Stark Realities

Remembering those who made the ultimate sacrifice

I was sitting on a blanket on steel beach, a.k.a. the helicopter deck, taking in the sunset with a shipmate while we steamed across the Pacific. 

In two days we would arrive in Hawaii for my first taste of shore leave beyond the California coast. A few days after that the ship would depart for the Persian Gulf where whatever liberty there was to be had would be quite different than in other ports of call, so we intended to make the most of our time in Honolulu.

As we made plans and listened to a tape of a new band from L.A. called Jane’s Addiction, the Commanding Officer’s voice cut through the 1MC, the ship’s public address system. 

The C.O. told us that a U.S. Navy warship had been attacked in the Persian Gulf and while the seriousness of the attack was not known, lives had been lost and our battle status was being updated to wartime cruising effective immediately. 

I don’t remember what the C.O. said after that. I just know it was one of those moments in my life when everything changed. I was eighteen years old and we were going to war.

There have been two other moments like that: the second was the morning of September 11, 2001. The third was December 14, 2012, after the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary. These events were so immense, the realization came gradually as my mind grappled with the horror of what was unfolding as new information came to light. 

That day on the U.S.S. Meyerkord, May 17, 1987, I knew right away that everything had changed. As we hustled below decks to put our gear away and get ready for battle stations, the phrases “We’ve been attacked” and “I’m going to war” kept cycling through my brain. 

War. An actual war. Even though my dad was a Vietnam veteran who was out on patrol the very instant I came into this world, even though I’d lived under the shadow of nuclear annihilation for my entire life, I couldn’t believe I was actually going to war. 

But I didn’t go to war. No one did, at least not in the United States. 

An Iraqi jet fighter had fired two Exocet missiles at the U.S.S. Stark. Thanks to a heroic effort by the ship’s officers and crew, the ship didn’t sink and the vessel was saved, but 37 sailors lost their lives in the attack. 

The Stark was an FFG, meaning it was a fast frigate with a guided missile system that was supposed to protect it from air attack. Out ship was an FF, and had no such air defense system. Our ship was a converted destroyer escort that had been built to provide short-range artillery support against coastal targets during the Vietnam War. Then it was converted into a submarine hunter, even though we were diesel powered and much slower and louder than the subs we were supposed to chase. Every second I spent on that vessel we were an obsolete war fighting machine. 

Saddam Hussein apologized to President Reagan, calling the attack a mistake. Iraq and Iran were embroiled in what has come to be known as the Tanker War and were blowing up each other’s oil tankers. Reagan accepted the apology. 

Meanwhile our orders were changed. Instead of going to the Persian Gulf where we’d be sitting ducks for trigger-happy Iraqi pilots, we went on a Good Will Tour of the Western Pacific. 

Instead of spending six months of wartime cruising in the Persian Gulf, we went to Subic City and Manila in the Philippine Islands; Yokosuka and Kure, Japan; Singapore; Hong Kong; Pusan, Korea; and Darwin and Albany, Australia. 

Our itinerary was kept a secret, and they only told use where our next destination would be once we set sail, but somehow everywhere we went the bar girls knew where we were going, where we had been, and most importantly, when we’d be back. 

I lived more in those six months than in the eighteen years before it. I learned to love live music. I tried all kinds of alcohol and drugs. I threw myself down flights of stairs, outran shore patrol, danced my fool ass off listening to epic cover bands at Cal Jam in Olongapo. I ate foods I couldn’t identify. Swam in seven seas. Bumped into an old basketball teammate in a nightclub in Japan. In Albany I threatened to kick my Commanding Officer’s ass and paid a price for my folly. In Manila a young college student sang a lullaby for me on the front steps of her father’s general store and I fell hopelessly in love. In Subic City, I went over the side while painting the waterline and got dysentery from the sewage in the seawater. Friends, you do not want to get dysentery in Subic City, but even this I do not regret because I got to spend the night in a nice hospital bed and the nurses were pretty and kind and smelled nothing like the 80 or so sailors with whom I shared a berthing compartment. 

It was all pretty great. 

Looking back, my time in the military is an anomaly because I served during peacetime, something that hasn’t been true for a long, long time. 

But tell that to the 37 sailors who died onboard the Stark on May 17, 1987.

Their service—and let’s be honest here, their sacrifice—has been forgotten. 

As our Good Will Tour through the Western Pacific went on, and we learned what happened to the Stark and how the political theater unfolded, I slowly began to realize how lucky I was, and that I owed a debt of gratitude to those 37 sailors.

This weekend I thought about the Stark in the context of the coronavirus. Because of the sacrifice made by the sailors on the Stark, I was never exposed to the dangers of the Persian Gulf, and for that I am immensely grateful.

Today, the people who are losing their lives to the coronavirus are victims. All we have to do to is wear as mask. It’s an infinitesimally small sacrifice to make so that others can have richer, fuller lives.  

It’s a free country. Do what you want. But if you’re not willing to make this sacrifice, we can never be shipmates. 

1000 Memories with Dan Ozzi

Music journalist Dan Ozzi is a former editor at Noisey, the co-author of Tranny with Laura Jane Grace, and the author of the immensely popular newsletter, Reply-Alt, which you probably already subscribe to. I was a little nervous approaching Dan about his Bad Religion memories because he’s an actual music journalist who has forgotten more about pop punk than I’ll ever know, but his response was refreshingly disarming. 

JIM RULAND: What’s your favorite Bad Religion album?

DAN OZZI: My favorite Bad Religion album is Stranger Than Fiction. I know that's a very unpunk answer but I found it in a very unpunk way. I was 11 years old and my mom's best friend gifted me a cassette copy for Christmas. She probably bought it from K-Mart, had no idea what it was, and only got it for me because I'd asked for it and she was fulfilling her adult friendship duties. I didn't know the band's history and didn't realize it was their divisive major label debut. I was too young to wrap my head around the scene politics behind that conversation even if someone had explained it to me. But looking back, I was probably the band's intended listener for it. They jumped to a major to reach a wider audience, one that included 11-year-old dummies who had burgeoning interests in whatever this punk thing was. The knock on Stranger Than Fiction among irate punks was that it was "too polished," but for me, a kid who was making the transition from radio rock to more underground music, it was more palatable than if I were to start with something with a lo-fi sound like, say, a Crimpshrine record. So I listened to it over and over and over, especially their single "Infected." After that, I started working my way backwards. I got Suffer, I got Recipe for Hate. I still like those albums, but I'm a big believer that you gotta dance with the one who brung ya. So Stranger Than Fiction will always hold a special place in my heart. It did its job—it helped get a kid into punk. 

Do What You Want, my book with Bad Religion, will be here before you know it. You can pre-order a copy from the Bad Religion page by clicking on the image below.