Moment 7

Three of my five years in the Navy were spent assigned to a ship. My first job on the ship was Repair Division Officer. I was in charge of all the welders, ship fitters and damage controlmen. The work they did work that was quite dirty. One day the Executive Officer (XO - second in charge aboard the ship) scheduled an inspection of my division's spaces. This is a normal occurrence, so I had my guys clean as usual, but the XO did not show up. It was rescheduled for the next day. We cleaned again, but not as well as the previous time. He did not show up again. It was then scheduled for later that day, after working hours, on a Friday. I shoved my guys off at the end of the work day and the Chief (Chief Petty Officer, who was the most senior enlisted person in the division) and I waited for the XO. He actually showed up this time. We failed the inspection and he said to get the place cleaned up and he would re-inspect later that evening. Well, I had no one to clean, so I had a problem. I told the Chief to go home. I would wait for the XO by myself. No time was given for the re-inspection. A couple of hours later I went down to the quarter-deck (the place where you get on and off the ship) and asked the Officer of the Deck if the XO was aboard. He said that he was not and that he had left in civilian clothes an hour earlier. I knew that he was not coming back any time soon. He just wanted to see how long I would wait for him. He had done a similar thing to one of the Department Heads (officer one level above me and one below the XO) when the ship was in the Philippines. I went back to my stateroom, changed into civilian clothes and went home for the weekend. On Monday morning I checked with the quarterdeck to see when the XO returned. He had spent the entire weekend away, but he did call on Saturday to see if I was still aboard. I went about my business, but waited to see what the fallout of the whole event would be. There was none. The XO never said a word to me, and he never reinspected our spaces. It was like it never happened. What he had done would have gotten him in trouble if the Captain found out, therefore he could not cause me any trouble over it. In that moment I learned how to deal with bullies.

USS Anchorage (LSD-36)

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