On the day we left Norfolk for our western Pacific cruise, an interesting incident transpired, as if to remind us that there was another world outside the little steel cocoon of the Dean. The ship was ready to get underway, still tied up at the dock; the band was playing, and the well-wishers and families of the crew were waving to us from the pier. The crew was at attention on deck, waiting for the order to go to sea and anchor detail. Suddenly, a jeep with some officers and Shore Patrol people rolled up in front of the ship. They brought out a third-class petty officer in his dress blues, wearing handcuffs, and dragged him up to the quarterdeck, where one of the officers read to him from a document. The seaman responded by dramatically shaking his head ‘no’, the action was unmistakable. The officers and SPs put him back in the jeep and drove away. No one would answer my questions about the prisoner; I suspected he was refusing wartime duty. The entire incident had an unearthly “Reading the Articles of War to the Prisoner” feel to it. I learned later that he was the QM3 I eventually replaced.