One hot, steamy Christmas Eve I had just gone off my third designated watch, and was looking forward to turning in my guard belt. I didn't know it then, but I was to receive the biggest unwrapped Christmas present a sailor could have ever expected to receive this side of heaven. After standing for four hours in total darkness among rows and rows of deathly silent fighter planes, being eaten alive by everything that flew, walked, and slithered across the face of the earth, I found to my total horror that my relief - the man who was supposed to be the most welcome sight on earth - was for all intents and purposes, knock down, blow out drunk. This was it! I had had it!

There he was, lying on the bottom rack - in a stupor, too drunk to stand. I could handle no more! I lifted him to his feet, and in a voice of distinct authority and total exhaustion said---"you now relieve me!" Instanty he sank back onto his bed, and fell into a deep sleep, a deep sleep only the dead - or the dead drunk - are privileged to experience. I don't believe to this day he had any idea I was ever there, or to this day cares. You may now say to yourself, was this the end of it all? Not in your sweet life time it wasn't!

After securing the guard belt around his waist, I made a bee line for my cubical, and without so much as removing my clothes or shoes, flung myself onto my bed, silently wishing myself a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Only minutes after falling asleep, I was awoken by a distinct pulling on my left shirt sleeve. Along with this, a person or persons was shining a bright flash light right in my eyes, causing me some considerable pain. "Hey," I said, "what's with the light?" There was no reply. I strained to lift myself up on one elbow. To my surprise I saw a short, stocky Afro-American man - perhapes in his thirties or early forties - kneeling directly over me. He had a standard issue clip board resting on his knee as he knelt down beside my bed, and from this he began reading the riot act to me in a slow methodical voice. Although I can not for the life of me remember a word he said, I was somehow aware of the fact that he was in the process of ripping me a new one for leaving my friend and co-patriot asleep back there in his rack. I was also aware that I was not going to interrupt him or stop him from finishing what he had to say. He was in control! As he muttered on I still remember thinking to myself that this man looked completely unfamilar to me, that I had never seen him before in my squadron - or any other squadron - any time before. It also became apparent to me that this man I was looking at was either totally blind or (can I bring myself to say it?)---was totally without any trace of eyeballs! After spending the good part of a minute attempting to find them in the glare of the flash light, I began what I can only describe as a slow measured decent into the world of the paranormal! As I strained on, looking hard for any traces, it became apparent that they (his eyeballs) were somewhere way up in the top of his upper lids, as I could just make out the very bottom part of the eyes. He rambled on for another minute or two, stood up, and with sightless eyes looked down at me--and was gone!

I never saw that man again, but I believe to this day, he was a ghost, some sad spector bound by some long forgotten act in which someone had suffered because of his neglect of duty or had possibly lost their life . Now, wandering about on his nightly rounds, he walks the dark corridors of those old barracks, silently checks the rows and rows of fighter planes splashed against the dark sky, and acertains that everyone, living or dead, preforms their job so that no one will ever suffer - eternally - as he does.