Robert (Bob) Stockton's Blog (12)

More imaginary conversations with the ghost of my great-great-great grandfather, Commodore Robert F. "Fighting Bob" Stockton

©2011 Bob Stockton.…

© 2010 Bob Stockton. Excerpted from 'Listening To Ghosts' (Xlibris Press) by Bob Stockton. All rights reserved.



It was the winter of 1959 and our destroyer was  docked at Pearl Harbor while shipyard workers and a few civilian contractors loaded some sophisticated electronic equipment  and antennae aboard that was to be set up in a…

© 2011 Bob Stockton. Unauthorized use prohibited.



Monday was Francis Albert Sinatra's birthday, a day that in my opinion should be declared a national holiday. I thought that it would be a nice tribute if I did a bit of YouTube research and posted my three favorite Sinatra songs to my Facebook page. I had posted the first two and while I was copying number three I began to think about... Cora.



It was the summer of 1967. The Carrier Task Group to which I…

The Incredible Tale of Chief Harold Brooks Who Survived the Wasp-Hobson Tragedy



©2010 Bob Stockton. Excerpted from 'Listening To Ghosts', (Xlibris Press). Unauthorized Reproduction Is Prohibited



In between my primary duties as Recruit Company Commander I was assigned a “hold job” to work with other Company Commanders in a human relations project that the Navy had begun. This afforded me a bit more free time than my  main duty as Company Commander which often meant long…

©2011 Bob Stockton. Excerpted from Chapter 1 of 'Fighting  Bob,' AuthorHouse. Unauthorized use prohibited.



It was while I was recovering from a particularly nasty motorcycle accident last year that I decided to write the book. I had been threatening to put pen to paper and write an autobiography that would chronicle my many adventures and mishaps during a twenty year Navy career but had never done anything about it. The project would be just the ticket to keep me busy while all…

©2010 Bob Stockton. Excerpted from 'Listening To Ghosts,' Xlibris Press. Unauthorized reproduction is prohibited.



My father, Wilbur Chaffey Stockton, was twenty years old when I was born. At that time he was employed as a bus driver for Safeway Trailways driving the New York to D.C. route, and was the best bus driver I ever saw. He could park a big ACF bus on a gnat’s backside. He hated the name Wilbur and always insisted on being called Bill.  As Pop always had an eye for the…

DAY 4-8

Had a nice visit with family in Frisco and among other things took in a major league baseball game and viewed a high school football game from the press box. High School football on a Friday night in Texas! Hooah!



DAY 9: The Trip Back

I left Frisco about 0800 or so heading east on the Dallas tollroad to pick up Interstate 635 which would lead me to US 80 and then on to Interstate 20 east. Riding directly into the sun makes it almost impossible to read the road…

© 2008 Bob Stockton. All rights reserved.



My brother Tom, his wife Sandy and  their children have called Frisco, Texas home for nearly twenty years. Frisco is one of those upscale places that one often encounters in the shadow of a large metroplex such as Dallas and is an attractive sort of mid sized town in which one can dine in upscale restaurants, shop in…

©2010 Bob Stockton. Unauthorized use prohibited

The next morning was January 31st of 1968 which was the beginning of the Vietnamese holiday Tet. Tet signals the beginning of the Vietnamese New Year. This year it also signaled the beginning of a major coordinated offensive by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong irregulars (VC). Major cities throughout South Vietnam were hit by division strength assaults, catching the South Vietnamese and American forces by…

© 2011 Bob Stockton. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.



I suppose it was around 1952 or so when I first met Snake Ross. I was fresh out of Navy Radarman Class "A" School and had received a set of orders to the icebreaker USS Glacier which was currently drydocked in the Charlestown Naval Shipyard being fittted out for a long Antartic deployment. Those orders…

There was an abundance of kids on Lafayette Avenue to hang with but most of the families forbade their children to have anything to do with me. I was seen as a thoroughly bad influence to most of the parents on that block. There were a few exceptions, the Schlegel family being the most notable. That family will always have a special place in my heart.



The…

©2010 Bob Stockton. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.

  USS Constellation had been relieved on Yankee Station in late 1967 and subsequently departed for Subic Bay. Her Air Wing had lost sixteen aircraft and twenty aircrew either killed in action or captured. Connie had finished her third eight month combat tour in as many years and both the Air Wing men and ship’s company crew were looking forward to the Christmas holiday at home with family and loved ones. Being someone who was…