50 Years Ago Today....

[DougGuy]

Wow.. 50 years ago today, FIFTY years, I hired in at Ingall's West Bank Shipyard as an Apprentice Shipfitter 2nd Class. I lied about my age, I got into the welding school, by the time they caught me I had turned 18 and they let me stay.

Viet Nam was raging back then, and a lot of American boys weren't coming back. We had just gotten contracts for US Navy new construction, and they changed my draft status from 1A to 1H because they needed every hand they could get building warships so the shipyard kept me out of 'Nam. Somebody had to stay home and build the bullets.

The crew I was on was tasked with starting the first assemblies of the bow section of the first Spruance Class destroyer, DD-963 USS Spruance. I had a lot of hand cutting to do, and my burner supervisor said to me "I am sure you could do it better with this" and he holds out an Airco style 45 cutting tip, a VERY highly prized and prestigious gift to receive! I am sure my eyes about popped out of my head! I used that tip a lot over it's many years of active service, it taught me to be tip-wise, never lend it out, never leave it in the torch at lunch, etc. I still have it. It still works great. I finally put it away some years ago, it still to this day is one of my prized possessions. I don't know anyone who has kept a torch tip 50 years but there was something in that tip, a lesson to be learned, a deep rooted sense of integrity in my workmanship, and a very strong dedication to my craft.

I didn't like Ingalls, it was a MILE from the gate to the wetdock, if you RAN, you could MAYBE make it to the parking lot at lunch and not get docked when you got back, traffic and parking was horrendous, I saw several ****** brawls over parking places, I got my start there, and as soon as I learned enough of a trade as a Burner, I left.

I spent the next 20 odd years traveling the Gulf Coast then the Mid Atlantic working in shipyards, fab shops, offshore oil rigs, pressure vessel shops, Navy yards, worked on hundreds of US Navy ships, hull specialist, pipe welder, I maxed out to Journeyman in the 5 related trades, Burner, Shipfitter, Welder, Pipefitter, Pipewelder. It was a good life. It didn't make me wealthy, it made me WORK. It left me a lot of things but hungry wasn't one of them.

A lot of the guys I worked with grew old before their time. Working steel will do that to you, it's hard work and it will kill you or maim you in the blink of an eye. I am lucky to be here now I suppose, and very thankful for my current health, I credit all those years of hard physical labor with keeping me fit and extending my mobility into retirement years despite beating cancer 3x and a few other things.

And I have to give thanks to God, for keeping me safe through years of my own dumb ****. I am sure I worried him more than I should have.

277170

[slide]

Good story and well said! A lot of people think they walk alone but God is always there if you want him to be.

[Scrounge]

Here's hoping you get another 50 of healthy active life! Wish I'd been that smart. I enlisted in the USAF in September 1973, reported for duty late in October. I'd taken a machine shop class last semester of my senior year, and loved it, but wasn't smart enough to take another class, or look for a job in a machine shop. Or ask for machinist training in the Air Force, either. I was dumb enough to volunteer for Viet Nam. Fortunately, the USAF wasn't dumb enough to send me. By the time I went to Desert Shield/Desert Storm, I'd grown up quite a bit, and realized how lucky and blessed I'd been. I still don't know how to weld, but I've been taking a precision manual machinist course very part time for the past 6 years. I won't work in the field, most likely, but it will make a fine hobby!

Bill

[lightman]

Thats an interesting story! Thanks for sharing it with us.

[memtb]

Interesting life Doug.....well told. Glad you beat the cancer, glad your blessing us with your posts and skills. May you enjoy many more years! :smile: memtb

[John Wayne]

Well done I'd say!

[kerplode]

Neat story...Thanks for sharing!

[chambers]

Great story, wish you the best of luck and many more years. Must make you proud of what you worked on!

[Bloodhound689]

Great story. Enjoyed reading it. Did you work on any of the carriers? Just retired from the Navy a couple years ago.

[Gtrubicon]

This account of Dougs experiences are what we need to hear more of, apprenticeship, being steadfast, hard work and retaining knowledge. Kudos Doug, you did it right. I hope resumes like this are available for my son to read in 50 years.

[Thundarstick]

Good on you DG! 50 years ago I was probably getting up at 4am to help feed calves, then off to school learning to read and write.

I was going to be a welder, until an uncle (who welded through college) asked me, "How many old welders do you know? ". He pointed out how many died of lung disease or cancer from all the toxic smoke they have their head buried in all day long. I went into the medical field from a farm life, and I think it's important to recognize the skilled craftsmen who make the country go round!

I top my hat to all you craftsmen!

[William Yanda]

Thanks for sharing. And thanks for sharing your skills and experience here, it is what makes CB a great place to be.
Reminds me that my BPED 50th is coming up in a few weeks. 50 years ago I was in limbo, having been informed in December, 1970, that my student status had expired and I was "extended priority" for 90 days.

[DougGuy]

Great story. Enjoyed reading it. Did you work on any of the carriers? Just retired from the Navy a couple years ago.

I worked on ol' Sinkin' Sara in Philly Navy Yard in 1981 I think it was, I was working for a sub contractor and our job was welding back in the patches in the hull where they cut a hole in each end of the JP5 tanks and they blast and paint the inside of the tank then weld back in the 24" diameter patches.

The union had the original contract, and they had been welding these back in with very high failure rates. You got to weld then x-ray one plate up to three times and if it fails again, you have to cut that piece out 1" bigger and replace it with a new piece of plate. Well, LOL they were milking the job to death it seems, some of the plates had been replaced twice, so they welded the same plate 7 times at the very least, and it was $1900 per shot for x-ray, times 7, everybody was raking in the overtime. The helpers were carrying beer down into the drydock in these huge 72 quart coolers, (this was all on the night shift) and it was I guess bidness as usual for some of these gubmint jobs, I dunno.

We went in there and turned in 109 plates in 3 weeks with zero repairs and boy did that raise the hackles of the big dogs! It went all the way to the state legislature, and the union bosses were in a LOT of hot water, anyway as the pork barrel and politics goes, we were ousted and sent packing in short order after they found out we could weld.
_____________________________________________

There were a few memorable events that occurred in those 3 short weeks that I can recall. One morning on the way to the motel about 7am in a greasy spoon breakfast joint in Camden NJ, I scored a Stones ticket to the 2nd day of the 1981 tour at RFK stadium for $20 which was a heck of a deal being tickets were averaging $500 each on the street for the sold out show. They were awesome, days before the show you could hear the sound of drums echoing throughout the Navy base as they were tuning Journey's drums over the humongous PA system that stuck a good 100 feet above the walls of the stadium. People were camped out for a week all around the stadium waiting since that was the opening date of the 1981 US tour.

I ended up laid out across 3 rows of bleachers at the back of the place, you know at a Stones concert there are these "aromatic" things that circulate around the crowd, lets just call them "incense" and I had my share that day. I made it to the bus that evening to go into the yard, got my welders lined out for the night, made sure they had hot rods, got their firewatches assigned, and I collected me a light stringer and coiled it up in a circle in one of the JP5 tanks, threw my deck jacket in the middle of it, notified one of my guys where I would be, and I curled up and slept it off, they came and got me about 6 the next morning saying it was time to go.

There was also a legendary (among us at least) poker game in one of the voids down in the double bottoms, guys were poking their heads and shoulders through the manholes on 4 sides of this one compartment, and the pot was collecting in the middle. They sent an "envoy" over to Delaware with a pile of cash and he returned carrying a big paper grocery sack full of a-hem "party goods" which was quickly divided amongst the gamblers. Yep walked it in the main gate right past the guards, they waved him on in carrying it in his arms! I don't know how much money changed hands in that game but it was $5k per hand for the ante, there might have been a few $20k pots I dunno, I claim the 5th on this one, I saw NOTHINK Herr Commandant!

Good times!

[Bloodhound689]

Is there a way to be alerted when someone responds to one of your comments? Just saw that you responded. ** never mind. I found the subscriptions tab **

I only saw one yard period (Airedale) and couldn't get over how much money was wasted on government contracts. I'm not talking about the workers. I'm talking about completing a project just to tear it back out to install the upgrade that was made after the first design was already paid for. Doesn't really tie into your story but made me think of it.

Yes, work hard and play hard isn't what it used to be. I joined in 98 and every day was a party. Could only imagine what it was like in the 70s and 80s