Rhodes Greece 1969

I was a Naval officer aboard the USS Saratoga in 1969. We were invited to a party in a rural area on the island of Rhodes Greece. It was quite an honor as only a dozen or so junior officers were included. After the meal we each were awarded with a bottle of the awful local wine. I took my bottle back to the ship and stowed it in the top of my locker. A week later it blew the cork out and ruined $250 of my dress white uniforms.

You break the rules and sooner or later you will pay a price. Most of the other guys were smarter than me and tossed their bottles into the sea.

May have been Retsina; that was bad stuff; tasted like kerodene or pine resin.

Was it yellow collered? Maybe Kava....Kava, was good...a friend brought back a bottle from a cruse to Greece.

I was stationed at Iraklion, Crete from Jum 69 'til Jun 72. I watched others drink Ouzo and learn to walk on their get knees.......If you were on a Navy 'cruse ship' you may have put into port there.

Only time I was ashamed to be an American occured in Lion's Square in Iraklion. Family and I were sitting in sidewalk cafe and we could hear a loud mouthed American (fit the steriotype) Hawiaan shirt, camera around his neck, and shorts walking down the street talking about "those dumb foreigners." The Greeks had 3 different prices on their goods....1st, American and British rate for those stationed on the island, 2nd standard tourist rate...then 3rd was the German rate, usually double the American rate. The Greeks on Crete have long memories of the German WWII occupation.