This is part of my memoirs for my children, whose absentee father was with them only 30% of their developing years. It was written to tell them who I was, where I had been, and what I had seen during my quarter-century in the United States Navy.

I reported to the USS Vega (AF-59) at Alameda Naval Air Station on January 23, 1967. Shirl and the kids would follow in June to occupy temporary quarters at Point Molate Naval Fuel Depot, Richmond, CA for about four months until there was an opening for us at Yerba Buena Island. The Vega deployed to WESTPAC in July to return to San Francisco in November. Shirl had moved into our permanent quarters at YBI the month before.

Dick Alderton, the captain of the Vega at the time of my reporting, was one uptight dude. Frustrated perhaps is a better word. He had graduated from the Naval Academy just after I had entered the Navy in March of 1946 as a Seaman-No-Class. His career as an airdale and his promotions to non-flying status (a squadron commander during Korea) had robbed him of any combat duty. He was now aboard the Vega to pass the last hurdle on his way to the stars, a deep draft command. It was his first assignment to a sea billet since his Ensign days in 1946. He was a frustrated warrior who had never been to war, now in command of a very large ship having not been on a bridge for about two decades.

Inasmuch as I had never aspired to flag rank, I had no interest in the required career paths that officers had to travel enroute to that elite club. One thing that always puzzled me was that in most cases such officers one day wound up in command of a large ship, a deep draft, who had developed very little skills in seamanship and ship handling. So, for the most part, they would not take a ship alongside another at sea for replenishment or conn a ship in a port. Experienced junior officers like me would do the close quarter ship handling at sea, and bar pilots would con their ships in and out of port. That never failed to annoy me, having the Captain tell me to give the con to a fucking civilian.

Our first rift occurred even before the start of my tour. Having received a copy of my orders he got on the horn with my BuPers detailer, demanding to know why he was getting an LCDR for an XO, and a damned junior one at that, when the billet called for a senior CDR. It demeaned him and his command, he complained. CAPT Silberman, my detailer, was good enough to forewarn me that I was reporting to a hostile commanding officer.

I relieved CDR Dale Shuster, a rather bombastic guy. By that time I had complete confidence in myself as a manager of men, and I had refined the style taught to me long before by QM1 Rudy Hess. I was totally unlike Shuster, who Alderton thought to be the very best Executive Officer on the planet. I wasn’t a yeller and I didn’t tell Alderton what a difficult job I had every day. In fact, I didn’t. The Vega was a well oiled machine that I got from Shuster. I had learned from Rudy Hess many years before that if orders were worded more like a request than a command, the results were often more effective than direct orders. I still think so, and it worked just as well in civilian life as it did in my military life. Alderton did not like my style. "Ya sound like a wimp," he once said in a moment of anger.

Another annoyance to Alderton was my chest full of medals where he had but a few. I represented the warrior that he had longed to be himself, and Dick Alderton was the warhawk of all warhawks. He wanted to fight everyone. It also worked to my disadvantage. When one is fleeted up like that it makes everyone wonder what’s so great about the guy, and they start looking for greatness with a magnifying glass. Much to my relief Alderton’s relief would take command six months later. That's what I really liked about the Navy—you only had to work for a year or less for an asshole before one of you was carried elsewhere.

My one memorable event with Alderton was the F-14, the Navy’s fighter aircraft of the time. Alderton, to keep his flight skins (10% additional pay for hazardous duty—hmmm—had to fly periodically to do so.) He kept bugging me to go up with him. He would not take NO for an answer. I did. Alderton did everything humanly possible with that bird to make me sick and very uncomfortable. The latter he accomplished. The Gs involved in flying were not to my liking. Sick I did not get, much to Alderton’s displeasure. He wanted to see my puke in that bird that would take some poor-ass sailor a week to clean up.

CAPT Dickson Alderton USN, as previously mentioned, was not an admirer of mine—his Executive Officer on the Vega. He had invited an admiral to mess with him in his cabin—said admiral being a classmate of his at Annapolis and fleeted up to the stars before Dick. Said admiral had advised Dick that his aide, a full commander would be accompanying him. Protocol demanded then that Dick have also his sidekick with him at the supper. Otherwise, I would not have been included in the small party.

At some point during the meal the admiral brought up the subject of Commander Lloyd M. Bucher, Captain of the ill-fated USS Pueblo (*), that had been captured by, or surrendered to, depending upon one’s point of view, the North Koreans. Well! Alderton launched into a tirade against Bucher that would have him drawn and quartered, and his next seven generations born retards—for his cowardly action in the face of the enemy. Alderton seemed to be one having that happy sense of purpose for standing up for a principle that he hadn’t been knocked down for. I had, and I knew that Alderton had not ever faced the enemy in any war eyeball-to-eyeball, or in any other direct manner (**).

(*) Bridge Of No Return, by Carl F. Schumacher, Jr. is an accounting of the only naval ship to surrender to anyone since Tripoli. Schumacher was my Deck Division Officer on the Zelima (AF49). One of the two senior-to-me-jay-gees from Harvard who were not pleased to be bossed by a junior jay gee.

(**) I was the Naval Beach Group Commander in Chu Lai, Vietnam, as part of the Seventh Marine Regiment. The First Marine Division General had been unhappy with the performance of the previous SEAL team and directed me to take direct command of my SEAL team detachment, and leave the other components of my Beach Group to those under my command. Said general quoted my Frogman tour in '46 and '47 and my high marks at Pendleton as qualification for said heroics. The SEAL team was not pleased. I was not happy with that decision either, but I was smart enough to leave my LTJG SEAL direct the field operations. I did keep up with the young fuckers who thought that Pappy would collapse from age. And, we pleased General Platt so much that he wrote a glowing fitness report that got me a second tour in Vietnam. Don't believe all that shit about "only qualified volunteers."

As Dick Alderton ranted on and on, I guess, I suppose, that my face took on a countenance that clearly disagreed with that terminal denunciation of Bucher. I say that because the admiral, at the completion of Alderton’s tirade, said to me, "Commander! You disagree with Captain Alderton?" I, coward that I can be at times, lamely, with a limp smile, replied, "No sir, Admiral. Whatever my Captain says is gospel—The Word." "Commander!" the Admiral responded sharply, "If I wanted bullshit for an answer, I would not have asked the question."

So, there I was, between a rock and a hard place. No guts, no glory! "Bucher," said I, "was caught with his pants down. Who, even in the Pentagon, would have ever believed that the North Koreans would have the balls to attack, much less capture, a United States Navy ship? No one! Especially Bucher. His guns were frozen over with ice. He, in fact, had not even exercised his guns before arriving on station to spy for his country.

The best he had in his defense was a few M-1’s. Against fifty caliber machine guns that’s like a flea trying to rape an elephant. Those fifty caliber’s are mean, destructive, sonsabitches. He did the only thing he could do. Surrender. Had I not before witnessed the killing power of a fifty caliber weapon, I ,too, would have been inclined to say of Bucher, Chickenshit! But, I had. He was fucked and he knew it. He did what I would have done. Surrender. None of us, not one of us, knows what we will do in any situation until the door is kicked in and we are face-to-face with The Rider on The Pale Horse." Alderton’s face was beet red with fury.

While Alderton and the Admiral were saying their good-byes, the aide and I slipped out onto the 02 Level to chat. "Don’t let Alderton get to you," he offered out of the blue, "I have known him for many years. He is not only dull in himself, but the cause of dullness in others. His assessment of his own importance has always tended to increase in an inverse ratio to his actual importance in the ranks he has held. He’ll sink himself. He’s his own worst enemy." To myself I thought, "Not while I’m alive he ain’t." "The Admiral liked what you said about Bucher. He has said the same himself. You impressed him with your balls to stand up to Alderton." "That’s just ducky, Commander," said I, "but the Admiral has positioned me for another of Alderton’s torpedoes. The guy hates me, ya know?"

CAPT John "Pete" Burkart took command of the Vega in Subic Bay. We sailed for Hong Kong the next day. In slipping our last line I commenced to take her out. Pete did not say to give the conn to the pilot who was on the bridge talking to him. All the pilot had asked me was, "Are you familiar with Subic Bay?" I assured him that I was. When the pilot left the ship at the sea buoy, the Captain left the bridge telling me to set course for Hong Kong and that he would be in his main cabin. That seemed strange. At sea, skippers lived in their sea cabin which was usually just off the bridge, not two decks below.

I had not said more than two words to Pete since he came aboard. I had expected a policy meeting with him our first day at sea. That would not happen. The weather was inclement and the sea was rough but not a big deal. The conning officers communicated with him all the way to Hong Kong by telephone. I would report to him three times a day on items required by regulations. Each time I would talk to him in his darkened bedroom. I began to get an uneasy feeling about Pete Burkart. A Captain who was not up and about every day, and on the bridge most of the time, was something I had not experienced before. Something was wrong, but I didn’t know what it was, and Pete wasn’t saying.

Two rough days at sea later, I informed the Captain by telephone that I had the con and that we were standing into Victoria Harbor. The pilot came aboard. I kept the conn. I kept looking about expecting to see our Captain. On the final approach to our assigned mooring buoy I decided that I would do what I had longed to do many times: make the approach and hook up to the buoy without the assistance of a pilot and tugs. It was calm in the harbor. It was a piece of cake, but because the crew had never seen it done before, they thought me to be some kind of sailor. (The word sailor had two meanings in the Navy. Mostly it is used to refer to enlisted men, but it is also used as a word of praise for enlisted and officers alike.)

Shackled into the buoy, a voice above and aft of me on the Flying Bridge shouted down, "Bravo Zulu, Number One! Give the ship to the Command Duty Officer. We are going ashore." Pete then disappeared again. I went below. He was sitting in his cabin. I explained to him that I was broke and couldn’t afford to go ashore with him as much as I would like to. He got up from his desk, walked to his wall safe, returned to hand me $500, and say, "Now you’re not. I give you this for the pleasure of your company. No arguments!"

Pete was a cocksman of the first order. He had told me in Hong Kong to call him Pete. I didn’t need to be told how I would address him aboard ship. Upon our return to Subic Bay and thereafter, I would accompany him to all affairs where, normally, LCDRs were not invited. At our first admiral’s party together he was to set his cap for a beautiful Filipino Baby, who was married, unhappily, to a high official of President Marcos’ cabinet. A dangerous pursuit. She rebuffed Pete’s advances with, "I don’t really like Americans and I would certainly not have an affair with one." To which Pete replied, "Then you will love my executive officer. He is a White Apache, and he hates Americans. His real name is Nan Tan Lupan."

Pete had picked up on that name during a long dissertation of mine delivered to him in Hong Kong. I was then obsessed with Apache Indian history. I had a half dozen books on them and had committed most of their history to memory. They were my heroes. Nan Tan Lupan did in fact mean Gray Wolf.

The tale of Nan Tan Lupan that would spread very far, even back to CONUS, was the tale that I had spun at the annual Marine Corps Ball held in Yokosuka, to which I had been invited as an Honorary Marine, and for a change I took Pete with me. A particularly gullible Marine colonel had heard of me, and his equally gullible party of officers and their ladies, were anxious to hear some words from the White Apache, whose name and exploits had preceded him. "Is your tribal name really Nan Tan Lupan, and what does that mean or translated into in English?" "No," I replied, "my tribal name is actually Doggadork Rando. I took the name Nan Tan Lupan after I left Texas to join the Navy." "Why?" asked the colonel. My tale went like this:

When I was a young lad on the reservation at Stanton, Texas, freshly initiated into the rights of manhood, I approached the medicine man, who I was then allowed to talk to, and asked him how it was that he came by the names he gave to the children born into the tribe as was our custom.

The medicine man replied that names came to him by visions, events, locations, something seen at the time that gave rise to a name. "For example," he went on, "I named your first sister Babbling Brook—Toola Zumba because the morning that she was born we were camped next to a beautiful babbling brook. The morning your second sister was born was cold, damp, gray, so I named her Gray Morning—Moona Yornda. And why do you ask these things Doggadork Rando?"

And there I stopped the telling of my tale. The anxious silence of my audience was expected. They thought that I was just pausing. When I did not continue, the colonel said, "Well? What does Doggadork Rando mean in Apache?" In a low, solemn voice I answered, "Two Dogs Fucking In The Rain."

Except for Nan Tan Lupan the other names were gibberish, not Apache. The legend of The White Apache took hold. Sailors love sea stories—which are often synonymous with bullshit. Although the Navy is quite large in numbers it is quite small in acquaintances. The Word, sea stories, reputations travel very fast from ship to ship, squadron to squadron, base to base. Within a year the stories of Nan Tan Lupan had spread through-out the fleet, to become so embellished that when they got back to my ears, they were hardly recognizable or totally foreign to me. Sailors like to embellish on sea stories. Pete and I would have a great deal of fun at parties doing our White Apache shtick. The Vega became a proud, happy, ship. It had been an efficient ship under Alderton and Schuster, but Burkart and Henderson put a smile on its face. I like to think that Captain Pete and The White Apache are still remembered fondly by those who served with us, because I often think of them as the best damn crew I ever had the privilege to be part of.

LCDR William Lewis Henderson, United States Navy, July 4, 1998, Fawnskin, California