The Rest of the Story

 It was a dark and stormy night, a shot rang out, a door slammed and suddenly... yeah, ok, not really. But was a dark and gloomy. On the horizon we could see the burning oil fields. Thick sickly black stringy clouds loomed in the air, reflected off the moonlight.They contrasted against the normal clouds you would see at midnight while in the middle of the Persian Gulf. It was the third day of the ground attack of Operation Desert Storm, and we had a mission. My job was to steer us there and back. 

One thing to remember about leadership is it's a skill, like a lot of things. Most people aren't born one way or another when it comes to skills, though as you grow you will gravitate towards something. You can be trained to be a leader, just like an architect, gymnast, engineer, or speaker. 

That night I had one job, keep our ship 2000 yards (1 nautical mile) behind the helo carrier and staying in its wake. Fortunately, Captain A taught me all of my ship handling skills because Captain B was in command now. And yes, he assigned me conning officer. See the previous post for some issues we had because this took place well after the man overboard kerfuffle. Also, different commodore, Comphibron 5 commands the Persian Gulf region. The main reason for all of the training was so when you hit these moments, you're ready. I remember doing drills when I first got on board. Various parts of the ship reported issues to the bridge and it was our job to repeat back and acknowledge them. The first time I heard something come over the circuit (think giving an order at a drive-thru) I couldn't understand them. By the time of this event (2 years later) I could repeat back anything that came across. 

During Operation Desert Shield, the amphibious ships practiced landings. We had people onboard that recorded all of them. Now the exercise  we engaged in is the 2nd most dangerous operation in the Navy, just behind flight ops on an aircraft carrier, welldeck ops. Our ship was able to open the back, to flood our welldeck (where Marines stored their amphibious vehicles), which sunk our back end, and let Marines flow out the back. I was a safety officer for this as well as a safety officer in a small boat. On the boat, my job was to monitor the Marines coming out, and if they breached (went under water) make sure they came back up. If they didn't I had to radio back to the ship while going to their spot. I had 1 breach but they popped back up. All of this was recorded.

We were doing an amphibious feint. Our ship squawked like we were a large landing fleet coming to hit the shores of Kuwait. The the carrier's mission was to  fly helos close to the shore, then back again. The mission was a complete success, keeping the Republican Guard looking seaward while the "left hook" swung around and attacked. I made sure to maintain our formation, staying in the wake of the LPH in front of me so we looked like one ship. This also made sure we didn't hit any mines as we traversed a "swept channel". That included turning the the wake of the LPH, a piece of cake for me since I had already been doing this for 2 years before all of this. 

Just as a side note, we were told later that 2 SCUD missiles were launched at us. One went wildly off course while another was shot down before soon after launch. 

Now, I will admit, I've probably made this more interesting than it really sounds. From my perspective, it was a bit tedious and just another day of ship driving; which is a good thing. How well you practice helps you prepare for the real thing. I had so much practice that when the real thing came, it was second nature to me. This is what makes great athletes, great speakers, and great leaders.