"Navy Hazmat"

Anybody out there remember the Hazmat Control onboard the ol Rainier? I believe there was some knuckle head Boatswain First Class whose name I couldn't remember to save my life. Ol' fella looked like somebody beat'm over the head with a dogg'n wrench and gave no mercy by leav'n him stupid. He was about a chromosome or two short!

You see, back in the day when I reported to my first ship, the "Baglady," Hazmat was a word not yet put into the Sailors simplistic little lexicon of think'n. When we were done with buckets of paint, or a can of aircraft grease or some nasty ol' PD-680, we just tossed it into the ol' "Ska-Loosh" locker!! That's the sound it made when it hits the gaudamn water. It must've all gotten buried under the murky silt with the rest of the ten million coffee cups, chipping hammers, paint scrapers, and assorted naval inventory, previously float-tested by many a blue shirt sailor! The gaudamn seabed between Pier 3 and Pier 5 must have had the appearance of a La Barrio Logan junkyard!

San Diego Bay could never become a source for distill'n water. Mankind would rather be sipp'n the contents of Pakistani septic tanks through a gaudamn straw before any sons-a-bitches would ever be stupid enough to take a drink from that sewage ditch! You could percolate horse crap and catch something a hell of a lot better than anything passing through that place.

A few years later I ended up on the good ol' Chuckie "V" where I was properly introduced to the new Hazmat policies with a few four letter words and a pissed off Chief (see Shitbird) about the Hazmat Locker that we had in our own little space. Nope, no more "Ska-Loosh locker for us in this Navy. Now we had to label every gaudamn thing and put them in their rightful containers and make sure we had these material handling data watchama call-its at all times!

Then I showed up to the good Ol' Rainier and we had a whole gaudamn station onboard just for Hazmat with a modern day computer that spit out stickers for every bottle, coffee can, or paint bucket that had a drop of corrosive, smelly, make ya itchie while it made your penis shrink and your hair fall out kind of Hazmat in it! It became a gaudamn science overnight.

Everything was extremely complicated and required three years of physics, a basic understanding of splitt'n atoms and an abstract math and chemistry background from M.I. T. But who would guess they'd stick some of the biggest shitbirds in Hazmat to run the place. A certified dumbass at the anchor end of the social pyramid!

Yep, somebody finally wised up and canned his ass. I guess since Supply Department owned the Hazmat Locker, they didn't see it fit to plant a gaudamn Boatswain's Mate in front of a computer lick'n a bunch a' sticky paper and huff'n all them toxic fumes all damn day anyway... hell, why give such an honor to that guy who's been huff'n paint his whole damn career?

Then comes the new guy! Or should I say he was the oldest gaudamn sugar daddy in the fleet at the time. At least I could only imagine. His name... SK1 Mckelvie or something of that nature. This ol' man looked like he'd been bathing in a toxic ses pool of Hazmat. If you wanted to scare a new booter to take the Hazmat Program seriously then send him down to take a look at ol' man Mckelvie! That son-of-a-bitch had skin that looked like hard leather worn, wet, beaten, and left out in the baking Arizona sun!!! Hell, he even played along. He'd tell the young'ns he was only twenty-eight and that is what Hazmat does to you if you don't take the program seriously. I know for a fact the son-of-a-bitch was well over fifty years old.

Well, in 2005 I ran into Mckelvie again just before he was ready to retire from this ol' canoe club. He was the Chief 'SK' on the Ford out of Everett. Still looked about the same but damn near needed a cane to get around. Don't know if he's still alive today but I'll bet he's huff'n a gaudamn can of spirits and solvents right about now! But don't get me wrong! Every crackerjack that ever served with ol' Mckelvie knows he was a good man! I would be proud to go to sea with the ol' bastard again!!

But there are a few things a young sailor can be thankful for in this Navy! Not being one of Noah's deckhands when the son-of-a-bitch loaded the Ark is one of them!