HAIFA, ISRAEL: INTIFADA FOLLIES
11 – 17 MAR 90
Editor’s Note: I wrote a book composed of daily stories from the 1989-90 Med Cruise of USS Forrestal (CV-59). It was intended to document something that happens all the time, in excruciating detail, so that I could remember it. They say the human body can’t really remember pain, but as we lurched through the voyage, I realized we actually were having a pretty good time. It also turned out to be the last- or at least one of the last- cruises of the Cold War, since the Berlin Wall came crashing down in the middle of it, and the Soviet Union was finished.
In order not to alarm the remnants of the still potent nuclear power, we were ordered to spend a month anchored pierside in Marseilles, so I am a big supporter of peace and détente. Anyway, this is what it was like to pull into Haifa. The original manuscript surfaced in a mystery box that came out of the basement of the former marital dwelling. I had lost the digital part due to the age and format of the floppy discs on which it had been written. Join me now on the 11th of March, 1990, as we go ashore in the Holy Land for the first time:
11 March:
We dropped the hook at 0730 in the roadstead off Haifa, Israel. I was up, bright as a penny, for the Ops Meeting in CVIC. I was already resigned to the inevitable delays in getting off the ship; what with the exercises coming up I knew that my potential playmates from the Operational side of the house were going to be buried at least neck deep in draft messages all day.
Accordingly, the hairs only stood up a moderate distance on the back of my neck when I heard the boatswain’s whistle and the electrifying words: “Liberty Call, Liberty Call for Officers and Chief Petty Officers.” That went down about 0830, a remarkably progressive event after the sequential buffoonery of the boating in Alexandria. Still, the meetings unfolded with the inexorable force of inertia. There is a ton of stuff to do, almost surpassing comprehension.
The Med portion of the deployment will end with a rising crescendo of pandemonium. Mark and Lutt-man are snowed in, and we have to build the concept brief for CAG to pitch to the Admiral tomorrow morning.
Unfortunately, I can’t get started on graphics production until the grownups decide what they want to say, so there is nothing for me to do until late afternoon at the earliest.
I stroll back over to Planning and alert the duty section to the fact that Tasking will be inbound at some point. Between that and lunch there isn’t any more I can do for a while, so I am in bed for a nap by 1300. I sleep hard until 1430, when Doc Feeks rapped on the door demanding a playmate and wingman to hit the Beach with.
I look up for a moment and decide that an Intelligence Duty Officer and two duty Intelligence specialists are probably adequate to the task of typing up five graphics. I call Mark and Lutt and inform them that the sirens of the Holy Land have overcome me and that I will be ashore until further notice.
Ten minutes later we are walking down the hangar bay and notice that the liberty line snakes all the way back amidships. This does not bode well; by the time we exercise our Officer Prerogative· and reach the fantail we see why things are balled up. One of the contract ferryboats is an enormous ungainly ship with a flat bottom and two towering decks.
She is parallel to the fantail camel and is swinging through about fifteen degrees of roll in nearly calm seas. They cannot disembark the ten passengers they have on board. We watch with increasing skepticism for a half hour until the watershed occurs and a first class Petty Officer slips while trying to leap to the camel and disappears between the barge and the wildly rocking ferry.
I turn away because I know I am about to see one of those horrible industrial accidents in which a frail human body is crushed to jelly between two huge and utterly unyielding plates of steel. Against all hope, the boat is leaning out against its lines and does not crash against the camel on this cycle and the sailor is pulled out unscathed.
This is the second incident in attempting to board the boat (dislocated ankle, earlier in the day) and that is enough for the Officer of the Deck and the large ferry is summarily banished. After an hour of boating follies we are finally embarked on a little ferry, equally ungainly but with a ‘vee’ hull that does not swing so wildly.
We head in toward the harbor and the City, which crawls up the steep slopes of MT Carmel. It is overcast and the wind is brisk. I am chilly in my sweater. The old Arab town is clustered below, low and straggling along the coast. On the crest thrust the skyscrapers of Israel and the Dan Panorama and the Dan Carmel Hotels. We round the new breakwater and pass the ships of commerce and the low silhouettes of the missile boats. Turrets crown the quays facing the sea.
Fleet Landing is in the dockyard district. The first impression is of a quiet industrial backwater, and nothing changes that.
We had some beers at Gil ‘s place. They were cold and wet, just like we like them.
With our moods adjusted, we headed up to the Hotel Dan Panorama at the top of the hill. What a view! The Gang’s all here- at least the Fighter Guys were, from both VF squadrons- and Brownie was spectacular. What a piece of work that guy is!
It is the Sabbath, or will be shortly, and the locals are having a pre-holy day happy hour. It was odd, but fun.
We take a cab to the shopping mall to look for toys. We can’t find an open bar afterwards, due to the Sabbath, I surmised. The only places are near the Fleet landing, so Doc Feeks and myself wind up sampling the local pleasures. The bartender is a hefty Moroccan with blue eyes, 48, and she lifts her shirt to show us her grandmother breasts. Turns out she was a French Colon who got the boot when decolonization brought the Muslims to power. Everybody here has got a story. She has two sons in the IDF now.
Everyone in this place has got a story.
We disengage as swiftly as possible and wander down the street to an open air cart where we buy lamb kebabs on a stick which he throws into pita bread with salad and sour yoghurt dressing. They taste wonderful.
We have a final beer with the usual VS-28 Gamblers pilots in the place next door and head back to Fleet Landing and the ship.
The Holy land is pretty cool, so far. There are three more full days to go in Israel. I think we ought to go to Jerusalem and see the sights.
Copyright 2016 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303