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   38 years ago today, I was inducted into the United States Navy. For the most part, the time I spent in Ft. Wayne, Detroit, waiting for the ceremony and the buss ride to Great Lakes was uneventfull. As I sat there, I saw that four young men who thought they were going into the Army, were transfered into the Marine Corps. If those boys had it to do over again, I’d bet they inlisted like I did. One man thought he was going in for 2 years, and it turned out to be 4, so I’ll bet he was a little suprised too. The ONE thing I remember clearly, like it happend yesterday, were the last four words in the induction ceremony; “So help me God”. I meant it when I said it then, and I still do.

   I’d come topside from the Port side, after messdecks, and had just walked around the corner to the fantail, when I saw a bos’n leaning over a box. Back about three or four feet stood two more sailors, leaning on their broom’s. It didn’t take long for another sailor, who was walking by, stop and ask what the first guy was looking at. “Why, it’s a SEA BAT boot!, havn’t you ever seen one before?”, the bos’n said. Then he stood up and looked down at this kid and said; “These things are pretty damned rare boy, but if you want to take a look, make sure you don’t let him out”. So this kid leans way over to peek just under a corner of the box, and just before he got a look, he gets a broom upside his ass. He jumped up and turned around, all pissed off, and there’s 30 guys standing there laughing at him.

   The next guy was a little different. This one had a cross on his collar and three full stripes on his sleeve. The ship’s Chaplain had been out for a stroll when he heard a lot of laughter from the fantail so he stopped by to see what was up. He see’s a sailor leaning down over a box, with three guys, leaning on brooms a few feet behind. As with the Commander, as he was with the boot, he explained the best he could what was in the box. As the Chaplain leaned over, the sailor looked up at the after radar mounting and gave the Captain a questioning look. The Captain smiled a warm and friendly smile and chuckled a little. The sailors took that as a “Have at it” and had at it. This time, when the Chaplain looked up, he immediatly bent over again, to try once more. This time when the sailor looked up at the after radar mount, the CO, and the XO were both holding their sides and the Captain waved him on. The bos’n gave it a good swing and really let him have it. Everyone even near the fantail was laughing and clapping. The Chaplin jumped up this time and gave a glaring look to the bos’n and the bos’n looked up at the mount. The Chaplain did likewise and the CO lost it again so the Chaplain new he’d been had, and nothing he could do about it. So, all you ‘want to be sailors’ take note…

   I would be willing to bet, that when Saul of Tarsus shipwrecked on the shores of Malta, he was heading for this harbor. 99% of it is surrounded by the island, the other 1% is an opening just big enough to let us in. I was only able to watch once, in the many times we’d pulled into that port, but it was enough. The ship passed through that opening with only 50′ on each side. It may sound like a lot to someone in a row boat, but we wern’t in no row boat. We were in Malta for Thanksgiving two years in a row, and we had to feed the liberty section of the U.S.S. America both years. She had to anchor way off shore, and the seas would get so high, that the liberty boats were prohibited from running. Two years in a row I missed out on Turkey and gravy, and someone from that ship, owes me a dinner.

   On my first visit to that island, I signed up for the local tour, which is a pretty good move. I guy can sit on the bus, see some interesting spots while learning about it’s history, and find the best route down to the ’Gut’. Every Navy port has a gut, and it’s one street that is FULL of bars, sometimes there’s two or three streets, but I think Valetta had one.

   The tour took me through structures that have been here for 5,000 years. Up in the hills there is a ’town’ of stone ruins that were constructed during the stone age. You can see in different doorways, the holes that had been punched through rock a foot thick, to attach the door. Farther on, I was taken to a cave that was found in one of the neighborhoods of the city.

   Someone was digging a well for a home there, and after chiseling through the rock they fell in rather than find water. Fortunatley, they’ve installed a staircase since, so we got to go down and have a look. The cave, which was all man-made, had three or four rooms, and two of the rooms were pretty unique. One of them, had the skeletal remains of over 5,000 people. The bones had all been smashed into little pieces and then deposited into this room. Evidently, there were few spots to bury the dead, so after the body would decompose, it would be moved into another room where the bones would be smashed and placed in storage. It’s the next room where my life changed in a way.

   There was one room, the largest, that was 20′ squared, there wern’t any adornments on the walls, or evidence of there being mounuments in it. Next to it, was another room. This one was much smaller, maybe 3′ x 4′ and in the wall adjacent to the large room, is a hollow chiseld into it. The hole is 8″ dia. at the wall, but it’s chiseled to a void that’s 1′ deep and 18″ wide, in a bowl shape. Our guide explained to us what it was for, and how it worked. It’s one of the first evidences of human’s using religion to control the people. People seeking advice or a general announcement could be done in that room. One of the High Priests would pass on his suplications, arm’s upraised, and speak to the Gods. They would wait expectantly until the God answered them! Up front and personal. Our guide asked a woman to speak into this void and we listened. You could hardly hear her, but when a man spoke into it, it THUNDERED. The island remained like that for a long time and the next spot we stopped at was where St. Paul preached.

   In the outskirts of town, there was a cave found that had served as a catacomb for the Christians. We were taken down a staircase that led into a meeting room, that was 30′x30′ and lined with hand hewn beds in the rock. There were four beds from the floor to the ceiling and each was maybe 5′ long. They even had pillows chiseled into them. In one of them, the glassed over one and had a skeleton laid out. From this room were many hallways and at the time I was there, not all of them had been surveyed. There was even a troop of girl scouts down in there somewhere that hadn’t been found yet. I’m not real sure if that was the truth, but we didn’t venture down any of those hallways. In the center of the main chamber is a raised dias with a statue of St. Paul where he spoke to his followers. That was quite a moment for me when I reached across the barrier and touched the stone from where he spoke. There’s a whole lot I don’t agree with, with Paul, but he left a great impression wherever he spoke. When I was in Athens, I visited another spot he was at, and I could feel the same strength in the stone. From there, the tour went on to see how the other half of that population lived.

   The Ville was pretty much in ruins but there was enough left to see how well the Roman’s were living. What impressed me about them were the pools. There were several floors and pool bottoms that had mosiac’s in them and they were astonishing.  One hill over from this place was a Crusade era castle.

   The Castle came with a moat and a draw bridge, parapets, ‘hot oil ports’, and twisting streets. This place was the real deal. We were taken around the place and the guide explained about the defensive characteristics of it. If or when they finally broke the front door down, they would find themselves in a small court with arrows raining down on them. If that wasn’t working out too well, there were ports in the walls where hot oil could be poured to finish off the real tough ones. If they got beyond that, the streets were narrow and twisting so it would be hard for an invader to run rampent throughout the town. The next stop was in town, and it’s attraction happend in the Second World War.

   Valetta when I was there, was mostly Christian, and I think had been since Paul left for Rome. There are signs on the streets that say; “Be kind in your words and thoughts”, like we would see sign’s that say; “No Parking”. There are several church’s in town and this one was typical, other than having an unexploded 500# bomb sitting in the vestibule. During their frequent air raids, while the Germans were trying to sink Malta, the town’s people would gather in the church’s for comfort. During one of these raids, this bomb dropped through the dome above the alter, hit the marble floor just in front of the alter and traveled down the center isle and out the front door. All this happend during the communion ceremony, and not one person was hurt. You can look up and see where the damage to the dome had been repaired, the nick in the marble floor is still there, and the bomb with a dent where it hit. The last stop was at fleet landing and there was something interesting going on there too.

   On the night before the Columbus would pull into a port, the ship’s Chaplin would give us a talk on the 1mc. He’d tell us some history of the place, some of its laws and customs, and different things that were unique to the place. With Valetta it was brass door knockers and lace. I can’t attest to the knockers, ‘though I did see a few nice sets, it was the lace that got my attention. Right next to the entrance to fleet landing was a small building with these hand loom’s along the walls. Three or four of them were in the process of making table cloths and the intracacies of this operation was amazing. This lady would sit there rotating spindles of thread, over and under and between each other and come out as a design. I don’t know which culture brought those machines to the island, but the ladies there, were making great use of them. From that point, we took a utility boat back to the ship, but that night, one of my buddies swam it.

   We had what they called “Cinderella Liberty”, that is, you had to be back to the ship by midnight. One of the guys I worked with missed the last boat, but rather than get reported as A.W.O.L. or worse yet, miss ships movement, he made a swim for it. It was about a quarter mile from the landing docks and the ship, and he was saluting the Officer of the Deck at 8 bells. They figured out a way to charge him with something to make a point, but it wasn’t for Absent WithOut Leave.