Upon reporting to New Brunswick Station living quarters, usual questions were, "What college did you go to?" "Mankato State College" "There's a guy down the hall who went to Mankato State College. He's going to his ship in two months." On being introduced to the gentleman, I discovered that his wife had been in some of my biology classes that I had attended at Mankato State. His wife had also been a high school classmate of my sister-in-law's. ALSO, his ship was the USS Valley Forge. He was attending the same schools that I was; however, he would arrive at our ship two months before I would. I didn't know it then but I would find out later that when I finally arrived onboard the Valley Forge in the Phillipines in April 1964, we would be roommates onboard the ship.
Drove my 1956 Chevrolet automobile back to Georgia for 4 months of schooling which lasted until April 1964. The phrase, "I'm not lost. I just don't know where I am," was not a statement made by a frustrated air control student or the aircraft under his control. It seems that my sister brought a nursing student friend of hers to visit me in Georgia. While touring nearby Jekyll Island which I had navigated the week before, I lost my bearings on the small island criss-crossed with roads through Spanish moss covered trees. I wasn't lost. If I continued driving, I would recognize something from the week before. I just didn't know where I was.
My initial assignment was to the Gunnery Department. The Operations Department was full of young CIC officers and there weren't enough administrative positions to allow me a place in that department. However, there was an opening for a junior officer in the Fox (weapons radar) Division which I was assigned to. Onboard ship, "line officers" occupy an administrative position and an operational position. While my administrative position was being a "mentor leader" for men in the weapons radar division, my operational position involved my standing watches in the CIC center (operations radar center) for which I was trained. Line officers are those officers who can ultimately be in command of a ship as opposed to medical officers or supply officers (responsible for stores, payroll, etc.).
Naval operations were usually peacetime-type operations involving training exercises and public relations activities. On August 4, 1964, the USS Turner Joy and the USS Maddox, two destroyers, were attacked by PT boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. At 6:00 a.m. that morning the Valley Forge had left Subic Bay in the Phillippines to conduct gunnery exercises. We returned to Subic Bay, spent all day loading supplies, and departed Subic Bay at 6 p.m. that evening with an amphibious assault personnel ship and an amphibious assault cargo ship. Shortly after losing sight of land, an alert condition was set onboard ship requiring a certain percentage of guns to be manned. Our CIC Operations Officer called the young CIC Officers together and told us that we were "evading a typhoon." Yah, sure!
On reaching Cape Varella off the coast of Vietnam, we steamed for 57 days. First we'd go one way for a bunch of hours; then we'd reverse course for a similar amount of hours. Back and forth ... back and forth ... back and forth we steamed waiting for the word that President Lyndon Johnson would order bombing of oil tanks on the coast of Vietnam. We were ready for combat. I got my first experience controlling anti-submarine aircraft as they flew ahead of us watching for any hostile action that might occur in the path of our ships. If the aircraft spotted anything suspicious, a destroyer (ship) which had joined the three amphibious ships would take appropriate action. As for public knowledge of what was going on politically in the United States and in our battle area, John Q. Public in the U.S. had more information than what the majority of the personnel on the individual ships were aware of. By the way, after steaming for about 24 hours out of Subic Bay toward Vietnam, our CIC Operations Officer told us that we were not evading a typhoon. "We were heading for Vietnam!" - duh!!
Earlier we had been scheduled to return to the United States in November 1964. I had a wedding date to make on November 21, 1964. It was mine and that nursing student friend of my sister's who had visited me in Georgia. Now we didn't know when the time at sea would end. At times they said that we would steam well into the month of November. However, eventually things worked out so that the Valley Forge was able to return to "the States" according to their regular schedule. Three young officers were able to make their scheduled wedding dates - two on Saturday and one on Sunday. Mine and Mary's was on Saturday.
One day, we found out that we would leave for Hawaii early the next morning but once we got there we would stay for three days before returning to the States. Several of the wives including mine decided that they would fly over to Hawaii and meet their husbands there for 3 days of R&R in Hawaii. At the last minute, my wife Mary changed her mind about going. Good thing though... When we arrived in Hawaii, we found that instead of returning to the States after 3 days of R&R we would continue on to Vietnam the day after we had arrived in Hawaii. The naval officers' wives arrived the night before we left and one of the officers had shipboard duty. No one would stand his watch so his wife could only eat with him onboard ship that night.
I stayed on the Valley Forge until May 1965 when I was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant junior grade (O-2). On the day that I ended my tour of duty onboard the USS Valley Forge, the Valley Forge departed for Hawaii on another ferrying trip hauling Marines.
