Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee, by Grin & Barrett

I stood there stunned – a giant man leaning towards me, fist balled up, lower lip bit in a menacing snarl, slowly throwing a right hook.  I could have moved out of the way; could have stood aside, but as his friends egged him on, I stood motionless, in awe of this charismatic icon.

Hang on. Let me take it back a bit….

There are few experiences in my life that have been as mind-numbingly degrading as to be the operations petty officer for a fighter squadron aboard an aircraft carrier.  “Radar”, as I was semi-affectionately known, was my moniker, and I was the personal errand boy for more than 30 officers who consistently whined about the lack of coffee in the industrial coffee maker.  Actual work often took a backseat to much more important endeavors like picking up “personal” mail, delivering various items to staterooms, making sure that the coffee machine was always full, and finding the cheat codes ( for my commanding officer, of course) for an epic session of “Doom 95”.

Lest I sound bitter, know that it was in fact an excellent training ground.  I never went to West Point, or even ROTC, but I received as outstanding an education as you can receive on leadership, or the lack thereof.  Lessons from my former life as an enlisted Sailor have served me well.  Thank you Lieutenant Freckles, for insisting I stand in the passageway outside the ready room for half an hour, arms full of your personal mail, while you and the boys watched Jenna Jameson (before she was Tito Ortiz’s Baby Mama) on the overhead projector.  It helped me to understand what leadership is not.

As insanely tedious as my job was, there is something very cool about being stationed aboard an aircraft carrier – the breathtaking endlessness that is the ocean, the indescribably infinite depth of blue, the amazing and often exotic ports.  Sounds and smells that are uniquely Navy.  Unless you have actually been on board, it is hard to understand just how amazing these floating cities are.  It is the “cool” factor that draws quite a few celebrities to the carriers, and I have had the opportunity to meet some very interesting characters.

The most memorable celebrity highlight happened while we were dockside in the port of Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates.

It was 1996 and I was onboard the USS George Washington (CVN-73), the Navy’s newest nuclear powered aircraft carrier.  This was a very port-heavy deployment, and I figured that the U.A.E. would probably be one of our least interesting port visits.  I couldn’t have been more wrong – more on that later.

Besides being very gracious hosts (their local soccer team hosted our team, and they were unbelievably generous and hospitable to us), the U.A.E. is gorgeous and there is a ton to do, even if you do have to wear long pants and a collared shirt everywhere, 100 plus degree temperatures notwithstanding.  But it was actually my day of duty – stuck on the carrier –  that was my best day in port.

I stood in the doorway of our squadron ready room, having already been briefed by our squadron’s public affairs officer, and I waited for the group to make their way down the passageway.  Our new celebrity guest had an entourage 15-deep, and they filtered into the room first, taking up positions to snap photographs and scout the way ahead of him.  Our pilots were all waiting in the ready room and several of our officers escorted our guest inside.

He had to stoop a little to get in, and it was then that I realized exactly how big Muhammad Ali was.

That’s right, Muhammad-f-ing-Ali.

As Ali slowly walked into the room, he looked around.  His movements were very slow and deliberate, and he looked as though he was concentrating very hard on his next words.  I stood no more than two feet from him, and I was thrilled when he looked directly into my eyes.

Thrilled, then mortified, as he spoke his first words…

“What?”, he said, with eyes focused directly on me.

He was speaking directly to ME, an operations petty officer. Awesome! He furrowed his brow a bit and then spoke to me again.

“What did you just say?”, he questioned.

I laughed a little, nervously, not knowing what the hell was going on. Muhammad Ali had either unknowingly started a telepathic conversation with me, or things were getting extremely awkward.  For some unknown reason, he looked pissed. Worse yet, the anger seemed to be focused on me.

He looked around the room, almost as if looking for confirmation from the people quickly gathering round.  A couple of heads nodded. I just stood there grinning like a complete idiot.

“Did you just hear what he called me?”, Ali asked the crowd.

It’s affirmative, he just referred to me by indirect pronoun.  Not knowing if I should run for cover or laugh, giddy as a school girl, I waited anxiously to see where this was going.

He looked at me again, then took a slow step toward me.

“He just called me a n***er (enter derogatory, never-actually-mentioned-racial-comment-here)!!”

The confused look on my face elicited more laughter, but not from me.  Um, no sir, I thought. I most certainly did not.  This isn’t funny. How do I respond to such a ridiculous question without sounding condescending to anyone, let alone a man known for pounding humans into piles of motionless flesh.

I stood frozen as his hand formed an iron-clad pounding machine.

I stood there stunned, as this giant man leaned toward me, fist balled, lower lip bitten. It was at that point that Ali launched a right hook headed squarely in my direction.

Sure, I could have moved out of the way, but while his friends laughed and egged him on, I stood in awe, not believing that I was really about to be punched by “The Greatest of All Time”. This is unbelieva…

Too late. His right hook landed. On my face.

His huge fist landed softly on my jaw. Then, astonishingly, Ali simply turned and walked away without a word, toward the cameras and PR folks, toward the rest of his day.

I continued to stand there, savoring the moment, hoping to extend this little adventure where I was touched by a piece of history.  But like all great moments, it slipped away.  After the obligatory handshakes and pictures with my Commanding Officer, the champ walked out, surrounded by his posse, and within minutes the sound of their footsteps faded to another part of the ship.

I stood there in the ready room, alone now, still grinning. Somehow, a petty officer being punched by a boxing great just isn’t a big deal to the commanding officer. As I stood there thinking about what happened, I realized I was in stunned amazement, like everyone else who had witnessed the punch heard “‘round the ship”.  I realized this was, without a doubt, my best story ever.

Did you just hear what he called me?

Hehe.

Awesome.