"I Was Off The Coast Of Hawaii"

"When my first son was born, I was off the coast of Hawaii. I was in the navy at the time and we were doing Operation RIMPAC; it's a military exercise that we do where it's my group--I was on the U.S.S. Constellation, a U.S. carrier--against another U.S. carrier, which was the U.S.S. Independence. We had the Canadian Navy, the Australian Navy, the Japanese Navy, and the South Korean Navy, all one big old wargame. During that time, I got my AMCROSS message when my son was born. I didn't get to see him until he was two weeks old. The did offer to give me emergency leave, but the would only give me a week, and my son was here on the East coast, so it wouldn't have been worth it. So, I made a deal with my chief engineer and he told me that if I didn't mess up the watch bill, the moment we hit San Diego, the moment the brow hit the pier, I'd be off the boat with two weeks leave, so I got to spend two weeks with him. That was 21 years ago." 

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