Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
Leon Walker, Junior. He is a US Navy veteran who served this nation
for more than thirty two years in uniform and rising to the rank of Command
Master Chief. He was part of eleven deployments. It's his second deployment that
brought him up close with a major international incident in the Persian Gulf. In
May of nineteen eighty seven, his ship, the USS read rushed to the
aid of the frigate USS Stark after it was struck by missiles fired by an
Iraqi pilot during the Iran Iraq War. In all, thirty seven Americans were
killed, twenty one others were injured. And mister Walker, thank you very
much for your time time today, Sir, You're welcome. Thank you for
having me. Where were you born and raised, sir? Born in Cleveland,
Ohio? And had there been a history of military service in your family.
Yes, my father was in the army, My two uncles were in
the army. My brother was a marine, and my other cousin was an
Army and he boxed in the army, and my dad boxing played football in
the Army. Oh, that's amazing. That is a very rich legacy.
Where did any of them see overseas deployments? My two uncles were in the
Korean War. Also, my grandfather on my mother's side, he was in
what they called back then. I believe it was the Army Air Force.
I don't know if he saw war. I think he did, but I
know for sure two of my uncles were in the Korean War. So when
did you join the service and why did you choose the Navy. Yeah,
that's a great question. I joined in the summer of nineteen eighty three,
June specifically, And what happened was my household. There were artifacts of the
army all around. There were old ribbons, there were helmets, there were
army jackets, there were ranks, ranking patches thrown around everywhere, my father's
clauset, everywhere, my brother's room and I would always put their jackets and
helmets and stuff on. And you know, as kids we played, we
called it, let's go outside, play army, and so we didn't say
go outside and play navy or marines who wanted to play army. So I
was already incorporated to the army as a little kid. Because of you know,
due to proximity, what I saw what was in the house. But
what happened was when I went to the recruiting office that summer of nineteen eighty
three, I wanted to join the Marines because my brother was a Marine,
and to me, the Marines just looked the best in uniform. I was
stuck on a uniform like my mother was, and so I walked to the
matter of fact, I walked about two miles to the recruiting office with my
sister. And when I walked into the Marines office, the recruiter's office,
he told me to come back because he was at lunch. And it hurt
me, had hurt my feelings because that whole, like my junior and senior
year in high school, I was thanking on going to the Marines and Marines
and Marines, and then he kind of like brushed me off. And so
as I left his office, an army got I said, hey, come
here, young man, come on, let me talk to you. But
he just didn't have that appeal. He didn't look right. He looked worn
down, he looked tired, and I didn't like the green outfit. I
just didn't like him. So as I continue to walk away. He had
me some brochures and I walked out. The Navy guy whist him. He's
like hey buddy, and I was like, wow, it's and then he
just had the energy and he say, hey, come in from it.
I know you want to go to the rings, but let me. Let's
talk to me from minute. And that was it. Greg. Once we
sat down, he started to showing pictures of his the trony had in the
Philippine Islands, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, and every picture he showed
me, I would ultimately go to those places when I joined. So that's
how I joined the Navy. Wow, that's quite the competition for you and
putting forth a good effort makes a big difference, obviously, at least it
certainly yeah in your case. So where did you go for your training and
what did the training consist of? So November twenty first, nineteen eighty three,
we first checked in downtown Cleveland. They put us in the hotel,
we had to get another physical and we left out the next morning heading to
Great Lakes boot Camp, Chicago, Illinois. Great Lakes, Illinois boot Camp
and boot camp consisted of running, uh physical exercise push up, sit ups.
We had to learn how to march. We had to learn how to
call cadence. We had to learn the ranking and structure, rank and recognition,
structure. We had to learn terminology as far as ship handling, ship
building and things like that. Water survival. We had to learn to swim.
I knew how to swim because in East Cleveland we had swimming pools.
We had a couple that we had to frequent. So it was a physical
physical attributes and then the knowledge as far as you know the ranking and structure
and the military leadership and the structures of the ship, what the ships do,
what they're, why they're built, how they're built, and what they
what the capabilities are, and then you know. From there you go onto
your assession training whether it's engineering, weapons, aviation, navigation, and then
you go to your ship and where did they send you and what specialty did
they train you in. I scored low on the asva AS that means Armed
Services, Vocation, Aptitude and battery a SCAB. So what happens is based
on your line scores and what your scores. Usually line scores tells you what
you're strong end and what's your weekend but I was weak in everything because I
just didn't apply myself in high school. But I took the test five times,
so it took me five times in past examine. On fifth time,
I passed with a thirty one, which was the minimum to get in.
Once you gather your scores and your line scores and see what you qualified for.
I didn't qualify for anything. And at that time and still to this
day, they have a job called deck seamanship where you just a deck handler.
You you helped tie the ship up, you clean, you paint,
you sand rust off the ship, you drive the ship, and you stand
security watches. That's pretty much it as for a deck handler. With the
person that scores that has such a low score. So there was a job
in the navy for me. Although I had a minimum as that, I
still had the aptitude to learn, so I was still allowed to come in
the military. And for two years I did the cleaning and sweeping and swabbing
and painting and taking a rust until one day I saw these guys that were
on the bridge on top of the ship, but upper level of the ship,
and I went to see what they were doing, and they were doing
navigation. I joined in eighty three and from nineth naty two to eighty five
I was a dead candler. From nineteen eighty five I became a quartermaster navigator,
and I navigated the ship throughout the world, millions of miles of navigation,
the Seuez Canal, the Red Sea, the Baring Sea, the Mediterranean,
Atlantic Ocean, everywhere. I was one of those guys that navigated the
ship throughout the world, around the world, and so I did that from
nineteen eighty five to two thousand and six. In two thousand and six,
I made e nine and you can either remain a navigator or you can request
to become a command master chief. So my job then I said, you
know, I want to become a command massieve and that's when I became a
part of the executive level leadership, which is the command master chief. So
from two thousand and six to retirement twenty fifteen, I was command master chief.
Was it difficult to adjust to life in the navy? Was the army
culture in your home make that a little bit easier? The army coach from
my home made it a little bit easier because it started with structure and discipline.
I knew at nine years old, I wanted to join the military.
I just didn't know what's branch. My uncle used to teach me how to
hand to loot. My uncle used to call Cadence around the house. He
used to tell us about his stories. My dad told me about stories in
the army. My brother told me about stories in the Marines. And so
I was already mentally fixated on being stern, following directions, having discipline,
cleaning up my room, having standards. Of course, like I said,
the things around me are what made me think about what I wanted to do
eventually, and so all the artifacts of the army and Marines that were in
my house, I would look at him in the wanning if I could do
this? Can I get this riven? Can I get rank in the military?
Can I be promoted? So that's how it happened with me seeing those
things as a child formed my opinion about the military and what I wanted to
do. Plus, my parents both dropped out in the eighth grade. They
never finished ninth grade through high school, and so they never spoke about college.
So that was a driving factor and motivating factor for me as well to
go to the military. Well, as I said at the top, mister
Walker. It was your second deployment that we're going to spend most of our
time on. But let's talk about the first deployment and what it was like
to experience that. Tell me about the ship you're on and where you went.
My first employment. The ship I was going to uss read FFG thirty
fast frigate guided missile. It carried about two hundred and eighty men, two
SAH sixty helicopters, six torpedo tubes, one seventy six millimeters gun on at
the middle of the ship, and a missal launcher on the front of the
ship. They carried s and one missiles had long range missiles. It was
loaded down. We had a sonar system on there to possibly track and detect
submarines. We had a great weapon system. Eight engineerings engineering on there.
We had two gas turbine engines ELLEM twenty five hundred Stuart Stevenson or Ellen twenty
five hundred Genior electric gas turbine engines. That was our proposing. We had
one shaft which was about ninety four feet long and a blade which is we
call screw screwed with five blades on it. That deployment was my first time,
going to Singapore, Hawaii, the Philippine Islands, Hong Kong, and
then of course the person Golf where we would stay for four months and then
come back. Guys, go back to Hawaii and maybe stop into Hawaii,
I mean go back out stalking to Hawaii again and then Saudi Arabia by Rain
Abu Dabi Dubai and then head back home to at that time San Diego.
Well you covered a big chunk of Asia and then all the way across the
Pacific a couple of times. The second time you went out before we talk
about the USS Stark situation, I'm guessing on the second deployment now based on
what you said earlier, you were the navigator. Correct, correct, Okay,
and talk about what it was like to shift to that responsibility. Being
the deackcan was pretty simple. It was basic. It was basic cleaning up
and painting and chipping and taking off rusts and you know, pulling on more
lines. It was house cleaning and housekeeping. That was a serious shift for
me because I had to now concentrate on many things, not just one thing,
as you know, standing the security watch or putting the more on line
or painting a ship. I had to concentrate and learn how to navigate a
ship from San Diego to Hawaii, from Hawaii to the Red Sea, the
Red Sea to the any notion, any notion to the Persian Gulf. I
had to know how to get us there, the speed required and hat navigation.
I had learned how to navigate by the celestial stars. I had learned
to determine sunrise, sunset, moon rise, moonset, and the Navy navigators
are essentially weather man too, so I had learned about the clouds, the
barometric pressure, the Cold Fund, warm fronts, the seas as well,
all of that. So it was very challenging for me. But I found
that I was a lot smarter than I thought I was, and I could
learn more. Mister Walker, let's pause right there. When we come back,
we'll hear about what happened in May of nineteen eighty seven in the Persian
Golf, as the USS read responded to the attack on the USS Stark.
Our guest is Leon Walker, Junior, a thirty two year veteran of the
United States Navy reaching the rank of Command Master Chief. I'm Greg Corumbus,
and this is Veterans Chronicles sixty seconds of Service. This sixty Seconds of Service
is presented by T Mobile. T Mobile offers exclusive discounts for veteran and military
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change the footprint and the blueprint that we leave in our community. For more
great veterans stories, just go to National Defense Network dot com. This is
Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this addition is Leon Walker,
Junior, who served for thirty two years in the United States Navy,
reaching the rank of command master Chief. We're just talking about his rising from
deckhand to navigator aboard the USS Read, which was a fast frigate for guided
missiles, and that was the ship not only for his first deployment, but
also his second, which once again brought the crew to the Persian Gulf.
And that is when the USS Read responded to the attack on the USS Start,
as we mentioned at the outset, May seventeenth, nineteen eighty seven.
So mister Walker, take us to that day, what you were originally focused
on before you heard the news of the attack, and how that all unfolded.
May sixteenth, nineteen eighty seven. We were patrolling the southern portion of
the person Golf. It was about one hundred and twenty degrees date in the
daytime. At ninetime it gets down to eighty which seems cold. You go
from one to twenty to eighty degrees, you'd think it'd still be warm,
but it was cold. I can't understand. So we would patrol the southern
part of the person golf up down left right now with navigating, we would
see the old riggs on fire. We would occagiency, a face come out
the water, turtles swimming by. It was the water was like glass,
but there wasn't much activity going on out in the water. On the seventeenth,
the next day, we were standing and watching as usual, having lunch
and then dinner, and then we would go to the gym on the ship
and then play cards and watch movies. And I distinctly remember that at about
ten o'clock at night, the captain came on. The announcement system is called
the one MC. Whenever it comes on at nine fifty five, there's taps
on the ship. They'll say, tap taps, lights lights out, all
hands, turnti of decks, turntio back bumps, maintain sids about the decks.
Now tass and then at twenty two hundred, tasks and we go to
bed. Well this on this night, at twenty two hundred or shortly after,
the captain came on and said, gentlemen, let me have your attention
please. I want to make an announcement. The US's target has been hit
by a missile. We don't know what type of damage. We don't know
if they've been sunk, we don't know if anybody's been killed, but they've
been hit by a missile in the northern part of the Persian Gulf, and
so everybody became on alert immediately. We started getting the fire teams ready.
Essentially, everybody in navy's a firefighter. When you go to boot camp,
you go to firefighter school when you Peboo came to go to your first ship.
Within that first three or four years, you're going to attend more firefighting
schools, and so we were already firefighters. So we had on our ship
we had repair lockers. Repair lockers is what keeps is where they keep all
the firefighting equipment. At that Oba's oxer breeding aftertic the seal two bottles,
to firefighting equipment, to helmets and all of that the ensemble. And so
that night we started getting the firefighting equipment together, the dee watering equipment to
the smoking equipment. We had it all together and put it on the messx
mesis is where we all eat at come on the tables and chairs. We
had to sort everything out and get ready. The captain kept talking to us
and he made enohing announcement. He said, Hey, we just been tasked
gentlemen to go assist the US to start put both edges online Chief Engineering and
let's head up north. And so we were about one hundred miles away and
we put both edges online, which gave us about thirty one plus knocks to
get from the southern end of the version of golf to the northern end.
And we got there that next day at around eleven thirty on May eight teams
they got hit made seventeen. We got their mad eighteens. So we seemed
throughout the night. And then as you pulled up you can see the US
to start. If you pull up it on Google, you'll see it leaning
to the side and smoking smoke coming out of it. That was our ship.
The picture was taken from our ship and other ship. For some reason,
everybody got the same angle. And then that's when it all started.
What was the status of the Stark? It was listing, like you said,
to one side. Was there a significant smoke and fire? And then
what did you heard by then about the casualties? Okay, by then it
was listing about twenty one degrees. There was smoke coming at the top of
it. The casualties were ten men dead, fifteen men dead. And as
we surrounded the Start, we kept going around and circling it for minute after
minute after minute, and then hour after hour. While we were preparing to
figure out what we had to do, we noticed that it was just listing
and it wasn't sinking because there was other the teams. The crew on the
Start had saved it from so they had packed some hole. What they didn't
packed the hole. It just started pumping the water out because the water was
coming in from the port side to the left side. Two missiles hit the
Start, one exploded and one didn't. So as we circle the ship there,
we get the call now and said, hey, Walker, get your
team ready. You guys are going over to yours to start to assist and
possibly rescue. At that time when I got the call, it was about
twenty eight twenty nine people that were dead they knew confirmed to be burned to
death. What happens is there are different types of missiles. The Stark was
hit by Prince made Exo set missiles, where some missiles when they when they
pierced the bullward when they pierced the ship. It'll either go in and it'll
set off a big flame of a ball of fire which freaches thousands of degrees.
Some missiles go inside the ship and release fragment. Some missions go inside
the ship and release this compressed spring which just pears things up. This missile
obviously it was full of fuel and a big ball of far had gone through
the forull part of the ship. So what happens now, I get to
call, I get my fire team rating. They put us in a little
small motor whaleboat and the lower us down to the water and we make our
way over to the US to start Starverside ads the back end of the ship
Starverside, and when we get there, they let down a Jacobs ladder.
We're talking with Leon Walker Junior. He is a thirty two year veteran of
the United States Navy, rising to the rank of Command Master Chief. We
have much more to talk about with relation to the USS Stark as well as
some of his other deployments while in service to our country. I'm Greg Corumbus
Veterans Chronicles. We'll be right back. This is Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg
Corumbus. Honor to be joined today by Leon Walker, Junior. He is
a US Navy veteran of thirty two years, serving from nineteen eighty three to
twenty fifteen. He rose to the rank of command Master Chief, and he
was also the navigator aboard the USS Read, which is a fast frigate for
guided missiles that responded to the missile strike against the USS. Stark and mister
Walker, you mentioned just a moment ago that as you arrived at the start
you found it listing and smoking. And the last thing you mentioned was that
a Jacob's ladder had been extended for you to come on board. Please pick
up the story from there. Okay, So now we're on a motor whale
boat and my first shipmates climbed up the ladder with their equipment, or they
climbed up, and then he put a rope down, and we tied the
rope to the equipment and pulled it back up. The equipment we had was
called OBA back then oba's oxitive breathing appleritis, which is much heavier than what
they have now. Now they have SEBA self contained breathing apple rituses. So
they pulled the equipment up and then I think I was the last one aboard
the ship. When we get on there, I remember looking to my right.
Young man was bleeding and crying and they were thanking us for being there
because they had been fighting the ship all night and they were tired. The
ship that wasn't thinking anymore. Had that other mental gone off, the ship
would have sunk, but it was still on that and we didn't realize that
so later that day. But anyway, we get there around eleven thirty that
day. We put our masks on, we light off our oxen breathing apparatics
canister. We get sixty minutes to breathe on that thing. So we lighted
off. Were going there, and first place we see is this guy and
then birthing. His legs were hanging out. I'll ever forget that his legs
were hanging out. He had burned it that that was the first guy.
I think he had actually suffocated from smoke or died from smoke inhalations, but
his legs were burned, so he could have burned in death too. I
just remember his legs and hanging out of his right. We identify him.
We call the people that saw on the ship to come and get this body
because they hadn't removed any bodies that. We didn't know how many bodies were
there, but we knew that thirty seven men were murdered. And so now
we go from his birthing, we identify him and as you've seen the picture,
the smoke is coming from the top of the ship. Well, we
go up to that space and that's in a place called Combat Information Center ci
C. That's where the ship fights the ship at that's where the screens are,
that's where you can identify incoming aircraft, you can identify missics coming in,
and that's where you fired missis from Combat inf Mats Center. It's also
where the other rating besides the quarter Mats is called the Operational Specialists, the
wholes is. They do navigation too. So they had a bunch of charts
down there. Well, what happened was one of the mins, the fire,
the heat from the mental that burned the lower level up under the Combat
inf Mason space caused or something in there caused these charts. You guys call
them mass We call them charts that we navigate on. Cause that whole big
joy it probably carried about three hundred charts, three hundred maps or it was
on fire. And so the smoke you see it's seen on the picture on
Google is from that space that was on fire. It was the paper charts
that were on fire. So we went in there. We put that out,
put that fire out, and then they told to go back down below
to look more bodies. And that's where all heck brogues because we started.
I got my team together. We were tired, we're carrying fire holes everywhere,
we were wet, we're hungry. At this time, it had been
probably two hours, and went up the stairs, put the fire out,
found another guy in his rack, and came back down to find another body
that was that was covered with shoot and ASTs and clothing that had been burned
up. But he had been burned to death too. That was the first
body that was burned to death. I lifted him up with my friends.
They ain't walker, be careful. He's standing over a body and I didn't
even know. And so I looked down and I saw the guy and then
wow, I went to pick him up. My arm hit his mouth and
his teeth fell out because he had burned the death. So everything burned on
him except he had on fire retired coverall, so everything outside the coveralls had
burned, so his face was burned. There was no skin on his face,
his hair was gone, his eyes were gone, his nose was gone,
and you could see it inside of his neck when I peeled. When
I picked him up, his head filled forward, but it didn't fall off
because his neck was still on. We were like face to face, and
I could see him looking right at me, but he had no eyes and
his teeth were gone, and it was just it was like a body with
the skeleton on it, but the skeleton was attacked to the neck muscles,
if that makes sense. He was about six four six five. Because I'm
like jeeus got tall. So I'm facing him and he's facing me, so
his right side. I tried to go to his right side to get a
better grip on him to put him in a body bag, but his arm,
his right arm was blown off, so the only thing was sticking out
was a bone, and the bone like poked me in the chests. I'm
trying to get around him to pick him up and get my friend to grab
his legs and lower him down into a body bag. But I saw his
arm. His arm was off, that was gone. So that was and
at that point, I tell you greg, I had become numb to death.
I'd become numb to shear. I had become numb to carrying. It
was no time to cry, there was no time to ask questions. We
just had to get the bodies off of there and get the ship back up
right and then get it out of the purchase off before they shot it again.
So anyway, that was body number two that we put. Then we
put him in the body bag. He was the first one in the body
bag, and then we zipped him up. So they said, hey,
go forward, there are more bodies up there, possibly go check. I
turned, so I took my team up to the forward part of the ship,
the left side, the port side, and the port side on that
ship under the main deck is a missile magazine. If you look on the
front part of the US to start, you see this launcher on the front
the launchers where they launched missions from beneath. That is where we were operating
finding bodies. So we go up alongside the poor side and turn to go
around the miss launcher to the right side, and we find another body.
Young man was burned to the deck, so we had to peel him off
the deck and then we get him off the deck and take him back out,
put him in the body bag. And on our way back to the
big space where the where the missile would hit, there was water in that
space. So we walked. We walk in through the water and I bumped
something and then I see another body, another guy. So we put the
young man in the body bag and put the tar guy in the body back.
And this guy was heavy set, a heavy set why guy. We
picked him up, put him in the body bag, and and so there
we just kept put finding body up, the body after body and put them
in body bags. And so we got that was the third person we put
in the body bag at that moment, within the three hours that I was
there. And then the chaplain said, hey, you know, walk around
the space walker and see if you can find anything else. So I started
walking around and I started picking up fingers, I picked up a hand,
a foot, It was everything everywhere. Greg. It just when the missile
hit. If you look at it when it's listening to the poor side,
that one mintal did that damage when it went in there, it burned everything
down. That compartment that it hit sleeped fifty five men. The compartment beneath
that sleeped fifty five men. So in that compartment that we found the two
bodies and the one body in and then up forward the other body and that
other body, and that compartment was two bodies in that compartment I found that
we found, and there was one one guy up north by the missile magazine
on the second deck. We killed him off. But beneath that what that
missile hit and and it burned everything down. Beneath there was another compartment with
more men in there, and those guys the hats was closed on them for
some reason, and I could be wrong with this, but they just didn't
get out. I don't know why they didn't get out, but when the
missile hit, the water came in and the fire was a blade, so
it kind of pretty much boiled them to death. You mentioned that the outset
that there were two missiles that hit the stark, one of them exploded,
one of them did not. How much concern was there about the other missile
that it could still deconate, right, great question, Greg, So what
happened was they said, hey, there's another missile on the US's start,
and we're like, there's no way because if you look, if you put
up the US start and if you look on the right hand side of it,
there's a hole. There's a hole on the right side, and we
thought maybe the minsile went out the hole. Okay, it only made sense.
But as we go to the Starbards side down the passageway, I knew
the shit well because it was the same ship of the US's reed US to
star Uson's Red were the same type the ship. Everything on there was exactly
the same except the crew different people. So when we're carrying bodies around the
ship and walk around and look for more bodies, there was this pipe that
was on a deck and we kept walking over it. It was dusty,
it was smoldered, it was dark, it was colored. We didn't know
that was a minso that we were trying to walk over and move. We
tried to push it, we tried to roll it. We couldn't. We
didn't know there was a missile because you couldn't see any markings. But that
was the second missile there. For some reason, it didn't detonate. Had
it detonated, you wouldn't be talking to me now, and the stark would
be at the bottom of the Persian Gulf. We didn't notice that it was
a missal and the next day, May nineteenth or May twenty, they called
the Explosive Ordinance Disposal EOD men over there to identify it as a bomb and
they disarmed it. And yeah, before I was moving that trying to move
that thing, we just stepped over because it was too hard to move.
We went on with our workday. I wind up staying there for twelve hours
until midnight of May eighteenth, and then back coming back from trying to move
that missile, I got another plastic bag to go look for body parts for
whatever reason. And then looking for those body parts, I saw another young
man on the ground, curled up. He had been reading a Bible or
something, because it was a piece of metal going through his head. It
was a small rod rod that was going through his head and the book was
gone, so there was some kind of scripture in his hand, and we
just kind of like put him in a body bag. We didn't remove the
rob enough. It was greg I tell you, it was seeing that I
was twenty one years old and at the time I had never saw anything like
that in my life. But I knew from that point forward I could see
things and adjust to it and just like suppress my feelings and emotions, which
ultimately hurt me in relationships because of what I saw. May eighteenth, nineteenvty
seven is when my PCSC developed. I didn't know that I had severe PCSC
until twenty and eighteen. When I retired in twenty fifteen, I got my
screening to exit the Navy and to determine my disabilities. But they never taught
my PTST for whatever reasons, from nineteen eighty seven to twenty eighteen. I
was never treated for my PTSC from May eighteenth, nineteen eighty seven. So
I know people to have PTSC, but I like to tell a story because
I tell them, Look, I had it for twenty seven years before I
took pill of searchraling, whatever kind of medicine they give you to cope with
your nightmares, your anxiety and depression, I didn't have anything. I'm not
saying go through life un medicaid. I'm saying, don't think that's because you
have to get medicated, that you can't go through life, because you can.
And so we wind up putting thirty seven men in body bags. I
wind up picking up maybe a couple of hands, couple of fingers, put
them in bags we wind up. The first time I ever sat with a
chaplain you got to call them pastors by The chaplain was sent there to pray
over us. First time I ever put to tag on a deceased man's toe.
When the crew knew their name, we would ask him, but we
couldn't. We didn't have time to go around and ask him who this guy
was because the second guy we found, we couldn't identify his face at all.
There was no face, It was just his ears were there, but
his eyes and know, everything was gone. It was just a burned skull
with a tissue on it. So people knew him because it was tall.
They knew that maybe his name was on his cover off, but I didn't
see that. We just put it, picked him up and it saw that
his right arm was gone, and you know, no facial features, and
his neck muscles. You could see right almost right through his neck. So
when the person golf, there is various shifts that are just cruising about destroyers,
fast figures, aircraft, carrier, submarines, and they sent us that
night to see to possibly beep from press or whatever they want to call it.
That was my first time I talked the second time talk him to a
psychiatrist and I kind of told him. I said, Sir, I just
don't I feel numb. I felt numb, Greg, I felt very very
numb. It's like I was starting to change at twenty one years old.
It seemed like it was my growth maturity and my I don't know, everything
was sped up. So I didn't have a chance to mourn these men to
die. I didn't have a chance to cry. I didn't have a chance
to hug anybody, and so that etect me later on in my relationship,
and I was unable to cope or deal with not being caring or not going
to hug or you know, I just didn't process it. I didn't have
any type of talk therapy after that until the next twenty seven years. What
was your ship the read like? Once you were back on board for that
day and however many days that followed. Remember I said that the Start going
to Read were the same types of ships. Everything was identical. Where the
mental hit on the start is where I slept that too. On her yearss
read. So I had started having nightmares, uncontrollable nightmares, and I had
to move my rack in those compartments at fifty five minutes seek those compartments.
And the racks are stacked from three high to four high. If you look
it up you had to read or any type of FFG ship, look up
the burning, the racks, the beds. We call the racks on an
FFG. Do you actually the same emotions now, but you can look at
them. Call them coffin racks because they're like a coffin. And then some
of the middle rack you lifted up and you put your toilet trees in,
you put your t shirts, underwear, your shoes and stocks. Then when
you close it and you sleep on that. So you look up a New
York Navy ship rack and it's they call it a coffing rack. And so
sleeping on those back and going back to my own ship, it was hard.
I had to move around. I could have sleep in there because I
was fearful of the missile coming attack up because we were already on high alert
in the Project Golf as it was, but after start got had we were
already we were on higher alert. So everybody was on pins and needles,
thinking that we can get hit by a mitso and get burned to death and
killed. And that's all I was thinking about because what I saw, those
guys were burned and boiled to death, and it stuck with me. I
couldn't eat for two weeks, A lost a lot of weight because I kept
smelling death, burn flesh. You ever smelled burn flesh before, you never
forget it, never, And so I couldn't eat to smell with in my
nostrils. I was sick, I was having nightmares, and so a continuency
psychiatrists after that for about a year or so, and then after that I
didn't go back. Moving forward to twenty eighteen, they determined that my PTSC
was so severe that I should have been treated and possibly separated in nineteen eighty
seven, mister Walker, let's pause one more time. We'll be right back
with more of our conversation with retired US Navy command Master Chief Leon Walker,
Junior. And when we come back, we'll talk more about how the men
were able to continue with that deployment after the gruesome work they were conducting aboard
the USS Stark. We'll also talk about subsequent deployments in the Persian Gulf and
some other interesting areas that he served, including what it's like to go through
the Sioux az Canal and how he braved the waters of the North Bering Sea.
I'm Greg Corumbus, and this is Veterans Chronicle. This is Veterans Chronicles.
I'm Greg Corumbas. Our guest in this addition is retired to US Navy
command Master Chief Leon Walker, Junior. He served thirty two years in the
US Navy, and as we've described throughout our conversation, was aboard the USS
read serving as a navigator when it responded hastily to the attack on the USS
Stark, and then the work that he described in great detail in recovering the
bodies of those who were killed there. Mister Walker, tell us what it
was like for the rest of that deployment. Were you close to the end
of this deployment so you were able to get home and maybe try to process
some of what you had experienced, or did you still have a number of
months left on this deployment and you just had to keep plugging away. Yeah,
so that's another good question, Greg. We had to carry on for
probably a couple of more months, I think maybe one or two more months
until we got back to San Diego. Yeah, so we had to carry
on. There was no only Downtown was the next port, which might have
been by Rain or Abu Dhabi or Dubai, but I know for sure.
One of the other ports was the Philippine Islands eight of that year, Australia,
Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong. So we had to downtime before we
got back. But I was still processing, or wasn't processing what had happened,
because the week before those guys got killed, we had just played them
in basketball and bay Rain, so they weren't friends, but they were associates
that I just met and they were gone, you know, just like that
gone. And so there wasn't much downtime because we had to still still patrol
the person golf and then leaving the persons off, we had to navigate our
way back to through through the any Notion and the Red Sea and all those
things, and around the Horn. The Gulf of Africa was coming from the
west coast where you go, and so it was work as usual. I
had to suppressing thing, some films and emotions and move on and get back
to business as usual to get us back from the Persian Golf to San Diego.
And that's how it worked. But it trained me to not face certain
things, not face fears or faith fears, and suppress my emotions as far
as when things would bother me or what I was hurting or I was afraid.
I had to act like I wasn't because I had to do that on
the start. So I kind of conditioned myself to be tougher than I was,
and to be mentally tougher and not to be emotional, and it hurt
me in my relationships. We're speaking with Leon Walker Junior, a thirty two
year veteran of the United States Navy, and mister Walker, I know that
even after that deployment, throughout the nineties, you had a number of additional
deployments in the Persian Gulf. Were those in support of Operation Desert Storm at
all or what other responsibilities did you have in that region at that time.
Yeah, it was pretty much the same thing the Persian Gulf Wars. We
would just patrol to where we were at the time, keep the sea lanes
open in South China see high tense areas support being visiting on watch. Anything
can happened in any given time. A restling plane could fly over, a
Chinese ship can come close to our ship. You know, it was never
any type of things where they would bomb ust or shoot at us. But
I say, I will tell you this. In the Person Gulf, when
you're out there, they had those I't forget what they call them back then,
but now they call them pirates. They might have been called pirates back
then. When you see on YouTube and TV where these pirates are taking over
these merchant ships, they get close to a naval ship and we warned them,
warned them and warn them. They don't back off. We'd shoot with
to warn them, would shoot to warn. Then we have to go into
the ro rules of engagement because sometimes you can shoot and kill these pirates and
get in trouble. So you have to get permition to do that before they
you know, before you fire out. But yeah, it was the same
thing. Deployments was always like making sure the sea lanes stay open, prevents
anybody from attacking the hardship or all the ships or merchant ships. So back
then the piracy was still on. It was even it was going on back
then like it is now, but it seemed like now that and when they're
over there by Africa, they're even more bolder where they got to the smaller
ships and they're trying to board these merchant ships to take over and they use
them as ransom for millions of dollars. So anywhere, anytime that I left
the Person Golf and went back on deployment, it was always to be diplomatic
or for sovereignty or to keep the sea lanes open. Did you have similar
responsibilities and deployments during Iraqi freedom or enduring freedom over by Afghanistan? When we
deployed in the Person Goal, we're pretty much five miles off of the coast
of Iran and Iraq at any given time, and so for some reason our
ship was ever fired on by an income and aircraft. It just didn't happen.
Those The turmoil in that time during the nineties was more like inland,
like you said, Afghanistan and maybe Iraq and maybe Yemen and Somalia, Okay,
those places. So that was like the seals and the rangers and Delta
Force GUIDs taking those on. Those people are just a few more minutes left
in our conversation here, mister Walker, and I know there's a couple other
things that you wanted to share with our audience. In particular. First of
all, not that far from the Persian Golf is the Suez Canal. What
was it like to navigate through there? And what sticks in your memory?
So, now Greg, you're making me smile. It's not that you made
me found anyway, but I was looking to tell the story. I get
into it. But so what happens is the swue s Canal. Just so
you all know, we have to pay one million dollars to go down in
Seez Canal and then coming back up is another million dollars. Just so you
all know. What happens is you patrol the northern part of the swus Canal,
which is which is in the Mediterranean. You have spaces where you navigate,
so they send you courts and you put the courters on the map a
chart, and you put a box on the map, and that's where the
ship stays at until you get to call from the pilot to transit down the
northern part from north to south to Suees can Now, when you get to
that transit park, the pilot boat comes alongside and the Egyptian pilot gets on
your ship and he tells you which way to go. Well, we know
which way to go, but we have to listen to him because they Egypt
owns the suet Can Now. So he says, come might come left,
speed up to go down, you know with their accident, go right,
fight degrees left, two degrees, go right, fightree. So we're doing
that and from what I measured, the sewees Now is about one hundred and
six point nine dollars miles long. We're only allowed to do ten knots,
which is about twelve miles per hours. We're on something like that twelve point
five. So we do ten knots going down to suees Can Now. The
swest now is only about one hundred and fifty yards wide on either side measure,
so there's no way to a shift to pass you going alongside. That's
why there's traffic going down. And then there's a time for traffic to come
up when we're going down to suet canw on the right side is Africa on
the left side of the Saudi Arabia, and you see the sand, you
see a bunch of it's pretty cool, it's very neat, it's a quiet
time, it's very calm. And then once we get towards the middle of
the suet Now, you go get to this thing called the Great Bitter Lake,
and it's where the anchor. The ships anchor out. You pull to
the right and your anchor and you sit there for a couple hours, and
then they have other ships from the south of the Sewees now going north to
the Mediterrane. They transit up. And when they transit up and pass us,
we get back pull the anchor in and we go back down south,
transiting the southern part of the swet Can. Now. It's crazy because once
you get out the sewets Now, you go right into the Red Sea and
the seas are choppy and rough and it's dangerous over there. That's where Jordan
is and yeahmen, and that's where they have We just lost three black Americans
over there and Jordan, I believe, through the attacks from the hoopies.
So the sus Can now was a lot of fun. It's really quiet,
it's really peaceful. It's like a soft journey and people are relaxed and you
can just look on it's like it's like selling the calm lake with nothing but
maybe some fish coming alongside, and you see people on the banks of the
sand waving. So it's really peaceful. I love this to us now.
It was a lot of peace, But then the hell pops right off when
you get into the Red Sea and you go by Jordan, or you go
by Yemen and into the Indy Ocean and the Persian Gulf. The other area
of the world quite a distance from the Persian Gulf for the Siouxz Canal is
the Bearing Sea. And the interesting experiences weather wise and otherwise that you had
there. Explain what it's like to serve in that area. Oh my goodness.
The North Barren Sea was the worst. Besides so sometimes the Atlantic Ocean
is bad, The northern part of the Atlantic Ocean is really bad. The
Pacific can be pretty bad. But the North Barren Sea. I would never
forget that place right there. One of the worst places I've ever gone in
my life. It was actually scary. And you see these pictures of you
on YouTube. You see these merchant ships bouncing around and the big swells and
those are not ways. Those swells. People don't know those are swells.
Those things will destroy a ship. We lost a door on a poor side.
That door was probably eight by eight foot in size, and it probably
weighed five hundred pounds. It was twisted torn off because we got hit by
a way. People don't understand those waves come with a whole bunch of tonnage
when they come up and come down, and so North Parian Sea was one
of the worst seas I had ever been in in my life. That was
one time that I was very scared of being out of sea. I've been
on five ships. I have fifteen years out of seat, Greg, fifteen
years, and that was the only time I was. I wasn't even scared.
In the Persian Gulf, person golf was real calm. Yeah, we
get hit by mental we'd get attacked by our guns and jets. But I
was more terrified of the North Aerian Sea than anything because that thing would handle
a four hundred and fifty three foot ship like it's a piece of plastic.
And we made it too. But those swells were twelve to eighteen feet.
You look it up, Look up what and you see these people talk about
tsunamis. Yeah, those are big swells. That's a way it's a tsunami.
But even having the smaller swells at eighteen foot, it's scary. Mister
Walker, after thirty two years of service to our country, what are you
most proud of? You know what, Greg, what I'm most proud of
is that the fact that people are still happy that I've served. Jesse.
Yesterday a guy said, I had on my shirt. They said, hey,
man, thank you for servants. And that people don't understand because the
men back in the Korean War and the Vietnam War, when they came home,
they were called baby killers, they were spit on, they weren't treated
right. They died from agent orange, they died for not being you know,
from medical conditions. But nowadays people Americans are very patriotic and they always
say thank you for serving. And that's one of the I've done a lot
in the Navy. I've got a lot in the wars. I was a
sailor year a lot, I was recruited, the year I got promoted,
I've got medals and ribbons. But when people say thank you for serving,
already filled that because like man, I did serve this country. And then
only one percent of the United States people served this country, and I'm one
of those one percent. So that's one of the things I'm most proud of.
Well said, sir, thank you so much for your time today,
and most of all, thank you so much for your many, many years
of faithful service to our country. Thank you Greg, I appreciate the calls
to today. Thank you you bet. Sir leon Walker Junior a veteran of
the US Navy for thirty two years. He finished as a command Master Chief
in the US Navy. I'm Greg Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi,
this is Greg Corumbus, and thanks for listening to Veterans Chronicles, a
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