•  when he got off the bus of enlisted guys the first thing they did was shave everyone’s head. then they took them to a room where everyone got naked and their clothes and belongings were stored in bags. they were issued uniforms. on the ship, he shared a room with 50 guys. there was a table, a garbage bucket, and a radio in the middle of the room.

•  he showed me how to salute. you put the tips of the fingers of your right hand to your temple and move it fast to chest-height. the marines make a more exaggerated chopping downwards motion. dad said the general rule was ‘if it’s moving: salute it. if it’s not moving: paint it’ (they did a lot of painting on the ship).

•  dad worked his way up to be an officer in charge of 13 guys (i said ‘you told them what to do? how did that work?’ he made a face and said ‘not very well’). he was a radar technician. he had a tiny office with a door sealed with ten latches. sometimes he would go to his office to nap, which wasn’t allowed. if someone was about to catch him, by the time all the latches opened he would be awake enough to pretend he had been working the whole time.

•  he described all the stripes and things that get added to your uniform the higher you rank, with ‘tour guide’-like interest, miming stripes on his sleeve. he said ‘and then when you’re an e-six you get a chevron with an eagle coming out of it, you know, which is what i had, you’ve seen that picture of me.’ i thought of the photo of him in uniform on the top of his bookcase by the plastic flowers, that would be there when he came home from dinner. he inhaled and held it a moment, then shook his head like he had surrendered something and said ‘oh no, i don’t know why i’m crying, why do i do this.’ i said ‘it’s okay.’ he said ‘i don’t even know why’ and chuckled a little, crying less as he continued describing the stripes and chevrons.

•  most of the time at sea was spent playing ‘war games.’ dad’s ship would leave from rhode island and a submarine would leave from connecticut at the same time. dad’s job was to use radar to track the submarine as if it was the enemy. if the submarine crew detected someone tracking them, they were supposed to turn off the submarine to appear invisible to the radar. if the ship crew ‘caught’ the submarine before the submarine crew knew about it, they’d send depth charges (‘cap gun missiles that just made noise’) down to it. the submarine would surface and they’d say ‘hi, good job’ to each other. one time the submarine went off the radar for a long time. dad’s ship continued sending depth charges but it stayed dormant. they got worried and stopped. the submarine surfaced. it was russian. dad said ‘and then they blinked their lights, you know, morse code, they said: ‘hi how are you.’ we said ‘hi we are fine.’ and it went along on its way. it was just there, in connecticut, a russian submarine!’