HOME PAGE - SeeStories.online by Pete Neild
To address the need to protect classified information, I offer, right off the bat, the following:
A shipmate's version of the GLOMAR RESPONSE aka "I can neither confirm nor deny:" So follow along with a mindful eye for fact or fiction.
Welcome to SeeStories. The disclaimer borrowed above not withstanding. This my "eBook" is very different than others you may have read. You can read each story in any order you wish. There is no "order" to anything, other than this webpage, which lays it all out and explains the background. Things that are underlined are links to other tangents. Some of the tangents offer others, some come back here, some do not. Consider this the prologue and it will get deeper the further you scroll down into the deep dark depths below.
It began with a John Riley Project Podcast #JRP0271. It is a collection of over 50 stories from my years in the Navy, riding submarines. Please excuse the errors in grammar, spelling, and capitalization. In this regard I am NOT my father's son. Yes, the biggies have been caught by friends and family who have proof read all the stories - but some of their recommendations and suggestions fell on deaf ears, strictly because I want something for my Dad to shake his head about. When he was alive, I was a point of frustration for a very accomplished English literature, and English composition professor - so I have designed this website and it's stories to last well into the future, beyond my time. Therefore, when he and I meet up again, we will have so much more to talk about.
Now that, you have gone a little deeper into this introduction, there is one more thing you should know about me. I don't consider myself a "veteran", I prefer to think of my time in the Navy as an opportunist. That being a perspective that I use throughout this ebook to tell my Sea Stories as I saw them - hence SeeStories.
This website will allow you access to a fairly large collection of stories about my adventures in and around various US Navy Submarines from 1969 to 1978. Over the span of those 9 years I was at sea for 3 of them on 9 different submarines, all are shown in the table below. During that time, I covered over 50,000 Leagues under the Sea. Keep in mind that the 50,000 is a conservative number as it does not include "mission" distance, and yet it is two and a half times further than Captain Nemo documented by Jules Verne - and is not science fiction.
SeeStories, YES; Science Fiction NOPE.
Groton CT.
You will note that both the TANG and the PINTADO are highlighted above with links to their Wikipedia Pages. That is because those two boats have special meaning to me and my stories are very much inter-woven. While my "stories" span all 9 boats, and commands I served under - These two boats stand out, and serve well as an intro to the others. Some of their stories are free as you will see in the next paragraph. Others make up the eBook, it's chapters, and stories that are for sale, in any order you wish to read them.
The USS TANG-SS563 is as old as I am, she turned 23 when I did. She is now a museum piece @ the Inciralti Sea Museum in Izmir, Turkey. The fact that the TANG is a museum piece now is a separate but related tangent unto itself. I have captioned a video as that tangent. If you wish to go down that path click this link. But, there are several more related stories, that involve my run on the TANG. I got to ride the TANG because the guy who was supposed to ride her had a family issue that developed and had to get home. So my getting on board has at least three stories to it. Three Tickets in One Day, is the story about getting to take his place, and then there is one I'm not proud of in getting to the TANG (The Lifetime Burden). And finally the one about getting on-board (I Think I see it coming around Grande Island). These three inter-related stories fall in different groups in the SeeStories organization - so these three are free to illustrate that point. My most memorable "friend" from the TANG was an Electricians Mate, Larry Strickland. We had some great conversations about his past, that were of interest to me. Here is his major story - watch the video. The only downside is there is no mention of the TANG, just the background of what bonded the two of us.
Then the USS PINTADO SSN672 (Christened by Adm. Bernard Clarey's wife) has several stories related to it. AND I rode PINTADO twice; the first run was in April, and the second run was in August. Admiral Clarey's first command in WWII was the original PINTADO (SS387), so he took special interest in the new PINTADO (SSN672), and I took special interest in him, because HE signed our orders (as my orders to the TANG (above) were). Back in the day of his CINCPACFLT command, he had a special interest in those who served in our job codes. You will note my orders to PINTADO (if you bothered to look) were not signed by him - he was gone by the time I rode PINTADO relieved of Command of CINCPACFLT in Sept. of 1973. In 1974 the special attention our shop had, started to erode. BUT and finally, I have told the story of my one on one meeting with Admiral Clarey several times. Here is a clip from one of my podcasts, that tells the story of our meeting in the spring of 1973 - the latter part of March or the beginning of April.
If you wish to watch any of my other podcasts on the John Riley Project: Click here and you will go to my JRP Playlist.
TANG and PINTADO illustrate the advantage of a website based eBook.
One of the major advantages of writing my SeeStories as a webpage based eBook / collection of short stories is the ability for you to follow selectable threads of the stories dependencies. In this case I am using my time on both the TANG and the PINTADO as an example of how you can follow one particular aspect along a thought train. This is very similar to the above where I described the importance of the USS TANG which led to three stories of how I made it on board. However, in this example, the following five links are provided. One video and five connected descriptions or stories.
It starts with a piece of music called SOLID GROUND. And yes, you can follow that link, or you can continue on, possibly using the video shown below. To the right are two stories that were instrumental in my thinking and reflective mood when I created the YouTube video. The second story Special Places, goes deeper and ends with two SeeStories that will also appear in the Stand Alone grouping. Finally, one story that is grayed out - is yet another tangent to another section, of a weakly connected layer, the fact that I missed Watergate.
So now you can see that throughout this webpage. You can click on just one thing that interests you, or you can go down a path, or skip along the path of that story line. I will be adding free stuff and additional chapters to the "book" itself as long as I am able. Please keep in mind that this is a hosted webpage with monthly fees. So some things come at a cost to you, such that hopefully the SeeStories will last long after I'm gone.
The Motivation for SeeStories
The stories here in SeeStories have been written over the last 20+ years. But I didn't even think about them until after almost an equal amount of time (almost 23 years) following my discharge in 1978 and my later marriage. Work and family got in the way of reflective time. In 2001, I joined a website as a member "SubmarineSailor.com". They encouraged me to write a story for posting. So I wrote one that I had told many times. That story, the first was "The Battle of Barf in the South China Sea", my first ever posting on a website, it was posted on 9/10/2001. The day before the attack on the World Trade Center.
The events of the following days, months and years caused me to start thinking more and more about writing more stories. Which I did on occasion, becoming more frequent over the years. Then, very recently, I was motivated by another hobby of mine - unlisted YouTube Videos with pieces of copywritten music to sometimes copywritten video. Here are two primary motivations - catch the mood.
Wasting my Young Years by London Grammer was done because I spend a great deal of time wondering about that very aspect. Was my time riding submarines, a personal adventure at the time, a waste?
Professionally it was not. Everything I have ever done work wise has direct traceable roots to my time riding the boats.
But personally - I wonder, as the unrealized connection at the time to family and friends was immense.
Submerge the Ship is a constant reminder of the evolution performed dozens of times where we the "boat sailors" disappeared for months at a time. Into a life that friends and family can only imagine. Perhaps they should know?
Just the simple task of submerging is meaningless unless you consider the crew you did it with. You might want to view the other interpretation of "Way Down We Go" (done by Kaleo) by clicking on the picture of me below and to the right.
That brings us to the present time. This website eBook was started in September of 2022, following my appraisal of "content". It turns out at that time I had accumulated 47 stories over the 20 years of occasional writing. The count is now up to 53. I will be adding more as time progresses, as long as I am able. I hope you enjoy them and if when you read them questions come up about some aspect not described - ask and it will be added.
Click the pic for the long version of "Submerge The Ship"
NOW FOR THE STORIES
Keeping in mind that the picture on the right here is ME taken in my early 20's on a 637 class boat out of Pearl. It's the only picture I have of me in or around the boats that I rode. This "book" if you will is a collection of stories with recollections of them from the eyes you see here, and aged a lot.
AND each of the stories can stand on their own. Individual PDF files (importable to Kindle). You can read
them in any order you wish. You have now surpassing "cruise depth" in the description of this eBook. To make it easier for you to read, a font color change is required because of the depth of detail. The stories that follow are grouped into focused groups, that I call chapters and you can get to them, as all products are on the Shop Page. The first of the chapters is the one called "BASICS" and the menu button above works for that one, because they are FREE. The others, as individual chapters for sale are; OVERVIEW, PERSONAL, STAND-ALONE, RELATED, OTHERS, and FRIENDS with REQUESTED to be added later, and they can also be found on the Shop Page. On the Shop page, the whole story is in the top left corner. Then the Chapters follow and then going further down the 41 individual stories are available "products" organized in the order of the Chapters they are in. If you click on an item, it will expand that item and bring in the "Add to Cart" button allowing you to put that item in your CART. Or you can use the hierarchy line in the upper left corner to either return to the SHOP Page, or all the way back to this the HOME Page if you wish. Because the SHOP page is nearly as big as this page, I have put the basic organization in a flow chart here. There is more detail for each of the stories on their respective product pages. Keep in mind that the BASICS and the future FREE requested stories are FREE - they are NOT products and they have their own links spread around the site.
OUTLINE:
Shown here is the top level outline of the eBook SeeStories and the Chapters contained within that ZIP file of ZIPPED Stories.
Here is an alphabetical listing of all the stories including the free ones. The free ones are those highlighted with the Green Squares. They can be found on this page or on the BASICS page.
ORGANIZATION
It's good to know that you are pretty much like me. You have decided to not buy into the whole thing right up front without knowing more. This book allows you to do that. BASICS the collection of FREE stories are shown here as downloadable PDF files.
Welcome to Sea Stories
DEPTH
Fitting In
The Final Difference
Breathing
Submarine Dolphins
Sleeping
Eating
50,000 Leagues under the Sea
As you can see here the book is made up of a bunch of PDF files. In THE BASICS group the subjects are all FREE. You can open them for reading right now, or you can download them to read later. AND you can download them and convert them to KINDLE files.
BUT this is only one part of the "BOOK" SEE STORIES. Remember there are six other groupings and they are described on their individual pages accessible by the menu that is stuck to the top of your screen.
The other PDF files are not free. If you noticed this website is maintained by WIX, and there are fees associated with that (and Calypso's as well).
I have set up the following scheme to cover the costs such that this site will remain hopefully well past my capability to cover the cost.
You are now able to BUY the entire collection for $15.00. Or just one of the "Chapters" for their respective prices ranging from $2.00 (FRIENDS) to as much as $5.00 (PERSONAL / RELATED) OR just $1.00 per story individually (website host minimum charge - sorry). IF you buy the Chapters one at a time, ending up with all of them; you will have spent well over the $15.00 for the whole set.
As an example - I will use the BASICS section, such that you can open the stories individually with each of the 9 ICONS above. OR you can go to the BASICS page via the menu or the links in this section. Once you click on them there or here, they open, and you can either print them or Download them. Once they are downloaded they are yours. Now if you do that individually from the other GROUPs, it would cost you $1.00 for each one, or all 9 stories in the BASIC Group for $5.00 as a group.
Go ahead click the icon here on the right, all 9 segments shown above will download to your computer as one Zipped File of 1.7MBytes.
OK with that all explained, the PRODUCT, CART, and PURCHASE pages are available for you to purchase what you wish. If you want to know more, or you have any difficulties please let me know by sending me an email shown here below.
Don't forget I'd love to hear your thoughts on this Novel Approach (pun intended). Especially if you have a question about submarine life - chances are I experienced it, and it could be ANOTHER STORY (which you will get a copy of FREE.)
Send me an email = pneilddroid@gmail.com.
THE BASICS ZIPPED
You are about to exceed "TEST DEPTH"!!!
Next command should be "SURFACE, SURFACE, SURFACE".
