Postcards from Deployment: Now Liberty Call, Liberty Call…
Our guest correspondent, Southern Air Pirate, sends his latest missive on the joys of that well known locus of liberty in the Mediterranean, Naples.
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Napoli Bella!
We just wrapped up a 6 day port visit to Naples, Italy. Naples is like it has always been the last three times I had visited there. There are three constants with Naples. The first is that there is no traffic laws and the cabbies are nuts. I rode in a cab to head up to Capo, which is the smaller of the two NATO bases that the US Navy operates out of here in Naples. We ran red lights, got into opposing lanes of traffic because it was quicker then the lane we were supposed to be in, and were rubbed and bumped by other traffic because we may have gone too slow. The second constant is that there is a trash problem in Naples. In that I mean trash is on the streets and it isn’t a problem to the locals. The final constant is that the even though there is construction going on all over the place, it seems as if everyone of the construction crews in on some sort of vacation or holiday. For the 6 days I was there not a single person was working or if there was a person working, it was some junior guy bringing in some supplies then hanging around for a few moments before bouncing out. (yep – pretty much the same Naples I first became acquainted w/in ’75)
The last day was when I headed up to Capo in the back of a cab. Reason being the buses running up to that base had long and ugly lines. Got up there in time to do some uniform shopping and then turned around came home.
The next day was duty and I drew shore patrol for 2200-0400. I was only supposed to ride a liberty launch, but that was changed after 6th Fleet himself showed up for our sunset parade. A sunset parade is where the admiral of the battle group and the big CO take time to bring onboard the local politicians. To wine and dine them and basically awe them with the power of American industrial might and diplomacy. Anyhow, some one on 6th Fleet’s staff decided that it was best not to mess up his big moment with the liberty party returning in the middle of the function. So they decided to cancel the liberty launches for about 4 hours. That was a big mistake, it only held up the liberty party ashore and caused all sorts of hate and discontent with those still stuck on the ship. More time to find fun and adventures out there for the folks stuck ashore. Long story short, dealing with some drunks at 0500 in the morning looking to get them ashore was not fun. "Petty Officer I think I am going to be sick." "There is the rail do it over there….NOT ON MY SHOES!" Got home, crawled in to the shower, and then in to my rack. Was woken up a few hours later by a friend. "Southern, wanna head ashore for Thanksgiving the base is supposed to be putting on a spread"
That was turkey day. There was a couple of options for turkey day. One was to eat on the ship and that required dressing up in a uniform. Didn’t really want to do that, because I had a package I wanted to mail off to my romantic interest. So there was a rumor that the US Naval Base was going to be having a turkey feed with all the trimmings and football up on a large movie screen. Got down to the pier and found out that the turkey feed was going to cost me about ten dollars. So that was canked, but I still went over to the base and found that the exchange was closed so I couldn’t even mail a package that day. I had completely forgotten they had shortened hours because of the holiday. So we went back to the the city and found a restaurant. A bottle of port and some good Italian food later we were pacified. The 5 of us that were on the liberty party then sat around and talked about how spending the holiday deployed sucked. All of us were either married, engaged, or seriously involved in a relationship. All sorts of points were brought up in the middle of the discussion and the conclusion is that someone has to do this, but it still sucks. Showed back up on the ship at the end of the night and really enjoying that bottle (or was it two, heck it might of been three) of the wine.
Southern Air Pirate
Veda Napoli e muoia !
Ahhhh! Naples! If God was going to give the World an enema, Naples is where he’d stick the tube.
Ahhhh! Naples! If God was going to give the World an enema, Naples is where he’d stick the tube.
And here I am, thinking Biloxi was the place…
Southern Air Pirate: Thanks for the update…great narrative, great pics. I seem to remember another “constant” about Napoli, but that was strictly hearsay, ya know. 😎 Us Zoomies didn’t have many chances to enjoy that part of the world.
But for the important cultural question……. Is Humpty Dumpty still around?? 😕
Thank you, Southern Air Pirate, for the post and the photographs. However, I’m still chuckling over the construction workers. 😆 Good to hear from you, sir!
From a proud and grateful civilian.
Ah Bella Napoli… Such memories.
Once you hit Naples Buck you will come to agree with me. Unless it has cleaned it’s act up in the 20 years since I’ve been there. Only nice thing about Naples is the great places you can go frome there. Capri, Sorrento and Pompeii come to mind. This isn’t a dis on Italy, just Naples. Livorno is one of my favorite places on this planet.