Orion Chapter 50 Taking college class onboard ship By Craig Johnson I had been onboard the USS Orion AS-18 for a while and had finished all of my qualifications as a junior officer including Command Duty Officer (CDO) and Officer of Deck Underway (OOD) which was a requirement to qualify for CDO. Since we were homeported in La Maddalena, Sardinia, Italy I figured I would take an Italian course that was getting ready to start on the ship. I figured that I would do better on this language course than I did on French in 9th grade in Homestead Florida since I did not think I would have the same distractions and I was a lot older now. See in my 9th grade French class every boy in the class got a D for the first half of the school year and we all failed by the end of the year. Our teacher was trying hard to get us to pass the course but had not figured out how to overcome nature so that we could concentrate on what she was saying. To understand this I will try to paint a picture of the situation that caused all of the boys to have the same problem. Our French teach had just graduated from college and this was her first job as a teacher. I am guessing but she was probably 23 years old and a very beautiful well-endowed blonde who as she walked back and forth in the classroom had her most prominent features bouncing at eye level in front of all of us teenage boys. To this day I can remember that happening and picture her prominent features but not her face, now isn’t that strange? I go to myself that this is not going to happen this time and I will do better in this Italian class on the ship. Good intentions do not always work the way that you think things are going to work out. This time things piled up against me on this course also. First off the teacher for the course was a local young lady who was pretty but dressed with layers of clothing to hid her appearance from us so that was fine at the start. One of my problems was we only had three officers onboard qualified to stand CDO which resulted in for one reason or another the class repeatedly being interrupted as various shipmates came looking for me to resolve issues. The other thing that I believe bothered the teacher was on the days I was CDO I had to wear a .45 cal. Pistol which as I am 6’ 2” and she was around 4’ 11” brought it into her vision as I was going in and out of the class. Things were going OK and then one weekend some friends and I decided to go to a local beach for the day. As I am walking through the grassy area on a narrow path leading to the beach who do I come face to face with on the path? Of course my Italian teacher in a bikini walking the other way. She was just plan beautiful and I was never able to get that picture of her out of my mind in class after that. Something’s don’t change. At least this time I passed the class with a “C” and fond memories as well. I was transferred shortly thereafter so never got a chance try and see if she would have been willing to go out with an old Navy sailor.
Posted on: Mon, 22 Dec 2014 18:50:47 +0000
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