The ancients kept memories alive by tales around the fire and reenactments of great deeds and exploits. Our culture by a few Kodak prints and with some markers at the hometown cemetery.

Then there is THE WALL and all of that musing about life's fleetness got me to thinking about a shipmate I knew once whose name is engraved in that WALL. I wrote the following for in all honesty, my own benefit, as a declaration that at least for a time one is remembered. The historical events that gave rise to the WALL require no review here. But at least for someone who passed through my life there is more than just a few dusty papers at the courthouse and the yardsale of ones life.

Years ago when the kids were still home we all went to DC. It was Easter time and we visited the WALL. They have books there where you can look up names and circumstances of loss. I looked up Jack's name and found it was near his birth date. As I become a year older each year I think of that.

I give you my memory of Jack.

Unless there are circumstances.

This is a story of one shipmate that I never forgot: Jack Luntsford of the submarine USS Alexander Hamilton SSBN 617 Gold.

It was in the fall of 1968 shortly before my last run on the 617 before going to Instructor Duty. It was noon and I had gone to the Sub Base cafeteria for lunch. As he came walking toward me I at first didn't recognize him in his CPO dress blues. He always did seem ill at ease in a dress uniform anyway, and this was the first time I had seen him since he had made Chief. He looked especially uncomfortable like someone had tried to put dress blues on a refrigerator. I thought his neck tie would pop at any minute.

We shook hands and talked for awhile swapping the usual information that servicemen do when they meet after being separated. A few inquiries about former shipmates were made and responded to. I knew he was assigned to an engineering inspection team and traveled some and I asked him how it was going. He didn't seem too happy with the job, although knowing him I'm sure he was performing superbly. He always did. I remember he told me that he wasn't cut out for administrative duties and he had to get out of it. We finished our coffees, made some more pass-time talk, shook hands and went our separate ways. That was the last time I saw Jack Luntsford.

He was one of the truly tough guys that  I ever knew. Other than a beer-ball-game, I doubt if he had ever voluntarily engaged in an athletic activity simply to work out. We have all, I'm sure, known a man like that. A man whom it seems was born with naturally uncommon strength and hard muscle. I remember him as a man of simple tastes and simple pleasures and he was one of the hardest working and hardest playing sailors I ever knew. I also recall him as not given to pretense or what is today called attitude. With the passing of years I have come to think of Jack as typifying a unique quality of submarining and submariners that sets them apart from much larger military commands. I believe it is a quality most often seen in specialized or elite units; those close-knit organizations where a man's performance counts above all else.

To the submariner, competence means more than monkey-skills in a narrow specialty. It is in fact, an institutional obsession ranked above all other considerations. In submarines the word competence takes on an extra dimension or meaning: the man who can be totally and absolutely relied upon - one who goes the distance. Marginal sailors and officers in larger units, aided by the barriers of their very size, can hide behind a facade of rank and military pretense. Not so the submarine, with it's confined space and intensely focused tasks the individual becomes an open book to his shipmates.

Competence can be a saving grace for submariners, who for the most part have a natural affinity for non-conformity, harboring disdain for the "recruiting poster" superficialities of military life.

Jack Luntsford was a competent submariner.

There was a song years ago by the late Jim Croce about "...you don't tug on superman's cape, you don't spit into the wind..." And that verse ended with "...and you don't mess around with Slim". That also applied to Jack when he was going full bore during an upkeep period. The pressure of the cold-war boomer's 28 day upkeep was often a sleepless blur of hard work. Both for the sake of the patrol's mission, and to meet the challenges of the unforgiving sea it is critical that tasks be done perfectly. I remember Jack going at it for long, unbroken stretches - rarely even stopping to shave, sleep or cleanup. Stopping only to eat, sometimes stretching out on a benchseat and going to sleep after a meal where no mess cook dared wake him.

I wasn't a close steaming buddy with Jack. Few could keep up with him. But Tex came the closest. Tex was a hard charging Machinist Mate whom one should not cross.

One night during an upkeep when Tex was assigned to mess cooking, he and Jack came rolling back off a rare night's liberty. Embroiled in a heated argument they could be heard noisily making their way through the boat down to the crew's dinette where it began to get serious. Tex swung on Jack who pushed him away. Tex went down but  too hardheaded and too drunk to quit he kept flailing away. Reluctantly, Jack, with his options limited weighed into Tex, pounding him until some shipmates pulled them apart.

A few hours later as a wobbly Tex went about his breakfast duties, his face swollen and his eyes nearly shut, a crew member said something to him about the big scrap the night before. Tex forced a smile past his split lip and mumbled, "That goddamned Jack can sure hit".

Also Read   Mike Rankin Remembers Jack