“It’s a very high stakes game, Leona. During a boomer patrol, our crewmembers have to constantly think the unthinkable. If we receive word that the U.S. is under attack, we’re trained to ‘push the button’ and launch our missiles without question, possibly killing millions of people in the process. And we’re constantly running drills pretending that we’re doing it. It really takes a toll on you.”
“Is that where your receding hairline came from?” Leona teased, running her hand over the top of George’s forehead.
George laughed. “Well I could probably blame genetics, but submarine stress makes a more interesting story!”
Chapter 15
Upon receiving orders to his new command, one of George Adams’s first actions was to visit his old friend, Lieutenant Commander John “DD” Cornwall at the Bureau of Naval Personnel, otherwise known as BuPers. George and DD had served on two submarines together before George received his assignment at SUBLANT, and DD became the officer in charge of submarine detailing at BuPers.
The detailer was responsible for ensuring that every submarine command had the right personnel assigned to enable the submarine to carry out its mission. Crews for ballistic missile submarines were highly educated and highly trained. Throughout the navy, officers were required to have a college degree. Enlisted members in the surface and aviation communities rarely had more than a high school education. In the submarine community, however, the average enlisted member had over two years of college. In addition, they went through rigorous navy training related to their specialty. Those destined to work in M-Division, the “Nukes,” enrolled in a lengthy Nuclear Power School to learn the ins and outs of running a nuclear power plant.
“DD, I know I can’t officially ask you or order you to pull any strings, but there are certain qualifications I would like to see in at least half of the crew assigned to the Louisiana’s Gold Crew.”
“George, you know I can’t promise you anything…”
“I know, but it’s really important to me.” George pulled a sheet of paper from his briefcase and handed it to DD. “First, this is a list of the officers I would like to have assigned. I would also prefer that as many of my crew as possible be Christian and single or divorced with no kids. Those qualifications make up a better profile for a crew member of a boomer. You know the kind of responsibility we have to accept when we agree to go on patrol. You don’t want your crew worrying about their wives and families if the balloon ever goes up; we have to focus on the mission and be willing to press the button.”
“Yes, I know, but I personally doubt that the qualifications of being Christian and unmarried make any real difference in that regard. I’ll tell you what, though — if I happen to have two different personnel files on my desk, both equally trained and destined to boomers, and it makes no difference whether I send them to the Louisiana or another boat: I’ll send them your way if they meet your criteria; I’ll send them the other way if they don’t.”
“Thanks, DD, it would be great if at least half the crew met those qualifications,” George responded. “That’s all I could ask of you.”
With a normal complement of fifteen officers and one hundred forty enlisted, George was asking the detailer for about seventy-five satisfactory crewmembers. If he was lucky, he would get the fifty he actually needed.
George continued, “That’s all I could ask… except for one thing. Could you give me three backup sonar operators?”
“Why do you need that many sonar operators?”
“Look, you’ve been out there yourself. From experience you know how important the sonar operator is for a boomer. Our primary mission is to remain undetected, and to do that, we have to have better sonar operators than any of the attack boats that are trying to find us. Well, I’ve found during past deployments, we needed a lot more sonar operators than we had. During crunch times, our sonar operators were working around the clock. And when people get tired, they make mistakes.”
“I’ll take it under advisement,” said DD, not really committing to overstaff George’s boat in this specialty.
George purposely did not request DD to transfer Petty Officer Leona Harris to the Louisiana. She was a good yeoman, and he relied heavily on their exchange of ideas each morning when forming his own opinions, but he had other plans for her. Her position inside SUBLANT headquarters and her photographic memory for the number and positions of ships and submarines was going to be very valuable once George’s plan was launched. Besides, it was a serious violation of navy regs for George and Leona to be romantically involved, and he did not want to raise any suspicions. Commanding officers were routinely relieved of their commands for such behavior!
There was, however, one special request George made to DD — he requested Lieutenant Commander William “Pappy” Boyington be assigned as his executive officer (XO). George knew William personally to be a fine and very competitive officer. William’s friends had called him Pappy ever since he was a kid. Pappy, of course, referred to Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, the famous World War II Marine Corps flying ace and commander of the Black Sheep Squadron. Although William was not related to Gregory Boyington, the nickname had stuck with him through all the years, through his time at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and through his ten years of active duty.
The question had been poised to Pappy many times over the years whether he would have been better suited to being a fighter pilot rather than a submariner. He certainly had the competitive spirit of a fighter pilot, but he was more of an intellectual — not so much the swashbuckling type that fighter pilots seemed to be.
Pappy’s excellent engineering grades at the Academy had prompted the submarine officers stationed there to put the hard sell on him to select submarines when it came time during his senior year to select the branch of the service in which he would serve. His exceptionally high class rank meant he was one of the first midshipmen called to the selection room. As a result, he had his choice of assignments. He could choose aviation, surface line, nuclear power, or Marine Corps, with any starting date he named for his training. He had found over the years, doing your best either got you exactly the assignment you wanted or at least kept your options open. It was those people who considered the minimum requirements to be good enough who found themselves sadly frustrated on service selection day. They wandered the room aimlessly from table to table, trying to decide which was the least objectionable assignment. Pappy had always been thankful his father had instilled in him a tough work ethic and the philosophy he had heard probably hundreds of times while growing up, “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.”
Pappy met George’s criteria. Pappy had once been happily married, and he and his wife, Jean, had a young daughter, Melody. Jean and Melody were in DC when the city was attacked. Pappy was deployed on board the USS Kentucky SSBN 737 at the time. Although he and other members of the crew desperately wanted to return home to determine the fate of friends and loved ones, they knew this was the most critical time for them to be on patrol. If the U.S. was under nuclear attack, the Kentucky needed to be right where she was.
Several weeks later, Pappy returned home to an empty house. His in-laws, who lived in Bethesda, told him how Jean had gone into DC that morning to see the monuments around the National Mall. She had taken Melody along to enjoy the beautiful spring day. They had never seen either of them again.