BT2 Randall W. Johnson

It was 1983 in sunny Charleston, the Nats were out in full strength. The boiler dogs all standing on the fan tail, Chief Buffy Mcgrath stood on the out in front of the gang or maybe he was a 1st class then. You know I have no idea where this “Ragging Bull” name came from. We had been out in the North Atlantic chasing Soviet Subs on several occasions over the preceding months but to my surprise they came with the news that we were leaving for the med. Well sometime early that summer we left home port Charleston and headed across the pond to some place called Beirut. The trip was uneventful until we had almost arrived at the Rock and the word came down that we might be redeployed to ” some Island called Grande”, well as you all know that didn’t happen. Several days later we arrived in hot, dry, hazy ugly place called Beirut. The temp. there was well over a 100 Fahrenheit (even at 4:00 AM it was hot). The boiler room is always hot but it was even hotter now, tempers were short. Early one morning while standing on the boat deck a shock wave came across the water shaking my cheeks, I later found out that several American Marines were killed while sleeping. Sometime weeks later I received a letter from home telling me of the death of one of my school mates (he was a Marine and died in his sleep). As the years go by and some of the names fade away I still remember how it felt when they bombed us in our sleep and we didn’t even have a chance to fight back. When people are wiling to give there life to kill Americans how can we defend ourselves? We spent 6 months on the damn gun line and I believe over that 6 months only 27 days were in port.
Randy Johnson