Consolation (AH 15) - Naval Cruise Book

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i Tf been chcrrted. We doubt that any one will for- get the magnificent 12 hour struggle to save the life of a young marine brought in with severe head wounds from a mine explosion. Nor will any one forget the pseculiar irony of the situa- tion. The boy died on his birthday ... he was eighteen years old. Battle wounds are terrifying and grotesque. A doctor can ' t read about all of them in textbooks and unless he has been in war before, he has little or no experience to rely upon. Each wound is unique and some- times hopeless. A few who went to the front to visit friends or simply to be near the more historic places like Panmunjon, could look over the brusque stony hills and see the communist machine gun emplacements — and these people who thought that Korea was pretty bad, knew one thing: that it would be more tragic if we weren ' t there. We genuinely loved our ship, its mercy mis- sion and the best food in the Navy. However, any ship, whatever type, is confining. In spite of inconveniences many men preferred to stay on board or return with their cameras at sun- down. It wasn ' t escape we wanted so much as J 4

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Connie was home and in the months ahead lay the task of preparing her, after her many years of service, for decommissioning and tak- ing her place among the ships of the Pacific Reserve Fleet . . . the waiting ones. Through these pages various pictures tell the story of our cruise — events on board and on shore. There were weddings; celebrations and parties; many hours spent with a deck of cards or 14 chessmen; long hours spent on watch — in icy waters one week and torrid waters the next; hundreds of helicopters to bring in; engines and equipment to repair and service; patients to patch up and send back to duty; supplies to hoist or carry on board; visitors to entertain; letters to write home; reports to complete; count- less meals to prepare and serve; bulkheads to scrape and paint; decks to holystone and swab; — all this in addition to keeping up morale and maintaining discipline. We accomplished all this for ourselves, our shipmates and our coun- try under pretty trying circumstances, consid- ering that we were not engaged in a full scale war. WE WERE THERE — just in case. And as is the situation with men who live for the just- in-case, like firemen and munitions-makers and doctors, we had had our share of jangled nerves and disordered, restless minds; we were puffed with sleep and a lot of us had put on needless weight and had decided that we could never turn an honest eye on grade-B movies or on muddy waters, or even on a deck of cards. But we had been there. We had held up and done our job. In the months that we spent in Inchon we had some serious casualties. Marines up front were discovering mine patterns that hadn '

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a solid change of pace at times. We got some of it by going on camera tours. It wasn ' t easy to be casual in a nation that was trying hard to find economic stability after a devastating war. Many times we avoided the streets by finding entertainment in the servicemen ' s clubs. We ' ll remember Japan by friendly smiles, casual bows, colorful shops, and by the spid- ery network of steel and concrete around the naval bases in Yokosuka and Sasebo; by the smell of soap and incense that was always in the air; by the Shinto Shrines and by the sprawling vastness of Tokyo and its Ginza. We ' ll remember Hong Kong and that Red Star on top of the Bank of China shining into the night. We got some sobering views by watch- ing this light, which has become a symbol of a spreading aggression. It became evident that we ' d have to go through with the waiting, whenever we were called on, and for some obvious good reasons. Yes . . . WE WERE THERE } 35