'Rust Lockers'

Yeah, back in the day I rode the Rainier. Today the ol' gal floats around the seven seas with a blue and gold stripe around her stacks. Stationed out of Bremerton, Wa, she probably sees homeport less than anywhere else on this big blue planet.  But she's gotta look a hell of a lot different than she did when I rode her.  They gave her a total weapon's system hysterectomy and ripped off her combat colors!! She's also a little light in the crackerjack department.  But, like a gaudamned taxiderm trophy settled on some old forgotten mantle, she pretty much looks the same.

Look'n at her now I see no more CIWS mounts, SLQ 32s, 25MM cannons, and the NATO Launcher on the forecastle are all gone! Less notable are the gaudamned Ready Service Lockers (RSLs)!!! An old Chief once told me that rust never sleeps! Well, when it came to those gaudamned RSLs... he sure the hell wasn't kidd'n around!

Once you got past the ridiculous white armored shields, every RSL had clusters or rust flakes that looked like an old farts age spots that spread like a gaudamned cancer in every which way!!!

You see oxidation can reek havoc on steel in the middle of the salty ocean. With all that salt air, primer once and paint over twice ain't no bullshit!!  On any dark night underway  you could actually hear the rust eating away like termites on wood!!! I might not had joined this ol' canoe club to be a paint chipp'n hull scrapp'n deck ape, but just the same, I got my fair share of zinc chromat'n, 151 primer'n, and haze grey paint spattering time under the sun. 

No matter how many damned times we painted over those big dumb rust buckets, it just kept coming back quicker and quicker...  But the Chief always felt this obsessive need to keep us engaged in the time consuming act of needle gunn'n and chipping away at these big ugly monstrosities!!!

What made it even worse... the gaudamned aft RSLs' were three decks below where they needed to be! I don't know who came up with that crazy ass design but I'm sure that fella's sitting somewhere with a couple million bucks he made off that Navy Ponzi Scheme!!!

Nevertheless, this paragon of virtue had finally met its match when our Naval leadership decided to dispense of these combatant oilers and turn them over to our civilian brethren!!!

I say good riddance to them gaudamned RSLs and the thirty-pounds of pneumatic knucklebusters, needle guns & chipp'n hammers that found themselves chucked overboard and float tested down to Davey Jones!!!

You see, in the great Northwest you couldn't make much sense outta year round Navy topside preservation. Too many gaudamned searing rain drops coming down like ice picks anytime other than summer.  But topside preservation in the summer could always lead to world class sunburns and over whelming hangovers!!! The evening following a midsummer first day topside turn to, found seven or eight upright walking lobsters, moaning and groaning at the evening meal.. From there it was off to a night of soak'n suds at our favorite watering hole!!!

The next morning... back to the non cerebral exercise of topside preservation.  Once you got use to the ping, ping, pang-o-rama of the ol' chipp'n hammers and men at work... it was just an ordinary Navy Day!!!!

Never thought