Another post from my friend and former shipmate, Gary Reisdorf.
Agadir Line Snapping Fun
I was just leaving the most forward room on the Apollo, the foc’sle, when I heard the commotion. The most forward cabin was the Deck Force’s storage room, called the Bosun’s Locker, where we stored all of the paint and ropes we used when working on the ship. Being a Deckhand, I started my day preparing paint, paintbrushes and rollers for a day’s painting and ended the day cleaning brushes and rollers, all in the Bosun’s Locker. Being the most forward part of the ship, it was away from seniors, officers and every other pest. It was a peaceful, safe place for the Deckhands.
When I came running out, Rudy Savage had our Captain, Norman Starkey pinned down, with one hand on his neck choking him and was lifting his arm to strike the him, when Pat McCullough grabbed his arm. The Captain’s face was turning red with his eyes starting to bulge but with Rudy’s size and strength, he couldn’t get away. Rudy Savage, Bob Dilts and I used to lift weights daily together at every lunch break and Rudy was strong as hell, so Pat had to hang his entire body weight on Rudy’s one arm to keep him from swinging. Pat managed to break up the potential punch-up, even though Rudy could bench press over 300 lbs. Rudy also weighed over 300 lbs.
Rudy was a great guy, as was Dilts, and they looked after me like a little brother. I think I was 18 at the time (it was late 1971) and could only bench press 180 lbs but I still loved to work out with these 2. Rudy and Dilts were over 6 feet tall and both were very big men. I looked up to these 2 as one would with older brothers. They were kind-hearted men.
This incident was right after we snapped about 10 lines of the ship while at the dock in Agadir, Morocco. The dock was unprotected with no breakwater to shelter it from incoming swells. To make matters worse the dock did not go completely to the bottom, so in a sense, it was hollow except for the cement stanchions that supported the dock. I guess that would normally not be a problem but we got hit with some huge, freak swells one afternoon, probably about 10 feet high that came directly at the dock, which had no protection. Due to this lack of breakwater or barriers to protect the dock area, the ship was basically picked up with a swell when it came in, and then slammed back down again at a rather huge pace and distance. This caused us to lose about 5 polyprop lines and 4 or 5 steel rope lines.
The polyprop lines were 4” in diameter and made of polypropylene material. They would take a lot of strain and the ship used them to not only secure the ship at dock, but when initially docking the boat we would use the ship’s winches to pull the ship close in to the dock. The polyprop lines could stretch quite a bit before breaking. The other rope, wire ropes were 3/4” in diameter, and were made of steel strands twisted around a fibre core. Although these were stronger than the polyprop lines, they did not have the stretchability that polyprop affords.
The Captain sent me and a few other deckies out on the dock to put new, replacement lines onto bollards, after one would snap. It was dusk and when the steel ropes snapped one could see sparks fly. Seeing the sparks and hearing the explosion of them snapping was scary enough but one of the wire ropes snapped right in front of me. I could hear it like the uncoiling of a whip being snapped. If one of these ropes had hit me, it would have decapitated me. This one was close! I had about 3 explosions of wire ropes breaking that evening while on the dock. I was scared out of my mind, but I got lucky and didn’t get hit.
Finally, the Commodore decided we had had enough of the 3 hour beating. We were running out of ropes to snap, and potential deckhands to kill, so we moved out to anchor. Now it even got worse! We set 2 forward anchors and also dropped the aft anchor. Normally at anchor, we only had to drop 1 or 2 forward anchors but the swells were so powerful we had to have all 3 anchors set. Well, no more than 2 hours went by and the aft anchor snapped off. During those hours the Deputy Captain, Mike Douglas (RIP), managed to get well into a bottle of wine. He was actually on duty as the active Captain (called, the Con of the Watch) at the time, so when we lost the anchor, the Commodore sent messengers to him to find out what happened and how he was handling it. Well, whoever the messenger was, could smell the wine on his breath and Mike was in big trouble. I don’t know what we did to handle the situation but I know we were dragging anchor and therefore moving. I think we had to use the engines, in addition to the 2 forward anchors, to keep from heading back towards shore. Mike got assigned treason for his drinking while on duty and demoted to 2nd Galley Storesman.
So with 10 snapped lines and one lost anchor, the deck force knew we had our work cut out for us. Turned out the Commodore thought more than just that, he put the entire deck force in Liability. With this horrible condition, it meant that we could not have a day off and had to work full time other than 8 hours of sleep per night. That liability condition lasted for 6 months as enforced by Captain Starkey. I remember it well because 2 weeks before the Agadir incident, I bought a brand new bicycle that I saved $150.00 for. It was beautiful and I looked forward to riding it on my days off in all of the exotic ports we visited. Well, I left that bike on the aft well deck and after 6 months of liability, my new bike was rusted. I sold it for $20.00 to someone that was allowed a day off and apparently had time to clean the rust. I think I rode that bike a total of 5 miles which is about $26 per mile. Nice.
The reason we got a liability condition is that we hadn’t oiled the steel rope, and per LRH that is why they snapped. Looking back at this, I would say the rope could have been soaked daily in oil and they would have snapped with the strength of the waves and this huge ship being thrown about. So we had to run every wire rope thru oil so this wouldn’t recur. It was quite a job as they were long ropes. We also were blamed for the anchor snapping as we hadn’t oiled the anchor chain. Another REALLY stupid excuse. Putting some oil on a solid steel anchor chain was not going to stop it from snapping in that violent sea. This was a 40 or 50 year old ship with the original anchor chain and putting oil on it after being in salt water and sitting in a chain locker was not going to make any difference. But, there I was with my fellow deckhand, Steve Nichols, running a 50 year old, rusted anchor chain thru a bucket of oil. The only way to make that chain work with more certainty would have been to replace it with a brand new one. But, we stayed in liability until we had all of the chain oiled and all of the wire ropes oiled.
The truth of the matter is that none of this catastrophe would have happened if the Captain had found a better berth for the ship and kept track of the weather and swells. If he had gone to anchor immediately, we would have only snapped the aft anchor. But, the Captain wasn’t punished and everyone knows what rolls downhill.
Being in liability, we had to work from morning until night without time off or study time. 16 hours of work was the norm in this condition. It took it’s toll on all of the Deckhands. Rudy, who was our 1st Mate, was about 50 years old and was feeling the strain. Captain Starkey started “heavily questioning” Rudy about where the new wire rope was that he was supposed to purchase. It must have gotten into a heated argument. No 300 lbs, 50 year old black man, who has been subjected to sleep deprivation, was going to accept some 35 year old, possibly apartheid-influenced, South African yelling at him, as only Captain Starkey could do.
I always felt that Starkey controlled his crew with fear whereas previously Captain Bill Robertson had treated people with respect and got respect in return. In later years, (early 80’s forward) Norman Starkey ended up working closely with David Miscavige, who is the current Chairman of the Board for the Church of Scientology. I wonder how much influence Norman had on Miscavige and the way he ended up treating his staff.
Rudy’s reaction to Norman’s verbal assault was to throw the Captain onto his back, on the forward hole cover and almost strike him, until Pat McCullough grabbed Rudy’s arm. If Pat hadn’t interfered, I’m sure Norman would have been nicely pounded. At that time, and with the abuse I was going through, I was seriously sad that my good friend, Pat, interfered and stopped the beating.
LRH found out about this incident with Rudy. But stop. I must admit that mutiny on a ship will never be tolerated, no matter how much of a difficult captain one has. LRH said it was mutiny and Rudy was offloaded the next day. No Committee of Evidence, no hearing, just GONE. Nothing but his clothes in a suitcase and sent off the ship in Agadir, Morocco. A big, black American sent off in a foreign country where he did not know French, Spanish or Arabic and who knows how much money he had. I would imagine, not much, as we were only paid $10.00 per week. I felt quite sad that I lost my good friend, Rudy and also sad for Rudy’s fate. I was deathly afraid that the deck force were all going to get sec-checked to find out our real views on this and whose side we took. I strongly and privately detested Norman and secretly wished that no one had interfered with Rudy and he would have given Starkey a smack that he would never forget. If my true feelings were discovered, I probably would have been offloaded too in Morocco, at 18 years old. Luckily, LRH left us alone on that one. But, this left me having to put up with Captain Starkey for the next 10 years of my life in some manner or the other. In hindsight, going thru Morocco with Rudy and making our way back to the states could have been a better option than remaining on board. You never know.
My good friend Rudy let me down by not following through with the punch that day. He was strong enough to follow through quite easily and my other good friend Pat, let me down for interfering.
Sadly, I believe that Rudy has passed away and I know that Pat has also passed. It is funny that how 40 some odd years later, you still miss such good people, good friends.
Hi Gary,
Yes, I too fondly remember Rudy, a big gentle Yogi Bear. I also remember “Hitting the Deck” (the phrase used whenever I was busted to the Deck force, which was more than several LOL). Somehow I always got into trouble being a joker “Seeing humor in insanity” and also never understanding some of the insane rule and procedures I needed to follow. Oh, I also wish Rudy would have followed through in decking Norman.
Looking back, there were so many wonderful people on the ship. I believe one of the reasons we bought into it all was all these difference unique personalities coexisting together for what we sadly believed was a noble cause.
Many decades ago the only place I had a case was when I was “IN”. That was another of Hubbard’s insane ideas of how to shift responsibility for your actions to a THING that only he can fix. I believe having a “CASE” also was a continuous guilt mechanism creator that he could use as another control factor. We lived in a constant paranoid state of being. Not only for the little “shticks” that were occurring in real time but for every imagined incident we thought we did. Like the time 4,567,305,299,444 years, 3 months, 7 days, 42 minutes and 9 seconds ago when I +^*%%$$ the %^*^&((, it was very embarrassing.
It was amazing; as soon as I was not part of that insanity anymore I didn’t have a case anymore. I wonder where did it go?
But sadly, I also lost the phenomenal ability to exactly date over the 79.5 Qutrillion, zillion years of my existence all those most fascinating events. ROFLMTO. (Rolling the floor laughing my thetans off)
Thanks for posting!
Great story. Thanks. Makes me glad I did my EPF on land.
Great story
I faced Norman Starki only once, in Moscow, about 13 years ago. But this time was enough for me that it has proved as the mother**cker. However I am grateful to him for a contribution to my understanding that the scientology changes people to the worst – good people become assholes, and mother**cker are becoming mother**cker in a square. I left scientology after 15 years 2 years ago.
PS: Many thanks Mike for your work! I often read your acute articles and sometimes I spread their translate to the russian-speaking website entheta.ru under Jango nickname.
LRH… Norman Starkey… David Miscavige.
Shit does indeed run downhill.
These three are the unholy trinity of a**hole-dom.
Someone should discretely forward this to some of the NOI. Norman an unreconstructed apartheid supporter. That might change some minds.
Hey Gary, thanks so much for telling us your story on the ship. Yours stories take me back when friends would be flown to unknown places to get auditing on the ship.
Looking forward to more goodies. Thank you very much.
Wow! That was intense! What seems really obvious to me, from this and other stories like it, is that the senior officers didn’t know WTF they were doing and never should have been running a ship at all. In my opinion, this is a great example of the “jack of all trades, master of none” way of operating that seems so prevalent in Scn.
Glad you made it out of that one with body in tact!
Thanks for sharing your story, Gary! What a time you guys had!
I was the Mechanics Chief of the Freewinds from the day the Church took possession of the vessel until May 2002.
Shortly before the original Maiden Voyage in June 1988. the major INT executives came aboard for the Inspection and the Voyage itself.
As they entered.the Engine Room Control room where I was, Norman Starkey went wild and grabbed up a South African whip that was laying there. ( My senior was from South Africa.)
Cmdr Starkey was jumping around swinging the whip and hitting the counter with it while raving.in Afrikaans about kaffirs (blacks) etc.
It was pretty funny.
Hubbard was not a fan of people with African blood. I guess Starkey wasn’t either.
You mean apartheid was alive and well in the upper command structure of Scientology?
Gary (aka Clearly Pissed Off), I would say you have a talent for story telling (in this case non-fiction). I liked the way you started out with a dramatic incident that was central to the story as a whole and set the stage for the reader. I hope you write more.
Btw, Marty Rathbun, in his book “Memoirs of a Scientology Warrior” sheds additional light on Norman Starkey in the years after the Apollo. Seems he was the epitome of a robotic thug.
I thought I’d help out some aspiring Indie’s with a product marketing post.
0: Get all the materials you need in digital format free and edit to remove all references to scientology, dianetics, Hubbard, OT, Clear, et al. Make basic course packs, etc.
1: Figure out a new name for your subject/org. Maybe something like Advancing Human Abilities Center
2: Gather a few “standard tech” friends that are willing to do a weekend start up gig.
3: Everyone work on getting suspects & prospects by holding some free lectures on some Hubbard Div 6 subject.
4: Sign up your first person for something basic.
5: Deliver 100% tech so that he/she will buy the rest of the bridge.
6: Expand from there as even delivering the E.P. of Grade 1 FOR REAL will bring in MILLIONS of $ and THOUSANDS of new PCs.
7: Pay no management or other fees to the CoS
8: Have a BOOMING Org bigger than St. Hill
Wynski, step number 00. Do some actual research and get it published in peer reviewed journals.
Absolutely required if the subject is to have any respect in the wider world outside the fringes of the Internet. Hubbard thought he could get away without any recognition from the rest of the world, but as we have seen this only gets him a few rabidly devoted followers. Mostly those who wish to ride his coat-tails to world domination or something. And some wishy-washy dupes who tend to fall away after trying for a while, when they achieve no success.
True Believers are few, most normal folks need more than a glittery pile of promises.
Since the research will never happen, as the entire subject relies heavily on confirmation bias and is inherently not falsifiable, the rest of the steps are on shaky ground. But fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
I Agree Bruce. But I would put that after making some $ as you want to get the testing done right or it won’t pas peer review of any competent scientists. Unless you have money up front then I would do it as 00 as you wrote.
So Indies, between what Bruce & I wrote that should be it.
Psychologists and social workers who do individual and group therapy have virtually no research to back up what they are doing, yet they get along quite well. I think the “research in advance” thing is a red herring, as far as clinical work goes. Its all inherently unfalsifiable.
Whoopsy, iamvalkov, that throws a large stinky red herring into the plan.
I think you could test the claims of the principle of the e-meter (tried and rejected by Jung in the 1800s as a therapy device, but broadly used to this day for bio-feedback, lie detectors and bathroom scales that also read your body fat).
Does it really read below your conscious level, revealing unconscious reactions? Is it valuable in therapy to follow up on these “unconscious” reactions? That could be tested in blind tests.
The concept of past lives, prenatals (memories of experiences in the womb) and “unconscious memories” could easily be tested. I think the last has been tested pretty thoroughly and found to be a wrong idea. You can’t really remember things that happened to you when you are unconscious or even sleeping.
It would also be possible to test “exteriorization” (known commonly as “out of body” experiences). Some work has also been done on this in a clinical environment. The book “The Memory Illusion” by Julia Shaw covers this. Also the book “Passage” by Connie Willis.
But even if these experiences are real, how do you prove that any in-depth exploration of them actually improves the lives of those who engage in it? If “past lives” are just creative imagery, maybe it still could be therapeutic to talk about them. Maybe it is a valid “talk therapy” even without the mystical trappings. Similar to the “guided imagery” that my parents did when they had cancer.
But still, Scientology is an authoritarian subject held together by the assertions of one man. If you pick and choose bits of it, there is no easy way to be sure you are picking the right bits. Better to kiss it all goodbye.
And don’t get me started with date locate. It would be so easy to test the truth of it.
But the testing would lead to the revelation of untruth and unreliability.
That’s what proof was an aberration for Ron. It aberrated his flow of cash.
So here we have people believing that they are freeing clusters of beings and……..
Date locating:
Coffee Grinder, the Clam, incident 1&2, blowing up planets, doll bodies…………….
And the date locate?
18 bazillion Days of Brahma, 235 gazillion years, 24 months. 2 days, 1 hr, 3 min, 1.4444444.666789900012 sec.
But can’t remember what you had for breakfast this day last year.
Proof, we don’t need no sticking proof! Proof is for twits. Real thetans preferr pscho mindfuckery. Lol!
Actually there are lots of little fantasy-land items like “Date-Locate”, going “whole track” (creating false memories of past lives”), attesting that you can communicate easily with anyone (grade 0), attesting that you can make problems vanish (grade 1).
They are like little turning points on the path. You can go along with them and continue or do a big What the f-word??? and quit. Or just take them as symbolic and accept the premise without accepting the obvious logical contradiction. That happens a lot in all religions.
I hear that some even do that with OT III, though I never got that far.
It acts as a filter. Only those that demonstrate the ability to suspend disbelief advance. Despite the painful stick of cognitive dissonance, the alluring carrot of spiritual advancement still lures them on. But it is not good for their sanity to hold contradicting but deeply held beliefs.
Bruce: When I was in, it was explained that all the E-Meter did was locate a charged area, nothing more. Very similar to a “lie detector”. Once pinpointed, the disturbance, memory, or charged area then had to be explored. With that understanding, it worked very well for me.
In all my auditing, I never heard on a search anything more than “There!” or “What’s that.” For me, it was like thumbing through a memory collection, or file drawere, while being guided to where the specific memrouy “file” was. And I do recall a sec check where “something” read about Mary Sue. I finally fessed up, “That hair! and both I and the auditor cracked up. 🙂
As for date locate? All I did was think of a date, quickly convince myself that WAS the dlate and blurt it out. Always worked.
Valkov, I’d agree with you that psychological practice still doesn’t always adhere as much to principles of evidence-based medicine as would be ideal.
However, Google Scholar turns up “About 2,430,000 results” for the term “individual therapy,” and “About 4,010,000 results” for “group therapy.” Could you please clarify what you mean by “virtually no research” – and actually cite some evidence?
nope, hubbards stick, as well as DM’s stick is selling books and lectures to the masses, phase 1. That’s were the money was made, and then once somebody fell for hubbards rhetoric/sublime of auditing and case gain, why the big whales, making the able more able, those who are able who think they can become OT, why they go to Flag for advanced services, and pay big bucks.
Those in the indie field will never achieve this as scietology is first and foremost a marketing effort. Word of mouth is a shore story by Hubbard, LOL,
Good points – It also might explain the outrageous claims for Clear in DMSMH. “Get better with Dianetics” wouldn’t have sold many books.
P.S. It’s shtick or shtik – someone’s act or routine
Fantastic little vignette of life aboard Elron’s faux navy! Love to hear more!
Your comment on how Mad Dog Starkey’s abusive style of leadership may have served as a guiding example for lil davey in later years, as he was taking over control of the cult and consolidating his power, makes a lot of sense to me
If only someone would have overboarded the Flounder himself one dark and stormy night while far out to sea, then thrown him an e-meter and yelled, “audit your way out of that!” as his fat, pink, porcine visage vanished beneath the waves!
Didn’t Starkey get stinkin’ drunk at Tom & Katy’s wedding, and made a fool of himself?
Ye s– he created a HUGE flap by trying to put the moves on Brooke Shields and her husband complained about his outrageous behavior. Starkey was the “minister” of the wedding!!
Outrageous! Did he get into trouble?
BTW, I was trying to email you two days ago. The show was all about the very first tennis players. Rocket Rod was profiled! He was one of the pioneers of the sport! But, I must have forgotten your email. Sorry. This aging thing sucks.
No, I got it. I just havent responded as family was visiting. I have a backlog of emails now…
No worries! I hope there’s some way you find that segment! Like myself, I know you’re a big fan of the Rocket.
Starkey put the moves on me once. I widh I could give you all of the juicy details :), what he said, what I said, etc. 🙂 It occurred at a weekend seminar he was leading at _____Org, back in ________. I had no idea about who he was at the time, knew nothing about him. But as a woman, I can assure you, he was “out there”.
“Audit your way out of that!” as his fat, pink, porcine visage vanished beneath the waves! Love that, Harpoona!
Thanks for the story.
” I wonder how much influence Norman had on Miscavige and the way he ended up treating his staff.”
I too wonder this. IN the early 1980s, ASI era, when Miscavige was in ASI, and Terri Gamboa was ED ASI, and Miscavige was the unquestioned “boss” as COB ASI, with Shelly being COB Assistant ASI, and Starkey was the Trustee (he later became ED ASI when Terri was gone, and held Trustee and ED ASI positions together at the same time). Miscavige and Shelly and Greg Wilhere and Marion Dendieu and I don’t know who else all moved from ASI into RTC, and the power shifted out of ASI into RTC, as DM has always been the top dog, even as everyone knows during Vicki Aznaran’s years as RTC boss up to when Miscavige came “down” from ASI to take over RTC.
Anyways, I will bet in the heyday ASI party awards for upstats years, that Miscavige had his earful of LRH stories.
Maria Starkey is one who has that edgey bitchy snarly vicious mentality, if anyone would relay the nastiness of LRH’s ruthlessness as if that ruthlessness is a posiitive, she could do it.
That upper clique of Apollo vets, for damned sure, I too wished any of them got their literacy up to reveal how they used to extoll the Hubbard ruthlessness tradition.
The style of LRH absolutely did trickle down into that top cliques’ heads, and stories of LRH’s ruthlessness likely was fashioned always into a justified positive manner, which cements this Hubbard viciousness into this fake Scientology religion of today.
It is a comfort to know they only have themselves to feed on these days!
Yo Dave,
Whose face yougonna rip off today good buddy. I suggest you go for the real ugly one in the mirror, you know, the guy with the serenity of shiteating sneer.
And OSA,
How are things in your bunker these days? I have not noticed any of you poking your feeble noses onto the blogs recently, what’s up? Maybe you are all tied up trying to get some dirt on Leah from her stepmother.
In a word ……. you cowardly pieces of hammered dogshit ……….. go feed on each other. Get the dirt on your senior because he/she/it will be the next to blow.
Newcomer, perfectly said.
Your story brings back a whole ream of memories that give no credit to Hubbard and so many of us who were nuts enough to stay on with him after we saw the writing on the wall. Thanks for sharing this, Gary. It’s a great example of some of the utterly crazy episodes we experienced in the Sea Org. So glad you’re out and doing fine.
Thanks Hana and great to hear from you. We had some wild and crazy times back then. Quite a shock from a boy coming out of Iowa!
I am also very glad that you are out of that nonsense and doing well.
Norman Starkey is too old to get out, get a safe space, and review his life, review the language he’s been so deeply indoctrinated to believe that Hubbard’s views of the world and history are correct, BUT Norman Starkey has lived just a huge massive long swath of the Hubbard Scientology history, all in positions near Hubbard, trusted by Hubbard, and then Starkey’s years at ASI, which would make Starkey’s hindsight views (which truly are inconceivable to think he can ever unwrap his mind from the total insider top ranks mind meld that Norman’s done by being so privy to ALL of Hubbard’s life and all these years right up very close to Miscavige), but I’d love to see if a man like Starkey could possibly get out and write.
If Universities have safe landing zones, allowing a figure like Starkey to get out, and re-educated enough to then turn his reframed mind back no his Scientology history, I’d love ot hear Starkey’s views.
Hana Whitefield, I so look forward to Hana’s book!
I look forward to all Apollo Vet history books and stories.
You raise an interesting point between the lines Chuck. Difficult to explain but I’ll give it a go.
There exists a misconception throughout Scientology & some other practices too that therapy, like auditing, handles incidents and behavior, but it doesn’t do so as consistently or as thoroughly as we’d like or expect sometimes. “Mental or emotional charge” may be removed from incidents, actions and behaviors by recalling them, talking about them without threat and in a safe environment etc. Hubbard referred to them as flows. Happening to self, self to others, others to others etc. What doesn’t seem to be appreciated is that those incidents now become “experience” in the mind, and the mind now computes with those experiences with any triggers that gets them, reminded etc, (restimulated for the want of a better word). Survival does depend upon co-operation with others and being an asshole muddies up that co-operation on a mental level. You can have all the auditing/therapy in the world but if you don’t come to terms with what you now should know caused such a problem to exist in the first place you’ll do it again or go all sullen, cave yourself in, alcohol/drugs or do stupid things.
The effect varies from person to person but a good example is someone like Starkey. For him to come to terms with his “experience” will have take into account his actions, especially upon others and the resultant misery he caused. It takes a brave being to accept and learn to live with such misdeeds. I don’t think he could ever face himself. Similar to Miscavige, he’s just too far gone to ever come around.
That’s what I like about this blog, it’s a meeting ground and reliever of behavior by those who fell under Scientology’s spell but are compassionate enough about life to face themselves and set things right. I know as a sup and staff member I spread around and enforced some pretty horrible Scientology doctrine on others and self but like a lot of people here I’ve woken up and taken responsibility and have adjusted my behavior accordingly. I’ll never have to “be right” about Scientology ever again. For some that’s impossible and it will take a bit of enforcement to get them to stop what they are doing.
I’ve written in comments in years past on the Hubbard “Ethics Presence” policy, and it’s been a long goal of mine to get all the stories that contributed to Hubbard coming out with that policy set of rules.
“Ethics Presence” is a horrible policy for a religion, period. It deserves a place in the major factors for why Scientology is a cult. It’s the venting rights of boss positions in the Scientology staff movement. It’s irreligious manipulative main “executive” qualities that are so unfortunately part of making a Scientology executive.
This “Ethics Presence” policy and the Danger Condition writing policy that mentions the “make the penalties too gruesome and enforce them” all time important Scientology executive tool kit bullying bossing tactic, is just unholy irreligious of the Scientology administrative running style.
Chuck Beatty
ex Clearwater/Flag executive training course room course supervisor.
“The reason we got a liability condition is that we hadn’t oiled the steel rope, and per LRH that is why they snapped.”
Well of course it was. It just had to be someone else’s fault. You’d think that the Captain would’ve made sure this “extremely vital” work was performed beforehand, and that the Commodore would’ve made sure his Captains were competent enough and well-prepared.
But nope, according to LRH, that phrase “the buck stops here” wasn’t a metaphor (where the Leader bears the ultimate responsibility)……he took that phrase more literally, meaning he only worried about the actual money not stopping until it reached him. God forbid he should ever be blamed for anything.
Gary, thank you for another amazing story of life aboard the Apollo. Sorry to hear about the passing of your friends.
Sign on LRH’s desk: The buck disappears here
WOOAAH!
ROTFLMAO! Now that’s some funny shit! Great post, Chewkacca! Still laughing…
Oiling a chain protects it from snapping…. lol I had to read that a couple times to make sure I read that correctly. wow LRH was out there, he should have been charged with the crime of being ridiculously clueless!
The Navy was right to toss his useless can out. I still think he missed his calling as IJN officer, with blind fanatical devotion to superiors.
“….I always felt that Starkey controlled his crew with fear whereas previously Captain Bill Robertson had treated people with respect and got respect in return. ….”
Possibly I would say that “top execs” like Starkey, have their ups and downs, and periods of changed behavior, or else I myself in my 27 years in the Sea Org might have just managed to find myself in pockets of calm and not the target of irrate executives (when I did get to the “top” of ASI ranks, I did get a dose of fanaticism which unnerved me and led to me choosing to get out, permanently although slowly).
Starkey, at ASI was benign, in the 1992-1995 slot. I think Starkey and Maria, his wife, got pulled from ASI up to RTC by Miscavige’s order, and demoted and did a lot stretch of the decks and cleanup auditing/sec checking.
He was quite benign and not nutty at ASI in the 2-3 years I was the lowly computer guy ASI and Starkey was ED ASI/Trustee combined, but as ED ASI he was the Commanding Officer and everyone knew he was topdog ASI.
Norman also, I once noted had been having, even in 1992 or 1993, some Truth Rundown, as he wrote his apology letters, which one writes at the end of the Truth Rundown, and I casually saw a carbon copy of one of Starkey’s TRD apology letters to one of the other ASI staffers who blew. (Fred Harris blew and two other ASIers blew, and returned when I was at ASI, the top jobs got so much insane pressures, and possibly to the ASIers who blew, Starkey was that old savage asshole role playing bad boss.)
My guess today, is that this Hubbard irrate irrational screaming tirades unchecked, unprofessional ranting, trickled down.
And eventually, in one’s Sea Org career, this Hubbard “wrath is effective, if used in moderation” is what remains policy in the movement.
Were you there Gary, for the “wrath is effective, if only used in moderation” line, it comes from the 1971ish era “Ethics Presence” policy.
That policy is the problem. It allows bosses venting rights and that is just only useful possibly in combat situations or dire situations, but usually the bosses (Hubbard is number candidate and guillty perpetrator) make horrible series of bad orders which the bosses don’t see land the group in messes, that then the boss micromanages the groups’ way back out of the disaster which the boss headed that group into.
Great story Gary!! Keep them coming.
Sorry to hear that Rudy has probably passed on, together with Pat. They sounded like a couple of decent guys.
I can fully understand why Rudy would want to smack Starkey one. In my experience this is a natural trait in scientology. It’s brought about by people being pushed to their limits and then pushed even more……
Geezers… what a sequence of events. I have served at sea and know what nature can throw at you. I had no idea Starkey was such an asshole, but even worse than that, Hubbard! The more I hear from those directly under his command the more the man craved hatred! I personally despise those who create upsets in people or see others take the brunt of a calamity and then police their responses to suit their own warped sense of vanity. It’s the lowest form of reversed admiration you can ever get!
I can see now with Lois’s account of when Hubbard was in a “good mood” it must have been such a relief and that tends to soften the experience of someone with authority over you. But life doesn’t work that way in the long run, especially as your true nature surfaces during times of imminent danger and how you treat others during and after such events is your, “life signature.” Hubbard was an asshole of an officer and your assigned liability was not yours at all! It was Hubbard’s and his sidekick Starkey who were the liability. I guess Hubbard couldn’t put the sea in liability but he had to vent his crap on someone. As I said, what an asshole! He had to blame someone for everything that didn’t go his way, just like a spoiled brat.
The Apollo must have been a terrible ship to work with officers like that running it.
But hey, shit happens. Have a couple more beers and get on with it. Tomorrow beckons.
Thanks Gary!
Dear Yawn, Hubbard is the basic on the chain. And Hubbard’s pre-war ship of fools excursion to the Carribean, a clear forewarning of Sea Org. Hubbard’s full life, laid out, nicely summarized, predicts how the trickle down today leaders of Scientology are caught in the pickle of playing out Hubbard’s inadequacies and irrationalities. The PROBLEM is Hubbard wrote so much and used the Navy organizational system model for today’s Sea Org and Scientology, and Hubbard’s tweaked rules system is massive, due to Hubbard’s prolific writing abilities. Prolifically crank, using Navy rules, which Hubbard was the horrible officer that he was, letting his crew shell Mexico, LOL, having to be removed from ships commanding. Hubbard’s drive to disprove society which dumped on him soundly.
You mean, Chuck, “Captain Queeg”? LOL
“He had to blame someone for everything that didn’t go his way, just like a spoiled brat.”
Why? Because he didn’t want people to know that he was a complete & utter fraud. In other word, he didn’t want to be found out.
Or perhaps he had Missed Withold Phenomena. He was on the lam, running away, hiding from the authorities, constantly on the move for fear of getting caught. Doesn’t make for a sunny disposition. Just saying.
Dear Old Surfer Dude, So proven by Keeping Scientology Working policy, which reads like Hubbard’s most desperate claim for himself and for Scientology. It’s a maddening document to read today.
Thank you, Gary, for another interesting story! I can almost smell the ocean, feel seasick and be thankful my head wasn’t snapped off by one of those cables lol. I wish Rudy had given Starkey a good thumping too! (Twisted, I know. I’m not normally a fan of physical violence.)
A few months back I spent a couple afternoons reading ‘Dart Smehon’s’ accounts of life on the ship and at St. Hill on paulsrabbit.com iirc. THAT was quite the rabbit hole! Paul had collated Dart’s posts from ESMB into a kind of ebook, with commentary by Alan Walters (?). An educational and entertaining read.
I love reading the stories written by all the exes. Each one colors in and adds dimension to the picture of Scientology over the years. Thanks to all of you.
Steve Nichols got awarded Kha Khan for tackling an intruder into the Fort Harrison mezzanine who had a gun and the weapon fired, and Steve was guard duty at the Fort Harrison that moment. Quite a change from the totally poshed up and manned up guard duty detail at the Fort Harrison today. That was 1977ish or 1976ish or 1978ish.
Later, in 1983 when I finally left Clearwater to go onto the routing forms projects, Steve Nichols was the EPF In Charge for a short time.
Later, in 2000, when I was on the PAC RPF, Steve was public in LA for some reason, I wished I could have talked to him, he was in the public crowd that milled around in the annex to the Shrine, after the main event, and we RPFers were doing the breakdown.
Hey Gary, you remember Bill Ryan. Bill chatted with me a few years back about things, the slapdashed condition of the Apollo, things were way more out of control and “yahoo” (unprofressional) than I think has been detailed.
Your stories are so good for history.
I always wondered why in the Sea Org training areas, like the EPF course room, where I course supervised off and on in my career, I ran many EPFers through their EPF training lineup courses, the courseroom theory study only, that is, and I wondered about the history on the Apollo.
All the real on the ground full details of the events that led up to Hubbard’s “policies” and Flag Orders and lectures, all his conclusions which are the framework of the movement today.
Thanks for your back stories, they really fill in huge areas of backstory to me, as I’ve scoured Hubbard’s Sea Org writings, all the things Hubbard wrote or spoke, based on the incidents you Apollo vets lived, from which Hubbard then made his ironclad rules.
Very unravelling of the Hubbard nonsense, thanks.
Gary I loved reading this tidbit of history, I also like your writing style. Too bad you didn’t leave with Rudy and continued to endure the hell that was the Apollo but then again you wouldn’t have met your wonderful wife.
You are so right Ms. P. I often think of my time in the SO but write it off – because as you say – it is where I met Lois so it was worth it all.
I can’t stand to read about L Ron “THE CON” Hubbard and how he manipulated, deceived young people to get on a ship – work for free whilst getting abused and used….
It makes my blood boil…
I can’t even read this posting – it makes me sick to my stomach that he was so crazy and nuts and convinced people to put up with this mad man’s tactics and shenanigan’s.
“The Commodore” – what a freak!
Any minute one of those steel cables could have broken off and killed someone! Hubbard didn’t care one iota. If someone had died, he or she’s body would have been sent to the RPF.
Hey, Hubbard said he could raise the dead…
I thought only viagra did that! Well, there you go…
Hubbard could have helped you out with his magic wand…
I ain’t signing no more stinking contracts, no matter the magic. Hubbard put an underhanded compromise into everything he offered. Then you find out it’s all bs anyway. Naw, I’ll stick with my version of me own tech on that line. I’ve always maintained, “it’s lots of fun trying.”
He was disgrace to the US Navy, and a horrible officer.
Amen to that!
I thoroughly enjoy your storytelling, Mr. Reisdorf. But, what a terrible tale it is!
CPO, such a sad and telling story. It sounds to me as if Rudy was a resourceful man. My guess is after the initial shock of being abandoned he probably enjoyed the exotic port and was glad he didn’t end up in South Africa. At least I’d like to think that. There are two sides to every story and I’m aware that mutiny is mutiny no matter the provocation. Somehow I agree with you wholeheartedly about at least getting that punch in if he was going to be dismissed anyway. hubbard surrounded himself with bullies as well as being a bully himself so none of this comes as a surprise. The ridiculous non-essential work, the blame placed everywhere except where it belonged were some hubbard’s trademarks. I’m happy you have good memories of the times you had with your friends. Anyway, love to you, Lois, Brandon and your oldest son, whose name embarrassingly escapes me.
Thanks for this insight I really appreciated your real accounts of life on the ship. This rings true to the way life in the sea org was and is.
Leadership is supposed to = Seamanship while at sea. All in all, Lron screws the pooch again.
Tears and more tears…
Mine too, Mary…
Quite a story, Gary, and I can tell you from more recent experience (’83 to 2004 at the Int Base) that the same authoritarian way of dealing with crew has persisted to this day. “Punishments will continue until morale improves” etc. I don’t know if Dave picked it up from Norman or if they both got it from Hubbard, but all those top level Scientology goons thought they were better than the gods and the crew was worse than the rats in the galley. It’s a tradition.
Oil on the steel! I suppose Hubbard discovered this by using his e-meter, or somebody told him when he was in the Navy. Sure, if you keep a new item oiled it will resist rusting better. If your bicycle chain was packed in grease it probably would not have rusted. But to “handle” old items that are already weak by slathering them with oil is ridiculous.
Thanks for sharing this, it puts the later events into perspective. They can’t change, all their power is derived from fear and hatred. It is well that they have no chance of “clearing the planet” and thus taking over.
Sounds like this god-complex is just built into the very DNA of this entire philosophy and the policies as written by Source himself.
And I’m glad they have no chance of “clearing the planet” either. Hell, they can’t even clear downtown Clearwater.
Mick, they can’t even clear their own staff!
They couldn’t clear a restaurant. Hmmmm…. I take that back. They’re so odious they could clear half of Clearwater!
I am a “never-in” but if LRH could control inanimate objects, could he not help the lines from busting??
I heard him say in a lecture once that he could control which way a match turned while floating in cup of water. That’s probably the limit of his powers, but I even challenge that. The guy was prone to his imagination getting the better of him.
“Punishments will continue until morale improves”. Seriously, Bruce? You’re not being funny? Please clarify. I’m curious, I honestly don’t know!
Aqua, it is a common saying in the military and I heard it in the Sea Org too. When something goes wrong and everybody is upset or frantically trying to repair the problem, the first thing a Sea Org executive says is usually something like “Nobody sleeps until this is fixed!” or “Everybody here is assigned to punishment detail” or “no bonuses for anybody involved with this fiasco” or “Everybody here is on rice and beans until this is sorted out” or something equally helpful.
The classic story (not sure whether I heard this from Hannah Eltringham or some other Apollo veteran) is that one of the ships was having trouble because it was so old and the systems were wearing out.
Does Hubbard invest some cash in upgrading the ship? Does he embark on repair/refurbishing projects that could resolve the situation? Does he delegate these actions to others with assigned authority, training and funds? Does he do anything logical that a real officer would do? No, he assigns the whole crew to cleaning out the bilges. And thus the Rehabilitation Project Force was born.
A real officer trains, nurtures and disciplines his crew. A fake one like Hubbard or Miscavige try to do it all by intimidation and executive fiat. Sometimes it works, usually it results in some form of foot-bullet like the story Gary tells here.
Good summary Bruce.
Wow.
Thanks for an interesting glimpse.
Sounds like LRH could wrong-target with the best of them…
My goodness. I used to dream, day after day, about being on that ship! I applied and applied and applied again and, once or twice, thought I’d get accepted. But I never got approved.
Since those days, I’ve heard a lot of these sorts of stories, and it’s become obvious it wasn’t the utopia that I imagined, where there was a total ideal scene of Ron inspiring a few hundred pre-clears to behave as full-cause-over-MEST-full-OTs in a super theta environment.
Still, I don’t think I have ever heard of anyone saying that, overall, they regretted it the experience. I know that I wouldn’t have either.
“Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of events. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”
― Robert F. Kennedy
Thanks Dan. I must say that even though it was tough going in the SO at times anyway, I really don’t regret the experience of the Apollo. A 17 year old from Iowa working on a ship in Europe and then the Caribbean, making great deck mates and rather quickly having to become a man, one could say it was even kind of fun. Definitely toughened me up.
It was fun reading. Subjectively, I feel like I gained some sort of evidence of the akashic records reading your post. (wink) I felt the salt spray, your aching back, the anticipation of the next port… I loved it. It also made me want to super-sleuth out the whereabouts of Mr. Savage, until I read you’ve surmised that he’s passed on.
CPO: Yes sir, and although I was only on the Freewinds and not on the Apollo with the Commodore I still had my adventures.
In 2001 it was coming down to the end. By “The End” I mean ” DEATH”.
My death, not any other’s. I was dying of AIDS, but no-one knew that yet.
The Air Conditioning shut off during Maiden Voyage. Now, in the Tropics, in 15 minutes virtually everyone aboard will know that it ceased to operate it will get hot and humid that fast. Humid air blowing into cold cabins will cause water to condense and run down the walls. Now the Captain had just given a lengthy speech the night before about this “State of the Art Air Conditioning System that had been installed. The speech had no doubt been written for him long ago. The AC system was not complete yet. I had worked around the clock to get it installed but the electrical starter box had not arrived.(To be continued).
The reason it had not arrived is because the money to order it did not exist and so it was ordered too late to arrive for Maiden Voyage. The main part of the A/C unit had only arrived the day we had sailed to the area of the Maiden Voyage. Myself and my juniors had hauled it to the Engine Room and installed it while we were at sea.
Now the electrician (who had been off post for months writing Purchase Orders for the Renos that had to be done before MV.) had not done the electrical maintenance on the units as he was basically off post although I had completely rebuilt the compressors and even changed the electric motor bearings which was the hat of the electricians.
The electricians had to do some wiring.to the new unit in the night after the Captain had given his speech. In the morning, one of the existing units would not start; it would just blow the main circuit breaker in the control room.
Throughout the day every senior exec below COB was probably in the Engine Room 8Cing the cycle. The GOLD electricians were there, FLB people were there WDC SHIP CO CMO SHIP etc were there.
The problem turned out to be $10.00 timer in the starter box.
(To be continued)
The timer is only used while starting the unit; it would have continued to run had it not been shut off so that the electrician could connect the new unit.)
Now the new starter box had arrived and the Chief Engineer was under a lot of pressure to get the new A/C unit running after the Captain had been exposed to all aboard as a liar for his speech the night before.
There was some welding required for the electrician to install the box and the Chief wanted me down in the ER running running the welders on the job.
I was trashed after 2 days of no sleep and I begged him for an hour’s sleep but was denied.
I went.down in the ER but if I stood in one spot my legs would buckle and I would fall down. I worked down there; but my desire to see the job finished was by this time a desire to watch it explode when it.was started up.
In other words: I was insane.
Yeah, Bill, I remember that incident. I was the “Gold Electrician” (actually the sound tech but also did electrical work at Gold on 4,000 V systems with no sleep for days).
No sleep literally does make you crazy, and it was a very popular management harassment technique everywhere in the Sea Org.
Deputy Captain Paul McElveen gave me a Freewinds coffee mug for helping out with the debug. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I don’t drink coffee. But it is the thought that counts.
Really all I did was point out that it must be a fault in the controls, that it was supposed to start in delta, get up to partial speed, then shift to wye, and it was trying to start in wye (for those who don’t know what that is, you can skip it with no regrets. No study tech here!) As soon as I said that the engineer started swapping out relays and found the faulty one right away.
Funny note about Paul McElveen – in the early 80s in the Big Blue he was busted for something and set up a little table on the sidewalk near the horse-shoe entrance to sell all his uniform parts. At that time he was CPO and had all the class A regalia.
Imagine CPO Paul McElveen on the streets in LA selling his fancy Sea Org cap for pennies on the dollar! He is probably a Lieutenant now.
I am sorry to say that D/Captain Paul McElveen died about 5 years ago from prostate cancer as did former Chief Engineer Wak Allcock.
They were both good friends of mine. I was supposed to join them in death but was booted off the ship as they did not want anyone with AIDS aboard. At a point they could no longer prevent me from getting real medical treatment although they did the best they could. It was a very close call for me.
For a master mariner someone made some silly mistakes.
??? why didn’t the commodore use his OT powers to calm the raging seas?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say…because there are no OT powers? Nah. It’s probably me being wrong again.
El Con Tubbolard didn’t like himself or his senior execs being punished for gross incompetence. (Probably an aversion from when he was punished for ordering his ship to attack an allied nation during WW 2)
BTW, punching the skipper isn’t mutiny under any Law of the Sea. Mutiny is seeking to usurp control of the ship from the legal officers. In fact, SO policy of the time didn’t even have the action the guy took against Norman as an ethics offense.
But the sociopath named Hubbard was not one to let his own policies get in the way of suppressing his flock.
Thanks for correcting my understanding of mutiny. I guess because LRH said it was mutiny, that is what it became in my mind. I would guess however that on a US Navy ship if one punched the skipper they would end up in the brig and no doubt suffer some form of court marshal or something.
I know I was punched at least twice by officers when I was 17 or 18 and I don’t think it was frowned upon (as long as no Sea Org property was damaged (a crew member unable to work), it was ok. Hitting an officer? I didn’t try it but at least with Rudy it was definitely frowned upon.
The trick in the real military is biding your time. Any good soldier worth his salt works out how to “get even” eventually or relishes watching natural justice do its work. I’ve fucked up a few assholes in my time and they never knew where it came from. Unfortunately with Scientology, it’s a self defeating system, ie it doesn’t work but you believed it did at the time.
And never, ever be late for parade. EVER.
OMG!!! late for parade… that’s a hanging offence!
You can knock off your commanding officer. You can get stinkin’ drunk. You can carry off women you don’t even know. But… if you’re EVER late for parade, you’re fucked.
Are you sure you haven’t time in the green machine? You’ve sure got the parameters down cold.
On the Freewinds we had a staff member who would show up for muster 5 seconds late again and again. The Captain made his senior and himself be there 15 minutes early.
Another person made the mistake of glancing at his watch while the Captain was talking to which the Captain replied ” Am I boring you, Davidson”?
As I was dying of AIDS at the time ( from a bad blood transfusion) The major symptom was fatigue. As HIV kills blood cells itis like
driving a car which is always running out of gas even with a full tank. To this add a full SO schedule and then some. If necessary to sail or get the stats up I would work all night or longer. Now I was still the Snr troubleshooter in the Engine Room and beyond. When the radar on the Bridge crapped out on Wednesday night, the Captain ordered me to the Bridge. I thought WTF, I am the Mechanics Chief and by law the Radio Operator has to be a licensed Electronics Tech, which I certainly was not. I went up there and eventually repaired it with no diagrams or technical data. ( my point.is not that I was so much better than others but that I did not comsider that failure was an option.
The downside to this was that more and more would be required until Almighty God could not have delivered what was demanded.
clearly, in the US mil it is an Article 90 breach to strike a superior commissioned officer
Maximum punishment.
(1) Striking, drawing, or lifting up any weapon or offering any violence to superior commissioned officer in the execution of office. Dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and confinement for 10 years.
Bit softer in the Australian Army. But the impending Court Marshal can tidy up loose ends, not to mention the criminal code application. It’s interesting to note that it’s a separate offence if you “proved you didn’t know” the person you clobbered was a superior officer.
In time of war – usually a firing squad, but that pretty much applies to military systems anywhere.
DEFENCE FORCE DISCIPLINE ACT 1982 – SECT 25
Assaulting a superior officer
(1) A defence member commits an offence if:
(a) the member assaults a person; and
(b) that person is a superior officer.
Maximum punishment: Imprisonment for 2 years.
(2) Strict liability applies to paragraph (1)(b).
Note: For strict liability , see section 6.1 of the Criminal Code .
(3) It is a offence if the member proves that he or she neither knew, nor could reasonably be expected to have known, that the person against whom the offence is alleged to have been committed was a superior officer.
Note: The defendant bears a legal burden in relation to the matter in subsection (3). See section 13.4 of the Criminal Code .
Correct I Yawn. I posted the peacetime max penalty. In war it is death.
I was amazed with my somewhat brief introduction to military law just how all encompassing it is, it can get incredibly complex very quickly and the odds can stack up against the accused with lightning speed. You can never really win against it if you awaken it. If it wants to get you it will, irrelevant of the facts. The last law in the army book here refers to “conduct of the prejudice,” and if a senior officer ever pulls that on you, you’re fucked! It’s his word against yours. In the Navy there exists a reference to something like “silent dissension” as being an offence, completely governed by a senior officer’s opinion of someone’s behavior.
It’s something to never get involved in as the accused.
Good friends NEVER leave us. They just live on in our deepest memories. You kept him very much alive in this piece. Well done!
+1! Agreed.