"WHAT DID YOU DO DURING THE COLD WAR?"

Guest Blogger Keith Taylor is a retired Navy officer. He can be reached at [email protected].

EXCERPTED from: "A SEA STORY" - By KEITH TAYLOR
first published Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2006 @ Voice of San Diego

...My ship was a converted World War II Liberty Ship, one of thousands built by Henry Kaiser. The idea was to turn out so many ships the Nazi submarines could not possibly sink all of them. It was one helluva way, but the only way, to fight the early days of the war.

Still, the slow expendable vessel was what the Navy drug out of mothballs to use as a spy ship. It didn't require speed and we excelled in slowness. All ahead flank was 10.8 knots, about eleven miles per hour. We sure weren't going to outrun our primary targets, radio and other electromagnetic signals which flew through the ether at 186,282.397 miles per second, give or take a few feet.

I was a part of the crew who did our work behind locked doors. I motivated my guys by telling them their work was the only reason for the ship's existence. I further motivated them by telling them that, unlike on their last duty on a shore station, we could throw their asses over the side if they goofed up. The rest of the crew was told we were doing research on electromagnetic radiation, and we were, sort of.

The Old Ox was decked out with antennas much more modern than anything else on the superstructure. They fed information to electronic devices much more sophisticated than any other device on board. The ship carried us over the high seas where we listened carefully and tried to determine just what sort of information was flying through the ether.

Then, in Navy parlance (almost), the stuff hit the fan. Something was awry in Cuba and our government wanted to know what it was. It was our Cold War adversaries, the Russians, installing missiles in that little nation a mere 90 miles from our shores. Armed only with a couple 50-caliber machine guns we weren't going to stop a missile but we might be able to learn if they were preparing to let one fly.

It was an exciting time and an important time. I'm proud to say that I took part in a war that never got off the ground. Maybe we even helped prevent it. Eventually the Ruskies pulled back...

Yup - Keith Taylors one o' Rev. Art's Atheist Pin-Ups !

Thanks for your service, Chief.
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