Last night at Donovan's Reef Bar here in Panama City Beach, Florida, I met one of the most interesting characters ever, 78-year-old "Doc." If I can reach that age doing just half as well as him, life would have been mighty good. What a character.
His supply of jokes, often a bit off-color, knew no end. One after another. He's been married three times and lives in Rome, Georgia.
He didn't say how he got the name "Doc," but made sure to say he was never a "Pecker-Checker" Corpsman.
He was wearing a USS Helena hat and shirt, so I got into a talk with him. I seemed to remember a World War II cruiser named the USS Helena and that it had been at Pearl Harbor, but he said his was a different ship. The original Helena (the one I was thinking of) was sunk in World War II and the CA-75 wasn't commissioned until after the war but saw considerable action bombarding enemy positions during the Korean War.
I'm sure this ship had to be one of the last US heavy, all-gun, cruisers ever built.
More to Come. --Cooter
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