The Edge of Honor Read Online Free Page B

air patrols, the strike flights of Navy carrier bombers into the North.
    The Red Crown station also coordinated search-and rescue operations whenever Navy, Marine, and Air Force pilots bolted out over the Gulf with their Phantoms, Prowlers, or Voodoos in flames, looking for a safe place to eject.
    For Brian Holcomb, whose sea service up to this juncture had been in conventional gun destroyers of the Atlantic Fleet, this was a dramatically new and exciting world. Professionally, he was also stepping up to the Seventh Fleet, which, after years of conflict in Vietnam, was the premier operational fleet in the Navy. While Atlantic Fleet ships conducted rote-step exercises in the politically sensitive waters of NATO Europe, the Seventh Fleet did it for real in Vietnam. The first team, as anyone with Seventh Fleet experience would proudly point out.
    All the rest of the Navy was training and drills. Out there, in WESTPAC, it was the real thing, man. Brian knew that any officer coming from the Atlantic side would have to prove himself to the old WESTPAC hands, learning a whole new operational jargon in the process. When he reached the flight deck, he stopped to watch the big ship come alongside.
    “Attention on deck!”
    The officers stood up from their chairs as first the captain and then the executive officer entered to take their seats at the head of the senior table. Capt. Warren L. Huntingdon was a distinguished-looking officer, with silver gray hair, a pleasant, fatherly face and demeanor, and a trim figure on a five-foot-ten-inch frame. To Brian, the captain looked like a captain should: dignified without being stuffy. Huntington projected quiet authority but was engaging in his approach to people, soft-spoken and yet able to command immediate attention. Brian thought the only discordant note in the captain’s otherwise-immaculate persona was that his uniforms looked to be slightly too large for him. The exec, Comdr. David Mains, was the captain’s exact opposite in appearance and personality: a beefy, round-faced ex-football player type, whose rough-and-ready personality, edged occasionally with a hint of’steel, made a perfect foil to the avuncular style of the captain.
    The captain greeted and shook hands with the senior briefer, an aviator commander from the air station across the bay at Cubi Point, and his briefing team of one lieutenant and one chief petty officer. Everyone then took his seat except the captain. There were two tables in the dining area of the wardroom, one designated as the senior table, which seated the captain, exec, the four department heads, and some of the senior lieutenants. The rest of the ship’s officers were seated at the larger junior table. Standing against the bulkhead on either side of the wardroom were several chief petty officers and, conspicuous in their dungarees among all the khaki, the six enlisted air controllers.
    As the junior line department head, Brian sat midway down the senior table, following the exec, the Operations officer, Lieutenant Commander Austin, and the chief engineer, It. Comdr. Vincent Benedetti. It.
    Raiford Hatcher, the Supply officer and the ship’s only black officer, sat next to Brian. The captain cleared his throat.
    “Gentlemen,” he began, “Commander Wingott is here from the CTF Seventy-seven detachment at Cubi Point.
    He’s going to give us a quick briefing on what’s going on up in the Gulf these days. I know we’ve all been studiously reading our message traffic on the way over from EASTPAC and that we’ve had briefings up the gump stump back in Pearl. But now we’ve formally chopped to COMSEVENTHFLEET and CTF Seventy-seven, so now comes the straight skinny. Commander.”
    Commander Wingott had a ruddy face that bore the marks of recent scars or burns. He wore the pristine, well-pressed khakis of a staff officer, with no little daubs of gray paint or the oil stains typical of ship’s company uniforms. He also displayed an extensive set of