Quarterdeck Lessons
By David Reed
When you’re young, in
your very early twenties, and in the United States Navy, you learn to deal with
a lot of boredom when standing a watch on the quarterdeck. This is where
sailors leave from, and come onto, the ship when
it’s tied up to a dock. There
are always three people on watch on the quarterdeck- the Officer of the Deck
(OOD), usually a Chief Petty Officer or Junior Officer. What the OOD says,
goes. He has the final word on who can and cannot cross his Quarterdeck. Next
is the Petty Officer of the Watch. Usually, an E4 or E5 Petty Officer, he gets
to carry this very heavy .45 Semiautomatic pistol all the time in a holster.
It’s fully loaded, per regulations. Finally, there is the Messenger, a junior
ordinary seaman. The Messenger usually runs and gets coffee for the OOD and the
Petty Officer.
So, we’re in a foreign port, tied to
the dock. I am on the 8 PM to Midnight watch on the Quarterdeck as the Petty
Officer of the Watch. Lots of guys (two thirds of the crew, actually) have gone
ashore for some evening fun down by the beach bars. It’s been pretty quiet so
far. It’ll get busy later when they all come back drunk. We drink a lot of
coffee, do a lot of standing about in our dress white uniforms. Around nine
o’clock a young fireman, some young junior apprentice, comes up, starts
babbling on and on about some nonsense. We all just stand there, staring, listening,
not moving. I mean, what can you say? Finally, he walks away. We exchange glances
and go back to drinking our coffee.
Around ten o’clock, a car pulled up quickly
on the dark pier below. It’s some local guy it turns out, who really doesn’t
like the US Navy being here, and he is so full of alcohol he’s ready to tell us
what for. He staggers out of his car, yelling obscenities in his own language
at the Messenger who had gone down to the trash dumpster on the dock for a
minute. All three of us are like, “what the hell…?” Then he starts coming up
the gangway, a big guy, full of piss and vinegar, screaming at us. By pure
reflex I find my hand on the gun handle, getting a good grip. Holy crap.
The man starts yelling at the OOD in
the local language, who yells back and holds up his hand for him to stop, but
the man keeps coming, angry, yelling. I’m thinking to myself in a blur, what am
I going to do? Do I draw on this guy? No, don’t draw unless you’re going to fire,
I think; that’s what someone said before. My hand grips the gun handle tighter;
it unconsciously eases out an inch. Suddenly he’s near the top, still screaming
at us. I’m looking at the Chief, then back at the man, my eyes rapidly moving
left and right. My hand wants to pull the gun out now! I fight the urge; still,
it rises another inch. I unconsciously take a stance, slightly sideways, feet
apart, just like we do at the range. I’m thinking to myself, Stop. Please stop.
Stop yelling, stop threatening! I feel the steel gun trigger on my index finger;
The voice in my head is yelling silently, “Pull it out! Cock the slide back! Point
it at him! Don’t wait!” With every bit of my being, I resist, but I can sense
that is about to change at any moment. Get ready, get ready, get ready…
The angry man pauses near the top,
one step from the top rung, still yelling, screaming, making threatening gestures
with his fists and his whole body as he does. He’s very, very emotional! I’m very,
very scared shitless! I’m so scared I’m in fully automatic mode now, finger
firmly on the trigger, keeping the gun barely in its holster. I’m thinking, “I’m
gonna have to shoot him, I’m gonna have to shoot him…” I know now what my next
move is.
He looks at me, back to the Chief,
yells a few more things, then starts to back-up, down the steps. Even as he
begins to back up, I’m still in hair-trigger mode. Finally, I start to breathe
again.
The angry man gets back in his car
and speeds off. We all stand there, me with a firm hold on that gun handle still.
The Messenger comes running back on board. I broke the moment by saying
something like, “Damn! I almost shot that guy!” The Chief smiled at me,
chuckled. He says to us finally, “It happens sometimes in ports like these. You
don’t shoot him unless he steps on board. Then you can shoot him.”
“Well Chief, I damn near did.”
He let’s out a deep sigh, then we watch the
taillights disappearing. Hand still trembling, I very, very carefully remove my
fingers one at a time from the weapon, and put the flap back over it. We go
back to leaning on the railing. I lean back against the table, stare out into
the darkness, heart pounding in my chest. We all just stand there for a minute,
nobody saying anything. Then just like that, everything was normal again. Calm,
quiet discussion about what happened. More coffee, please, Mike. I consider the
fact that this man didn’t have a weapon in his hand; was unarmed as far as I
knew. I could have just knocked him down to the deck and held him until the
Master-At-Arms showed up. But when there is a gun strapped to your hip, and a
man is screaming at you from eight feet away, that’s not what you’re thinking.
You’re thinking this gun is going to protect you. Stress has a way of making
you take the easy way out. Yet, I will forever remember that, for one terrifying
moment, I held this man’s life in my trembling gun hand. For just a very few
moments, a complete stranger stood on the brink of violent death, with my
finger on the trigger of his eternity.
It was these thoughts that ran
through my mind every time I stood another watch on that Quarterdeck. Life and
death decisions. His life; his death. We stare into the abyss, not knowing
what’s coming in the next minute, blissfully unaware. Tonight, though, I have
learned an important lesson: There are things that will come out of the abyss
at you, terrifying you, forcing you to make hard decisions fast, decisions that
can cost someone their very life. When you’re twenty-something, life is all about
lessons.