Apologies to the late Hunter Thompson.
It’s 1973.
A while back I was telling the story of my year in Kodiak Alaska as a member of the USCG. Which I’ll always remember as one of the most fun years of my youth. After which I was sent back to Governors Island for further training and to find out where I would be sent for my next tour of duty.
I was hoping for an assignment a little closer to home so I requested on my dream sheet LORAN stations in Maine or Massachusetts. No such luck. I was being sent back to the same time zone the previous year. This time Kauai Hawaii.
When I left for Hawaii It was still winter, I was in my wool blue uniform. My White uniform was packed away in my seabag. A quick stopover In San Francisco didn’t allow time for a change of uniform, so I landed in Honolulu in my wool blues. Exiting the plane I was hit by the tropical air, that and the jet lag nearly caused me to pass out on the tarmac.
There was still one more flight to go, a short hop to the island of Kauai. After landing at the airport it was by then fairly late in the evening. I called the station and was informed that there was no one available to pick me up but to take a taxi and I would be reimbursed for the fare. I arrived late at night. Everyone of the rank of petty-officer and above had left the station for the night. They all lived in off-base housing. I was greeted at the barracks door by one of my new station mates. And here it all began.
“Do you have any weed on you”, were his first words to me.
I said “no”. He said “do you want to go to my place, I’m having a party” ( he was married, married personal get off base housing) So I said “what the hell, why not”. It was fairly typical what I can remember, loud music, beer, and weed of the homegrown variety.
But I really did try not to go overboard.
Got back to the barracks sometime after midnight.
The big surprise was what happened the next morning. Early the next morning.
I was summand to a interrogation meeting with my C.O. (1st impressions) X.O. ( from Texas he was) and a representative of CGI (Coast Guard Intelligence). I was duly informed that I was not being charged with anything and that I could halt the interview at any time. Apparently they knew all about that party I went to the night before. They wanted to know if drugs were present and also names. Of course one tries to walk a tightrope, you don’t want to piss off the brass on your first day but your not going to be a stool pigeon informer and be shunned by your station mates for the rest of your tour.
Fortunately the fact that I had only arrived the night before worked In my favor. Pleading beer and jet-lag I had no clue at placing names to faces, I didn’t see anything wished to terminate the interview.
The C.O. who fancied himself in the image of MacArthur with the sunglasses and corncob pipe said to me on my way out “Well,(deepred) you certainly haven’t made a good first impression.”
Thus began day 1 of my Hawaiian tour.