The longer you live, the more stories you collect that help prove points (and that make for good entertainment at parties!).  I have a bunch of ‘m (many — but not all — thanks to the Navy).  Here’s one of my favorites.  It may just be the ultimate tale of government inefficiency, and it is a guaranteed 100% true sea story!  [Spoiler alert: Scroll down slowly, so you don't see each photo until necessary!]

In late 1988, I transferred from USS Reeves (CG-24) to USS Hepburn (FF-1055).  The Reeves was nearing the end of its deployment in the Persian Gulf and about to head back to home port at Yokosuka, Japan.  Of course, no US warship at the time passed that way without stopping in Subic Bay, RP (Republika ng Pilipinas) (a.k.a. “PI,” for Philippine Islands), for some R&R.  But dates are dates and I left the Reeves in Bahrain.  No PI for me.  My orders were to go enjoy some leave stateside, and (if I recall correctly) check in at a small Navy base on Cape Cod at a certain date to get final travel arrangements to wherever the Hepburn was going to be.

I had a great leave.  They flew me from Bahrain to Boston so I could visit family in New England.  That was a long flight, with a couple pit stops (Frankfurt and Rota, Spain, I believe).  When I picked up my travel orders, they said to be in New Orleans on a certain date, so I arranged travel to NO (on the Navy’s dime of course), via Florida to visit more friends and family there.  In fact, I saved ‘m a few bucks by taking a bus from Gainesville to NO so I could stop by Pensacola and visit a bud and his wife (Bill & Carol Corr, where are you!?).  I also got what remains my one and only evening on Bourbon Street.

The morning after enjoying Bourbon Street, I went to the airport and caught a TWA flight to St. Louis.  From St. Louis, I flew on Hawaiian Airlines to Ontario (thinking, “why the hell are we going to Canada?!”) and then on to Anchorage…  In Anchorage, we couldn’t take off again because ice was accumulating on the wings faster than the de-icing equipment could work.  So we were moved inside to spend a few hours in the empty airport and wait for dawn, when the sun could do it’s thing.  Finally, back on the plane…  Next stop, Tokyo.  After that, the final stop was supposed to be Manila.  The pilot said he was going fast to make up for the time we lost in Anchorage…  Funny that, as a couple hours later he decided he’d been going too fast and we’d need to add a stop in Okinawa so we could take on enough fuel to make it to Manila.

All tolled, my travel time from New Orleans to Manila was 30.5 hours.  I hadn’t slept the whole way.  And remember that I’d been partying on Bourbon Street the night before departure.  So.  At the Manila airport, I was shown to a bus that would take me to Subic Bay Naval Station, where the USS Hepburn was supposedly in port.  Add an hour or two for the bumpy bus ride and I am so looking forward to laying down in a Navy rack and sleeping for as long as possible!

I get to the Hepburn just before 10 PM.  It’s tied up roughly here (red circle):

The officer of the deck checks me in and says that hot water will be turned off in 15 minutes, so if I want a shower, haul butt.  I do.  Between the butt hauling and the hot shower — and my proximity to Magsaysay Drive (which, in its day, was at least as wild as Bourbon Street on a typical night!) — I soon found myself NOT collapsing in a rack for a long rest.  No, I was dressed and headed to town for a night of drunken debauchery, like any good sailor.

Off I went, on pure adrenaline.  First, a few beers in Olongapo (the city just outside the gates).  Then, on to Barrio Barretto (next town out).  There I am, walking down the street in BB…  And I hear…  I hear familiar voices.  They’re yelling, “Jones!?!  What the hell are you doing here!?!”

I was standing in front of a haunt of the guys from my old division on the Reeves.  And it was full of…  well, it was full of guys from my old division on the Reeves!  “No,” said I, “what the hell are you doing here?!”

Turns out the Reeves was still on its way home from the Persian Gulf.  And guess what.  They were tied up about here (blue circle):

I hadn’t seen the Reeves because of the buildings in between.

Now listen, I’m grateful things worked out how they did.  I got to visit family and friends in both New England and Florida.  I got to see New Orleans and eat at The Court of Two Sisters (which my grandmother had been raving about since 1942).  But the facts remain as follows:

I’d been in Subic Bay, on the Reeves, as we headed to the Persian Gulf months prior.  From there, we steamed across the Indian Ocean to the Persian Gulf.  Then, the US Navy flew me from Manama, Bahrain, to Germany, then Spain, across the Atlantic Ocean to Boston, then Jacksonville, New Orleans, St. Louis, Ontario (which it turns out is in California), Anchorage, Tokyo, Okinawa and finally Manila…  Completing, for me, a westward circumnavigation of the globe …

…instead of handing me my seabag and pointing (yellow line = possible alternate travel itinerary):

Excelsior!