What Is A Soldier

James Robert Adams
Military Photo

You have chosen to measure your life in moments,

For soldiers live only for today!

Tomorrow doesn't come for the soldier,

Death is only one step away.

You will train, you will drill,

You will fight and you will die

Yet perhaps someday you will pause

And you will wonder why.

Now the answer to this question

Is very hard to find,

For it’s little more than experiences,

Folded away in your mind.

It’s all the times you've stood and watched,

The sun slip from your sight,

Across those rows of crosses,

That stand so straight and white.

It’s all the times you've dreamed alone

And all the dreams you've shared

With that someone special,

The girl who really cared.

A Photo of His Medals

It’s standing in your uniform

Your mother by your side,

Knowing her eyes are filled with tears

Because her heart is filled with pride.

It’s those bright summer days of childhood

It’s those solemn winter days of age,

It’s all the blues of springtime,

It’s all the falls of beige.

This poem was written by my first cousin, James Robert Adams born June 6, 1942.  His name is on the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington D. C.  He graduated from West Point on June 07, 1967.  He was a 2^nd LT. and commenced his tour of duty in Vietnam February 14, 1968 was KIA March 20, 1968 and he is buried in Arlington Cemetery.

Because of how this poem is worded I think he might have written it sometime between graduation and shipping out to Vietnam.  His mother would have been at his side after the graduation ceremony with tears of pride in her eyes.

At what point he had visited Arlington National Cemetery, I have no clue unless it was when he visited my brother Neal occasionally who lived in Washington D C at that time.

Before he shipped out to Vietnam he visited my brother one last time and left a big trunk with him; to keep for him. Sometime after my brother moved to Key West, and it was several years after Jim was KIA, he opened the trunk and this poem was among the contents.

I sometimes wonder if my cousin Jim had a premonition of his death when he visited Arlington and that resulted in his writing this poem. There were several other poems in the contents of the trunk, but this was the only one that mentioned the rows of crosses in Arlington; which is now his earthly resting place.

Bully Netting in Key West

Bully Net
With Aluminium Pole

I will explain to the best of my ability for those who do not know what this means because many will not know if I don’t explain. It is a type of dip net used to catch Florida Lobster. Sometimes called spiny lobster and some call them longusta or just gusters.

Ours was homemade with a wooden pole, used also just to pole the boat around. Picture it as being L shaped.When you saw a lobster you turned the pole up. Lines attached and you held the line and the bag upside down.

Place the bail over the lobster, and drop the bag while still holding the line. The lobster will always swim upwards and backwards. Then lift the pole up and the lobster is bagged. Then release the lobster into the live well.

Chuck and I loved to go bully netting on every slick calm night that we possibly could. Our two children were quite young and we made a comfortable bed for them under the bow cap. They slept while we poled around and caught lobsters. If there was the slightest ripple on the water you could not see them well enough to catch them.

Florida Lobster
Also Called Bugs

We kept plenty in our freezer, at that time there was no limit; except on the size of the lobster and we had a gadget to measure when we caught one. 

We didn't get a lot of slick calm nights in Key West so we had to take advantage of the ones that we did get. 

However over the years our children Stormy and Bo did a lot of sleeping under the bow cap of our boat.

We lived in Sigsbee Park Naval Housing with a canal behind our house that led out to open water. The nearest flats were the flats around Fleming Key and around the old Sea Drone that the Sea Planes had used as a landing strip when there had been an active Sea Plane Base here during WWII.

I always worked the spot light and Chuck worked the bully net. When I spotted a lobster; their eyes reflect red when the light shines in them, I could work it around in almost any direction I wanted it to go in. 

They did not like the light, they would try to ease around and crawl backwards to get out and stay out of it, so they were easy to steer as long as you didn't make a sudden move or noise.

One night when we were out we spotted one that didn't want to do what I tried to get it to do. It kept backing away, but we kept working it. Finally it decided to bolt and try to get away from the light.

It bolted right up onto the beach, and Chuck pushed the boat on up to the beach and stepped out and picked it up it was a really big one, the tail weighed about a pound. The tail is the only part we ate, these kind have no claws, they have antennae. We had lobster quite often and it was a great supplement to our food supply.

I prepared it in all kinds of ways. Sometimes I split the back hull and removed the meat, cut it in strips. Then dipped it in a tempura batter and fried it. Often I made a salad with it, this was Chuck’s favorite way to eat it, other times I just broiled it. Once in awhile I made a lobster thermidor.

All the years we lived there this was legal, and we could go almost anywhere. Today there are restrictions and some areas are closed completely. Like many things of the sea, the industry was greatly over-fished and things had to change. The most we ever caught in one night was five dozen. Most nights it would just be two or three dozen.

If we didn't find them crawling on the flats near the Sea Drone and Fleming Key we would venture out to other flats around what we called Christmas Tree Island, the island was built from spoil when the Navy dredged the channels deeper for the bigger boats. It's official name is Wisteria Island.

Wisteria or Christmas Tree Island

It was just a vacant island in those days; except for quite a few old wrecked boats and a lot of Australian Pine Trees, which is how it came to be called Christmas Tree Island.

Heart Shaped Sea Bean

These Came From the Rain-forest in
the Amazon

There was also another little Island near it, I don't remember its name, both were two of my favorite places to collect shells and sea beans.

These sea beans came from various plants in the rain forest in the amazon and various other places and floated in on the tides and wash ashore on our beaches all around Florida. I had quite a collection of sea beans and shells.

So if there isn't a lot of lobster crawling you just enjoy the wonderful display of nature.You see a lot of sea creatures at night that you don’t see during the day.  

Backside of Christmas Tree Island

Horse Conch
Pronounced Conk

One of the nights when we had gone out to Christmas Tree Island we found one of the largest horse conch shells either of us had ever seen on the backside of the Island. 

Chuck was able to dip it up with the net and I kept that shell for many years.

We would see all kinds of tropical fish as well as very large fish such as Red Snapper, Yellowtail Snapper and numerous others. The water is so clear you can easily see the bottom in 20 to 30 feet of water. 

Transferred To Shore Duty

Boca Chica Naval Air Station

Chuck was transferred from The USS Sea Cat SS 399 May 4, 1964 to Shore Duty at Boca Chica Naval Air Station. On his arrival to duty at the Naval Air Station they put him in charge of repairs to some Wells Air Start engines that were located at the very end of the runway, on the very backside of the Base.

They gave him ear plugs to wear because this was where the Jets taking flight cut on their after-burner which produced a very loud boom. He was there until he got those diesels rebuilt, and then he was attached to Fleming Key also a part of US Naval Air which was a different location, and it was a shallow water rescue service.

Fleming Key Bridge

He was in charge of maintaining all boats and engines there. We were still living in base housing in Sigsbee Park at that time.  It was a lot closer for him to get to work by water or on land, than going out to Boca Chica.

Fleming Key was accessed by a bridge from Trumbo point. During WWII Trumbo Point had been a Seaplane base, the area where the Seaplanes landed and took off was called the Sea Drone and this is where Chuck and Neiderfer, one of the guys stationed at Fleming Key used to hoop net for Florida Lobster at night. 

Trumbo Point

Another one of the the guys named Leroy Goforth also ran a boat and netted for lobster, they all had a lot of fun doing this and we had a lot of pleasure eating their catch, and there was extra money in our pockets.

For those of you who don’t know what a hoop net is I will explain as best I can. It is a big metal ring about the size of a hula hoop, maybe a little larger; attached to it is another net and has a larger hoop ring that bags. When the net is put overboard the bait is attached to the center of the bottom of the larger bag.

Hoop Net

When you pull the net up with the rope attached to the hoop the bag comes up and forms sides all around and you catch whatever is in the bag. They would run their nets about every hour till midnight.

They caught a lot of legal size lobster and sold it to Felton’s A& B Fish House, they also caught a lot of stone crabs, but at that time the Fish House was not buying any stone crabs.

So on the weekends we would boil the crab claws in a wash tub, and everyone stationed on Fleming Key and their families would have a feast, the excess stone crab catch was always released and they only took one claw!