Aboard the Lind

First let me explain how in 1970 I found myself in the U.S. Navy and aboard the Wallace L. Lind.

It wasn’t my plan.

I should have been in graduate school, working on a PhD in electrical engineering, but a new draft policy in 19 68 caused an abrupt change in plans. I applied for an appointment to the Navy Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI, as the only alternative to a stint in the army.

I just wasn’t the army type.

Why the Lind, when it was the oldest destroyer in the Atlantic fleet at that time? I wanted sea duty aboard a small combatant, partly because I came from a New England family of seafarers, but mostly driven by a thirst for adventure.

I requested a ship in the Atlantic fleet. The Lind was homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. Shortly after arriving, the ship was ordered to homeport in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

By April of 1970, we were well settled in at Pearl. Not waiting for my car to arrive, I purchased a well-used military jeep. Its badly dented body was patched with putty, with a top speed of 35 mph on the level, but it could hit 55, downhill, and best of all, its four-wheel drive worked.

On a July weekend, I rounded up a group of other, not Navy-trained SCUBA enthusiasts for a dive. They were enlisted men, including one who was awaiting a Captain’s Mast for attempted desertion, but who was not restricted to quarters.

That shows you what kind of reserve officer I was.

After some fantastic diving in Hanauma Bay, where I saw trumpet fish, rays, sea turtles, etc., we decided to ride up the coast along the perimeter road and into the back country.

Along the way, one of the enlisted radar men discovered the hazards of eating our take-out taco lunch at 35 mph with the windshield down, too much food in your face and not in your mouth.

We turned off the main road and I successfully coaxed the jeep up a steep muddy climb on what appeared to be the highest hill.

Getting up the hill was an achievement, but getting back down was a disaster.

Leaving the Jeep in four-wheel drive as a compression break worked for about five feet, before all four wheels broke free and we slid down the draw without any breaking or steering – quite scary.

We came to a stop with one of the front wheels sticking out in the air on a muddy track with a steep, 300-foot slope on either side of the road.

After stabilizing the jeep and getting all wheels on the ground, I tried to drive back up, without any luck.

Next, we attempted to gather logs to make a corduroy road. That resulted in a log thrown by a front tire breaking off the crank shaft harmonic balance pully, now we had no water pump, no generator. We were soundly stuck.

We had to hike out on a road covered with sharp cinders. We became quite thirsty, hiking down the steep road in the heat and humidity, when we spotted a water tank in the style of an 1800s railroad tender. It had a pull-down spout for the water to come out.

We took long drinks from it. Was that a good idea? You know the answer. But we did it anyway, with no ill effects.