Slideshow
USS Peleliu — An Adventure
This discussion will last several posts. In the spring of 1999 I was attached to HMM-165. HMM-165 is a helicopter squadron. Specifically, a CH-46 helicopter squadron. I handled the administration aspect of the unit. More on point, I did what was called the unit’s unit diaries. While it sounds like I kept a spiral notebook of unit activities, the Marine Corps has progressed. The Unit Diary is essentially an electronic record of activities of the Unit. While it sounds like a mundane activity with little impact, the Unit Diary reported essentially all the important activities of the Unit up the chain of command. The Unit Diary impacted everything from general entries to Marines pay. I took it very seriously. I am sure if you spoke with some of my Marines who worked with me, they may have said I took it “too” seriously. I would dispute that. I would argue almost every entry entered on the Unit Diary had the potential to impact a Marines pay. If a Marines pay is screwed up then they are not working on the Unit’s mission.
But I digress, in the Spring of 1999, HMM-165 was preparing for deployment. The HMM units are the ACE. The primary command for the Air Combat Element of the Marine Expeditionary Unit. I’m not going to get into the structure of commands here but suffice to say, we were attaching a lot of Marines to our command and we were preparing for deployment. Additionally, before we were allowed to be deployed, the ACE had to be Special Operation Capable qualified. As a result, our unit conducted operations on the USS Peleliu. I had never been on a ship until this point.
I will never forget when we left for the ship. We reported and were given our birthing assignment (where our racks were located). Now let’s be clear. The enlisted birthing area was extremely compact. I don’t know how many Marines were in one birthing area but I do know that our racks were extremely compact. I would say an area of about 20′ x 15′ comprise of 12 racks and an area of about a shoe box area for each Marine to store their belongs. The rest of our belongings were kept in a separate storage area. When you rolled over on you side of your bed you touched the rack above you. The racks were stacked four (4) high.
It was an interesting setup. Well, I am about to go to bed. I will post more about this experience in the near future.