accepted as part of the crew. We did the same run again before departing Odessa for the Eastern Mediterranean, and did a similar workout a few times during stops at Souda Bay, Crete. On those workouts, we would run a mile and a half up and down hills to a tiny beach on the Aegean Sea, swim out about 500 yards to an island, swim back to the beach, and run back to the ship. It was a good workout. – especially for a 69-year-old English instructor.
The most memorable part of the trip (aside from my classes and group work-outs) was the selection of McFaul to be the first U.S. Warship to go to the aid of Georgia after that country was invaded by Russia. We were one day away from Haifa, in the Mediterranean, and were looking forward to a tour of the Holy Land, when the Captain informed the ship’s company that we were turning around and going back to Crete to pick up supplies to take back into the Black Sea to assist Georgia. The disappointment caused by missing a probably once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to visit the Holy Land, gave way to the euphoric news that my son, Tim, would be at Crete (Souda Bay) on the day we would be there picking up the supplies. Consider this: McFaul was supposed to be in Haifa, Israel, but the Russian invasion of Georgia caused a need for critical supplies, and McFaul was tasked with returning to Souda Bay to pick up the supplies and once again transit the Turkish Straits into the Black Sea to deliver them to Georgia. My son, Tim, was supposed to be in Louisiana where his ship (USNS Benavidez) was undergoing maintenance, but the Captain of USNS Fisher was unable to make a scheduled trip, so Tim took the Fisher on the trip to Kuwait. Tim and I had joked through E-mail, as soon as he set sail on the trip he was not scheduled to make, that we might end up being on two ships passing in the night somewhere in the Mediterranean, but McFaul’s X.O., Tim Gibboney, tracked USNS Fisher and learned that she would be arriving in Souda around the same time we would arrive there. An agnostic would no doubt attribute all that to just one of life’s coincidences, but I wouldn’t. God is good. To make a long story short, the X.O. arranged for me to be taken by one of the port security boats out to Tim’s ship for a two- hour visit. Tim’s ship did not come into the dock, because he was only picking up a security detail for his transit of the Suez Canal and passage through the Gulf of Aden (pirate country). Had it not been for the X.O., I would not have been able to meet with Tim, but only wave to him as he sailed by. The port security guys came back to Tim’s ship at the end of our visit and transported me back to McFaul, and both McFaul and Fisher left Souda Bay one behind the other: Fisher for the Suez Canal, the Arabian Sea, the Persian Gulf and Kuwait; McFaul for the Turkish Straits, the Black Sea and Georgia. Although unplanned, McFaul, while I was aboard, transited the Turkish Straits three times, and each time was special.
The Turkish Straits are two narrow straits: The Dardanelles and the Bosporus. The Dardanelles lie on the Aegean Sea side of the Sea of Marmara; the Bosporus, on the Black Sea side. A ship going from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea will pass through the Dardanelles, sail through the Sea of Marmara, which intersects the city of Istanbul, and then enter the Bosporus to sail into the Black Sea. The Straits are considered the boundary between the continents of Europe and Asia. They’re under the control of the Turkish military, and governed by the Montreux Convention of 1936.
The Dardanelles are historically significant as they relate to the First World War Battle of Gallipoli, also known as The Dardanelles Campaign, which temporarily ended the political career of Winston Churchill who, as England's First Lord of the Admiralty, pushed the plan to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) and secure a sea route to Russia. The battle was extremely bloody with heavy casualties on both sides. The Turks, under Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later Ataturk), won the day and, eventually, their independence. Churchill, to the benefit of the entire free world, recovered his career prior to World War II or we’d all be living in a vastly different world today.
Here's a good depiction of the Turkish Straits:
For someone who considers himself a Churchillphile, sailing through the Dardanelles (three times) on a U.S. Navy Warship was an almost unimaginable experience.
When we finished in Georgia, we played cat and mouse for a few days with a Russian Frigate in the area. While I was enjoying the show from the bridge wing, Captain Tim Schorr came up behind me and said: “Bet you thought the Cold War was over.”
Mention must be made about the students I had aboard McFaul. They were truly a delight. Some were exceptionally bright; all were willing and eager to become better writers – and all did. Many of them I will never forget. The students in my advanced class will all be welcome additions to any college campus should they choose to leave the Navy and pursue their degrees. In the event they choose one of the all-too-many universities ruled by the Left, they will at least have three college credits on their transcripts from a course in which they read, discussed, and attempted to imitate the style of, columnists never even mentioned on Left-wing campuses: Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Daniel Pipes, Mark Helprin, Bret Stephens, Charles Krauthammer, Tony Snow, and others.
My classes ended shortly after leaving the Black Sea, while returning through the Turkish Straits toward the Eastern Mediterranean. It looked like I would not be able to get off the ship for at least two weeks (probably in Bulgaria), but another change of plans called for us to make a short visit at the Turkish Naval Base of Aksaz. I was able to arrange flights from there to Istanbul, JFK in New York, Charlotte, N. C. and thence to Jacksonville, ending quite an odyssey that I will never forget.
Here is a Photo of USS McFaul (DDG-74)
And here is a photo of Captain Tim and his proud Dad taken aboard the USNS Fisher anchored off Souda Bay, on August 20, 2008.
Finally, here is a photo of The Odessa Steps.
(On such things does one ruminate while paddling a one-person kayak miles out in the ocean - closer to God.)
