HOM: My Crockett Finale

My extended Crockett tour was ending in April (1970) so I started thinking about my next assignment. I had roughly a year and a half left in my hitch and I wanted it to go smoothly. The Navy used a four-point grading system for its personnel, where the commissioned officer in charge of your department filled out a quarterly report on you. Reliability, military appearance, initiative, knowledge, etc, were graded from a 1.0 to 4.0, with 4.0 being perfection. I always got about a 3.7 average, which seemed higher than I deserved, so I went to Mr. Pearson, my EO, and asked him for a more honest appraisal of my performance, explaining that I didn't want my next duty station to have expectations of me that I couldn't live up to. He called me into his stateroom a few days later and, with an apology, showed me my final report. He had done as I asked, and submitted a report which gave me an average of 3.4 or a little less. The Captain had changed the grades back up to their prior level and reprimanded Mr P. for giving me low scores. I guess PG sailors ALWAYS had to score high ratings, deserved or not! I felt bad for both of us! When your assigned tour at a duty station was drawing to a close, the Navy let you fill out a "Dream Sheet" of the duty stations you would like to get. Like everyone else on the PG's, I put in for the biggest ships the Navy had: aircraft carriers, helicopter carriers, or supply ships. The Navy was pretty good about giving sailors coming from combat tours the duty they asked for if it was possible. When my orders finally came in, I found that the Navy had thrown me another curve. Unlike most of the other transferring PG sailors, I got orders to another Gunboat, this time to the USS Grand Rapids, PG-98, which was under construction in Tacoma, Washington. I guess the Navy figured I liked Gunboats since I had extended on one and reusing me was faster/cheaper/better than training a new Electrician. The good thing about the orders was that I would be stateside for at least a few months. The bad thing was that I was heading for another PG. I was not thrilled. Mr. P. put a special entry into my records that this was unfair treatment and that 18 months on a PG was long enough. His act of kindness came back and almost bit me later on. I hadn't yet learned that "going with the flow" worked better than trying to manipulate the flow. Looking back, this small boat duty was probably the best thing that could have happened to me. I would never have been happy in the spit & polish of the regular Navy TBC (Me) (Home)