Echoes in the Wind

My son is on spring break this week, and he’ll be three at the end of the month. I work an odd schedule that sometimes gives me Tuesday afternoons off, so I try to get weekly chores done while spending time with him. I read somewhere that doing dishes and raking can be play for a toddler, so I rope him into it whenever his attention span allows.

Texas weather in March and April is unpredictable—cool nights in the 50s and 60s give way to warm days in the mid-80s. It makes for perfect back porch afternoons just before sunset. At lunch, he grabbed an old clear storage bin and filled it with enough water to take an outdoor bath. The combination of the cool breeze and warm sun knocked him out for his nap.

When the afternoon rolled around, we headed out for a bike ride and some time on the swings at the neighborhood park. As soon as we came back through the gate, he spotted the bin on the back porch and asked if he could take his evening bath outside. We had introduced him to hose baths last summer, and like any toddler, he loved them. With the speed of a baseball game streaker, he stripped down and hopped into the now chilly water, squealing as he splashed. I turned on the hose just enough for a trickle and let him play. We didn’t get much washing done, but we talked. I tend to ramble when I think aloud, and I suspect he may be the same way.

His Nana, who lives with us, brought a towel when the sun dipped below the tree line. We dumped the water, and I dried him off, bundling his lanky frame into the oversized towel so he could sit on my lap. He’s as tall as most kindergarteners, and it was a tight fit, but we managed to fold his arms and legs under the towel.

I slouched in the cheap canvas camp chair to make room and let him lean back. He mumbled something about wanting to watch the wind, then did his best to snuggle in. So, we sat there in the fading afternoon light, watching the seasonal gusts shake the mature oaks around our house and the neighbors’. The wind was loud enough to drown out the noise of the freeway and traffic. All I could hear was the rustling leaves scattering over everything.

For a moment, I was back on the cutter. Another flashback—but less visceral than the last one, less reality-bending.

On a 210-foot medium-endurance cutter, there aren’t many places to be alone. All lower compartments and isolated machine spaces are checked hourly while underway, watched for leaks or equipment issues. The fantail—the aft-most working deck—is usually the designated smoking area and sometimes holds detainees or migrants, depending on the mission. The bow is almost always empty, but it’s a rough, damp, windy, and sometimes cold place to be.

But I found one spot.

On each side of the cutter, on the second deck just aft of the forward superstructure, there are cutouts for the small boats and their davits. The starboard side holds the OTH MKIII or IV, depending on the cutter, with a dual-point davit for the heavier boat. That left just enough room under the OTH to sit on the davit platform and lean against the hydraulic reservoir tank. If I had a break and got tired of staring at the overhead of my rack, I’d crawl under the small boat to sit and think.

It was loud. The wind buffeted against the superstructure in an endless, irregular roar. The bow breaking through waves generated a bass drum boom every time it plowed into the sea. Huge waves crashed like surf against a steep beach, overlaid with the near-subsonic thrum of the engines. I could still feel the grumbling diesels and the cavitation of the propellers, but for once, I couldn’t hear them.

More than once, I promised myself I wouldn’t forget the hours spent under that boat—watching sunsets and sunrises, trying to calm down, just existing alone.

The dry rattle of oak leaves through new grass and the scrape of branches in the gusty Texas wind pulled me back to the present. My son stirred against my chest, shifting to get comfortable. I wanted to stay like that until we both drifted off. I could feel the tiredness settling into our limbs.

Then my old beagle-blue heeler mutt let out a grumbling “Awooo” from the back door. She knew it was time—pajamas, bedtime stories, and one last snack she’d help clean up. My son giggled and squirmed free. The moment was over.

He devoured another thousand calories and $25 worth of fresh fruit, berries, cheese, milk, and trail mix, still asking for more as his mother got him into pajamas and pointed him toward Nana for bedtime stories. As he gleefully ran off to pick a book, I wondered if I should invest in a co-op farm just to feed him.

Bedtime routines followed.

I tried to lock down the afternoon in my memory—bike rides, swing sets, yard baths, and snacks—hoping I’d cherish it years from now. I wondered if, a decade from today, I’d remember this moment the way I remember my time under the OTH.

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K.C. Aud has made a career of being lucky and has managed to find something positive in nearly every poor decision he’s ever made, even if it was only a new perspective on how not to do something.
Enlisting in the U.S. Coast Guard in 2010 he became an Operations Specialist (radio and navigation) and did his first tour in Georgia guarding submarines from drunk fishermen.

In 2014, tired of the heat and the bugs he transferred to a 210-foot medium endurance cutter in Washington state. The cutter then regularly deployed to the hot and buggy west coast of Central America to hunt down drug runners. Aboard USCGC Active he traveled 94,194 miles and personally handled enough cocaine to keep a small country high for a decade. Somewhere in there, he learned to write, if not spell.

Three years later, daunted by the prospect of spending the rest of his career in a windowless command center, he separated from active duty. After 13 different jobs ranging from beer brewer to dairy farmhand, to machinist, to Navy civilian contractor, he reenlisted in 2020 as a Coast Guard reservist, changing rates to Maritime Law Enforcement Specialist. When not helping the Navy assets in the Puget Sound troubleshoot radios, he’s on drill in Seattle doing water cop stuff and or flailing away at his keyboard. Though married and now a father, he misses the mission.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.