Years ago, by default, I became the master of ceremonies at my annual high school class reunions. I used to worry about the programs, but it’s no problem now – we’re so old that we just sit around and smile at each other.
In truth, we discuss our afflictions, gossip about those who didn’t show up, “tsk tsk” about the recently departed, and generally can’t wait until the whole ordeal is over. I also suspect that we all leave wondering who will be the next to cash in and “cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees,” to quote the last words of Stonewall Jackson (Battle of Chancellorsville, 1863). You know, there’s something to be said for dying young.
Last week was a week of reunion-related business for me. I attended one for retired Navy chaplains in Mobile; had a discussion with a classmate about the site of our upcoming July class reunion as the restaurant where we were scheduled to meet has closed; and was invited to be the keynote speaker at a ship’s reunion in New Orleans.
It was my second conversation about the ship’s reunion. Apparently, there are two competing groups planning it. One wants to hold it in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in July, and the other in New Orleans in October. The best I can tell, they have compromised, and the reunion will be held in New Orleans in July. Wherever and whenever it is, I am the keynote speaker. I think.
The gentleman I talked with last week, apparently the head of the New Orleans faction, confirmed that they wanted me to be the keynote speaker but, since they had never had a keynote speaker at their annual reunions before, he wanted to know what I was going to talk about and how long I could be expected to speak.
I told him that, as far as time, I was good for at least an hour and, as far as subject matter, I was programmed to talk about life at sea, travel to exotic places, and some of the adventures that we all had on that ship, the USS Springfield (CLG-7), pictured above, during three years on station (1960-1963) in the Mediterranean. He seemed satisfied but said that thirty minutes would probably be enough. Although I spent ages 17-20 on that ship, I’m sorry to say this will be my first reunion with its crew.
Thinking about our conversation, I’ve been wondering just exactly what I will say to a group of thirty or forty pilgrims, most of whom got out of the Navy after one four-year enlistment, had successful civilian careers, and who have been reliving the glory days of their youth ever since. Should I tell the truth, or should I lie? Well, since my mama taught me not to lie, maybe I should just leave out some inconvenient truths. I can think of several things I probably shouldn’t say. Here’s just a few:
1. The Navy that you remember, a holdover from World War II, doesn’t exist. We would all be lost in the new world of complex technology, merit promotion, and an emphasis on higher education and public service.
2. The Navy has shrunk. The big fleet that you remember from the early 1960s had over 800 deployable ships. In 2025, the Navy has about 287 ships ready to go to sea; however, there is a goal to raise that number to 331 by 2045. A lack of shipyards is one of the problems, along with apathy on the part of several presidential administrations.
3. While there’s fewer ships, our worldwide strategic commitments haven’t decreased, so the light operational tempo that you remember is a thing of the past. Ships are doing back-to-back deployments, with little down time for maintenance, and deployments are often extended for months.
4. I notice that we’ve all put on a few pounds. There are no fat people in today’s Navy. If you are deemed overweight, you are placed on a remedial program to get your weight within Navy specs. If you do not make your weight in the time allotted, you will be administratively discharged. I’ve seen poor guys cut loose who were within a year or two of retirement.
5. You must budget your money. Sailors are no longer paid in cash every two weeks on the mess deck, often in $2 dollar bills. Now you must have a bank account and sign up for monthly electronic transfer. Also, borrowing money at interest from shipmates through so-called “slush funds” is now prohibited by regulation.
6. No more blue dungaree work clothes. Now everyone is dressed in Marine camouflage including combat boots. Don’t ask me how sailors are expected to swim if they fall overboard in such an outfit. Dressing sailors like Marines was probably the idea of some bean counter in the Pentagon, long before Elon Musk came along.
7. There are women on combat ships. This happened in 1994 when Congress repealed the Combat Exclusion Law, part of the 1948 Women’s Armed Services Integration Act, which had barred women from serving on combat ships and aircraft. This means several things: there are now places on the ship where you can’t go, like their berthing areas; you also might want to clean up your speech in their presence; and you may need to rethink the whole gender equality equation.
8. Filipino nationals are no longer stewards and servants for officers. They are now eligible to apply for any rating. Unfortunately, the quota for those receiving American citizenship through this program has been drastically reduced.
9. “Join the Navy and see the world” no longer rings true. You’d be lucky to visit three or four foreign countries in a four-year enlistment, even if you were assigned to a ship. Remember how on the Springfield we would go to sleep in one country and wake up in another? Well, those days are long gone. Ships stay at sea; nobody wants us in their country, and commanding officers are afraid sailors will cause a “career ending incident” for them.
10. The retirement system has changed dramatically. As of 2018, all the U. S. armed forces shifted to the “Blended Retirement System” (BRS). Sailors can no longer retire with 50% of their pay after 20 years’ service. Now it’s only 40% unless you buy into something very much like a 401K. That’s only one benefit that has been taken away. Remember the medical care we were all promised for life? Forget it. It’s not surprising that personnel standards have been drastically lowered to meet recruiting quotas. For example, you can now join the Navy without a high school diploma and with a court record short of a felony.
11. All the above are just parts of the biggest difference that you would notice from the early 1960s and today’s Navy – it’s an all-volunteer force. Back then, the universal draft was still in effect, and there was a good cross section of American society represented in the Navy’s ranks: ethnicities, socioeconomic classes, educational levels, etc. That’s no longer true. In my opinion, it’s the poor who now volunteering to defend their country. That would have included me in 1959.
I was not surprised to learn that neither of the competing ship’s reunion groups could pay me, which is the norm for my public speaking ventures. The Philly faction was at least going to pay my hotel bill. Getting there was on me. The New Orleans guy didn’t mention money, nor did I ask, because I know the organization has been in financial extremis for years as members died off and were not replaced.
Crewmembers from three ships, all bearing the Springfield name, are eligible to attend the reunion: CL-66, a World-War II-era heavy cruiser, CLG-7, a guided missile cruiser conversion of CL-66, and SSN-761, a nuclear-powered submarine that is still in commission. The other two are only memories. Another group, dedicated to maintaining a relationship with our former French homeport, Villefrance sur Mer, a suburb of Nice, has also merged with the ship’s organization for the annual reunions. I was back in Villefrance for language school a few summers ago, and the mayor sent a car for me so that I could participate in the town’s Bastille Day ceremonies. I noted that his office and that of the deputy major were still full of American Navy memorabilia. In an ironic twist, President Charles de Gaulle kicked our ships out of France in 1966, ostensibly over opposition to NATO, but more likely his concern over economic tariffs. We just moved down the coast to Gaeta, Italy, where the Italians were more welcoming.
Incidentally, I noticed in a French newspaper that the current mayor has, as of 1 July, 2025, banned all cruise ships carrying over 900 passengers from calling on the town. It seems as if the place is literally overrun with tourists. He further denounced cruise ships as “monsters of the sea” that pollute and only bring in budget-minded day trippers, who leave their trash for the townspeople to pick up. Larger towns in the Mediterranean, such as Venice and Barcelona, have enacted similar restrictions, seeing the influx of tourists as too much of a good thing.
As for the “brothers” at the reunion, I suppose they will be looking for sea stories, some lurid tales, and for me to share some adventures that they could relate to and relive vicariously. Unfortunately, my life on that ship was rather uneventful. I wasn’t much fun. I didn’t drink nor smoke nor bar hop; I tried to stay in my lane, save my money, mind my own business, learn my rate, pass the exams, and get promoted as fast as possible. I took no pictures, wrote no letters. There were no escapades, hijinks, or close calls to embellish, no confrontations with authority.
I even wore Navy-issue “birth control” glasses – so ugly that a girl wouldn’t even get close to you. I really was an outlier, a loner, but my superiors ate it up, confused it with ambition, and rewarded my diligence. I was awarded Sailor of the Year, and my Commanding Officer wrote me up for the Naval Academy, but that didn’t go anywhere because you had to know your state congressman, and I didn’t even know the mailman back home.
I never even got a tattoo. I did come close. When I was seventeen and mess cooking, my buddy and I caught the early liberty boat over to the island of Malta one morning, determined to do just that. We had saved out money. There was a famous tattoo artist there, the “Fat Man behind the Green Door.” I had a friend who had a star on his ear lobe, so I decided that was for me. My buddy wanted an old-fashioned sailing ship. To make a long story short – he got his first, and when I saw how bloody the procedure was, I backed out. He didn’t speak to me for several days.
I guess a few other things of note did happen. I did get into a few fist fights, but you had to stand up for yourself or the sharks would eat you alive. A young girl in Athens, Greece, proposed to me in a bakery, and I was later caught up in an anti-American riot downtown in the same city. My ship sent me to a dance for diplomats’ daughters at the American Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, because I was “clean cut and could be trusted;” and I met several movie stars (Grace Kelly, David Niven, Lloyd Nolan), etc., standing Beach Guard (running the ship to shore radio) on the pier in Villefranche; and a buddy of mine is probably still in jail in Istanbul because, drunk, he took down a Turkish flag and hung it back up upside down. Another buddy of mine fell overboard one night, emptying trash in a storm, and we never found him. I told him not to go. But I can’t think of anything exciting that ever happened to me. Move on, there’s nothing to see here.
When we came back from our long tour in the Mediterranean, enroute to a six-month overhaul at the Brooklyn, New York, Navy Yard, we stopped at the Yorktown, Virginia, Weapons Station, to unload our missiles and ammunition. I was at my Sea and Anchor Detail station up on the bridge when we pulled in, and I remember looking down at the pier and being amazed at how the automobile models had changed. All I’d seen for the past three years were small Renaults, Peugeots, Citroens, Fiats, etc. Parked on the pier, I saw a car that has been my “dream car” ever since: a white 1963 Ford Falcon Sprint convertible, V-8, red interior, 4 on the floor, with a white top.
I’m always in the market for a decent, restorable model of that car. I saw one for sale in Collins a few years ago, but the price was above my pay grade. I currently have two summer cars for sale, a 1968 Austin Healy Sprite and a 1978 Triumph Spitfire, that I would trade somebody straight up for a Sprint, “even Stephen.” I might even throw in my 1973 Bonneville Triumph 750 motorcycle if the car was right. I’m getting too old to kick start it. If you know someone who might be interested, ring me up.
That “good car deal” outlined above reminds me of one of my favorite Ford dealers out in Long Beach, California, Cal Worthington. He was famous in the Los Angeles area for his television ads back in the 1980s – specifically, coming on air wearing a white ten-gallon hat and saying, “If you can find a better deal than mine, I will eat a bug.” If the Springfield reunion guys can find a cheaper speaker than me, I will eat a bug, too.
Light a candle for me.
