We departed Gibraltar right after morning colors. Morning colors occurs at 0800 throughout the fleet, and at that time, all ships in port raise their respective flags, and play their national anthem. In some cases, this can take a half hour. If there are 10 different war ships in port, of 10 different countries, any sailor on the weather decks is going to stand at attention saluting until they've all been played. Some of them are lively, some are familiar, and some are dirges. The United States and Great Britain are the same musically, so they're easy to follow, the Italians' sound like an opera and Turkeys' sounded like a lot of disjointed noise.

We no sooner left the harbor and we were at flank speed heading east. Up until then, I didn't know that huge ship could travel that fast and fortunately we had calm seas. Calm seas is quite right, it was like a sheet of glass, and after just going through three hurricanes it felt a little strange. I don't know if one of our props hit bottom or what happened, but right after we hit flank speed, the ship started shaking. Not just a little vibration that'll rattle your coffee cup, this was something that vibrated you off your seat. When we'd go down to the mess decks, (the cafeteria) we'd have to put two wet napkins under our trays to keep them in place. I almost felt sorry for the Marines, (well, as much as a sailor can feel sorry for a Marine) 'cause they slept just aft of the mess decks and right over those props. I'll bet those guys had a heck of a 3 day ride to the Eastern Med.

For as fast as we were traveling on the way there, we went that slowly when we got there. Our first assignment was Picket duty. "The Tall Lady" got her name for a reason; she's 120' above sea level. Our radars could pick out planes...a long way off. I have no clue how far those radars transmitted but when they were operating, no one got in front of them. As a matter of fact, I saw a seagull fly close in to one those things and when it hit the water it was well done. The ship was assigned to protect the rest of the fleet; at the point closest to the enemy. I guess we were the first line of defense. But all we'd do is travel around a square, in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere, very slowly. With the radar dishes going round and round. It didn't matter to us how fast the ship was moving, it's always full tilt in Communications.

It was during this time that ole Anwar started blowing up airplanes. There was so much tactical and political information passing through our system that our division went on Port/Starboard. Just two watches, 12 hours each. It got so the 12 hours I wasn't there was spent lying in my rack wondering what's going on topside. There were a few times during my two cruises where I didn't go to bed for 3 days, and this was one of them.

After I was relieved of my duties, I'd grab a headphone and start working. As the shift went by, I'd continue to read all the messages and got a pretty clear view of what was going on. Now, the stuff I learned during this shift couldn't be talked about to my own watch section, so it got confusing sometimes. I found the best thing to do is not talk to anyone about it. It was during this time that I learned how to sleep standing up. Well, I'm not sure if I learned how to do it, it's when it just started happening. There were many times when I'd have to decide if I wanted to eat or sleep, and on the days I wanted to eat, it started to happen. When the opportunity arose to eat, I'd get into the chow line that ran from the mess decks forward to about mid-ship. If the line was moving slower than usual, I'd lean up against the bulkhead and close my eyes. Many times I'd wake up when "Secure the chow line" was announced over the 1MC, and I'd head back up to MainComm. At times, there would be two or three of us like that spaced out along an otherwise empty passageway. After we'd fallen asleep, the men around us would become quiet, and just move around us as the line progressed. To this day, I can't divulge anything about what went on during those three weeks, other than we're all still here. The ship and its crew were awarded the "Meritorious Unit Commendation" for what we were able to accomplish during that period. We were out there for 21 days when we finally got to hit the beach in Athens.