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Back in Time
Evening on
watch was exciting because of ghosts
By Al Bliss
During my first three months at Fire Control School, I would, based on
a schedule for watch standers, be assigned a two hour watch in the
building. The school had been built sometime in the Second World War.
It was a two story building classically in the shape of H. The watch
station was on the first floor in the middle of the H. One other
descriptive note is that the building was cleaned after school in the
evening, so that it would ready for school the next day. The floors
were routinely scrubbed and waxed and the pattern quite unique and
shining as they should be in the navy’s schools.
Remember, I was 17 years old and this was the first time that I had
really been away from HOME. I mention this only because there were an
immense number of activities available to a young man in Washington,
DC. I tried to at least partake of a little bit of everything all the
time. And sleep was not an important ingredient. The night in question,
I had the watch from 0200 until 0400 smack dab in the middle of the
night, I also had not had very much sleep in the previous two nights
and had had a ballgame the evening before the watch.. the game was
softball.
I relieved the watch correctly on time and just prayed that I could
keep moving for the next two hours. The lights were dimmed everywhere,
except exactly at the watch station but there wasn’t enough room to
move adequately at the watch station so I’d just wandered around. In
the middle of the night with shadows and a vivid imagination, I’d swear
I saw smaller older students wandering the halls just in front of me. I
knew it was my imagination again. But – as I came around the
corner going back to the watch station, the chief petty officer in
charge of my duty section appeared around the corner and I thought I
was seeing my first GHOST. My response when he asked me “if I was all
right”—“Was you really surprised me and scared the s--- out of me.
I’m sure that he thought I was just a little bit dingy and I think he
was right. During the balance of my 2 hours, the Chief came back two
more times --BUT-- I never went to sleep.
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