When my year of reserve training ended, I reported to San Diego, California, and processed through transit.
HOBBY AIRPORT HOUSTON, TEXAS 1967
From there, I was assigned to the USS Richmond K. Turner (DLG‑20), a missile frigate that was in dry dock at Hunters Point in San Francisco. After settling in, I returned home briefly and brought Cece back with me to California. The Navy provided us with a Quonset hut on the base at Hunters Point, close to where the ship was undergoing repairs.
When I went aboard the Turner, I had to report to the Executive Officer, Commander Bergbouger, the second‑in‑command, who would assign my duty on the ship. Several men were ahead of me, and I listened as he asked each one what kind of duty they wanted. The ship had many ratings — machinist’s mates, electrician’s mates, gunner’s mates, radiomen, sonarmen, quartermasters who plotted the ship’s course, yeomen and personnel men who handled records, and the dreaded first division, responsible for the exterior of the ship. A steel ship is always rusting, and the first division spent its days chipping and painting. No one wanted that assignment.
Each man asked for something desirable — electrician, quartermaster, radioman — and each time the Executive Officer replied that there were no openings in those departments and assigned them to the first division.
When my turn came, he asked what I wanted to strike for. I told him I would like to be a yeoman or personnel man. He asked me how many words per minute I could type. I answered, “About forty‑five.” The truth was that I couldn’t type at all; I had failed typing my sophomore year in high school. But he said, “Great, I need a yeoman for my office,” and assigned me as his yeoman. I had my own small office just off the Mess Deck.
I was scared to death. I had just lied to the Executive Officer. Fortunately, the ship’s offices were set up on the dock, and I spent my nights practicing. I got good enough to keep the job the entire time I was aboard the Turner. That meant typing Captain’s Mast documents — the equivalent of court‑martial paperwork — which could have no mistakes, along with any other documents needed. These were manual typewriters; there were no computers to correct errors.
When the repair work on the Turner was completed, she returned to her home port in San Diego. Cece and I rented an apartment there while the ship and crew went through refresher training in preparation for deployment to Vietnam. This picture was taken in Sidney Australia. I was aboard the ship when this picture was taken.
USS RICHMOND K TURNER DLG-20.
Some years later, this ship underwent an upgrade and added AAW capability, (Anti Air Warfare) and became the CG-20. Just recently, I met a couple, Stacy and Ana Gregory, he had served aboard the CG-20 in the Middle East. Years later, it was sank off the coast of Porta Rico for use as a reef.
During our time in San Diego, Cece’s two brothers, who were Marines — Paul stationed at Barstow and Wes at Camp Pendleton. Most weekends, we drove to their bases, picked them up, and brought them back to our apartment. Those visits became part of our routine.
During that time, a close family friend named Charlie — Paul’s best friend and a fellow Marine — a Sargent, had been seriously wounded in Vietnam and was recovering at Balboa Naval Hospital in San Diego. He and his platoon were in a truck that hit a land mine. Everyone else in the vehicle was killed. Charlie survived with severe injuries: his jaw was wired shut, he breathed through a trach, and his back had been badly damaged. We visited him often.
After several weekends of these visits, I believe it was Paul who suggested sneaking Charlie out of the hospital to attend a performance by Paul and Paula at the Cinnamon Cinder Club in San Diego. The club had tiered seating with tables around the dance floor. Charlie wasn’t dancing, but he wanted to be out of the hospital for a few hours. At one point during the evening, the leg of his chair slipped off the edge of the tier, and he rolled onto the dance floor. For a moment, we thought we had caused him further harm, but he was uninjured, likely due to the physical conditioning he had gone through in Marine training. We got him back into the hospital without incident.
Just before my deployment, I received orders to the River Patrol Boats in Vietnam. Those assignments carried notoriously short life expectancies. At the time, I was serving as the Executive Officer’s yeoman, so I called Coronado Island, headquarters for the Pacific Fleet, and asked whether they needed the specific sailor named on the orders or simply a replacement. They told me they needed “a warm body.” I asked the Executive Officer if I could put out a call for volunteers. He laughed and told me I could try. Thirty men lined up for the three sets of orders. My name being on one of them. I believe that was the third time God intervened to spare my life.
I deployed aboard the Turner. Cece returned home to Houston. We sailed to Subic Bay in the Philippines — our home port away from home — by way of Hawaii, Midway, and Guam. Our mission was to operate off the coast of Vietnam, recovering pilots who had been shot down over the Tonkin Gulf. When not doing that, we served as plane guard for the aircraft carrier America while her pilots conducted bombing runs over Vietnam.
During that tour, we visited Hong Kong and Sasebo, Japan. On the way home, after our deployment was complete, we stopped in Australia, American Samoa, and again in Hawaii. Crossing the equator En route to Australia, I went from being a Pollywog to a Shellback, following the long‑standing naval tradition.