What an Honor!!!

[seapuppy]

Last couple of weeks I had the extreme honor of meeting one of the boatswains mates from the USS Halibut...USS Seawolf....and USS Parche....he was assigned to these 3 boats in the beginning of Project Ivy bells...spying on the soviets using underwater tapping devices on submerged telephone lines......
He was a chief hard hat diver/saturation diver on all 3 boats..during my employment with the west coasts assigned base..mare island navshpyd...I was also assigned to work on 2 of the boats...the USS Seawolf and the USS Parche...my designs went into the boats per navsea shipalts....

well...the first time I met him..we were coming out of a clinic where I met my doc about my back being all dorked up....long story short I've been dealing with it for a few months from straining a lift of a big screen tv.....

the ole chief came walking by and was wearing his diver jacket and halibut hat....I naturally knew about it and just kinda poked a little...he was talkative and extremely proud of what they did....his sea stories rattled off his lips like a machine gun.....he instantly got a liking too me cuz I confessed I was working in ocean engineering in the early 80's on the Parche at the time....

then I think it was last weekend we were in Wally world where we ran into him again and again he recognized me and we talked for about 20 min. in the isles while our wives walked away to do some more shopping........

this had to be one of my greatest honors of my life time to meet up with a guy from a world I knew so black that even sunlight didn't dare to trespass......I wasn't allowed to speak of anything about the subs (and I still only use vagarities when talking about a specific system or boat).....and this guy knew everything I did....plus I knew everything he did as he was the operator and I was just an engineering puke or yard bird...but the mutual respect was amazing.......
plus to meet up with one of the few living legends of the submarine world....
that was just too awesome for me.....I had to take a few days to absorb all of it.....
To all the men/women who silently served and fought in the unknown war of the cold war.....god bless you.....
although I didn't go into combat like many of the other guys I know...I did my service in 2 branches.....active was USAF....civilian as a design engineer in the marine industry on subs and surface combat ships....

we all defeated the Soviet Union.......if you ever get to meet one of these guys...don't be afraid to shake thier hands cuz they were so far in harms way it wasn't funny!!...


Sp

[CountryME]

Great Story SP! For those on the forum that aren't familiar with what Steve is talking about, go out and get a copy of the novel Blind Man's Bluff. It is the amazing real story of what our submarine force did during the cold war and I can only guess what they are doing now.

On that same subject, I have been looking into getting a recently released book "Project Azorian" (previously incorrectly known as Project Jennifer) about the CIA operation or raise the sunken Soviet Sub K-129. Anybody here read this book?

-JP