Duty at the CINCPACFLT was considered "cake duty" back then in the Navy. CINCPACFLT stands for Chief in Charge of the Pacific Fleet. The admiral who that title was bestowed upon ran the whole goddamn Pacific Fleet of the United States Navy and with a job like that you get your own yacht and a boathouse to keep it in. The only time the yacht went out into the harbor is when the old man had an urge to entertain either bigwigs or his fellow (high ranking only) officers. That was only once every couple of months or so, so when we weren't waxing his yacht or the "barge" as it was called, we ferried "important" tourists out to the Arizona memorial and back.
Some of the guests that
were taken out on VIP cruises included: President
Carter's daughter, Amy, Jack Lord of Hawaii 5-0
fame, Don Rickles, and Don Ho. Pretty heady stuff
for the Navy but you wouldn't think it by the crew
that was stationed down there. A sorrier assortment
of losers you could not imagine. Even though I was
one of them I could never figure that one out.
The chief in charge was Boatswain's Mate
Chief Marty Mason.
A highly decorated veteran of the Viet Nam war who was also a world class lush
and white cross addict. A giant of a man with twin
propellers (screws in Navy language) tattooed on
his ass, he was mean as a snake and wasn't above
physically assaulting members of his crew for
infractions such as smoking dope or even giving the
perception that you weren't listening to him. These
assaults normally happened when the Chief was
either drunk (often), suffering from a hangover
(very often), or a combination of both (constantly).
"I'm so fucking salty that the last whore who
sucked my cock told me that I had salt crystals on
my nuts," he would scream out as he walked around
the boathouse kicking people in the ass and
smoking - and inhaling - Roi-Tan Falcon cigars
even though one of his lungs had been shot out in
Viet Nam while serving on a river patrol boat.
His second in command was the previously
mentioned Ricky Brewer who had yet to get sent up
to the big house. The chief engineer was Engineman
First Class Darin Brooks, a incredibly racist black
man who was married to a white woman and who
was always talking about how he'd like to fuck
young white boys in the ass when he was at sea and
who obviously made all the young white boys in the
crew nervous.
The rest of the revolving and transient crew
were made up of castoffs from the many far flung
branches of the Navy. Everyone stationed at the
fucking place had some sort of history - drugs and
alcohol abuse was the norm and sexual deviancy ran
a close second. The two women stationed there were well
known base sluts, although Janine, a white trash
babe from Georgia, really gave it her all to stand
out. She fucked the entire crew of a submarine, gold
and blue crews, including the XO and CO. In less
than a year! Quite an accomplishment since
submarines are normally at sea six months out of
the year. But that even couldn't beat out Rose's
accomplishments. Rose was a beautiful, doe eyed
babe, and the daughter from a mixed marriage
(Native American and black) who moonlighted as a
high dollar prostitute down in Waikiki.
She even had a pimp (without a heart of gold) named Harold
and who she was always holding out on.This type of bad
business behavior eventually resulted in the
suspicious and volatile Harold (who used both a blackjack
and pool cue) beating the shit out of Rose
to the point to where Rose needed to be flown out to
the mainland for her personal protection else Harold
may have decided to eventually pour a bottle of
Drano down her throat like that pimp did to his
whore in Dirty Harry.
Then there was Malcolm, a seaman who was
perpetuated by bad body odor and ringworms and
who lived at the boathouse and was suspected of
banging the boathouse dog, Brownie.