When you live inside a compartment the size of a garage with eighty other sorry asses, things can get pretty gaudamned hairy at times.... and by hairy I'm talk'n about the smell of feet and ass!!! You guys remember it don't ya???
Besides all the untamed animals and the grab ass shenanigans we used to pull, there was one and only one gaudamned reason why we kept the A/C down so low.... so as to stop the breeding of all that nasty ass bacteria.
After five ships and twenty-three years in this canoe club, nothing changes... and every berthing has at least one, two, or even three dirtbags around every gaudamn corner!!!
"Aww come on Chief, you should be more positive than that!"
"You can't call them dirtbags! This is the new PC' Navy!"
Alright then, I'm positive..... there are dirtbags... but if you want to be all gaudamned PC' about it then we'll just call'm earth sacks if that'll make you happy!!
Trust me, eighty men missing showers regularly... combined with full laundry bags of hash marked whitie tighties & greasy armpit fruit of the loom undershirts on every other rack, a pair of beat up ol' funky boondockers at the foot of every rack, an occasional happy sock & Vaseline stuck to the pages of a nudie mag, and how many times did any of you sasquatch sons-a-bitches ever wash those damned wool blankets... ever??? It doesn't take a high I.Q. to figure out why the gaudamned XO always called them pig sties!!!
Even a self-respecting zoo has guys who show up regularly to hose the monkey shit outta the cages. But what the hell... it was the life we loved and nesting in dirty laundry, sour towels, and weird smelling flash pads came with the territory!!!
At night, when the berthing was jam packed with dog-tired shipmates... it was a far cry from a silent sanctuary. We had snoring bastards that sounded like a walrus sing-along.Stuff hung from vent operating handles... shit stuffed in overhead ventilation lines and the passageways looked like a Hindu village dump… Shoes, boots, foul weather gear… An odd coffee cup… books, nudie magazines... you name it, we tripped over it.
Hell, I remember being in charge of berthing cleaners on several occasions! The rest of the fellas gave me the nickname "Berthing Nazi" and I took it on with pride!!! From 0800 to 1100 hours it was time for berthing cleaners... and though I didn't usually take much seriously, berthing cleaners was one thing I didn't mess around with... Gotta scrub them heads and make them beds.... anybody remember the ol' Golden Broom Award'??? Yeah, I think I won about a dozen of them.
But it never lasted long I tell ya... After maybe an hour the heads & beds germinated, hatched and blossomed forth with all sorts of funk and aroma... no amount of cleaning could overcome the point where you could throw your socks at your bunk curtains and they would stick like Velcro ... If it wasn't for Aqua Velva, Baby Powder & some ol' Spice, we would have been overcome by the smell... no human being should have to live like we did, but we always made the best of it!!!
For a bunch of young redblooded American hetrosexual, testosterone-loaded crackerjacks who had spent the better part of their time six on and six off between berthing and watchstanding... we made the best of all things underway!!!
It takes a real man to sustain himself after weeks and sometimes months of listening to the fella' next to you snoring like a gaudamn baby ape... or not getting mad when one of your trusty shipmates farts into the vent of your rack with the air on... or the occasional belch from the fella who just had chilly and onions for midrats... and that adoring son-of-a-bitch who shines the flashlight in your gaudamn eyes at 0'dark thirty, "oops" sorry you were the wrong wake up call... then the fella' getting up for watch is scratch'n his ass at eye level to your rack just to go to the head while leaving his rack light on.... Needham
On one particular ship (Rainier )... in one particular berthing (Ops)... with one particular third class Quartermaster (kinda rhymes with aerosol, ironically)... the most elemental forms of hygiene were disregarded or not even part of his vocabulary! I swear this son-of-a-bitch was so fascinated with Dinosaurs and 'Jurassic Park
If you want an idea of the smell, place some dead road kill under your mattress for about a week to simulate the special kinda relationship that existed between QM3 and the rest of the fellas in berthing!!! It got so gaudamned bad that his QM1 had to personally walk him into the head and visually observe this grubby bastard take a shower twice a week while managing a schedule for him to make sure he was turning his laundry in... I think the XO was in fear of his locker once during a health & comfort inspection... they thought he was incubat'n some dinosaur eggs or something inside his standup locker!!!!
and like I said... It's the same on every ship... on the Bagley we had some really stinky seamen just across the way, the Carl Vinson had Schwabb, the Momsen had 'Dirtybury & Steenburgen'!!! They're all of the same likes...
But even though it was sometimes hot as hell... stank like shit... and you felt cooped up in less mov'n around room than your gaudamn crawl space at home... it was our home... where we shared intimate moments of unforgettable camaraderie with the full spectrum of humanity!!! It was a cross section of middle America running from the exceptionally bright to the walking brain-dead!!! We all lived together in a seething caldron of raw, unvarnished manhood!!
... And when it was time for liberty call, we were happier than horseshit... rooting through our side lockers for the soap, toothbrushes, combs, and enough fufu juice to make the whole guadamn place smell like a French Whore House!!! You couldn't make enough showers for these sons-a-bitches to get clean when the anchor was moored!!!
It was time to change the linen by turn'n your mattress upside down and your nasty yellow pillow cases inside out... Yep these were the times of our young crackerjack lives!!! Wouldn't of missed em' for the world!!!
They brainwashed us good at boot, but some how forgot hygiene in the reprograming. We had some real stinkers in my berthing on the Vinson. Chief I love your stories! You should get yourself published!
ReplyDeleteYep, GREAT story! LMAO!
ReplyDeleteI remember aboard Gridley when I FINALLY moved from Deck Berthing to Fox Berthing, and a bit of (fresher) air, and one lesson that was practically HAMMERED into my brain on DAY ONE is that you NEVER use aerosol deodorant aboard! I was told (to phrase it like you do Dennis), to "BUY A GOUDAMNED STICK DEODORANT!- NO AEROSOLS!"
...Vic
On the Saratoga, had a real funky toupee wearing bastard FC3 below me in the middle rack. Thank Jesus I had an AC vent above me! Cold as all hell, but blew his stench down on the poor guy in the bottom bunk. We threatened him with a steel brush saltwater shower a few times!
ReplyDeletePick your rate... choose your fate. Ship's Serviceman and the cooks never had to endure this as we ran that laundry and we were the first ones in to get own stuff done, creases and extra starch, along with the cooks who would hook us up with fresh baked bread straight out of the oven piping hot with a pound of butter thrown in.
ReplyDeleteI was a "rider" (I.e spook) assigned on the Yorktown when the main water evaporator went down hard. Since we were on a mission, no replacement parts were forth coming for a while, so showers were restricted. Since we usually got assigned to where there were spare bunks, I was in the berthing with the cooks, servicemen, etc... After about 3 days or so, the MS1 asked me why I had not taken a shower. Er, because I am not on the list. F*sk that. We have to stay clean, so our showers are still on. Go get clean. There were some pissed off guys in the spaces when I showed for watch with wet hair and clean dungy's.
DeleteTop rack and worked nights. Always fewer people in berthing.
ReplyDeleteExcept we SH's were also the ones who had to handle all that nasty gear from the berthing laundry bags into the washers!
ReplyDeleteBut yep, we damn sure were able to keep ourselves in fresh attire. (Tho, it wasn't just our fellow supply types we needed to keep hooked up. You wanted the washers & dryers to work and the water flowing, you needed to keep the guys in A-Gang in the loop, too!)
looking at the background, reminded of the times i had to climb to the ends of yardarms to change lightbulbs. ds2,not afraid of heights even when rocking and underway.
ReplyDeleteI remember those times as well but since I was a teletype repairman working in a secure area, I was able to spend some nights sleeping on top of ultrasonic washing machines with a fresh air vent overhead (especially when we were over in the South China sea)or at times setting up a cot in the transmitter room.
ReplyDelete