In Navy getting high Philippines

G-Dog

G-Dog

New Member
I was buck wild in the 70s. I was into smoking weed and tried just about everything available. When I become of age I was at risk for getting into adult trouble if I didn't change my ways. I have always loved travel and adventure so I joined the US Navy.

Throughout all my training in the various US Navy locations in the US, a couple of places were spoke of in reverence; Thailand and the Philippines. Sex drugs and rock n roll.

Everyone had a different story of the Philippines. It was almost like a bunch of different countries from this variance. Everyone's experience was different, so when I got there I was unprepared really.

I was on the USS Sacramento, deployed overseas for 8 months. From Bremerton Washington we went to Hawaii for a week and from there the Philippines. The Navy would keep us out to sea for 3-4 weeks and then we would spend a week in a port. It worked out pretty good as we would all have a couple of paychecks to play with once we got to port. The night before we went into the Philippines there was an excitement level on the whole ship akin to a child at Christmas. Sailors told stories of previous visits all night long, sea stories. You know the difference between a fairy tale and a sea story? A fairy tail starts off, "Once upon a time" and a sea story starts off, "This ain't no shit." I was up all night before getting into port because I was as excited as the next guy. Combine that with the fact that I had the mid watch. Mid watch means you work from midnight till 4:00am. After watch I tried to sleep, but they woke us early to get in our dress uniforms and stand on the rails to show the port our guys and how great we were. When I got off the ship I am going on 24 hours no sleep.
 
We were at the Ammo Pier at Subic Bay, Philippines. The Ammo Pier was deep in the jungle, an hour away from the city of Olongapo. We would have to take a bus into town, through a couple fixed marine checkpoints, and a few mobile check points where sometimes they would bring dogs on the bus. The bus would labor up hills and around sharp corners on a very primitive road. You would see groups of monkeys in clearings and tall wild looking trees covered with hanging ivies. Everything you ever imagined a jungle to be is what it was. The heat and humidity was intense. The bus would stop and US Marines would walk onto the bus with machine guns at the ready. This was 1982 and the dictator Ferdnand Marcos had the country under tight control. They passed out leaflets of the country's drug policy, which made the US drug policy look like Amsterdam. I had no idea at the time that marijuana was even illegal. The words on the leaflet was a total buzz kill. After 45 minutes to an hour we were into the main navy base and it was a lot like an American city. McDonalds, Baskin Robbins, stores, bars, and bowling allies. I was thinking that all those stories from the sailors were total bull shit. I could have never been more wrong.
 
I had teamed up with a buddy of mine named Bart who had been to the Philippines before. He proved to be a great asset for my first trip there.

The bus stopped by the main gate of the US navy base in Olongapo. We all left the base immediately and headed into town walking. The Subic river is a natural boundary to the base and we had to cross a bridge to get out. Young boys in small boats called bonca boats hung out by the bridge hoping sailors would throw coins for them to dive for. The river was insanely polluted and called the Shit River by all the sailors. It was against navy policy to throw coins because of health concerns. At that point in time I knew I was in another country.
 
As soon as we crossed the bridge into Olongapo we were approached by the natives. The arrival of a US navy ship with all of it's crew into port changes the economy of the city. They were expecting us. Everything your most depraved mind can imagine was offered to us at the main gate. I felt my young heart stop and I wanted to turn back. Imagine a Mexican border town, only they are Asians.. actually a mix of all nationalities, with many having Spanish names. Buildings and billboards with colors and construction techniques that are not like the civilized world. Immediately women are offering themselves, taxis (called jeepneys) are asking if we need rides, men are offering marijuana and just about anything else you could imagine. A carnival of capitalistic humanity mixed with survival of the fittest. I had been to Tiajuana before, but this was Tiajuana on steriods.

My seasoned friend Bart said to ignore these people and just walk on. He wanted to go to a particular bar district in the center of town.
 
We walked through town dodging all the people trying to get out attention. Women screeched at us, men yelled at us.... Anything to get attention. One woman yelled for me to eat her pussy (as if) and another yelled that I stole her camera. Eyes forward was the rule as we navigated through an endless sea of people trying to get us to look at them. We make it to a club that my friend liked and went inside. San Miguel beer was like 22 cents, and that was with a live band and women everywhere in bikini bathing suits serving us. As soon as we sat down women started to come to our table asking us to buy them drinks. One by one women would come to our table in short skirts or a bikini bathing suit looking for a man to get her out of that bar. The music was great, cover bands, great scenery and the beer was cheap. We were in no hurry.
 
By about 1:00 in the afternoon I was feeling the night without sleep. I just wanted to get in a hotel and take a nap. Bart said to pay the bar fine of one of the women and I could go crash at her place.
 
A lady come to my table in a bikini, very attractive. She said she was 19. Myself, I was 21. I said I needed to get some rest. I told her I had not slept the night before. She said her name was Annie, but you never know really. They use whatever name they feel like I thought. She said to pay her bar fine and we go bar hoppy. Some how she must not have understood me. I got her to score me some weed and we ended up dancing and doing the town. By the time she took me to her place it was well after 1:00 am. She got us one of those three wheeled jobs with a motor. I remember hanging out of that thing as he would intentionally drive into a group of people that were dimly lit then take a hard turn. I was falling out of the thing all the way home.

Once we get to her place we see another sailor, a girl and a monkey smoking a joint on the porch. The two girls start chatting away and the monkey hands me a joint. After this I am wasted. The weed was that old school sativa, very potent and fresh. We go to her room, which is nothing more than a privacy screened off area in a large house. I have no idea how many people lived there, but her rent was $30 a month. I was pretty young and had not been with a woman since Hawaii, so I will not go into what all we did. I will say that what we did, we did multiple times, and into the early morning. At some point I had to make my way into the bathroom that was very crude and earthen. The shower is just a pipe coming through a stone or cement wall. Big green lizards hung on the walls and I believe are tolerated to eat bugs. They were big lizards.

Annie knew my schedule better than I did. She knew that I had to be out of the house by 5:00 am to get the bus back to my ship to check in at 7:00 am. I went out to where she told me to catch a taxi (jeepney) and my good buddy Bart was there waiting for me. His first words were, "What do you think of those house lizards?" I thought I lost him, but he was practically right outside my door. We shared the cab to the bus stop and took the long ride back to the ship. The marine check points were a lot more aggressive as there was the likelihood we could be bring contraband back to the ship.

I got back to my ship and changed into uniform and fell into formation with the rest of my guys. The chief said, "Nobody is dead or in jail. Go back to Olongapo and have a good time." At this point I am going on two days without sleep. Guess what I did?
 
Yep... I went back into Olongapo to have a good time. Only this time I didn't go with my seasoned friend Bart. I went with Jammie, a boy from California that was still in his teens. We decided to take a jeepney to Subic city. The driver did the classic tourist scam on us... He said it would be 20 to get into Subic. You assume 20 pasos, not 20 dollars. We were getting 8 pasos for a dollar, so there is quite a difference. We ended up making a huge scene and fighting with this guy about it. Jammie just paid the guy a 20 dollar bill finally. By this time everyone in Subic City had seen us and knew we were greenhorns.

I had noticed some things were different than the day before. I could not put my finger on it until it hit me.... The USS Enterprise had come in. It's an aircraft carrier and it unloaded 5000 more men. That really effects everything including the local economy.

We went to the bar I met Annie in and they said she was not there. She had left with another man from the Enterprise. My feelings were kind of hurt and it must have showed. They sent a girl to my table that could not have been more than 12 years old. She said to me, "I hear you are looking for a girl." I said, "Yeah, she has already left the bar." She said, "What about me?" I said, "You are a 12 year old. What are you even doing in a bar." She stuck her chest out and said she was older, but she knew I was not the kind of guy that wanted something like that. I feel bad because I know some pervert must have connected with her. Between all the ships that had just pulled in, the fleet, there had to be 10,000 Americans running those streets.. Like I said, my feelings were a bit hurt so I went to the bar across the street.
 
This bar was older and dirtier. Lots of women though, and they were smothering us. Because of the extreme drug policy there we felt it was best to buy one joint at a time. Go smoke it and not be walking around with a bunch of contraband. I had seen the provost marshals in town with full military apparel, helmets, machine guns and dogs. You do not want to get into trouble there. I asked one of the girls for a joint and Jammie and I went out to the water to smoke it. It was intensely hot and humid, we had been drinking San Miguel beers, and that sativa joint hit like lightning. We were immediately wasted. I turned around to face the street with the roach in my mouth and seen about 20 of these little motherfuckers coming at us with their arms out like they were going to grab us. I said, "Jammie it's a bust, make a run for it."

I ran back towards town. I looked back and all these guys were chasing me. I could not see Jammie, but I was not going to prison in the Philippines. I ran for my life and back into that bar where we bought the joint. I thought I would go in and go out the back door and double back. Once I got in the bar all the women were in my way and I could not get through fast enough. Apparently I swallowed that roach in the excitement. One of those little fuckers grabbed me and soon there were half a dozen more holding me.

"Where is the marijuana?" The first one that grabbed me said. "Open your mouth." I opened it and he said, "I see ashes on your tongue. You ate it." One of the girls gave me a glass of water. I asked for a phone and tried to call the American Embassy. Next thing I know there is Jammie with a giant grin on his face. He said he refused to run. He was going to fight them all. He said he stood with his fist up and kept them at bay. When the one fellow that caught me come back and said I ate the evidence they told him to go back to town and have a good time. They were just a bunch of punks trying to get us to bribe them to keep the police out of it. Regardless, by this time I am a nervous wreck. I had the penalties on those leaflets burned into my mind.
 
Jammie and I settled down finally, had some more cheap beer and hooked up with a couple more girls. To be honest, I don't even remember their names, but they were something American sounding. We spent the night with the girls in Subic and just like the day before, had to be back to our ship the next day at 7:00 am. Having girls was the safest thing I learned. They keep you from paying too much, being scammed and hooked you up with weed. It was like a tour guide for the depraved.

The girl that Jammie was with was an adventurous type. I really think she enjoyed her work. At some point Jammie carried her to the community shower me and my girl were at and this girl dropped her towel and took a long time to get it back on. The whole time watching my eyes explore her body.

The next day the girls rode with us to the Ammo Pier. The Marines only let them go so far, and they had to stay and wait for us to check in. When we got back we seen both girls in a phone booth. Apparently the monkeys there are aggressive and mean. They chased the girls into the booth. When we got on the bus all these monkeys come as close as they could to the bus and were throwing grass and rocks at us. One of the girls told me that the monkeys wanted to take her to the jungle and make her their princess. I just nodded and listened to her.

We went back to the main base where all the American niceties were. The girls really liked that. One of them suggested we take a boat to Grande Island to spend the night.
 
Grande Island is a tiny little island that the US Navy made a resort on. One of the nice things about being in the Armed forces is that everything is cheap or free. When we got there they were having a party of some kind with all the free beer and hamburgers you can handle. The girls could not believe that us Americans are so rich we are giving away meat and beer. One of my friends from my ship was snorkeling there and stepped on a rock fish. He had a bad reaction and had to be airlifted out of there. Kind of spooky to see before my first time snorkeling in tropical waters.

We stuffed ourselves, snorkeled and rented a cabin. It was awesome. I told you that Jammie's girl was a bit adventurous and she would suggest we have an orgy about every half hour or so. Life in the Philippines. We all said "NO!" but to be honest I wanted to explore her adventurous side myself. The girls managed to smuggle some weed to the island. Is was not that bad because they didn't have to go through the marine check points that Jammie and I had to when we checked in to the ship.

After an afternoon of mindless carefree sex and sativa we were all hungry. Somewhere was a restaurant, but we didn't know where. We had the fantastic idea to cut through the jungle instead of taking the long way with the golf cart paths. The first thing that happened was bats. We had so many bats that you could bat them away with you hand. It was thick with bats. As we got deeper into the jungle various animals starting to screech and howl. We had no light what-so-ever and were just floundering through the jungle tripping and falling. About half way there Jammie said something about a snake warning he seen. I felt panic, but we were half way. Equal distance through the jungle either way. We found our way to the restaurant eventually, but we were a site. Girls are messed up from fighting off bats and us guys trying to calm them.
 
The morning following the night in the cabin we went to the other side of the island to play in the surf. We got loaded. Two beautiful girls playing with us in the water and smoking top shelf herb, the best money could buy, for about $2 an oz. It was Bahgio bud, a lot like Thai. It was a dark chocolate and caramel color. I was a seasoned smoker by then, but often I felt like I smoked too much in the beginning of the high. I would feel some paranoia but that would eventually just turn into a really up energy high. It was fantastic weed. Nobody weighed anything, they just filled up a bag. I had to get some of this to take back home. We watched planes from Naval Air Station Cubi Point do the most extravagant stunts, stunts far too dangerous for the US. Planes going over the water and actually lifting the water up. Sonic Booms right and left. It was a show that you couldn't even pay to see, but we are seeing it for free on a tiny tropical island stoned out of our minds. Going in and out of the water, drinking beer and enjoying being young.
 
When we went to take girls back home we got in trouble. They were not supposed to spend the night on the navy base. The marines told 'the girls' they should know better.

Now when I was in the navy I ran a loan sharking business called a slush fund and I was pretty good at it. Say what you will, but for me to have money for a guy to use his last night in some port of call was a good for them. They were building memories and my money assisted in that. Now one of my customers owed me $150 and offered to go back into Olongapo and bring back two ounces of Bhagio bud. I thought that was a great deal. I told someone that told someone else that told others and so forth that I was going to have two ounces on the ship.. Kind of like prison in how secure that was. Not quite, but still risky as hell to do. This guy was willing to do it and I wasn't. So he goes out, gets a couple of ounces and brings them back on the ship in his cowboy boots. Ounce he got back everyone knew I had it and I had to sell an ounce of it one gram at a time for $30 per gram. I didn't have a scale so I just broke it up into about 30 piles. I made $900 off of that ounce. The guy that owed me $150 only really borrowed $75, but the interest was compounding. It was a win win situation for everyone. The guys that bought it were people that are on restriction to the ship and so on and that was the only way they could get any. A couple guys bought more than one bag each. The guy that brought it on was shitting bullets when he finally got it to me and I still had an ounce to smoke with him. I tried to buy at least an ounce from every country I visited in that 8 month tour. I made it to the Philippines a couple of times.
 
Thanks Hogdad, I guess I should tell my story about getting high in Kenya next!

Chronic Down, all the girls that worked in the bars were supposed to be checked by doctors regularly. This was Pre-AIDS, and believe me, if I were there now I would not be so cavalier about my sexual activities. The only time I ever got a STD was from good old American girls.
 

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