BMC Frank Tyree – Twenty Years in the Navy: From Yankee Station to the Persian Gulf

Navy sailors serve in hotspots around the world. When tense situations develop, one of the first questions on the president’s mind is, “Where are the Navy’s aircraft carriers?” In 1972, when the president needed the Navy to help stop the North Vietnamese Easter Offensive during the Vietnam War, Boatswain’s Mate Chief Frank Tyree, U.S. Navy (Retired), answered the call onboard the aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41). He answered the call many more times over the course of his long career, going wherever and whenever the Navy needed him. Yet the Navy is only one aspect of Frank’s public service—he continues to help those in need even today.

Frank came into this world with the military in his blood. His father was a career Army soldier who served two tours of duty in Vietnam. Earlier in his career, he was assigned to the U.S. occupation forces in Japan after World War II, where he met and married a Japanese woman. Frank was born to the couple in February 1953 when his father was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia. Frank and his parents moved each time his father transferred to a new duty station, but eventually they settled in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Frank attended Magna High in Salt Lake City until his family moved a little farther west, where he attended West High School. When he wasn’t studying, he tried his hand at creative writing and participated on the debate team, taking third place in the state during his junior year. He also managed a gas station at the age of sixteen and worked for another company cleaning buildings so he could earn enough money to purchase his first car, a 1955 Pontiac Chieftain. It all made for enjoyable high school years, but with the likelihood of being drafted on the horizon because of his upcoming graduation and low draft number, Frank knew what he had to do.

Two months before graduation, Frank went to a recruiter to enlist in the military. Although his father’s service influenced him to consider the Army, he often dreamed about sailing on a freighter to tropical islands in the South Pacific where warm ocean breezes and beautiful island girls awaited. His dreams won out, so he walked into a Navy recruiting office and told the recruiter he wanted to join the Navy. The recruiter said, “Sure, kid,” and asked Frank what kind of job he wanted. Frank told him he wanted to serve on submarines. Again, the recruiter said, “Sure, kid.” He then signed Frank up for the delayed entry program, which meant his enlistment would not begin until after he graduated from high school.

Frank graduated from West High School in May 1971 and reported for active duty on July 31. His parents saw him off at the Salt Lake City Armed Forces Examining and Entrance Station, with his father rendering him a crisp salute as Frank prepared to depart on a bus for boot camp at Naval Training Center, San Diego. Frank instinctively returned the salute, boarded the bus, and began his Navy career.

Having come from an Army family, Frank found the initial transition to boot camp life easy. For example, he arrived in San Diego with a regulation military haircut, leaving the barbers little to cut off. He also knew he had to wake up early at reveille each morning and keep his gear in good order, so he was as ready as he could be for what lay ahead.

Despite Frank’s preparation, boot camp still posed challenges. Frank learned this firsthand when an instructor determined his rack (bed) was not made tight enough. To make a point, the instructor threw Frank’s mattress—bedding and all—out the window. He then told Frank to get it and bring it back on the double. Frank did as instructed, but when he returned with his mattress, the instructor told him to throw it out the window again. This drill repeated itself several times until the instructor was satisfied he had worn Frank out.

Firefighting training was an integral part of boot camp. During one training evolution, Frank stood on the deck of mockup of a ship with a fire burning below deck. As Frank prepared to extinguish the flames, an instructor yelled, “What’s the eighth general order?” With flames coming out of the hatch from the deck below, Frank’s mind went blank, and he didn’t respond. Again, the instructor yelled, “What’s the eighth general order?” Getting ready to panic as the fire grew larger, Frank remembered and responded, “Report fires—Fire, Fire, Fire!” Finally, the instructor permitted him to put out the blaze. Frank would never again forget the eighth general order.

Frank graduated from boot camp in October 1971 and reported to “A-School” for Personnelman (PN) training. There he learned the administrative skills he needed to process the mountains of paperwork required by Navy commands to account for their sailors and keep their service records up to date. He completed PN training in December and reported as a new seaman apprentice to the USS Midway (CV-41), a massive aircraft carrier commissioned during the final days of World War II. He arrived near the pier where the Midway was tied up late on a foggy night with near zero visibility. When he got close to the pier, he saw the gigantic ship’s bow breaking through the fog. The ship looked so big he was sure he’d get onboard and be lost forever. Still, he managed to check in and began learning the ropes in the ship’s personnel office the next day.

In April 1972, Frank and the other sailors working with him got to test their PN skills when the captain ordered an emergency recall to the ship of all personnel, including those on leave (vacation). North Vietnam had just launched a major offensive, known as the Easter Offensive, against South Vietnam, threatening the country’s survival. As part of the U.S. response, the USS Midway was ordered to deploy to Yankee Station, a location at sea off the coast of North Vietnam where U.S. aircraft carriers routinely operated during the Vietnam War. Its mission was to launch planes on bombing missions in support of Operation Linebacker, which was intended to bring an end to the Easter Offensive by stopping the flow of war supplies to the North Vietnamese forces in South Vietnam. Aircraft from USS Midway and other Navy aircraft carriers, as well as Air Force bombers, participated in the operation, which halted the North’s offensive and eventually helped force the North Vietnamese to negotiate seriously for peace in Paris.

The war proved both real and personal for Frank and his shipmates operating on Yankee Station. On the night of October 24, 1972, a Navy A-6 Intruder returning to the USS Midway crashed as it attempted to land on the carrier after completing a bombing mission over North Vietnam. The plane plowed into aircraft parked on the flight deck, killing four sailors and starting a large fire. The A-6’s bombardier/navigator also died after he ejected from the plane and was lost over the side of the ship. As general quarters sounded, Frank’s repair party reported to the hangar deck—the deck of the ship immediately below the flight deck—where bombs were positioned on dollies in preparation for being loaded onto aircraft. Now the bombs were at risk of exploding because jet fuel poured down from the flight deck onto the ship’s lowered aircraft elevator, which was used to transport aircraft between the flight deck and the hangar deck. One spark could set everything ablaze and detonate the bombs. To keep that from happening, Frank and the other sailors in his repair party pushed the bomb-laden dollies through a curtain of jet fuel raining down onto the lowered aircraft elevator and jettisoned the bombs over the side of the ship. They then walked back through the jet fuel and repeated the process until all the bombs were gone. When Frank finished, he was drenched in jet fuel and traumatized by the crash and the loss of his shipmates.

Less than three months later, Frank took an offer to end his enlistment early. He received an honorable discharge in January 1973 and began attending classes at the University of Utah using his GI Bill. After a year, he decided college wasn’t working out and took a job as a truck driver. He also met and fell in love with a woman he met at a party, Sharon Lee Veatch, and they married thirty-nine days later, on November 4, 1975. When they were unable to have children themselves or adopt children because Frank didn’t earn enough money as a truck driver, they agreed Frank should join the Navy again so they could see the world together.

Reenlisting in the Navy proved harder than Frank expected. When he was honorably discharged early from his first enlistment in 1973, he had been given a reenlistment code that made it difficult to reenlist. This was intended to keep him from immediately reenlisting in return for bonuses or better assignments. Now, however, it was five years later, and those restrictions no longer applied. The Navy solved the issue by signing Frank to a two-year conditional enlistment and giving him orders to the USS Mobile (LKA-115), an amphibious cargo ship homeported in Seal Beach, California.

Another condition of Frank’s enlistment was that he was no longer a PN. Instead, he was an undesignated seaman apprentice who had to learn entirely new job skills. Accordingly, when he reported onboard USS Mobile, the ship assigned him to the Deck Division where he learned how to handle the rope lines used to launch and recover the ship’s boats. This was no small feat, as the two types of boats he worked with where fifty-six and seventy-four feet long, respectively.

Frank’s initial assignment was as a line tender, working behind the line handler to make sure the ropes didn’t entangle or injure him. On one occasion when Frank and his line handler were working below the ship’s bridge, the line handler felt ill and went to sick bay, leaving Frank on his own. Frank took over the line handler’s responsibilities, unaware the ship’s captain was watching him work from the bridge. After Frank finished the evolution, a first class petty officer told him the captain wanted to see him on the bridge. Frank reported to the bridge as ordered, wondering what he had done wrong. The captain did not chew him out—quite the contrary. He told Frank he’d been watching him work and asked if he would be willing to serve as the bow hook for his gig. Frank said he would, so the captain directed him to report to the boat group. When he got there, he told the petty officer in charge what had happened and then asked, “What’s a bow hook and a gig?” He soon learned the gig was the captain’s boat, and, as bow hook, it would be his job to keep watch at the boat’s bow and jump ashore with the bow line to secure the boat to the pier.

Working in the boat group, Frank learned everything he could about operating and maintaining the Mobile’s small boats. He worked hard on earning his coxswain qualification, so he would be able to drive the boats himself. That occasion came sooner than expected when an ensign got knocked over the side of the ship in Vancouver and fell into thirty-eight degree water. Frank and another sailor were in the captain’s gig ready to be lowered into the water, but the coxswain had not yet come aboard. With no time to waste, the gig was launched, and Frank took over the controls. He and the other sailor quickly made it to the ensign, who had drifted away from the Mobile in the strong current, and pulled him aboard. They then returned him to the ship, where the ensign was treated for hypothermia but was otherwise unhurt.

After Frank promoted to boatswain’s mate third class, he found himself in charge of the ship’s Second Division and its thirty seamen. This happened on short notice when the petty officer in charge of the division transferred, turning over his responsibilities to Frank one day before the ship’s captain conducted a zone inspection of the Second Division’s spaces. After assessing the spaces himself, Frank divided his sailors into three teams and directed them to get their spaces shipshape before leaving for the day. They finished by 8:00 p.m. and returned early the next morning for the inspection.

Frank escorted the captain through the division’s spaces, and the captain was impressed. However, at the end of the inspection when he turned to leave, he saw someone had spray painted “FTN” on a door, which everyone knew stood for F*** the Navy. The captain turned to Frank and said, “What is this?” Without hesitating, Frank replied, “It means Frank Tyree’s Navy.” The captain smiled and said, “Okay,” and walked out of the space. Frank Tyree’s Navy soon became a common phrase, even adorning the license plates on Frank’s motorcycle and car.

As Frank’s tour onboard USS Mobile drew to a close, he received orders to report to the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, Japan, known as Fleet Activities, Yokosuka. Accordingly, he detached from the Mobile in September 1984 and moved with Sharon to Yokosuka in November. Frank was assigned as a patrolman with the base’s military police. He also trained and qualified as the base traffic accident investigator.

Frank took his patrolman responsibilities seriously. One traffic stop in particular illustrated his approach. On this occasion, he pulled over a taxi for a traffic violation near a construction site. The driver was a sailor moonlighting to earn some extra money, and he told Frank he would be transferring to the military police to work with Frank in about a month. He then asked Frank if he could give him a break and not issue him a ticket since they would soon be shipmates. Frank explained that was not possible because to a military policeman, integrity was everything. He said if he played favorites, everyone would find out and his reputation would be irreparably damaged. He then gave the driver his ticket. One month later, the driver reported to the military police and began briefing prospective drivers on Japanese traffic laws. He used the story of Frank issuing him a ticket to reinforce the need for safety with Americans getting ready to drive in Japan, promising they would be ticketed if they did not obey the law.

During his time at Yokosuka, Frank investigated over 450 traffic accidents, arrested 90 drunk drivers, and issued over 1,000 tickets. Ten of the traffic accidents he investigated involved fatalities. Since all those fatalities involved alcohol, Frank had zero tolerance for drunk driving and worked hard to keep motorists on the Navy base safe. In fact, his stops for drunk driving included senior officers and even his own boss. For that reason, he built a solid reputation for honesty and fairness.

As the end of his enlistment neared, Frank had to decide whether to stay Navy or return to civilian life. Since it looked like he would be heading back to the USS Midway (which was now homeported in Yokosuka) if he reenlisted, he decided to get out because he did not want to be apart from Sharon during another long deployment. Accordingly, in March 1988, he and Sharon packed their belongings and returned to Salt Lake City.

Once back in Salt Lake City and with no concrete civilian opportunities, Frank and Sharon decided to give the Navy one more try. As Frank had been a boatswain’s mate first class at the time of his discharge, he had the experience the Navy needed. However, to maintain his previous rank upon reenlisting, he first signed with the Navy Reserve and then with the active Navy the following Monday. He then reported for Navy Veteran (NAVET) training at Naval Training Center, San Diego, where he was put in charge of physical training for all the Navy veterans returning with him to active duty. When he found many of those returning had forgotten what it meant to be part of the Navy team, he required the group to run in formation, never outpacing the group’s slowest members. The result was the group began working together as a unit rather than racing to the finish line as a bunch of individual sailors.

After completing NAVET training, Frank reported to the USS Proteus (AS-19), a submarine tender commissioned during World War II and homeported in Guam. Frank was assigned to the rigging locker, which meant he was responsible for properly rigging items to be hoisted by the ship’s massive cranes to and from nuclear-powered submarines. As at Fleet Activities, Yokosuka, he immersed himself in his work until he became the recognized rigging expert. Whenever the repair officer asked him if the rigging was acceptable and he said yes, the repair officer proceeded with the hoist without asking further questions. Similarly, if Frank said the hoist couldn’t be properly rigged for a safe lift, it wasn’t attempted. In recognition of his expertise and his years of Navy experience, Frank promoted to chief petty officer while onboard USS Proteus.

Frank’s expertise came in handy when the Gulf War loomed in January 1991. In anticipation of the start of hostilities, the nuclear-powered submarine USS Louisville (SSN 724) was given seventy-two hours’ notice to depart Guam to head to the Red Sea. The Proteus was charged with getting the Louisville ready to sail. Instead of taking seventy-two hours, Proteus completed the job in just twenty-four, allowing Louisville to reach her destination on time. Louisville then launched cruise missiles in the war against Iraq, becoming the first submarine to do so in combat.

Frank and Sharon lived in base housing on Guam until it came time for Frank to transfer in 1992. This time, Frank received orders for recruiting duty. After completing Recruiting School, he was put in charge of the Navy Recruiting Office in Ogden, Utah. When that office closed, he transferred to the Navy Recruiting Office in Salt Lake City. When it was announced that office would transition to officer recruiting, Frank was put in charge of preparing the office for the transition. During that time, Frank scored a major victory by recruiting a naval reactor engineer from Brigham Young University. Since naval reactor recruits often came from Ivy League schools in the northeast, this was a significant accomplishment for Frank and his office.

When it came time for Frank to transfer again in 1994, he accepted orders to the USS Essex (LHD-2), homeported in San Diego. The Essex was a new amphibious assault ship commissioned in 1992 and designed to carry Marines, helicopters, and Harrier attack aircraft. Frank joined the ship in Hong Kong during its first deployment late in 1994. The highlights of the deployment involved rounding up a freighter trying to escape from the United Arab Emirates to Iran and, in January 1995, successfully covering the withdrawal of UN troops from Somalia.

Frank made one final deployment to the Persian Gulf onboard USS Essex commencing in October 1996. In addition to participating in several multinational exercises, the ship and its embarked Marines participated in Operation Southern Watch, enforcing the no-fly zone over Iraq. This meant the ship had to spend Christmas anchored off the coast of Kuwait in the Persian Gulf while the ship’s Marines were ashore. Since the ability to celebrate Christmas was limited ashore, the ship put on a big pageant telling the Christmas story. To make sure everyone could participate in the festivities, the ship’s Marines in Kuwait flew back to the ship in groups for a hot shower, a Christmas meal, and the opportunity to watch the pageant.

Frank had two sailors from the Deck Department participating in the pageant—both were playing the shepherds to whom an angel appeared announcing the birth of Christ. However, when the angel spoke to them, they both forgot their lines and had to improvise. The first sailor said, “Wow, did you see that?” The second, a young sailor with a thick Oklahoma accent and unique way of pronouncing words, responded, “Yeah man. That ‘war’ an angel!”

The two sailors’ unscripted dialogue had a profound impact on Frank. Their words, coming from the heart rather than the script, made the pageant seem even more real. So much so that Frank wrote about the story several years later to memorialize it forever. For him, it was the highlight of his second deployment on USS Essex.

The Essex returned to San Diego in April 1997. After a post-deployment standdown which allowed the returning sailors to spend time with their families, Frank, the leading chief in the Deck Department, helped coordinate a short overhaul. He then had a big decision to make. He had always told himself he would do his twenty years, retire, and spend the rest of his time with his beautiful wife. Although the chain of command tried to entice him with his likely promotion to senior chief petty officer, he decided to hold true to his plan and submit his retirement papers. In his final week, he also earned his Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist pin, documenting the vast experience he’d gained over the course of his long career.

Frank officially retired in 1998. Although he and Sharon envisioned returning to Salt Lake City, his best friend onboard USS Proteus recommended they come to Springfield, Illinois, instead. This sounded good to Frank and Sharon because Sharon had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1980 and the Illinois climate seemed more agreeable to her condition. The move worked and Frank and Sharon have lived there ever since, although Sharon finally succumbed to MS and passed away in 2022 after fighting the disease for over forty years.

Despite retiring from the military over twenty-five years ago, Frank remains deeply connected to his Navy service. Part of his connection is rooted in the events surrounding the crash of the A-6 Intruder onboard the USS Midway in 1972. The loss of his shipmates and the bombs he had to carry through curtains of volatile jet fuel caused him to suffer from PTSD, which he deals with by writing poetry about his service experience. He also paid tribute to his lost shipmates in 2024 when he participated in an Honor Flight for veterans to Washington, D.C. When the Honor Flight veterans visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Frank located all five of his lost shipmates’ names on the wall. Frank is also an active Service Officer with his Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) post—first with Post 10302 and later with Post 755. In this role, he assists veterans, their families, and anyone else in need. For example, he’s helped homeless veterans get off the streets and into permanent housing and delivered free medical equipment to those who cannot afford to purchase it on their own. Frank makes himself available to anyone who needs a helping hand.

Voices to Veterans is proud to salute Boatswain’s Mate Chief Frank Tyree, U.S. Navy (Retired), for his years of dedicated service to our country. A proud Vietnam veteran, Frank answered our country’s call during both peacetime and time of war. His service took him to many far-off places around the globe, where he endured long deployments away from family and friends. We thank Frank for all he has sacrificed and for his continued service to his community. Most of all, we wish him fair winds and following seas.

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