THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509280186
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Over Easy
SOURCE: Jo-Ann Clegg
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
Bill and I went to the ceremony when our friend Master Chief Bernard (known to all but his mother as Woody) Woodard retired from the Navy a couple of weeks ago.
Woody, with his wife, Jane, by his side, left his Texas hometown 30 years ago to, as generations of sailors before and since have also done, see the world.
In the darkening days of 1965, young men were joining the Navy, or being drafted into it, for another reason as well. A nasty war was already heating up on the other side of the world. Nearly 700 American lives had been lost there in the five years since the first group of U.S. troops went in. Far, far more would be lost in the years to come.
Woody, like most of his contemporaries, would be a part of that war. In 1966, not long out of quartermaster school, he went to Vietnam on a small repair ship - an ARL. It had started life as a World War II landing ship but had been refitted to make repairs on the American patrol craft and swift boats that plied the waters off the coast and up the rivers.
Four years later, he returned to Southeast Asia, this time aboard one of those swifties, the crafts that carried out some of the roughest and most dangerous naval missions of the war.
Woody doesn't talk a whole lot about those tours. Most of the men who served them don't.
Many more tours followed for Woody, most far more pleasant tours than those served in Vietnam.
Along the way, the small-town Texan rose through the ranks to the top of the enlisted corps, a command master chief. The guy with a pair of stars adorning his chief's insignia. The person the crew looks up to, the skipper depends on, the one with a chest full of ribbons, the one who has actually served in combat.
But people like Woody, those who actually served in-country in Vietnam, are a rarity in today's Navy. Most have long since retired, bringing to an end an era that most of the country would prefer to forget.
I thought a lot about that as we sat among the small group of dignitaries, friends and shipmates at his retirement ceremony two weeks ago.
That it was held aboard the tank landing ship (LST) La Moure County made me even more acutely aware of an era that has passed us by.
At about the time Woody was shipping out for his second Vietnam tour, Bill was putting a shiny new ship in commission out in San Diego. It was the Schenectady, a sister to the La Moure, a radical new design of LST meant to take the amphibious force into the 21st century.
A pair of horns protruding from her bow gave her a look not even remotely resembling anything else afloat. It gave her great capability for putting tanks and trucks ashore as well. An extra propeller, known as a bow thruster, gave her a phenomenal amount of maneuverability.
On a beautiful June day in the same year that Woody left for his swift boat tour, the Schenectady - bright and beautiful - was commissioned under a deep blue sky in Long Beach.
It was hard to imagine that she would ever be old, outdated or unneeded.
But a lot changes in 25 years. Ships, like those who sail in them, do grow older. Times change and ships, too, retire.
Such is the fate of the LSTs. La Moure County, on which we witnessed Woody's retirement, is the last of her kind still active in the Atlantic fleet.
Beneath a few cosmetic imperfections, her lines are still beautiful, her handling characteristics, I'm sure, still fine. Still, it has been decided that she and her sisters have no place in a world trying to convince itself that it's at peace.
Like the young men who sailed her a quarter century ago, she'll not get to see service in the 21st century. An era is about to end but, for those, like Woody and Bill who lived through it, it will never be forgotten. by CNB