Bernie Cobb provided the following information about the top photo:
This was the Dayroom, or ship's Lounge, or Rec Room, or something like that. I don't remember what the popular name among the passengers was for this daily place of idle
contemplation and soul searching, but it was where all the cabin-class
passengers gathered to play cards, watch movies, ogle the dependants and
Navy nurses, etc. Al Sarnecki played bridge every single day and
practically every single hour that we were at sea. His bridge partner was
the wife of some Navy captain. He said at the reunion last year that he
bumped into her somewhere after Vietnam. (Didn't say where he bumped her,
though.)
Since I was in a cabin (with three other guys), I had free access to the
passenger lounge. I wasn't lucky like Kove, down in the hole in that big
spacious suite, with all those buddies of his crowded around singing,
swilling down good cuisine, and cheering, telling jokes, and puking.
Anyway, I called "that room" the Dayroom. I really don't remember what the
others called it or what the official Navy designation for it was.
In the lower photo, the Upshur disappears behind the stern of the launch as their visit draws to a close.
(Both photos by Warren Hewetson, March 1998)
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