Ron, I spent a night or two sleeping in the LSO safety net while in the IO. Plane Captains would sleep on the wings of their birds when we weren't doing night opps. Many a shipmate slept where ever they could when there was down time. Yeah, most of the spaces had A/C but when your roof (flight deck and I slept the first deck below it.) was baked all day in 100 plus heat not to mention the birds running up the heat even higher the A/C didn't much help.
Ron, you poor sand crab, you don't consider it riding a boat unless you're a bubble head. Those are the crazy bastards that sink boats deliberately then stay in them for months.
I saw a lot of water get bombed and scarfed, weren't to many targets close enough to see when the Gunners got a chance to play with their toys. Jar Heads use to shoot every thing they had at a drum we'd tow behind us, many a time the drum didn't make it back on board! The 50 cal was one heck of beast, come to think of it so was the Jar Head who fired it!
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"I fly this plane for my country, when it stops flying it's not my fault, it's the countrys." CDR Fred "Bear" Vogt. The Last Skipper of VF-33's, F-4's.
A veteran - whether active duty, retired, national guard or reserve - is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America", for an amount of "up to and including my life." That is honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no longer understand it. -- Author Unknown
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