No one ever wanted to talk about this. No one ever wanted to dare know
sacrifice that so few made for so many. Its been about 25 years now since it happened, and I think at last, its time to talk about it. There is no more Soviet Union today. But at time Iranians took hostages, US and Soviet Union could have become easily embroiled in a world war if US did to Iran what Iran deserved to have done to it.
Until that point, US Navy had been a fair weather Navy. We never had deployed US warships in that region during extremly hot summer months. The Iranians were well aware of this, but they didn't figure that one lone US warship would have nerve to face down entire Iranian military all by itself.
We did our part, but in my view deciding not to invade Iran was a blunder on Washington's part. Of course, I can see concern they most likely had about a reaction from former Soviet Union, but I would have taken that risk if I were President, and I'm sure they were postive that Ronald Reagan would not hesitate to invade when he took over for Jimmy Carter. In fact, shortly after Reagan took over hostages were released.
Unlike Reagan, I would have still launched an invasion of Iran even with hostages being freed. It would have been unpopular, but it would have been right thing to do and we wouldn't have to worry about those maniacs getting nuclear weapons today.
When Iranians first took hostages, I had no idea what media may have been reporting on TV. I was over there, sitting right off coast of Iran through whole thing. I doubt if TV news talked about it, but five of my fellow shipmates became certified as insane during that time. Before I joined Navy, I had worked on Wall Street, so most likely I had already been insane proof. In fact Jerry Seinfeld had been pouring me beer eight glasses at a time at local Brew'N Burger. So, how much more insane could things be anyway?
The pressure was enormous, and those poor souls just couldn't handle it. The main culprit was sleep deprivation. After going months and months with so little sleep some people just snaped. Sleep deprivation coupled with a blazing heat that we never before experienced was a hardship that I hope no one ever has to endure.
As fate would have it, we just happened to have most advanced weapon of time. In case it still may be classified, lets just say we could have easily sent Ayatollah, a not so friendly gretting. The chance of war with Iran was especialy hard for me to conceive.
It didn't hate Iranians, in fact I liked them. I ran across many Iranians that were being trained by US Navy when Shaw was still in power. The ones that I knew were very friendly and they cherised American values. They were mild manered and very friendly. It disturbed me to think what happened to their country. Its just my opinion of course, but I think Iranians that I knew will someday take their country back from tryants that hate.
I don't really think that anyone really ever knew real story of what went on behind scenes when hostages were taken. But I think that now America deserves to hear true story from someone that was there at time.
It was plain and simple. When Iranians took Americans hostage, there was no ready made plan for such a contingency. Virtually all our planning revolved around how to win a war with former Soviet Union.
I can even recall CNO coming aboard my US Navy ship back in 70's and stating that it would take about 28 minutes to destroy entire Soviet Navy if war were to occur.
Knowing that both countries had balastic missles, talk like that scared hell out of me. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that there would not be any world left to win if both countries launched all their missles.
With our entire focus on former Soviet Union at time, little military pip squeak countries like Iran were not even considered as far as being any kind of a threat to our national security. So, when Iranians first took hostages, we had no ready plan to react.
At time hostages were taken, our deployment was just about over. Everyone was exhausted and looking forward to going home. We had recently gone through three very bad Typhoons.
Even last few ports we were in were not exactly fun ports. We had been to Deigo Garcia where only two females on entire island were English Governors wife and their pet duck.
Before that we had pulled into Somalia against advice of CIA warning us how dangerous it was there. Because it was a Muslim country, no drinking was allowed and they were having a war with Ethiopia at time.
But they had kicked Russians out because Russians, who had been giving weapons to both countries in past sided with Ethiopia in dispute.
I suppose we may have been interested in taking over Russian Navy base there. Obviously other people also had reasons to be there. I didn't know it at time, but at one point in Somalia, I and my shipmates were on a bus that was parked accross street from where Bin Laden and his wife were standing with their camels.
Like I say, none of us knew who he was then, but cold chill in his eyes and his wifes eyes sent chills up my spine even in 130 degree heat.
The bus was there waiting several minutes for clearance to go to Russian base, but I noted that neither Bin Laden nor his wife even so much as blinked entire time. It were as if they were stone.
We didn't know what to expect in Somalia. The Russians had been there for a long time. We even went so far as to tell everyone that we would blow ships horn for everyone to come back if anything went wrong.
The heat was unreal there. It was 130 degrees in shade. The natives warned us not to swim in water. They said that 19 of them had recently been devoured by sharks. But water was our only escape from heat.
The guys from Midwest were really getting done in by heat. Because there is no natural salt in any fruits or vegetables grown in Midwest, they have almost no resistance to intense heat. After we left that fun port than Mother Nature played havoc with us.
Numerous under water earth quakes had been occuring resulting in pop up islands that were not on our charts. This caused some very complicated navigational problems. To make matters worse we were in waters that we weren't accustomed to being in.
Just when we thought we were going home, we had to rush out to Persian Gulf. The Iranians had taken hostages and we were only game in town.
We were completly cut off from our supply lines. Soon after, we completly ran out of cigarattes. My shipmates were breaking into life boats to retrive stale cigarattes that were placed there about three years before.
