These wessels were about 50' in length and were being dry docked floating on huge barrels, three barrels under each hull.We were getting the full Military inspection and doing mock drills, walking the Gunwales and being called to duty stations. Everything was desert camo, the ships, our clothes, the water and inside of the dock facility. Suddenly the guy next to me fell in the water while we were doing a drill and started drowning as he bounced off of one of the barrels before hitting the water and was knocked out.
Thinking (?) fast, I grabbed a fire extinguisher and jumped in with him and filled his clothes with CO2 so he would float, then used him as a raft to get us back around to the lower part of the dock so they could pull him out.
While they tried to resuscitate him, I was eating ice cream bars pulled out of my pockets due to being exhausted from this ordeal.
When the commander came to see what the outcome was he saluted me for my quick thinking and wanted to know where I learned to eat ice cream like a Marine. Then he invited me to help him tuck in his family for the night. After touring his house and putting the kiddies down we sat down on the dock to have some brandy and chat a while.
I dont know what happened to everyone else at this point, but there was only enough brandy for two, so I wasnt asking as I hadnt figured out how to pull brandy out of my pocket yet. During the course of conversation I asked the commander for a job, he politely but firmly told me that if I wanted to join the coast guard that I would have to sign up like everyone else.
I told him that I really didnt want to commit years of my life at this point, I just thought it would be cool to help fix up these cutters and get to drive them, and he then told me that I could. He said that some of these boats come back and never get sent into service again, but are stripped of their guns and are sold to the Colombian military as fishing boats and canal patrols, and if I wanted he could give me a good deal on one as they were going for scrap price.
So we struck up a deal and he gave me the keys to my wessel. Now these boats had jet drives like the PBR's had which was a good thing as I was full of brandy and ice cream and was rather uncoordinated. I backed my new baby off of the barrels and crashed directly into the other side of the channel, falling backwards off of the forward bridge.
The commander wasnt impressed but told me that it was OK and these boats had seen worse. "Just give it some boost" he yelled, which I did and got her unstuck.
The last thing I remember was cruising this huge jet boat around in some very narrow and shallow channels, tree limbs slapping off of the windshield and listening to the engines throb in sinc.
