Anti-Narco Ops Summer 1991 - Part 1

 

USS Scott DDG-995

Feb 1991-Jan 1992

Drug Ops – Part 1

 

Again, forgive any mix-up in dates for this. From what I found, it appears we did this from late May and returned to Norfolk on July 3. So roughly May 20 to July 3. If any Scott crew members have better dates, let me know.

On our way south to the coast of Columbia, we stopped for the day in Cuba, Gitmo. I had the worst luck on this deployment. Every stop, we took fuel. So, being an oil king, I was stuck onboard doing that every time. I guess that’s why I got paid the big bucks. HA!

Yes, we took on fuel in Cuba. But, I also had duty, so I was stuck onboard. Not like there was much to do other than walk around the base and go to the exchange. Heck, you couldn’t even get any Cuban cigars. I did get a chance to go ashore, and I did get off the pier, so I did get to technically set foot in Cuba. Late in the afternoon, we set out for Columbia and our location for the next few weeks.

We were also getting ready for OPEE coming up, so we continually had main space fire drills and, Beckies, Basic Engineering Casualty Control. I had wonderful tasks of re-writing countless oil lab logs. Yeah, that was just so much fun. The oil lab was fascinating. At first, I wasn’t happy about being assigned there since I was not learning much about the engine rooms. I should have taken it in myself to be more involved there, but in the end, that did not matter.

Having the oil lab knowledge, I feel, was one of the significant factors in me making Second class later on. The test had an oil king section on it.

A quick side story. The test was taken while we were in the North Atlantic. Not all of us fit on the mess decks, so a group of us went to the crew’s rec room. On the way there, Bloom was in front of me. He was reading the test sections on the packet’s back.

“That’s bull shit,” He says.

“What,” I reply.

“There’s an oil lab section on here. I’ll never pass. You will, lucky fucker.”

That’s pretty much how the conversation went. I saw him again later on at Great Lakes. He had finally made Second too. OK, back to drug ops.

We arrived and took up our position off the coast of Columbia. Not much happened for a while. Eventually, we did stop some ships, but we didn’t find anything. I should say, our Coast Guard detachment didn’t find anything. At night engineering held drills, and during the day, we had our fire drills. In reality, it was all very monotonous.

From what I remember, one of our main goals was to track aircraft leaving the airfields around Cartagena as they left to head north. Teams were boarding ships when we came across them, and our helo did a good deal of flying.

Besides the Coast Guard group we had, some midshipmen were also on board for their summer cruise. We had a hand full who stayed down in Engineering berthing. There were also a pair of young ladies who were along. I forget his name, but one DCman hung on one of them like a lost puppy. Sorry if you read this, but I had to include it. Admittedly they were both decent-looking. I’m sure this next part will go over well, but they both liked to layout on the missile deck. One day while I was sitting out there reading, they both come out to get some sun. Then off with their shirts, they had their bras on. It made things hard to concentrate on.

The guys in engineering were the newest at the academy, so we were allowed to introduce them to Navy fun. I recall being told, “just don’t kill them.” One guy was a great sport. He took everything and enjoyed himself. One was “going to be a Marine.” He took a little more convincing that he was “going” to be a Marine. He took more than one shower with his clothes on, by force typically.

I think from an engineering standpoint, the ops were pretty dull. We had practice GQ drills constantly, and at night they held BECC (Beckies) in the engine rooms. The first stop, after Gitmo, was in Curacao. I was unaware that a mooring line had become twisted onto one of the shafts. A team of Scott sailors did get it untangled.

For me, the drawback of being in the fule lab came about, refueling. Typically this wasn’t an issue, but the tank we were taking fuel from was on top of the hill and was a gravity-fed system. That translates to slow as F. It was a hot sunny day. Instead of being on liberty like most of the ship, I was stuck sitting by the forward port fueling station watching our discharge.

The process was painfully slow and tedious. I really mean boring. But, eventually, we were done, and we went on liberty. I know several of the crew made their way to where the “ladies” were. I ended up in the casino. There could be some debate, but I think I made the better choice, I won $500. The next day as we left, we manned the rail and went back to looking for drug runners.

Oh, we also had a DEA guy on board. I found it funny how we were told not to mention him being around, but he had long hair, a beard, wore Hawaiian shirts and deck shoes. How hard was it to miss him? This was part of a sting that eventually led to us stopping a ship with 3500 kilos of pure cocaine onboard.

And all while this was going on, our helo kept burning through fuel. I handled that particular item and had to keep informing the Captain and Airboss of the JP5 status. Most of the time, they were not too happy.