It’s a Legal Matter, Baby

The night before I was scheduled to begin, I made sure the creases in my dungaree uniform were particularly crisp, especially considering that the Judge Advocate General (JAG) Office was located in the headquarters building of the base in Sasebo. The last thing you want to do is run into the Captain of the base looking like a complete and total slob.

I arrived early and was introduced to everyone attached to the JAG office including Legalman First Class Cynthia Haynes, Legalman Chief Bill Wettig, the base JAG officer Lieutenant Claude Hickman and Aoki, a civilian Japanese lawyer who handled translations for the office as well as any disputes between the base and Japanese authorities.

After exchanging formalities and being offered a cup of coffee, I was tasked with my first official job in the office: copying case files. The first one happened to include the autopsy pictures of a sailor who had recently died of a heart attack while playing softball. The second one, was much more gruesome. Chief Wettig even warned me that I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want to.

A little background: Sasebo is home to one of the largest U.S. military armories in the world. As it was told to me, if a fire ever sparked in that place, practically half the island of Kyushu would be blown up and sink into the sea (although I’m not sure if the science used to make that correlation is sound, there’s a lot of ammo there). That armory is protected by a battalion of U.S. Marines. At some point before I arrived to TPD, there was a hazing incident which took place in the Marine barracks. One of the Marines who was scheduled to be charged in the hazing was on sentry duty one night in the armory. Rather than face charges, he chose to take his own life by sticking a 12-gauge shogun in his mouth and pulling the trigger. That resulting crime scene (and the autopsy which followed) was what I was being asked to photocopy. Not a pretty sight. And, not a really fun way to start your first day at the office.

Toward the end of the day, Aoki asked me to briefly join her in her office. She gestured for me to a seat. While Aoki’s English was very good, she spoke in a very proper, yet breathy manner. “They referred to you as ‘J-O-3 Ka-min-ski.’ Tell me, what does the ‘J-O’ in ‘J-O-3’ stand for?” she asked.

“The JO stands for Journalist. I previously worked as a print and broadcast journalist,” I replied.

“Excellent. So if I have any questions about English, I should come to you then?” she asked.

“You’re certainly welcome to. I would be happy to help in any way that I can,” I said.

“Great. Thank you so much. I see it’s getting close to 5 p.m. and I must be off the gym. Please have a nice evening. I will see you tomorrow,” she grabbed a gym bag and headed out the door.

As I got up and reached the door, Chief Wettig caught me. “Good job today. I already talked to Chief Remington. You’ll be working here from now on. See you tomorrow.” I went back to TPD, got changed and went out to grab some dinner and a drink. It was nice to feel appreciated again at work.    

While it wasn’t journalism, I was happy to be doing something other than planting flowers or mowing lawns full-time. Those are perfectly respectable activities, just not what I would choose to do on a daily basis.

The days in the JAG office varied widely. One moment I could be filing documents and another I could be asked to write letters for submission to Chief Wettig, Lieutenant Hickman or even Commander Barker, the base’s executive officer (second in command).

For whatever reason, Commander Barker spent a good bit of time in the JAG office. Eventually, I learned a bit about her family (she was married to a Naval Reservist – also a Commander – and had two children). Also, I learned about what a complete a total jackass the base’s commanding officer, Captain Berger was. A total chauvinist, Berger had little to no respect for Commander Barker and often left her out of meetings, instead choosing to maintain a “boy’s club” atmosphere on base with his other, male department heads. I always found Commander Barker to be an incredibly bright and very talented leader. She was also not someone that I would want to cross in any way. More on that later.

Eventually, I was taken off the duty roster for TPD. I still lived in the building, but was almost entirely assigned to headquarters. In addition to my role in the JAG office, I also at times assisted the base’s public affairs office from time to time. Lastly, I also formed a relationship with Chief Coogan, the enlisted leader of the military police force on the base as well as the two NCIS agents assigned to work in the region.

Working in the JAG office turned out to be a good gig for me. At the time, personal email was becoming an easier way to communicate with people back home rather than mortgaging my internal organs to pay for phone cards. I went to sign up for a personal email address through Hotmail and was asked to come up with a unique modifier. At the time, all I could think of was a buddy of mine from Diego Garcia going around and re-enacting Mike Myers doing “Sprockets” from Saturday Night Live and talking about, “Oh, you sassy monkey!” I laughed a bit to myself and typed “sassymonkey” into the field. That action was returned with a, “Congratulations, your new email address is: sassymonkey@hotmail.com” [Editor’s Note: I stopped using this email address a few years ago. Please don’t send to it, as it most likely now belongs to someone else with an even worse sense of humor than me.] I looked twice at the computer screen and muttered to myself, “Nice job, Scott.”

Soon enough, I was given my very own key to the headquarters building which meant I could come and go as I pleased – I often spent a good portion of my time on the weekends using the office computers and responding to emails.

Things where good. And they were about to get slightly more complicated for me. In a few different ways.

- Scott Kaminski

* - All names have been changed.

TPD Sasebo: The Damaged Goods Department

Many years ago, before teams of lawyers got involved and stopped the practice, grocery stores used to have a clearance section where they would sell for pennies on the dollar dented cans and not so perfect goods. You never knew if you were taking a chance with your 10-cents and purchasing Spam, botulism or both.

The Transient Personnel Department (TPD) on a Navy base is the human version of that section of the store. It’s a holding station for sailors who have had their orders messed up for one reason or another, those actually waiting for a ship to come in, those being sent out of the military for naughty reasons or folks like me who had come to TPD to deal with long-term medical procedures and processes.

I arrived at Sasebo’s TPD after receiving official orders to gather my belongings and depart from the USS Belleau Wood. Luckily, it’s not like I had too much stuff at the time so I simply lugged it all in two seabags to the far end of the base. Once through the door, I thrusted my orders into the face of the guy standing (well, sitting) at the watch desk and was promptly issued linens, a blanket and pillow and a room key. He gruffly told me to report back to his desk at 8 a.m. the following morning for a work assignment. The room included four beds (none occupied just then except mine) as well as a standing armoire which would be my closet and a television with cable. And remote. Fancy!  

The humans inhabiting the TPD at Sasebo Navy Base were a motley crew of drifters and interesting folks – as I was to find out that following morning. The leader of this band of merry idiots was Chief Remington. I had seen the combination of khaki uniform, big sunglasses and cigarette constantly in his mouth somewhere and couldn’t quite place it finally hit me: the guy reminded me of General Douglas MacArthur. Although his demeanor was a much more sedate combination of trippy and sarcastic than I imagine MacArthur to ever have been.

During muster that following morning, I was assigned with another group of six or so guys to move landscaping and gardening supplies from one area of the base to another. As we began loading up trucks with material to be moved, Remington arrived in what appeared to be one of the nicest golf carts I had ever seen – complete with chrome wheels and seating for up to 10 people. One of my fellow sailors shared the sentiment and sarcastically piped up, “Nice gardening cart, Chief.”

Remington looked briefly at the cart and then turned back, “Yeah, the Captain on this base used to use it parade dignitaries around the place. He had to give it away after they threatened him with another congressional investigation.” [Editor’s Note: More on that later.]

As we were getting close to lunchtime, a guy named Samuels asked if I wanted to tag along as he was heading to the base McDonald’s (a relatively new dining option in Sasebo at the time). I agreed and hopped in the passenger seat of the truck to head out with him. As I did, another sailor named Boothe asked me if I could get him a Teriyaki burger combo [Editor’s Note: This was Japan. Don’t judge. Those things were pretty good.]. He said he would pay me back. I told him that was fine and we drove off.

“If that guy offers to pay you with a check, don’t take it,” Samuels told me as we pulled away. I looked at him quizzically and he continued, “That idiot is here in TPD because he wrote $50,000 worth of hot checks through the Navy Federal Credit Union. They’re keeping him in the service until he pays that money back and then they’re going to kick him out with an Other Than Honorable discharge – best his lawyer could get him.” Stunned, I just shook my head. He smiled, “Welcome to TPD, Kaminski.”

The work details continued Monday through Friday of each week. In some instances, they would be larger projects or quicker things where we may be let out early toward the end of the day. Remington typically didn’t mind folks being unattached to work as long as it was after 2 p.m. or so and no one was getting into trouble (well, more trouble) in any way. As I was expected to be at TPD for some time, the duty people took pity on me and often tried to book new arrivals to the facility into other rooms unless it was absolutely necessary.

One of the people I met during my time at TPD was a Petty Officer named Sykes who had also previously served aboard the Belleau Wood. Sadly, he was involved in an accident while home on leave – that involved being on a roller coaster no less – that left him walking with a cane. The military was in the process of putting him out of the service with a 100% disability, but it would take time. In the interim, this good ole boy from Kentucky had taught himself to speak rather fluent Japanese. He enjoyed spending a lot of time in the bars impressing people with his newfound language skills.

Soon enough, I was scheduled to pull front desk duty for TPD. Sykes was the one who walked me through the process. It was pretty simple, really. I just had to man the front desk between 5 and 11 p.m. and then sleep in the room adjacent to the desk in case anyone got dropped off in the middle of the night.

My first night on duty a newly assigned TPD sailor comes in the door dressed in one of the most outrageous outfits I had ever seen. Sykes happened to be with me at the desk shooting the breeze before he went out on the town. Anyway, this guy had on what I could only describe as a black fishnet shirt, dressy yet black parachute-style pants, a bright electric blue blazer, black Rayban sunglasses and his polished, Navy-issue dress shoes. I took one look at the guy and said in the most exaggerated voice I could muster, “Goddamn, son! I knew MC Hammer just went bankrupt. I didn’t know that motherfucker had a yard sale!” The guy’s face turned red. He then just turned around and walked back out the door.

As much as I never wanted to, I was beginning to get used to the pace and the routine of TPD. I spent many of my non-duty nights hanging out at the Playmate bar in Sailortown. I especially enjoyed doing so when most of the ships were out to sea. That often meant I could sit wherever I wanted, play pool wherever I wanted and felt as though I had the run of the entire town of Sasebo.

Thankfully though, things were about to change for me from a work perspective. The base office of the Judge Advocate General was looking for someone to help them out in their offices. Chief Remington sent me down to meet with them and I was immediately scheduled to begin the next day for an undetermined amount of time.     

- Scott Kaminski

* - All names have been changed.

My Aching Feet

I was on my way to Okinawa, Japan to have a podiatrist examine me and my chronically pained, flat feet at the island’s U.S. Naval Hospital. The U.S. military presence on Okinawa is huge. Primarily consisting of Navy and Marine personnel and due to a variety of international incidents involving these folks, the people of Okinawa sadly seemed to detest the American presence there.

After landing at Naha International airport, I took a taxi to the base and went to pay the taxi driver in Japanese Yen. He stridently refused and instead insisted I pay him in American dollars (on account of the exchange rate at the time and the previously mentioned animosity).

I checked in with the personnel department of the hospital and was assigned to a four man room in the barracks for the duration of my stay. Two of the four beds were empty. I simply put my stuff on one of them to claim it and went back to the hospital to be assigned to a work detail of some sort until my appointment the next day.

At the hospital I would be temporarily reporting to Chief Hospital Corpsman Brady, who ran the hospital’s file room. Apparently, in between appointments with the podiatrist, I was going to be singing the A-B-C song and helping to put medical files in the right place. In truth, after doing fire watch on the USS Belleau Wood for as long as I did, this was a welcome change.

One of my counterparts in the file room was a radioman also from Sasebo who was stationed on the USS Fort McHenry named Chris Hailey. He was originally from a small town in Georgia and had a rather wicked sense of humor. We hit it off almost immediately. Even better, as I found out going back to the barracks that night, he was also one of my roommates. The other was a Marine named John Stanley who had been severely injured in a training accident and was walking with a cane.

As it was technically a Marine base we were on, the enlisted club wasn’t just a rough place—it was a downright dive. And, for some bizarre reason, they named it Smuggler’s Cove. Hailey introduced me to it me my first evening on base—in all its dingy, Quonset hut glory.     

I wasn’t really sure what I was expecting out of my appointment with the podiatrist the following morning. While my flat feet hadn’t been a problem when I joined the military, they certainly seemed to be one now. During the consult, I was officially diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, prescribed new boots with orthotic inserts and told to go back to the Belleau Wood and see if anything improved.

Soon enough I returned back to the ship—and to fire watch—and it was as if little or anything had changed in my absence. I was told to report back the medical personnel aboard the Belleau Wood in a few weeks and they would determine if I needed to go back to Okinawa again.

Orthotics or not, my feet didn’t feel any different than they did before. They still hurt. And that was definitely a problem. I flew back to Okinawa, checked back into my old room (Hailey was still there) and back to the file room I went.

My next appointment with the podiatrist was a little more sobering than the previous visit. Especially considering this is the one where he basically told me it was his recommendation that I be medically discharged from the military. He was very honest and upfront with me, which I appreciated greatly. He laid out the next steps in the process, which included my going before a medical review board to determine the how and when I would be leaving the Navy. He also told me that the pain I felt then, at that time, was very likely going to be a permanent thing from now on in my life. At the time, I was a few days short of my 21^st birthday.

I would most likely be in Okinawa for a while as my medical files and other paperwork were gathered to go before the board in San Diego. I celebrated my 21^st birthday at Smuggler’s Cove with my friend Chris Hailey who dared me drink to 21 Crown (Royal) and Cokes in honor of the occasion (I only made it 15 before giving up).

It felt odd to celebrate what, in America, was an alcoholic right of passage. Given my selection of duty stations (Diego Garcia; no legal drinking age and Japan; legal drinking age of 20), I had already been able to drink alcohol legally for years. That’s not to say I was some sort of raging alcoholic—actually, quite far from it. In any event, we had a good time. Hailey regaled me with stories from his time living in Georgia and practical jokes he had pulled on unsuspecting sailors and marines during his time aboard the Fort McHenry and in Okinawa.

I stayed in Okinawa roughly a month, working in the file room until my case packet was finalized and sent to San Diego to set up a hearing. My next steps now were to heed a new set of orders which transferred me from the USS Belleau Wood to the base in Sasebo. Specifically, I was transferred to the base’s Transient Personnel Department or TPD. Given that my previous experience with TPDs went so swimmingly, I could only imagine what I was in for now.

I flew back to Sasebo in April 1997, collected my belongings from the USS Belleau Wood, said my goodbyes to the folks there and checked in at the Transient Personnel Department to await further instructions.  

- Scott Kaminski

* - All names have been changed.