[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

A few months before this letter was sent, Rudy, the family Dachshund of 13 years, died while I was visiting on holiday leave (a post for another day). My parents soon got a Golden Retriever puppy from my aunt. Named C.J. (for “Colonel, Jr.”) he would be a faithful dog for a a half-dozen years or so before succumbing to cancer. My parents never got another pet.

I did get time pierside at San Diego but not the 18 months that I speculated about in this letter. Out of the three years I spent on the USS Elliot, over 18 months were spent on deployments and several weeks were spent doing donuts off the coast, leaving less than 18 months to be moored at San Diego Naval Station (or in the NASSCO shipyard next door).

Korea remains one of the coldest damn places I’ve ever been.
Continue reading →

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This letter to Grandma was sent at the start of my first deployment. By “rocky start” I believe this refers to the loss of most of the ship’s freshwater making capability, leaving the crew showerless and shaveless for two weeks. I was dreading six months of those shenanigans but we got things patched up during our visit to Pearl Harbor.

What strikes me about this short letter is the enthusiasm it contains for what I’m doing. I believe I was sincere with my “getting paid to do this” remark. In spite of this, though, it’s clear I’m still looking forward to attending college, though returning after college as a junior officer was still something I was considering.

Saturday, 3 February 1990 [age:21]

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for your card for my birthday, and for Charlie’s letter in it. His handwriting is so much better than mine. I bet he’s really grown. I remember seeing the tape Dad took when the family was at your house last summer – but it really has been a while since he’s seen me.
Continue reading →

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This letter to Grandma came near the tail end of my 3 month deployment for PACEX 89. That was the first of my three deployments and included Japan as the sole port visit. Long after that deployment I marveled at how my ship seemed to leave a series of major earthquakes in its wake as it sailed counter-clockwise around the Northern Pacific.

The visit to Nagasaki, where the world’s second atomic bomb was used in anger, was heartbreaking. More recently I’ve come to understand just how fanatical many Japanese were during the war and that the invasion of the Japanese mainland surely would’ve resulted in a million or more deaths. There is no doubt in my mind about the insanity of nuclear war, but I don’t know if I were President Truman that I would not have made the same choice.

This deployment gave me a really good taste of sea life and I think I took to it. I would have two, six-month WestPac deployments ahead of me before I left the Navy.

Oh, and fortunately my shipmates were wrong about me being UNC or Duke material!
Continue reading →

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

I sent this letter a month before my first deployment, PACEX 89. I had just completed my first foreign port call at CFB Esquimalt, outside of Victoria, though I never updated Grandma on that visit. Probably because I remember so little of it.

You can see me already griping about sea life, but by the end of my tour I became quite attached to it. I simply didn’t care much for being the low man on the totem pole or living in a cramped, crowded berthing area all the time. You can also see my discomfort with California though, like life at sea, it would also come to grow on me.

I had forgotten that at this point I thought I would study law. That didn’t last too long (as did studying anything in college – besides the women!).

From:
J.M. Turner
USS Elliot (DD-967) OZ
FPO San Francisco, CA 96664-1205

13 August 1989 [age:20]

Dear Grandma,

Sorry it’s been so long since you heard from me. Last week marked the beginning of “refresher training,” three weeks of drills, drills, and more drills – the biggest test I’ve had since boot camp, I guess. The first week didn’t kill me so there’s hope. I must say I’ve learned (or “remembered”) more last week than I have since I got to San Diego.
Continue reading →

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This was the first letter I wrote to Grandma while I was in the Navy. Reading it again, I found my description of boot camp surprisingly apt: “long days and short weeks.”

At the time I had no real clue what a cryptologic technician did but my guess wasn’t too far off. What I didn’t know at the time was before I would leave boot camp, my “A” school would be switched from Pensacola to Ft. Devens, MA. I still got to “P-cola” after A-school but it wasn’t as much time to visit Grandma as I had first anticipated.

1300 05 March 88 [age:19]

Postmarked Orlando, FL

From:
SR TURNER USN xxx-xx-xxxx
C096 DIV 3
RTC ORLANDO, FL 32813-6100

Dear Grandma,

Hello from Orlando! I am enjoying my stay here at Disneyworld, but after three weeks here, I still haven’t seen Mickey…

Funny, but even though I’ve been here for 3 weeks, it seems like yesterday when I was a civilian. The best way to describe it here is the days are long and the weeks are short. When I “pass in review” on April 7th, I’ll wonder where the time went.
Continue reading →

[Note: Read this post first for an introduction.]

This is a lively letter, to be sure. Today I have no idea now what the “gimmie five” stuff was all about.

Charlie and Krista are my Florida cousins.

July 10, 1981 [age:12]
10:57 AM

Dear Grandma,

Thank you for keeping us noisy, bratty kids over at your house. I bet you’re glad to have the television all to yourself! Sorry we used up all your paper! Gimmie “five” from you and “five” from Krista and “five” from Charlie and send it all in a check down to my house.

Ha-Ha!! Well, “good numbers” to ya (love and kisses in CB talk) and I hope your headache has gone away (ME).

Your Grandson,
John Mark Turner [signed]

[below is an ink spot]
My Pen Busted.

[in big letters at the bottom]
FSU

An unexpected package arrived in the mail for me today from my Aunt Nancy. In it was a bundle of letters I had written to my grandmother over the years. Aunt Nancy had collected them and mailed them out to their respective authors.

My aunt also included a note, part of which reads:

“In this age of electronic communications, there may not be much of a permanent record of your life. But, these letters are part of your history. You can enjoy them … or throw them away. I just thought you should be the one to make that decision.”

Continue reading →

We spent some time shopping for beach houses to rent this summer. Kelly’s partial to the Outer Banks but I felt drawn to the beach I knew best as a kid, Garden City, SC. I grew up a lot during those week-long summer stays at my aunt and uncle’s beachhouse. It was one of those homes (much like my grandmother’s) that I came to know quite well year after year, in contrast to the many homes we moved into and out of when I was a kid.

In spite of monster hurricanes it still stands, though it belongs to someone else now. The memories will remain, and one upcoming summer we’ll rent one of the homes just down the block from the one I used to know.