Grenier had been an excellent cook, but his enlistment ran out, and we were down to one cook. BuPers (the Bureau of Personnel) had not sent us another cook, so Shivers was running the galley alone. It required a 24-hour watchstander, so we were reduced to having the rest of the crew take turns serving as night baker, simply to have a qualified person awake in the galley round the clock. Screwing up the food is the worst thing that the military can ever do for morale, and we were starting to find out why.

Robledo was a Machinist's Mate striker who showed lots of promise. In fact, we were enthusiastic about Robledo's mechanical skills and his work ethic. But we needed a cook. So Robledo became our regular night baker.

Since we had enough storage space only for enough store-bought bread to last for a couple of days, we baked our own bread much of the time. Robledo turned out to be a good machinist, even as a baker. At first we described Robledo's bread as "pound bread" but he picked up the techniques quickly, and his cooking and baking became very popular.

The radio room was right next to the galley, and Robledo used to help the radiomen with some of the challenges of installing more and newer radio equipment in a really cramped space.

Once when Robledo returned from leave, after visiting his family in Houston, he brought back some tortillas and other TexMex ingredients, and the crew was treated to some great specialty dishes. Everyone was begging for more.In time, Robledo switched his specialty from machinery to cooking, and was even promoted to an actual Commissaryman's rating.