Typical Navy B.S.

On July 23, 2007 former Key shipmate Michael Moore mustered on the Key web site for the first time and on his muster form his years on the Key were listed as 75 - 84 and Both crews were checked.  I added Mike to the Crew List and then e-mailed him to ask if there was a story behind his tour on the Key.  Here is Mike's reply.

July 22, 2007

You asked why I served on the Key from 1975 to 1984, well I had four and half years on board and then made Chief. Being there was an excess of chiefs on the Blue Crew, I was going to be transferred to fast attacks in Norfolk where they were all short Engineering Chiefs in the fall of !979. At the end of patrol, Key came back into port and during turnover I discovered that Capt Mensch's Gold Crew had lost a M-Div chief for some reason. It was sudden and also before I had contacted the detailer in Washington having just returned from patrol.  I asked the Gold Crew if they wanted me. They said ok so we all called the detailer and gave him a done deal with his approval.  I got about two weeks leave and reported to the Gold Crew as they left for patrol. Now it got really strange - they wouldn’t let me stand watch. They hemmed and hawed and finally I was told that I was not engineering qualified!  Mind I had five years on board by that time and I had qualified EWS under the best engineer I served with Mr. Giambastiani (who just retired as deputy chairman of the Joint Chief's). He made damn sure I knew what was going on with the plant before I got past him. I was pissed and when I walked into the Goat locker the COB was sitting there and I asked him if I he was now going to tell me I wasn’t qualified SS. He said no.  He figured after five years on the Key I was Qualified. I basically hit the rack for several weeks.  I showed up when asked. I found out later that Mensch and Johnston of the Gold Crew were just having a pissing contest with Captain Hastie of the Blue Crew. They finally qualified me before we came back off patrol. One of the ironies is that several years later we were trying to do pre-overhaul testing during refit and didn’t have enough watch standers during the crew turnover. I had looked it up and knew the regulations didn’t discriminate between crews quals. and watchstanding.  I talked my CO into asking for the other crew to stand watches with us during turnover and we then helped out after they had the ship to complete the testing.

Feel free to post this.

Mike Moore