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Here's a great article I found at www.northwestnavigator.com: -- “History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man.” Percy Bysshe Shelley. Fleet Week festivities at Seattle’s annual Seafair, for a Navy newspaper scribe, can often present a slightly madder scramble than usual for putting together the Navy story. The traditional, but always worthwhile grind was no different this year, but, for me, became a tad more meaningful for selfish reasons. When I first heard that the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Cleveland (LPD 7) would be acting as flagship for the ships participating in the event, my mind immediately skipped back three decades. Thirty years ago this month, in 1976, at the defiant age of 18, I was thrust onto the decks of Cleveland while serving as a U.S. Marine in Okinawa, Japan. It wasn’t against my will by any means. I volunteered to hitch a ride on the Marine detachment transport vessel to relieve myself of the boredom of life on “the Rock” to participate in a Marine exercise that would take me to mainland Japan and the Philippines. The trek would be three months long. Cleveland, commissioned in 1967, was immediately put into action the same year during the Tet Offensive in in 1968 in Vietnam. Less than 10 years later, when I was on board, the ship was in the midst of one of seven deployments it would complete between 1974 and 1985. I happened to be standing guard duty on the pier at Okinawa’s White Beach the morning the ship was to pick up our Marine detachment and I was privy to witnessing the huge, 569-foot vessel appear out of the pea soup fog as it made its approach to pick up the hundreds of us Marines and our tons of equipment and gear. I was in awe, and became even more so throughout the day as we loaded up. It was the biggest single mode of transportation I’d ever seen. The next day the ship and crew were off and running. Looking back, the images I still carry in my memory bank are more than a few. I can still see the grimacing looks worn on the faces of the Sailors standing in a separate chow line watching as we were fed first, being treated, I suppose, as the guests we were. I got a taste of my first lobster in that galley while out to sea on that July 4, the 200th birthday of the United States. It may not have been the best lobster I’ve ever tasted but it left a lasting and savory mark on my taste buds that remains to this day. From that galley I can also still picture many unprotected trays of food hitting the deck during meals at high seas, which brought on jubilant cheers from Sailors way more knowledgeable on the art of shipboard eating. I also remember standing watch deep down in the ship’s well deck in the waters surrounding the Philippines, guarding our fleet of Marine Corps vehicles in suffocating, sauna bath heat, protecting them from threats I’ve never quite understood. I can recall numerous bartering sessions with Sailors who seemed almost willing to give up body parts in exchange for boxes of our C-rations. They claimed to be sick of galley meals that we had grown to love. During the many weeks at sea, I became well-versed at card games, spending well over a 100 hours playing Hearts, Spades, and various forms of poker, all to the chagrin of the Sailors that seemed to work around the clock as we sat around on our fannies. They of course got their payback whenever we were loaded onto amphibious assault boats and delivered onto the beaches of remote islands, which was when our real war games work began. I can still see them waving goodbye with devious grins on their faces as their boats pulled away, leaving us to fend for ourselves, surviving on our remaining C-rations. Other highlights of the cruise that will stay with me for the rest of my days are watching Harriers (a kind of part plane, part helicopter) land on the ship’s helo pad, which, I’m told, still occasionally happens today. I experienced my first typhoon at sea. The huge swells seemed to toss the ship around like a toy, often raising the nose of the vessel to what seemed like heights as tall as Seattle’s Space Needle. That night we had to make use of the berthing cot straps to we had so unknowingly joked about when we first saw them. I can remember running PT on the flight deck of the ship and trying to keep our balance in rhythm with the often constant movement of the boat. And lastly, I still think about the time I got bold and climbed on top of one of the gun mounts to pose for a picture, only to have my butt chewed heavily by a naval officer after dismounting. I still have the picture today. Since my stint on board, Cleveland has traveled thousands more knots and taken part in numerous deployments, and provided aid in such non-military disasters, including cleanup on the Exxon Valdez oil spill and recovery efforts stemming from the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 in 2000. Plans are in the works for the nearly 40-year old Cleveland to make at least one more deployment before it ever joins the mothball fleet. And from the looks of the ship today, it might hang around even longer. Save for some upgraded gunnery, and a remodeled galley, the ship has changed very little. Revisiting the berthing area and climbing down into the well deck during Fleet Week gave me the pleasantly eerie feeling of having never left. http://www.northwestnavigator.com/index.php/navigator/regionalnews/getting_nostalgic_aboard_uss_cleveland/