Pride Tears Are Cool

Independence Day Memories

July 4th, 2008

It was a very hot summer day and the only things making the heat bearable was the smell of freshly grilled steak, a freshly grilled steak smell has many medicinal properties I won’t get into for now, and the fact that is was our first “day off” in quite a while. You see we, the USS Forrestal and battle group, have been deployed from our home ports for going on 30 days and we were in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and I was experiencing my first “Steal Beach Picnic”.

The picnic was an event that would make any outdoor party fanatic proud - there were grills standing end to end that stretched for 25 yards - the entire grill set up was COVERED in steaks. Sailors, all donned with beach attire, eagerly formed a line to grab the steak of their choice. Some Sailors brought out blankets and laid out to catch some rays and work on a tan before we would arrive at our next port of call.

And what is a party without live music!?!? Amazing how much musical talent there is on a U. S. Navy vessel. At least 6 bands were strategically placed around the flight deck, each offering their own brand and style of music. What a great day!

As night started to fall and the clean up from the days festivities complete you could see the ships in our battle group start to position themselves closer to us - still a couple of miles off but much closer. The flight deck was packed with people as we watched the sunset in awe, if you haven’t seen a sunset while at sea I suggest you put that on your “to do before you die” list - amazing sight.

Just as the sea appeared to completely extinguish the sun it started. The 50 caliber machine guns we had mounted for our eventual Suez transit started to burst fire sending tracer rounds into the newly nighted sky. That must have been the cue for the rest of the group and before you knew it tracers could be seen from every ship - our 4th of July fireworks celebration has started! That night brought new meaning to the phrase, “Bombs bursting in air” - I remember being consumed with national pride, each concussion from the various explosions sending chills. It was the first Independence Day in my life I really felt I understood what it means to be an American - every July forth since that day I look up into the night sky and would become so overcome with pride that tears fall down my cheeks - not the tears you might try and hide when you watched Ol’ Yeller meet his demise, we are talking Pride tears - they are cool.