Chapter 1
My motive in writing this memoir, How did I end up in the Navy?, How did I get to the submarine service?
My motive in writing this memoir
A year and a half ago, beginning with my retirement as a practicing psychiatrist, I began searching for things to do, for projects that might interest me, for something with meaning. Gradually, over the course of a year, I believe I have found that something. I have become a memoirist.
That was not difficult for me, I have always been drawn to nostalgia. When I indulge in it with another person, I almost get a physical sense of pleasure, a psychic tingle. In addition, I believe I have a reasonably good memory. My past is remembered primarily as visual snapshots. To convey it requires that I construct a story and write it down. With practice, I have developed a writing style that works for me. I conceptualize it of as a type of amble. That is also the way I like to walk: slowly, relaxed, looking around, trying to absorb the passing scene.
There is another motive. I am getting old and I want to leave behind a digital time capsule for my children, and my grandchildren, and even those who may come after. Anyone, should they choose, will be able to open this capsule and see what life was like for someone growing up in the 1950’s and coming of age in the 60’s and 70’s. (Now, with digital networks covering the world, it will be easy for anyone to leave digital time capsules for posterity. Instead of mausoleums holding ashes, the ‘cloud’-based Internet will hold your meanest thought, your diary, your daily schedule, all your impressions and observations, written down and available at any time, from any place — now and in the distant future.)
As per the Jewish tradition, I am named for a departed relative, in particular, my father’s maternal grandfather, Avrum Mayer Meretsky. I only know that Avrum Mayer was one of the earliest family pioneers to travel from Europe to America, probably right before 1900. Beyond the fact that I carry his name, I know nothing about him other than he worked, saved and sent money to bring others across the ocean. He was an anchoring link for the chain immigration of my family before 1910. (Maybe that is sufficient, maybe that is all I need to know.)
My brother Don’s Hebrew name was Yankel Dovid (in English, Yale Donald). He received that name because my father wanted to memorialize and honor his paternal grandfather, of that name. The circumstances of my father’s childhood were such the his father was often not around and his grandfather became the stand-in. It was not difficult to see why my father would use his now departed grandfather’s name for my brother, but Yankel Dovid himself (living between 1835 to 1915, and never leaving Europe) was a man of distinction in his own right. He was a successful craftsman (blacksmith), a leader of his community (with a seat of honor in the synagogue), well respected, with a reputation for being honest, wise and kind. And that legend is all that remains of Yankel Dovid’s life. I wish he had left a digital time capsule. I would like to know more about him.
There is another reason for me to start a memoir, a written account, of my life at this period. It was probably the most crucial formative period of my life. During the years 1968 to 1972, I received my M.D. degree; I left my parent’s house in Dallas where I had lived all during med school and moved to New York; I met and married Sondra Gold; I did 2 years of training before going into the Navy for 2 years. My Navy years were relatively brief and discrete. I even possess some memorabilia and written records during this time.
So far, I have written 3 chapters of my Navy life and I will be producing more. How many more will it take, I’m not sure. I guess it will take what it takes.
Meanwhile it gives me a chance to develop a novelistic sensibility, a way of looking at things. Perhaps even a way of understanding myself more.
How did I end up in the Navy?
Back in the mid-fifties, the US government had instituted a “doctor’s draft”, to make sure that there would always be enough medical personnel to meet the military’s needs. All first year medical students were assigned to one of the services: Army, Navy or Air Force. I was assigned to the Navy. Don’t ask me how or why. I assume it was done by some random roll of the dice, in Washington, at the Pentagon.
You have to understand that I was not at all unhappy with the prospect of spending two years in the service. I was particularly pleased that I was assigned to the Navy. I had been in school or training for 22 years continuously since age 6. I was a poor boy. No summer camps for me, no semesters in Europe, no gap years in Israel, no travel, no ski trips. Spring break was always spent at my parent’s humble home, in Oak Lawn, a typical working class Dallas neighborhood. I was always provided with the essentials but I never had a penny. I looked forward to spending 2 years in the military as an officer, with an officer’s salary. I was pleased to be assigned to the Navy, with its promise “to see the world”.
Ten years before, my older brother Don, following a similar trajectory, graduated dental school and did a 2 year tour in the Air Force. He reported for duty and promptly traded in his 10 year old jalopy for a new convertible. In 1959, my parents and I picked him up in Clovis, New Mexico at his cruddy little air base, on our way to California to visit our oldest brother and his family. Don was happy in the military. I expected to be happy also. I was looking forward to a break from the drudgery of a lifetime of study.
How did I get to the submarine service?
The short answer is: “I volunteered”. The long answer has to be extracted from the associated question of “Why did I volunteer?”.
In 1968, during my senior year, I rotated for a few months on the medical school’s psych unit. This was a “teaching unit” for psychiatry. The patients were selected: they were young, bright and interesting. (They were nothing like the patients I would later encounter on the psychiatric wards of the city and state hospitals where I would spend 4 years in training.)
I became friendly with one patient, a man my age, who had recently come out of the Navy. He had served on one of the early Polaris submarines. They had gone into service a few years earlier and were nuclear powered. Each carried missiles that could be launched underwater. Each missile carried a nuclear warhead. (All this was in the midst of the “cold war” with communist Russia, then called the USSR. Russian submarines carrying missiles were patrolling in the Atlantic off our East Coast. Our submarines were likewise on patrol in the Norwegian Sea, the closest underwater point to Moscow and the heart of the Soviet Union.)
This ex-submariner and I would sit and chat all afternoon. He told me what life aboard a nuclear submarine was like: the food, the movies, and the creature comforts. He described how the submarine filtered fresh water from sea water, how it created oxygen by electrolysis from water, all powered by the nuclear reactor. It sounded like fun. I didn’t have any claustrophobic fears. I didn’t know that non-nuclear submarines were generally pestilential hell holes, with little fresh water, almost no showers, and foul air always smelling of diesel fuel and unwashed bodies. The contrast, as a selling point, was not needed.
I particularly liked his description of how the boats were staffed. He told me, “Each submarine has two separate crews, a ‘gold’ crew and a ‘blue’ crew. I was a member of the gold crew. We had the submarine for 3 months and during that time we went out for a 10 week underwater patrol, never once coming to the surface. Then we would return to our port in Scotland and turn the boat over to the blue crew. Then we would be off for 3 months.” I asked, “What would you do during the time you were off?” “Well, anything you wanted. We were already in Europe, so I would usually travel,” he would tell me. That grabbed me. I didn’t mind the idea of 3 months on the boat if you were free to do whatever you wanted for the next 3 months. (That schedule of ‘3 on, 3 off’ was still true when I actually reported aboard 2 years later. However, the prospect of being off for 3 months with no responsibility was no longer in force. I would have to find other means to get the free time I craved.)
At the same time I was speaking with my ‘patient’, an article appeared in the American Journal of Psychiatry, written by a medical officer, who spent a year aboard ship and went out on two underwater patrols. The article basically confirmed what my patient had told me what life was like.
There was another factor which played a large role in my decision to volunteer for submarine duty. When I started medical school in 1964, there were 23 thousand American servicemen in Viet Nam. When I graduated in 1968, that number had swelled to a half million. When I went for my physical, 6 months before being inducted, there were still over 350,000 American servicemen remaining in Viet Nam.
I knew that medical school graduates, like me, assigned to the Navy for 2 years, could expect a year of sea duty (generally in a large capital ship like a carrier, battleship or cruiser) and a year of shore duty (generally at a Navy hospital on a Navy base). Small vessels might have corpsmen, but never doctors. (Nuclear submarines back then were an exception. Now, even they, no longer carry doctors.)
The US Marine Corps always prided itself as being a fighting force, and only a fighting force. Any ancillary or auxiliary personnel (like corpsmen or doctors) were supplied by the US Navy. If you were a doctor assigned to the Navy and were single (as I was at the time) then you had a very high probability of doing your ‘sea duty’ as a Marine Corp battalion surgeon in Viet Nam. They needed a lot of doctors. If your battalion was sent into the jungle, then you went into the jungle. If your battalion held a small air strip and was bombarded every day with artillery then you were bombarded every day. And if your battalion was in a fire fight and took casualties then you had the real possibility of having your ass shot off. Most military doctors killed in Viet Nam were Navy physicians assigned to Marine Corp battalions. Short of running off to Canada or Sweden, I wanted to avoid that assignment if I could.
When I went for my physical before being called up, I let one of the examining officers know that I ‘might’ be interested in volunteering for submarines under the right conditions. Immediately I was taken into an office to see if I could be enticed to actually volunteer. A year aboard a submarine would guarantee that I would not be sent to the Marines and Viet Nam. I had calculated that the submarine gave me better odds of returning in one piece. They offered me a second year of shore duty at the Naval Hospital in Orlando, Florida. I would be part of the psychiatric staff working as a (partially trained) psychiatrist. Avoiding Viet Nam, being able to stay in psychiatry and getting a (choice) location in Florida was enough. I took the deal.