Fouled Anchor (eBook)

A U.S.N. Special Operation Divers Journey

Michael J. Gilbert (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
150 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-6678-9569-7 (ISBN)

Infos

This Story is one of life, failure, death, birth and triumph over alcoholic situations along with final choices that had to be made. In Diving casualties or emergencies, the decision process consisted of the good, better, and best factor or total failure resulting in death! 'The Naval Diving Manuals are written in blood and of courageous souls, paid for by life itself!'

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This book encompasses a mans life story and journey in the United States Navy for 21 years. The purpose of the writing is to acknowledge death defying situations, United States Naval historical moments and the brave people that served with the Author. The story has first person historical accounts of Terrorist attacks and United States Naval actions. The story is meant to educate and excite old and new generations with tales that would have been lost in memories otherwise. The book has insight on modern day Special Operations Diving Programs and what it takes to make it in one of the most dangerous jobs in the Armed Forces Service. It also includes a personal struggle with mental health, inter-relationship dynamic and alcoholism. Along the journey is military diving operations and adventures that will have you holding your breath to read the next paragraph.

Textauszug

Family

In the beginning, on a fall September night in 1979, it all started in a hardworking college town called Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was born into a loving family with two older brothers and a cousin who lived with us due to some family misfortune. My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and my dad was a long-haul truck driver. My oldest brother, John Jr., was the pack leader for sure, everyone looked up to him and followed his every move. Billy, my middle brother, was a smiling happy, energetic, and fearless as they come type kid. Moe, my cousin/brother, was a few months younger than John Jr. He was a thinker and curious-minded child.

I have often thought about how Moe came to live with us and the stress the situation put on my parents for taking in another mouth to feed in the mid-1970s. If that were all the information that I could tell you about my parents and the type of character they had, it would be enough.

Talking with my mom years later, she told me that Moe’s mother had cancer after giving birth to Moe and passed away when he was seven months old and that my uncle Jim had mentally checked out after his beloved wife’s death. Dad and Mom took Moe in, no questions asked, until Moe’s sister was an adult and offered to let Moe live with her. I remember those days being happy and carefree as I was a little guy with no worries at all.

When I was a young boy, we moved to Kentucky for a while because of my dad’s work. At this point my dad and mom had an unplanned separation as my mom took us kids and moved back to southwestern Michigan where her brother Bart lived with his wife and kids. I barely remember this stage in my life; however, I do remember my father coming home and my parents were happy together again. I have talked to my brothers about this moment in time, and they said it was rough, and our mom barely made enough money to support all of us, and we were on food stamps and government cheese; poor as poor gets.

As soon as my father came back into the picture, we moved into the house that I grew up in for all my younger years. This home was a ranch style single-floor home with three beds and two baths on three acres (about half the area of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool) outside of White Pigeon, Michigan. It was the place that I’d remember as one of the happiest times we had as a big family under one roof. My mom often still speaks of that home and kitchen. She loved those times too.

I had childhood asthma growing up. I have never talked about it much because I never let the diagnoses slow me down. To this day, cats, pollen, or dust can send me into oxygen-deprived, shallow-breathing episodes. Subsequently I did grow out of the severe-type symptoms. I do recall lying on the couch trying to recover from the imaginary elephant on my chest as an eight-year-old gazing out the living room window. Every single back muscle ached with working to get a full breath in my lungs. I think staying active helped my symptoms and expanded my lung capacity. I’ve never allowed asthma to hold me back to this day!

White Pigeon was your typical everyone knows everyone’s family and small business type of town. The Gilbert boys were pillars of the community. We were all stellar athletes in our own right. My dad was uplifting, always joking and laughing, riling up my mom about this thing and that thing. Mom was always cleaning and cooking in the kitchen. At this point my mom worked as a server in town and eventually took a teacher’s aide job at the White Pigeon Elementary School. Dad had a fantastic job driving semis right up the road. He was usually gone about two weeks every two months.

The family dynamics worked like a well-oiled machine; kids went to school and both parents worked. Our house always had company over; it was the normal thing to open the front door and have three to four of my brethren’s friends hanging in the living room. My dad’s friends would stop by and drink coffee while they talked about the workday, political views, and current events. My brother Billy was always missing in action around the house; he had a girlfriend and spent most of his time over at her house.

I had a neighborhood friend up the road that turned into my best childhood friend at the time. Max and I’d play sports all day long and get into fights over our competitive natures. We both loved basketball and football! I remember this one time we had a competition over who could go the longest without taking a shower over the summer. That ended when my mom found out. I’d reconnect with Max years later and have him tattoo my Poseidon’s trident on my right leg.

The Chicago Bulls was the best team in the National Basketball Association (NBA). I looked up to and cherished every game I watched of Michael Jordan. I loved playing sports: basketball, football, and wrestling. My brothers excelled at sports; John Jr. was captain of the varsity wrestling team, and Billy was the captain of the varsity football team. No pressure to live up to that on me at all.

Now my father did purchase a baby, thousand-pound buffalo. We just needed to build a barn and fence in a portion of the yard.

The barn was coming along nicely, and the electric fence was fully operational. I think my dad must have thrown twenty hammers into the field behind the barn because he had a new hammer every day, and his thumbs were always purple-looking and swollen. My dad lived one of his dreams out by owning a buffalo for a brief period.

My brother John Jr. eventually moved out and got his own place. John Jr. was a talented singer and guitar player. He led a local area band and played the bar circuit. His band opened for Quiet Riot back in the day!

Billy was working from job to job after high school. He never really found his way until he had the great idea to join the US Navy! John Jr. went with Billy to the recruiter’s office for moral support. He went as far to take the test and be there for my brother Billy. However, it was never his intention to join the Navy.

The brotherly support has always been a gift between us. John Jr. was rocking the heavy metal band hair back then. His story about the Navy recruiters is epic. They kept telling him they were going to chop that hair, and John Jr just smiled back in defiance. John Jr. always had an entrepreneurial mind, which in later years he would use to build a business empire of his own.

I was in middle school about the time my brother joined the Navy. Fun fact: I skipped sixth grade; I straight tested out of it. The real story with me skipping the sixth grade is that I was held back between kindergarten and first grade; they called it primary. My mom was concerned about this and got me a tutor; a super kind nun named sister Maxine who worked at the Catholic church in White Pigeon, Michigan. That lady was a great teacher and totally turned my understanding of reading around. I did take a level test that placed me from fifth grade straight into seventh grade.

My brother Moe was attending the prestigious University of Michigan, studying chemical engineering. He would graduate and move on to many challenging positions in this job field. We stay in touch and try and visit with each other when we can.

I really loved the small-town lifestyle. We eventually moved from the home I grew up in into a house closer to town. Billy had been in the Navy for a few years now and had gotten stationed in England, of all places. John Jr. was engaged to get married. I was living life in middle school, “in my head Mr. Popular himself.” My mom would always tell me that the other kids wore my fashion style in clothes. I’d cut the bottoms of my pants so they would look frayed. It was the grunge music era of Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Sound Garden, to name a few of my favorites.

To back up my clothing style claim, I do recall the girls asking to wear my pants and taking a pair of jeans to one of the school gals, “she knows who she is,” to wear for the day. I tell you, girls wanting to get into my pants at an early age wasn’t too bad!

We moved to Middlebury, Indiana, and I started my freshman high school year as the new kid on the block. No, I didn’t like the group New Kids on the Block! The young ladies of my time loved them and praised the ground this pop group walked on.

Credit card responsibility was never taught in schools. Especially before credit cards hit the scene in modern-day banking systems. My parents did the best they could at the time and learned hard lessons with credit card debt. I was the only child at home during this time.

To this day I do not believe any type of money management skills are taught at the high-school level. You might get taught it in undergraduate classes at a college institution. In the Internet age you better believe there’s enough self-education out there to set yourself up for success.

I was always very social and outgoing; I wasn’t worried at all about friends, plus I played sports. I can recall my first experience with the Middlebury Northridge Raiders freshman football team. I hadn’t been fitted for my pads or helmet yet. The assistant coach walked me out to watch the end of practice and meet the rest of the team. I had on my good luck bandana and a 5k jingle bell run shirt with a huge camel on it that was wearing a red stocking hat with shorts and running shoes.

Ryan Drake, the starting full back, came up to me and said something cocky, of course, and a few others commented as well. As I walked back to the locker...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.5.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• ISBN-10: 1-6678-9569-9 / 1667895699
• ISBN-13: 978-1-6678-9569-7 / 9781667895697