When we went to Japan in 1958, Doc was our sponsor.  He helped the Chief find a great house in Hayama, he introduced us to some really great Japanese people who helped us acclimate to their customs and lifestyle, and he had two kids who meshed very closely to me and Little Sister, so it was a good match, sponsorship-wise.  The ship was a small net-tender called the  Etlah.  It didn't have much of a net-tending mission, mostly salvage and repair work on bigger ships.  Being a small ship with a small crew, it fostered unusual closeness, physically and otherwise.  Our two families were very close.  Long after we were settled into our new surroundings, Doc continued to be like a big brother to our family.  But we had only been there a few months when a typhoon came across Japan.  Our little beach village was dead-center in the path of the storm and the Chief was out on the Etlah;  they had put out to sea to try to get away from the storm.  Doc was left ashore to round up the families and get them to safe haven.  He drove out to Hayama and picked us up in his old Chevy...about a '47 or '48.  We were headed for his quarters at Admiralty Heights, the Navy housing area.  Just south of the Japanese Defense Force barracks there was a traffic circle and it was almost entirely under water.  He tried to drive through it...would have made it, too...but a bus coming the other way put up a bow wave that swamped us and literally flooded us out.  Doc opened up the car door and water poured in.  He lifted me and my sister out and carried us about thirty or forty yards to higher ground, then went back to the car and carried my mom out, too.  The wind and rain were kicking up something fierce by then;  we were soaked and freezing.  Doc walked out through the water and flagged down a military truck, made them drive over to us, and then loaded us into the back.  They took us to Yokosuka to the Navy hospital.  We were provided dry jamas and robes, fed some soup, and given beds for the night.  Doc left us there and went back out to see if there were any more families who needed help.  
The next day, Doc showed up in his old Chevy (the interior was still soaking wet but he had gotten the engine going after struggling with it half the night).  He drove us back out to Hayama;  we saw lots of damage along the way but were pleasantly surprised to find that our place was barely touched.  The eye of the storm had passed directly over Hayama...it hammered the town coming and going but for most of the time the town was calm.  Doc stuck around and helped us patch up the few broken windows and such;  then he headed for home.  He was that kind of friend.  Not many around like that.
I told you all that so I could tell you this:   the Etlah was sent back from Japan to San Diego to be de-commissioned in 1960.  They kept a minimum crew for the trip to the States and re-assigned all the non-mechanical or operation rates to other ships or places...Doc was a medic (Duh!..."Doc", you didn't think that was his given name, did ya?) so he was sent to Long Beach and we didn't see him again for some time.  In fact, it was about three years time.  The Chief was stationed at North Island NAS as a safety inspector, getting ready to retire.  We were living in a little house in El Cajon.
I answered a knock on the door one afternoon. There stood Doc, big and bad and grinning with that missing-a-strategic-tooth- or-two grin, six-pack under one arm, grabbing me up with the other, booming voice laughing and demanding that I lead him to the sorry excuse for a Chief I called a Dad.  The Chief came into the living room and the old shipmates killed the six-pack; and ordered Bill-the-Bartender (me...since I was old enough to open a fridge and pull out a can of beer) to supply more.  After a little bit, Doc pulled out his car keys and threw them to me.  He had noticed the old green Chevy in the drive and said I was probably ready to step up in the world...I should try out his new ride to see how I liked it.  He also told me that he and the Chief had about another two hours of catching up to do and he wouldn't be needing it before then.  I couldn't believe it.  I looked at the Chief who seemed reluctant at first, then shrugged and admonished me to be careful and not put a scratch on the car.  
When I had opened the door and saw Doc, I hadn't even paid any attention to what might have been parked in front.  So when I went outside I was flabbergasted.  Doc had a beautiful, white, 1961 Chevy Impala.  It was a really nice car, nicer than anything I had ever driven, newer than anything any of my friends or their folks had.  It wasn't an SS, it wasn't a 409 (283, for those who understand), but it was healthy and pretty and for about two hours, it was mine.
The 1961 was a one-year body, and a lot of people thought it was about the ugliest Chevy ever made.  The body was the forerunner of the boxier '62-'64 models, with a strange, slanting body crease that sloped down from the front into an elongated triangle in the rear.  In the Impala, they put a color-panel in that triangle and the one on Doc's Impala was a turquoise color.  Now right up to the point that I received those keys, I would have agreed that Chevy had made an ugly beast.  But on that day, the '61 became a thing of beauty to me.
I dashed over to my buddy Chuck's house and picked him up.  We began to cruise in earnest.  We smiled and waved like we were in a parade or something.  And inevitably, we wound up on the freeway.  The freeway curves north at the west end of El Cajon, then about three or so miles later it turns to the east.  We got on the freeway just before it made that turn to the east;  we cruised at the legal 65 mph until we passed the Magnolia exit.  After that the freeway was fairly empty most of the time.  I couldn't contain any longer;  I floored it.  The Chief's '55 Chevy would not go more that about 92-94 mph, I knew that for a fact.  Doc's little 283 had to be able to do more than that.  It did...and it got there a lot quicker than I would ever have imagined.  Soon Chuck and I were wide-eyed, grinning like fiends, and flying along at 110 mph.  We didn't stay there long.  I slowed it back to what seemed like a snail's-pace 65 and giggled and whooped and laughed all the way back to the house.  I knew that if the Chief and Doc had been sober, I would have been busted the minute I walked in.  I felt like I had "done-a-bad-bad-thing" written all over me.  But they were not sober and Doc was about ready to leave.  They stood around making their goodbyes for several minutes;  then Doc opened the door to step out.  He stopped about halfway out the door, looked back at me with a sly grin and asked how fast that little Chevy would go.  "65, sir!" was my immediate response.  Doc laughed and pounded me on the back and said, "Right answer, kid"  and winked as he headed down the walk.  
Okay, it isn't much for a story.  But it was a landmark in a teenaged Southern California boy's life.  I had joined an exclusive club and I had a witness to it.  And I had made a new, lifelong friend.  Ugly as it is, it is always a special car to me...my first 100 mile-per-hour car.  And ugly as he was, and no matter how questionable you may think his judgement was, Doc proved that he was still a bigger-than-life friend to me.