History Books will tell you the Paris Peace Accords took effect on January 28th at 8:00am – but it was January 29th in the Gulf of Tonkin – where Viet Nam is located and where I was located at the time.
In typical military fashion, we were still doing the same things we were doing before. The difference was we no longer received combat pay.
Also, in typical military fashion, the day was declared “Holiday Routine” which meant holiday for the crew, routine for the cooks. I was one of those cooks.
They held a huge barbecue on the flight deck – there were something like 5000 people on the ship, including the air wings and we set up bbq grills and grilled steaks for hours – literally hours. In the sun. Floating out in the middle of the Tonkin Gulf. With nary a palm tree in sight.
I ended up with 2nd degree burns over every bit of exposed skin on my body and was in sickbay for three days – I couldn’t even walk. To say I was in pain may be a slight understatement. I was then given a no work chit for about a week.
One of the more fun things about all this is my leading chief – who really – really – disliked me – tried to have me court-martialed for “destruction of government property” – myself. Seriously. The only way I got out of his charge was the simple fact that I had been given a direct order to be on the flight deck grilling steaks in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin – without shade.
It was bad enough that we worked 12 hours on, 12 hours off, seven days a week without some jerk riding your ass for no reason other than he could. If we were out at sea for 63 days, we worked 12 hours on, 12 hours off, for 63 straight days. He, of course, was in the office about 30 hours a week.
The dude constantly and continually tried to fuck me over any chance he could. (The only time he actually semi-succeeded was the day I was separated. I needed him to sign my separation papers and he wouldn’t sign them until I got a “regulation military haircut”. I smiled at him, got the haircut, and after he signed them I smiled again, and told him I was going to grow it down to my asshole, did a sharp military about face, and walked out.