Dennis Hollingsworth

Phoenix Truxtun

The USS Truxtun lives again!

My old navy buddy, Pat Costello wrote in recently to report the upcoming commissioning sometime this spring of a new Arleigh Burke class destroyer (DDG-103) that will bear the name of our ship, the USS Truxtun, CG(N)-35. Our old boat was decommissioned and chopped apart several years ago, sands in the hourglass.

From my timeline bio:

1. "Make a hole!"

2. We said "Aye!" and meant it.

3. The sea to the horizon, the horizon all around you. As far and farther than you can see, the sea. To be a tiny speck in the vast Pacific, a universe of water where the closest land is directly below the ship.

4. Dark rooms and colored lights and urgent numbers and nautical miles and grease pencil and squawk boxes barking orders and funny stories.

5. Liberty and beer and pockets full of money and girls and "Me So Horny!" and bars and museums and taxis and buses and snorkeling and Coppertone and civillian clothes that never seemed to fit well.

6. I saw "The Last Detail" a month before I enlisted and discovered later that it was a faithful and nuanced representation of life in the Navy.