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Adm Paul D Butcher


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Simeon 10-May-2019 03:00
In the message below I meant to write that my wife was a very good friend of the ship's operations officer's wife. Which is how I learned so much about the brass aboard the ship. FWIW I never shared anything of a personal nature about their lives with my shipmates. Other than to flatly deny the truth of the rumors referred to below -- I knew they weren't true because (I knew very well) one of the sailors involved so I know that nothing worth mentioning happened.

Former FTM1 Bullwinkle (FM Division)
Simeon Hovey 03-Aug-2016 11:01
To the son of GQ, you might want to keep in mind that because of my wife's friendship with the OKC'a Operations Department Officer I know far more truly nasty personal things I could have written about your Dad and family; but I've kept my remarks at the professional level. Or should I tell of the time when rumors about your family got all the way back to civilian support techs in Long Beach? Later one of these men flew to Yokosuka and told me the wild stories he'd heard I told him the rumors were cut from whole cloth and there was no truth in them. Therefore when I rotated back to "The World" I later found that the really vicious rumor-mongering had been quashed. So please keep in mind that I did your family a good turn also.

FTM2 "Bullwinkle" FM Division USS Oklahoma City.
Simeon Hovey 30-Jul-2016 06:30
Having studied the Hindhu and Buddhist religions I well know what karma is and my words are what the man deserves -- although I am sorry if the truth is painful to you.
Simeon Hovey 30-Jul-2016 06:28
Any man who treated another 1000 men the way he did does not merit being remembered for anything other than the block-headed tyrant he proved himself to be. When we crossed the Equator in Jan 1975 GQ Butcher never told us if he was a Shellback or a land-lubbing Pollywog -- which is something any Shellback would have been proud to acknowledge. However the XO had the courage to go through the ceremony, which was very brutal back then, and I know he did it because he was in front of me in the line crawling around 3/4s of the main deck. While I did see GQ Butcher walking about the ship in his khaki uniform while everyone else wore the garb of a Shellback or a Wog.

Between 8 years in the USN/USNR and 15 in the USAR I can categorically state he was by far the worst CO I ever served under.
Guest 05-Apr-2016 20:02
How dare you!! That was my father and to trash him makes me ill. Karma, just remember that word....
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 20:43

Excuse me, it was way more than two years ago but I think it's time for me to stop.

Calm winds and following seas. And all Hail King Neptune!
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 20:23

Oops! The reader can skip the following first Part 1 of 2 and skip down to the second Part 1 of 2. I first tried to put my whole piece in and got an error message that it was too long; I've been going at it for 24 hours now because I can't sleep so I might have misunderstood the instructions given. So I messed up putting cutting it in two.

After I got out of the regular navy I tried two years in the navy reserve, mainly because of the $1000 Bonus for my NEC [Skill Code] [back then $1K was a lot more than it is today amounting to about 3 California house payments] but there was very little for a sailor to do on the western edge of the Mojave Desert. So when my time was nearly up I walked down the sidewalk to an army reserve unit just to talk with them for a while. The long story short is that we did a trial one year enlistment to see if we liked one another — we did and I spent another 11 plus years as a Staff Sergeant and then Sergeant First Class. The thing I found out about the army as compared to the navy is that since ships have all of the space and equipment for sailors to eat, sleep shower and so forth the officers don’t have to spend any time thinking about the welfare of their sailors.

Whereas the army, being a field based organization, the above amenities aren’t out in the wilderness, desert or whatever type of terrain, flora and weather conditions and it’s still necessary to feed soldiers, keep them hydrated, somewhat clean and as warm and dry as the weather and circumstances permit. Since the officers also work in the same place their soldiers do, if it’s pouring rain they get soaked too, if there’s no food they don’t eat either, if there’s no water they don’t drink. And if we’re getting shot at so are they. The army is an entirely different dynamic that the navy should take an honest look at. IE if an officer gets shot he depends on his men to come drag his ass to safety and he knows that soldiers who hate him won't come out.

So it’s inherent in the army to always be thinking about the welfare of the soldiers. Once we were out in some high desert terrain and I’d been ordered to keep my platoon at a particular spot out in the sun and in a heavy wind. So I looked around and found a nearby arroyo [a long ditch] deep enough to give shade and get us out of the wind too so I ordered all but two of my soldiers into the arroyo. I told the two to stay there so the lieutenant [LT] could find them when he came looking for us. I also rotated the two soldiers every hour.

Later when the LT did come back he came to the arroyo and called me to come up and talk to him, he calmly asked me why I’d moved the platoon from where he’d told me to keep them. I said, “LT I found this arroyo and since there’s shade and a wind break it saved [wear and tear] on my platoon. And I left two runners out so you could find us.” He looked me in the eye and said, “Good thinking sergeant!” THAT never happened in the navy. And in the army the reason for two runners is in case one of them gets shot but we both knew this and that was part of his praise.

My unit was mobilized for Desert Storm and I later took a 20 millimeter fragment in the lower spinal cord which makes it impossible for me to walk without prosthetic devices. I’m now under the care of the Veteran’s Administration [VA] hospital system which leaves a lot to be desired; since I’m old enough now I often use Medicare even though it’s not free like the VA is. The VA is another story but I will leave the reader with this example; the VA doesn’t treat veterans for chronic pain, my VA doctor happily told me I could find my own civilian doctor and the VA would pay for it. That was two years ago — I gave up looking for a doctor who wants to deal with veterans and the VA.
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 18:57
Part 1 of 2

I suppose the worst possible thing Captain Butcher could do when he came to the Pacific from the Atlantic Fleet was that he took a perfectly good [war] ship-of-the-line [the Flag Ship for the 7th fleet.] and we soon learned that his main [only?] priorities were: haircuts, fresh paint, clean compartments and heads [showers and toilets], polished brass, shined shoes, shaves and so forth; also the XO [2nd in command] spent his entire mornings doing daily inspections of all the berthing compartments [where we sea dogs slept] and the heads. One of the requirements for these daily inspections was that all of the rack [bunk] cooling fans had to be turned off so the XO could see that they were clean too. Every damn day! And those of us who worked nights and slept days did not like having to turn off all of those circular fans for the XO's viewing pleasure while we literally sweated it out for hours until the fans could be turned back on. And it got ever hotter the closer we got to the Equator. [If a rolling stone gathers no moss then how does a spinning fan gather dust?”]

Then in April of 1975, North Viet Nam's army launched their final attack towards the capital city of Saigon so the 7th Fleet set sail for the war zone and other than the ship's propulsion system working -- it would have been really nice if the ship's weapons worked but they didn't. Suddenly all of the falsified reports of weapon's operability came to light and the navy had to do priority air lifts for all of the parts we needed to fix the weapons systems. Out of all the weapons on the ship only one missile battery worked and the parts we needed finally arrived shortly before crossing the war zone line into Yankee Station.

Also the officers suddenly stopped being such dic..s and for once they finally cared if the weapons systems worked and the XO wasn’t looking for dusty fans either. I can still remember my Division Officer who’d been so callously obnoxious about his place in the navy’s caste system. As if we were all his brides who’d have to commit the suttee in the event of his departure. Now he just came down to the radar control room every hour or so to stick his head threw the hatch [door] into the radar control space [room] and he’d anxiously ask, “Does it work?” And now that Butcher had at last given the weapons systems technicians the necessary time to maintain our systems we could always say, “Yes.” And then the officer would turn suddenly and walk away so fast we could almost hear the Road Runner’s “Beep Beep” I still don’t know why the ensign [officer] didn’t use the phone to call us, or actually walk through the hatch to come inside to ask the same question. Maybe he wasn’t sure the control space would still be there?

At last we had the time to do what the navy had spent so much money training us to do and the power was in our hands to make officers go away. That part was wonderful while it lasted as was the tax free pay we collected and instead of putting stamps on out letters home we could write “Free” in place of the stamp.
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 18:56
Part 1 of 2

I suppose the worst possible thing Captain Butcher could do when he came to the Pacific from the Atlantic Fleet was that he took a perfectly good [war] ship-of-the-line [the Flag Ship for the 7th fleet.] and we soon learned that his main [only?] priorities were: haircuts, fresh paint, clean compartments and heads [showers and toilets], polished brass, shined shoes, shaves and so forth; also the XO [2nd in command] spent his entire mornings doing daily inspections of all the berthing compartments [where we sea dogs slept] and the heads. One of the requirements for these daily inspections was that all of the rack [bunk] cooling fans had to be turned off so the XO could see that they were clean too. Every damn day! And those of us who worked nights and slept days did not like having to turn off all of those circular fans for the XO's viewing pleasure while we literally sweated it out for hours until the fans could be turned back on. And it got ever hotter the closer we got to the Equator. [If a rolling stone gathers no moss then how does a spinning fan gather dust?”]

Then in April of 1975, North Viet Nam's army launched their final attack towards the capital city of Saigon so the 7th Fleet set sail for the war zone and other than the ship's propulsion system working -- it would have been really nice if the ship's weapons worked but they didn't. Suddenly all of the falsified reports of weapon's operability came to light and the navy had to do priority air lifts for all of the parts we needed to fix the weapons systems. Out of all the weapons on the ship only one missile battery worked and the parts we needed finally arrived shortly before crossing the war zone line into Yankee Station.

I won’t take this space to describe what it’s like to spend an evening with my buddies — none of us ever having gone to war, knowing that sometime during the night we’d be crossing an invisible line in the ocean into a war zone. The one thing about war movies is that if Hollywood could ever makes an accurate war movie the audience will run screaming out of the theater. But the thing about a ship in shark infested waters is that there’s nowhere to run.

Also the officers suddenly stopped being such dic..s and for once they finally cared if the weapons systems worked and the XO wasn’t looking for dusty fans either. I can still remember my Division Officer who’d been so callously obnoxious about his place in the navy’s caste system. As if we were all his brides who’d have to commit the suttee in the event of his departure. Now he just came down to the radar control room every hour or so to stick his head threw the hatch [door] into the radar control space [room] and he’d anxiously ask, “Does it work?” And now that Butcher had at last given the weapons systems technicians the necessary time to maintain our systems we could always say, “Yes.” And then the officer would turn suddenly and walk away so fast we could almost hear the Road Runner’s “Beep Beep” I still don’t know why the ensign [officer] didn’t use the phone to call us, or actually walk through the hatch to come inside to ask the same question. Maybe he wasn’t sure the control space would still be there?

At last we had the time to do what the navy had spent so much money training us to do and the power was in our hands to make officers go away. That part was wonderful while it lasted as was the tax free pay we collected and instead of putting stamps on out letters home we could write “Free” in place of the stamp.
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 18:55

Part 2 of 2 Continued

Wikipedia has a well written and self-serving page on Operation Frequent Wind; to read it one would think it was a perfect plan that came off flawlessly and that we didn’t miss or leave anyone behind. It even says we stayed for a few days into May to make sure we’d gotten all of our allies who’d come to sea to find us but this just isn’t true. A few times now I’ve edited the Wikipedia page to put in the sanqine events of the operation but within a few hours what I saw is always removed. Even though I stood on the O3 level [third floor] and watched so very many helicopters go down in the ocean because the little fleet was so overwhelmed by them. Well, the devil and the sharks took the hindmost because Huey helicopters don’t float very long and the sharks could get to them faster than our limited number of small boats could.

Later I’d just “hit my rack” shortly before midnight on April 30th and just a few minutes past midnight when it became May 1 I heard and felt the ship’s screws [propellers] starting to turn over so we could leave Yankee Station and still collect one more month of tax free pay for spending about an hour leaving the war zone. May 1 is an easy date for me to remember because it’s the day I enlisted in the navy and I’ve been holding a private vigil every May first for decades thinking about the 10 weeks I spent in Boot Camp. Curiously enough after someone graduates from college all they have to do is take 16 weeks of training to become an officer — which is only six weeks more than I spent at Boot Camp; then I went to Mare Island Vallejo CA for about 18 months of training in order to work on the Talos Missile System. Somehow these very different training periods strike me as odd and unbalanced leaving me to wonder who should have been leading who?
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 16:16

In one sentence below I meant to write, "It wasn't the war that broke me - it was "GQ" Butcher."

But then in the post Viet Nam era senior enlisted men were leaving the navy in such high numbers that very junior sailors had to be promoted to positions that would normally have taken a decade or more to earn. When the navy did it's own internal review they decided that there was nothing wrong here -- so everybody just keep moving on. Their final conclusion was that they would "Have to grow new" enlisted leaders [senior petty officers] instead of trying to figure out that what they were doing was so wrong that 10s of thousands were leaving the service -- including particularly valuable war veterans. Since the fleet wouldn't be in another war for decades I'd like to know how they grew new petty officers to have war veteran skills, physical and mental, without a war?
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 12:00

There was another illuminating incident while Captain Butcher was attending a formal dress dinner party ashore when a messenger came in and walked to "GQ" Butcher to hand him a slip of paper stating that a sailor had just died aboard the OK Boat from a heroin overdose. I like to think there is only one thing a sentient being could do which would be to politely excuse them-self and say, "Something came up and I have to go back to the ship. I'm sorry, I hope you all enjoy the dinner and good night." Or words to that affect but then he wouldn't be Butcher would he? NO instead he had to make self-aggrandizing statements, and then told everyone eating about the fatal heroin overdose. He was the kind of man who could drop his trousers at the cusp of a wedding's vows and then take a dump. As you the reader can imagine everyone lost their appetite.

And then when the dead sailors locker was opened in order to return the personal effects to the family there wasn't a set of dress blues in the locker. They couldn't be found -- so the crew was told so Butcher naturally had to hold a full ship's company inspection of our lockers so he would be sure everyone had their [Cracker Jack] dress blues. Whether or not the man had an apartment out "in the economy" [Japan] or if his uniform was just slow in being returned by one of the laundry trucks that serviced the ships was never mentioned.

For those curious about how I know all of this it's because when my wife flew over and we were in the base hotel at the same time a department commander and his wife transferred over. One thing my ex is, is a social animal so she made very good friends with his wife and the friendship lasted. Once even Chief K came up to me [a boot push button PO3] and demanded, "Why didn't you tell me you know Commander [Doe]! I just made a [donkey] of myself in front of him!." I bent back over until I nearly fell, all 6' 3" of me before the much shorter chief before he let me say, "I've never met him in my life. His wife and mine are friends because..." [I don't think I need to finish this.] And then the chief backed off but he didn't apologize — oh well being a chief petty officer "means never having to say you're sorry."

Another interesting thing that happened was the names of the senior leaders:

Captain Butcher
Commander Skinner
CMAA Slaughter
Chief Raper was one of my chiefs.

It would have been funny if they weren't mainly SOB's.

You can look it up in the 1974 -- 1976 Ship's Crew's Book or use an FOIA request — the navy will have to disclose this.
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 08:18
I attest to the accuracy of all the above and it can be verified with an FOIA Request to the Department of the Navy. The OK City was decommissioned and mothballed to the navy's Suisun Bay Strip Ship facility. Finally, of all the cruisers and other ships in Suisun Bay the OK Boat was selected to be towed to the Marianas and over the Mariana's Trench which runs to 10,900 [known] feet deep and makes the Titanic look like a snorkel swim. There she was used as a target ship for two days until a South Korean submarine's torpedo broke her bow and she went to the bottom. I can well imagine how joyful those Korean sailors but it still breaks my heart.

I've often wondered what manner of naval infinite knowledge lead them to choose Butcher's ship -- and what might have been put aboard her before sending her to the deepest part of Davey Jones' Locker?

Hail King Neptune -- from a Shell Back who "Crossed the Line" back in the days when it still meant something and wasn't a "blast" as a young sailor recently put it else-where's on the net.

FTM2 "Bullwinkle" FM Division -- USS Oklahoma City

USN from 1972 - 1978 and it was going to war that broke me - it was seeing a piss-ant put in charge of 1400 men on a ship so crowded there was no point in saying, "Excuse me." when bumping into somebody -- Hell we'd have been saying, "Excuse me." too many times to count -- or to say, "WELL EXCUSE ME!" [A nod to John Belushi.]
Simeon Hovey 18-May-2015 07:36
After being in the navy for three years I loved it so much I didn't think anyone could beat me out of it using sticks. Then I served under Captain Butcher from Aug 1974 -- Dec 1978 and he changed my mind. The first time he took the OK City out to sea [a large cruiser] the seas got a little rough so he "secured all weather decks" meaning only those with direct orders could go outside. Two such sailors would have been the watch [guard] on the bow of the ship and the watch on the fantail [end of the ship]. And he stuck to his lubber [a person whose never been to sea.] policy until the radars began breaking. Which all of the radar sailors knew would happen -- salt water very quickly takes its toll even on top of the highest masts on the ship. Only then would he let "Salts" [real sailors] go topside to do far more work than would have been necessary had he not waited until we got to the South China Seas where the weather is always, more or less, at gale forces.

Furthermore he treated the crew he depended on like dogs; once when the ship was pulling into Manila Bay [I’d been working the night shift.] so I slept days when something woke me up and the putrid smell of human waste would have made any lubber barf. When I looked around I saw that the berthing compartment’s deck [the floor where we sea dogs slept] was covered with about 3 – 4 inches of sewage water that had flooded into out compartment from the head [showers and toilets] on the deck above us. At the same time the exterior ventilation fan for the compartment had broken too so I laid in my rack [bunk] for hours before the problems were fixed and I could finally get out of my rack. I will say one thing for the flood waters that rolled about the compartment as the rolling seas moved a 10,000 ton ship, is that when nature called it didn’t seem to matter if I just rolled over in my rack towards the decks and answered natures call from my rack. And the thing of it is that the ship had the equipment necessary to ventilate the compartment; but after Butcher took command even the ships different departments stopped working together. Also basic items like toilet paper weren’t getting put out so each sailor had to buy their own; maybe he was trying to bring the ship in under budget?

It wasn’t until a later time when we were supposed to leave our homeport [Yokosuka Japan] for a sea deployment and the tugboats didn’t get there in time so “GQ” Butcher decided he could maneuver the ship away from the dock. As he futilely tried to do this he only succeeded in was crashing the ship into the pier and doing an unknown amount of damage to the pier and his career. At least it was the last ship he ever commanded — and when he crashed his ship we sailors could have warned him but out of 1400 men not one of us felt the slightest impulse to tell him. [Anyone who’s seen The Cain Mutiny will get a very good idea of what happened.]

So when he was transferred off the ship the only thing he ever had direct command of was his desk. Yeah he got promoted to Vice Admiral but that was only because the military really hates to admit its mistakes.
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