At some point in the three weeks between reporting on board Biddle and our departure to WESTPAC, I spent several days attending a pre-deployment briefing in (maybe) Dam Neck, Va. It required an automobile trip and “Al” drove.
The “Al” to whom I refer was CAPT Alfred R. Olsen, Jr., commanding officer of USS Biddle. I would have never referred to him then as “Al,” and don’t imagine I even thought of him with that nickname. He was “Captain.” He was 45 years old, a Naval Academy grad, and the person in charge of my life.
I think it was only the two of us from the Biddle attending the briefing, which was a few days in duration. It was at a Top Secret level, dealing with various threats posed by the North Vietnamese, Soviets, and Chinese. His offer to drive and for me to join him was one of those you can’t refuse.
We spent about 30 minutes each way in his typical suburban dad car. This senior captain and likely boot ensign made for an unlikely conversational duo. I pretty much tried not to say anything, except perhaps to affirm the wisdom of what I heard from CAPT Olsen with a “Yes, sir.”
And I did hear some wisdom . . . of sorts. Two I remember. One was CAPT Olsen’s take on RHIP — “Rank Has Its Privileges.” That was an incorrect interpretation, he argued. What people should have understood from the acronym, he said, was that “Responsibility Has Its Privileges.”
The other exchange I remember is when I commented on the proximity of the ocean. I had grown up in Western Massachusetts and had had very little exposure to the ocean. Most of my “beach” time was on lakes or ponds. At some point, I had somewhat dreamily commented to CAPT Olsen, “Ah, I smell the ocean.” He looked at me and said, “What you smell is rotting seaweed and dead shellfish.”
O . . . K.
Of course, I and the rest of the Biddle crew went on to share something like 60,000 miles riding with CAPT Olsen. But that’s another story.
CAPT Olsen was Biddle‘s second commanding officer. He had taken command about eight months earlier, in September 1968. Biddle was his fifth command at sea.
After graduating from the US Naval Academy in 1944 (early with the Class of 1945), he had served in the Pacific in WWII, the Korean War, 1958 landings in Lebanon, and the 1962 Cuban blockade. He had served on the cruisers Biloxi and Providence and the destroyer Allen M. Sumner. He had previously commanded the LST Ouachita County, destroyer escort Lester, destroyer John Paul Jones, and the destroyer tender Sierra.
In his 25 years of commissioned service, he had also served on the staffs of the Commander-in-Chief Atlantic Fleet and Commander Destroyer Force Atlantic Fleet, in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, and as Chief of Staff to Commander Cruiser-Destroyer Flotilla Four.
Post-Biddle
CAPT Olsen left the Biddle in May 1970. He later was the principal surface warfare officer on the board that analyzed and reorganized Navy training. He subsequently served as the first director of the Surface Warfare Training and Personnel Division. He retired in 1974. For the next 12 years, he worked for Raytheon Service Company, primarily in logistics planning.
He died on October 31, 2015, in Arlington, Va., at the age of 91. He was buried with full military honors in Arlington National Cemetery. This is his obituary.