Skip to content
On this day forty years ago my sea service officially started, my tour aboard a Ship of the Line which legitimizes my claim to the title U.S. Navy Veteran. Seeking to serve a cause greater than one’s self is often accompanied with adventure of the sort one would have otherwise never have imagined. Such was my trek to meet my new command. It was my first time flying overseas and my first immersion in a foreign culture, civilian and military.
7 July 1979 was a Saturday and it was that morning that a couple guys wearing DDG-12 ball caps showed up to RECSTA in a duty pickup truck on unrelated business. I checked out of the transient barracks and snagged a ride back to the ship with them. The USS Robison had just returned from a port visit to Hong Kong and was moored at the Alava Wharf, U.S. Naval Station, Subic Bay, RP. I officially became a member of her crew when I checked aboard the starboard side Quarterdeck at 1130 local time.
The Robison was on the downhill side of a nine month deployment to the Western Pacific, most of which had already been spent accompanying the USS Ranger Carrier Battle Group, the second one dispatched to the Indian Ocean. I was originally scheduled to report aboard when the ship returned to San Diego in September that year. Because the man I was replacing was medevaced off due to a disabling knee injury, I was sent to finish the deployment in his stead.
My tour aboard USS Robison lasted from this day forty years ago until I checked out of the Command on Wednesday, 2 December 1981. The ship was then in the middle of Regular Overhaul at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton, WA. Several events of note happened during my time aboard Robison and some have sustained relevance in my life to date. During the whole of my career in the Navy and Reserve, I reported and departed from several commands. My arrival on the USS Robison holds special significance probably because serving in the Seventh Fleet represented a personal achievement, a goal that found itself into the bucket list of my youth. Regardless of whatever I may have done in times since, my tour aboard this vessel shines brightly as the finest hour of my entire Naval career.
I served as the ship’s Junior Medical Department Representative. As such, I came in contact with everyone onboard at least once, from the Captain down to the junior-most apprentice. It was during this time that I learned life is about relationships. Not all relationships are easy or the best in terms of functionality, but if you can work to a common end despite seemingly insurmountable differences, all will be well served in the end. In short, my experience in the Fleet serving aboard this vessel had a lasting effect in the formation of my adult character. It is hard not to reflect on such a milestone and wonder where I may have gone had I not volunteered.
