Welcome to General Chat - GAW Community Area
This General Chat area started off as a place for people to talk about things that are off topic, however it has quickly evolved into a community and has become an integral part of the GAW experience for many of us.
Based on its evolving needs and plenty of user feedback, we are trying to bring some order and institute some rules. Please make sure you read these rules and participate in the spirit of this community.
Rules for General Chat
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Be respectful to each other. This is of utmost importance, and comments may be removed if deemed not respectful.
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Avoid long drawn out arguments. This should be a place to relax, not to waste your time needlessly.
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Personal anecdotes, puzzles, cute pics/clips - everything welcome
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Please do not spam at the top level. If you have a lot to post each day, try and post them all together in one top level comment
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Try keep things light. If you are bringing in deep stuff, try not to go overboard.
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Things that are clearly on-topic for this board should be posted as a separate post and not here (except if you are new and still getting the feel of this place)
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If you find people violating these rules, deport them rather than start a argument here.
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Feel free to give feedback as these rules are expected to keep evoloving
In short, imagine this thread to be a local community hall where we all gather and chat daily. Please be respectful to others in the same way
Wow, thank you for sharing a piece of your military career with me. Seems like you really did get to enjoy the adventurous nature of the military. Did anyone else mention Admiral Byrd or the wall of ice or anything weird during all your time in Antarctica? Looking back, did you notice any anomalies or ulterior motives behind the main leaders of your ship? I dont know, just seems odd to have a 400 man crew for "water samples".
Sounds a lot like our "training missions" in the Marines ;)
Looking back now I realize that I did not appreciate what I was experiencing. I took the entire thing for granted. And as a young, single Coast Guard officer a lot of my thoughts centered around our next port and liberty call. In other words, to a great extent, I was "young and foolish"! Also keep in mind that this was the mid-70's - way before the internet and cellphones. But to answer your question, there was no mention in regards to Admiral Byrd, the ice wall or anything strange.
I will share this: I served as one of the Officers of the Watch - I had the "mid-watch" (12 midnight to 0400 hrs). One night around 0200 hrs, while off the coast of Antarctica the ships lookout spotted a while light off our starboard beam. The light did not appear to be moving in relation to the ship. At first I thought it must have been a reflection from our ship - but that was quickly ruled out. It did appear to be some type of aircraft which we could not identify. At the time our air-radar was off since there shouldn't have been any aircraft anywhere in this remote area. Well our Captain's "Night Orders" required that I inform him of what we were seeing. As I awaited the Captain to come to the bridge the light moved away from us at a tremendous rate of speed. Luckily the ship's lookout and Quartermaster of the Watch witnessed the same event.
So now I have the Captain of the Glacier standing in front of me. I go on to relate what we had observed. I called the Quartermaster of the Watch over as a "witness". Well the Captain listened intently, nodded his head, and without saying one word returned to his quarters. I had the Quartermaster "log" the entire event in the ships official logbook. To this day I believe that our Captain knew something that we did not know. And this event might tie in with Operation Highjump and the Nazis....