A story by a good friend and shipmate of mine, Efrain Ruiz...

To a long lost friend that is etched deep in my mind heart and soul

I remember stepping out of the airport into the cold night air. The breeze was making my bell-bottom dress blue pants flap in the wind. I was standing there with my sea bag on my back. My garment bag over my arms,covering my hands to keep them warm when a rough voice that reminded me of sandpaper slowly grating it's way across a wood block called out to me and said "Hey sailor.... Do you need a taxi"?

Not knowing how else to get where I was going I said, "yes" and quickly climbed into the back of the green and white taxi. The taxi's back seat sagged beneath my 180-pound frame and was so well worn I could feel the springs on my backside while the strong pungent smell of many a cigarette-smoking passenger assaulted my sense of smell. I had no idea how long it would take to get where I was going, hell... I didn't even have a clue as to how to even get to where I had to go so I opened my big manila envelope and pulled out a stack of 5 or 6 pages that were stapled together and showed them to the taxi driver. He looked them over, handed them back, put the car in drive and off we went.

I was a young man with not a clue as to the true nature of the path I had chosen but I was determined to stay the course and not return to the slums of the Bronx and become just another nameless face in a sea of poverty. My thoughts eventually drifted towards my friends and family all of them so very far away. Wondering what my mother would be cooking for dinner and if the snow that started falling before I boarded the plane would stick or if it would melt and just turn into the usual gray sludge that lines the streets and highways of New York City in those middle winter months.

I felt the taxi begin to slow but what my body felt and what my mind registered was two different things until, the harsh bright white beam of a high power flashlight cut through the darkness and hit me right in the eyes jolting me back from my thoughts and to the large imposing figure on the other side of the window that was motioning for me to roll down my window with his hand as he mouthed some words. I did as requested and sat there looking dumbly at him in his foliage colored clothes with the large sidearm with the well worn grip gently nestled in its quick release holster. After a few heartbeats I heard him mumble something to the effect of "Damn Booters", then apparently repeat a request he had already asked in a more exasperated tone due to having to wait on me while standing out in the cold just that much longer because I had either not heard what he said the first time or it did not register. I quickly retrieved my wallet and pulled out the desired piece of lamination wrapped green paper. He gave it the once over, stepped back then put his hand stiff horizontal hand to his chest and away were went again.

I don't know if the taxi driver did it on purpose or not but we traveled through dark streets lined with buildings on either side keeping me from seeing anything more than the tan and brown buildings until we eventually came to a McDonalds at which he made a right turn. As we slowly made our way down the streets I could see the glow of bright lights a few blocks away. He continued on towards the lights and I could feel the excitement grow in me, much like a child on his first trip to the fabled Disney World that he is finally getting to go to. We came to the end of the last street that opened up to a parking lot and there I got my first glimpse of what would, unknown to me at that time, become my best friend revered and loved till the end of my days. We traversed the parking lot and exited the other end on to the roadway that would lead me to her warm embrace.

I stepped out of the taxi after paying the driver, with bags firmly in hand and looked up. There with what must have been a 1000 candle powered light illuminated the hull number that will stay with me till the end of my days 'OR4'. I felt the warmth of the exhaust as it blew over my calves but the sound of the car was lost. All I could hear was that odd hum that only a US Navy ship can give off, an odd hum of power, an odd hum of strength. I remember feeling awestruck as a looked down the length of her haze gray hide. She was twice the length of a football field and had two large structures, one fore (the front) and one aft (the rear). The forward structure was slightly rounded and windowless till the very top of which she had, what looked like was added as an afterthought, what I would akin to being a penthouse apartment on the very top floor of a building,it was not quite as long as the rest of the structure and had windows from one end to the other, no doubt to make up for the other windows that they had somehow forgotten or neglected to put in when they first built her and it was called the pilot house.

As a leaned to my right and looked down her length I could make out other shapes of what looked like little houses with wires and hoses hanging everywhere like the legs of some strange spider that lays her body down and just lets her legs dangle down. As I looked down the Pier I could see the water rolling up and down her side with the ebb and flow of the small waves that washed against her, as though massaging her old bones all the while encouraging her, no taunting her to leave her berth at the side of the pier and find the open waters that she so richly deserved and had obviously had seen and loved on many occasions. I could see the mooring lines tighten and strain all the while whispering to her it is not time to go as it strained against her slow pull away from the pier.

My eyes followed the long black impossibly large hoses that led up her side and into her like the umbilical cord of a baby yet born, feeding her, nourishing her, giving her the life blood she needed for her next foray out into that large beautiful open sea. The smell of salt water and DFM (Diesel Fuel Marine), alien to me at that point, but, would later become as comforting as the smell of the sheets on your bed after mom washed them, wafted up to my nose.

She was not like the destroyers or the carriers you hear about and see so much of in the movies and those "full speed ahead" commercials but... she is the life of the Navy. It is only through her grace that those destroyers and carriers can do what they do because without her they would be as useful as a rifle without bullets. She took this lost boy and turned me into a found man. She was my first home away from home. She provided me with family and friends. She showed me what it was like to work harder in one day then most people would in one week. She took me to far away, exotic places to let me play on beaches far and wide while teaching me and showed me a world outside of the Bronx. She saw me through love long lost and sailed me to a long lost love. She comforted me when I was sad and rocked me gently to sleep on the many a nights I thought I could not because regret and sorrow held me tight. She was like a mother in a sense, because she transformed me from a lost floundering boy in to a strong sailing man.

These are only a few of the things I feel when I think of her. My eyes still fill with tears when I think of her because I would not be the person I am today if it weren't for her. She was literally and figuratively my ship in the storm. May calm seas and fair winds forever more grace her bow.

IT1 Efrain Ruiz Jr.