Stories from Bob's Life

In July of 1975, our BUD/S class was out at San Clemente Island, for 2nd Phase of Training which we called Land Warfare training. San Clemente Island is one of the Channel Islands off the west coast of California about 70 miles West of San Diego, which has been used by the Navy for training since WW2.  At the southeastern end of the island. the SEALs have a small base where they continue to train, BUD/S as well as the SEAL Teams.

Our class was flown out there to do intensive basic  training, which included demolitions, weapons work, patrolling and small unit tactics, underwater demolition of beach obstacles, a 5 1/2 mile ocean swim, and we also had a class and then a practical on doing administrative night hydrographic reconnaissance.

Here are a few random memories of San Clemente Island before i get to the story behind  “Ensign Lost in Space.”

1. Any infraction, or at an instructor’s whim we had to do “flight ops,” which meant putting a metal pallet on our shoulders and running up a hill, around a pole and back, sometimes several times. One trip,no big deal. Multiple trips was real punishment.
2.  I recall Instructor Wade Puckett, a big ole southern boy who spoke as though his nasal and sinus cavities were completely blocked, taught us basic demolitions.  It was fun to mimic his very nasal accent.  A couple of his famous lines, “There are old demo experts, and there are bold demo experts, but there are no old, bold demo experts.”  And one of his classics from the Vietnam after he told us about using C4 to cook C-rations.  “Don’t eat Demo.”  Apparently someone had tried that and got real sick.
3. We had our long 5 1/2 mile ocean swim out there, (with wetsuits and fins) and it was just after the movie Jaws had come out. The instructors had a good time with that, telling us about all the sharks out there, having a guy in both the safety boats with a rifle, and playing the music from Jaws over the loud speakers. It had the desired impact, but we kept swimming.
4. On that swim, I remember the sea lions swimming along with us but just out of sight.  The instructors in the boats told us about them.   I remember at one point during the swim, looking down and seeing a sea lion swimming underneath me on his back looking up at me.  As soon as I looked at him, he blew a bunch of bubbles up and disappeared.
5.  We slept in WWII era quonset huts – just like in the movies – with single racks and metal footlockers between them.  We had gang latrines – which meant, just a row of toilets, with no walls or barriers between them in the next quonset hut over.  A story from the previous class related to this – Bobbie Mitchell, a very hard-core southern boy, whose older brother was in the teams, simply could not have a bowel movement and clean himself in the open with others there.  So he’d wait until night to take quietly and surreptitiously care of that. His classmates knew this and would hear him sneak out of the quonset hut at night after lights out to go take care of this business alone, unobserved, and in the dark.  One night, one of his classmates heard him get up and sneak out, so then went and quietly woke up the other guys in his class. They then cautiously snuck out and waited outside the latrine, peeked in, and just as Bobbie was in the full throws of his business, threw on the lights and burst in on him, shouting.  Bobbie was of course shocked and appalled as his classmates howled with laughter. He either figured that out, or was constipated for several weeks.
6. I recall being in the chow facility – a rather primitive slap-dash structure, also probably left over from WW2 – and having a real conversation with instructor Don Crawford. It was a new experience – being treated and spoken to as an adult by an instructor. I never forgot it and Don and I have become good friends and play golf together, 50 years later.  Don is also a musician -plays piccolo in the community band.
7. We also had what we thought was an awkward situation when one of our instructors, Ed Jones, a decorated SEAL Warrant Officer and one of the few African American Seals at the time, took a liking to one of our classmates, a very nice looking young man, good athlete and promising young SEAL wannabe, Brian Lippe. Ed clearly liked Brian and some of us thought he was giving him more positive attention than he deserved – and of course, we gave Brian a lot of ribbing about it. Brian was really uncomfortable being singled out for special positive attention, and tried hard not to encourage Ed, without being cold or confrontational – not a good idea with an instructor.   Brian later insisted that nothing happened, that Ed Jones was just being a nice guy, but recalled that it was indeed awkward for him, exacerbated by the ribbing from his classmates.

Epilogue: Brian went on to have a great career, eventually become an officer and retire as a LCDR, and became a financial advisor and a celebrated photographer.  Ed Jones, after 4 Combat tours in Vietnam as a SEAL, which yielded 2 bronze Stars and 3 purple hearts, returned to his roots in the Surface Navy where he got his commission as a line officer,  rose to the rank of Commander, and commanded a Diving and Salvage ship. He is the only former enlisted SEAL to subsequently command a commissioned Navy ship. Ed Jones died on active duty of cancer in 1991. Brian Lippe succumbed to throat cancer in 2018 after battling it for five years.

Now to Ensign Lost in Space

This is one of my favorite memories from BUD/S.

One of our key events out on San Clemente Island was to plan and conduct a night admin hydrographic reconnaissance.  “Admin” meant that we had guys on the beach and red lens lights to line up the swimmer line. “Combat” night recon is much more difficult – we have to assume the enemy is around or nearby – minimal or no people on the beach, and certainly no lights. Much more difficult and less accurate.

The admin recon has a flutterboard man on the beach, keeping tension on the swimmer line while a swimmer at the end of the line swims hard perpendicular to the beach pulling against a man on the beach with the flutterboard.   The flutterboard was a large spool with the swimmer line  all rolled up in it, and it stayed on the beach spooling out the lines as the flutterboard swimmer swam the end of  line out away from the beach until the flutterboard man secured the line. The flutterboard swimmer lined up to two red lights on the beach to stay perpendicular to the beach – it’s all very dark.

The swimmers are spaced 25 yds apart on the swimmer line, taking and recording soundings with their lead lines and slates, whenever the light on the beach waved and then the swimmers moved with the swimmer line 25 yards to the next spot where the beach team set up the red lights for soundings.  I was a reasonably strong swimmer, and volunteered to be the flutterboard swimmer, at the end of the swimmer line, keeping tension on the line between me and the flutterboard on the beach.

It was a clear, moonless night, and there was no ambient light – we were indeed 60 miles off the California coast.  The sky was black and full of billions of stars and the Milky Way was a white streak of stars across the sky.  Also, the phosphorescence was in full bloom – kicking my fins under the crystal clear water, I saw wide streaks of blinking little yellow algae light up as the phosphorescence was disturbed and activated.

So that was the setting.  I’m the last guy in the swimmer line, with the swimmer line tied off to my web belt, kicking hard against the flutterboard on the beach, to keep the swimmer line taught, watching the lights on the beach, and also taking my soundings with my lead line.

I was stunned by how clear the water was and how bright the phosphorescence was – truly spectacular. When the lights on the beach waived, I just had to kick easily and float with the current to get to the next spot where i would line up, swim hard away from the beach to keep the swimmer line taught, and then I’d put my face in the water to look at all the sparkling phosphorescence in every direction under water.  I had to keep the swimmer line taught, and take my soundings, but I had time to look up in the clear night sky and the billions of stars, and then, down into the dark water with the billions of sparking algae.  I was truly amazed, almost ecstatic with the thrill of this experience – loving it.

When the night recon was concluded, the lights on the beach were waived back and forth then turned off, signaling that we were all to swim in – the event was concluded.  And so we swam in, pleased that another training event was completed, we could get cleaned up, maybe have a beer or two, and go to bed.  We gathered on the beach, talking and sharing our experiences from the night recon – debriefing what could have gone better, why did this or that happen, etc.  And it was indeed exciting for all of us to be out in the ocean at night, doing real frogman stuff, off the coast of an island, out in the middle of the Pacific.   At that point, after the debrief I just had to share my excitement about my experience, and shared how while we were swimming, looking up, or looking down – the view was almost the same, with our head in the water with all the sparking phosphorescence underneath us,  and the view looking up in the night sky with billions of sparkling stars.  I said it was like being suspended in outer space, in the middle of the universe, with stars all around, above and below, in front and behind us. Incredible!  Spectacular! Amazing!   Right? Right?

Well, my classmates couldn’t quite relate to my enthusiasm, and my drifting-out-in-outer-space analogy – in fact, many of them looked at me as if I were maybe more than just a bit looney  Yep there’s that California college kid hippie coming out again!   OK – their loss.  And that was when someone, I don’t remember who – christened me “Ensign Lost in Space.” And it stuck.

But I’ll never forget that experience, that amazing night on San Clemente Island with my friends doing frogman stuff, out in the black waters of the Pacific, with a billion stars all around, in three dimensions, feeling like I was floating weightlessly out in the middle of the universe.

And when I get distracted from some chore I’ve been given by my wife, she laughingly still calls me “Ensign Lost in Space” ….