"It's a Mine!"

Aboard the USS Towers DDG 9 - 1988 - Going into the Persian Gulf from the North Arabian Sea.

A lookout spots a metallic object floating in the water. We get closer, it's black and appears to be a 55-gallon drum.

It could be a crudely made mine placed by the Iranians. A potential danger to commercial shipping, so the ship goes to general quarters - seems we're going to 'take this thing out'.

We had already set up several additional machine gun posts along the sides of the ship and all were quickly manned. I was at the ASROC deck gun station on the Port side. We slow and the "mine" is going to pass about 30 yards off our port side. We're told to standby to open fire on the object.

Now, I'm thinking if this is a mine and we blow it up 30 yards from the ship, aren't we all at risk of being hurt? Or the ship damaged? But, as you know... it wasn't my call!

We get the order to fire on the object. (somewhere I have pics of this but I have to find them)

We shoot who knows how many rounds into that thing... After about 10-15 seconds of gunfire the cease fire order comes....

Seems we've turned a floating hollow drum into a colander and it's sinks.

Not a mine - but it sure did break up the monotony of sweeping sand off the ship every couple hours.

We never know when da heroes obstacles are going to show up in our path. Shooting them full of holes - figuratively - is always an option.  In life, finding ways to deal with them are probably the better option.