[Spruce]

Hmmm. Let's see. Move our whole Mediterranean fleet, and all the support, from Italy to Spain. No brainer. Goodbye Italy!

[tracer]

Damn. My shipmates laughed when I suggested and predicted this some thirty-plus years ago. Sometimes the Navy takes a while to catch on to the extent that they would abandon the terrorist-bait hell-hole that is Naples.

I swear, we could tell when we were approaching the port by night -- you actually could smell it, plain and simple.

Any of you old green-water swabbies out there remember an old working gal who bore the nickname "Humpty Dumpty" (because she could generally be found sitting on a specific wall near the fleet landing rather than walk the streets of Naples or be just another "campfire girl")?

Well, I overheard a young Navy guy talking about her at a dinner last December. "Humpty Dumpty" apparently is plying her trade to this day -- far beyond the years when she reputedly needed to work to pay for her daugter's education in Switzerland.

Italy will have a new national holiday and monument when she dies, I'd wager. This is one for Ripley's, I tell ya.....

[oyez]

I had a friend stationed at Rota for 3 years. He claimed it to be the finest 3 years of his life.

[tet68]

I always heard Rota was great duty.

[Don Carlos]

Just damn! There goes my old neighborhood! Any sizeable new group would drive already high living costs through the roof.

[CDHart]

Quid pro quo for Spain's support in Iraq?

Carolyn

[aomagrat]

There's a little sidewalk cafe in downtown Rota near the beach that serves some of the best T-bone steaks you'll ever eat. There was a poster on the wall inside of steelworkers sitting in a row on top of the skyscraper they were working on, eating lunch. On closer examination I recognized the faces of the steelworkers; Ronald Regan, Clint Eastwood, John Wayne, Arnold Swartzenegger, etc...