“Snot Nosed Know-It-Alls”

It never fails when telling sea stories about my time in the ol’ canoe club that the question always comes up,

“In the Navy does an Ensign have more authority than a Master Chief?”

Okay… that’s an honest enough question… and the honest to god answer is… well, kind-of- sorta… You see technically an Ensign does outrank any enlisted personnel.  But I’ll be gaudamned if a piss-ant snot nosed butter bar right out of the academy or OCS is gonna waltz right in and tell a Master Chief or any Chief for that matter what to do and how to do it.  If he knows what’s good for him he’ll understand that the Senior Enlisted have the respect of the Captain and his crew. 

I remember on my first ship… the good ol’ ‘Baglady’… we had two Division Officers for a short stent.  We already had Ltjg. Meyers who was one hell of a guy… so why the second body??? That kinda sorts is one of those situations where the Navy had more Junior Officers than they knew what to do with so the Skipper stuck the new Ensign in a Division where he knew he couldn’t go wrong.

This fella was what the Zeros called the ‘George’ or the most junior Ensign on the ship… His name happened to be Ensign Hoorahan…  Yep you guessed it… kinda like Hot Lips Hoolahan on M.A.S.H.!!!  So as his new nickname went ‘Hot Lips Hoorahan!!!

Now as a Junior Sailor I had no real opinion of a Junior Officer as I was just a ‘nub’ in the Navy and had no real salt between the ears myself… and considering the fact these fellas had four years of college under their belt, I figured they couldn’t be all that bad… But put a Twenty-three year old with an English Major in charge of a couple of twenty year salty chiefs and have him tell e’m how things should be done and you might have a problem…

You see, with ‘Hot Lips’ there was a helluva lotta book smarts and not a guadamned bit of common sense.  That kind of business will get you absolutely nowhere in the real world of Navy deckplate politics.  And it won’t get you anywhere in the department of respect either…

At morning Quarters when Ensign Hoorahan was giving you that big Navy rah-rah speech, we could look over at the Chief to see if he had that, ‘this ass clown is blowing smoke up your ass’ look in his eyes!!!

Yep, he was your typical snot nosed Ensign with all the gaudamned answers.  I remember one particular underway just before hitting Subic Bay of the Philippines and the Division was about to be given a port brief down in ‘Gun Plot’…  Seems a few jokes went around the table about the iniquitous barmaids of Olongapo and ‘Hot Lips’ took offense to the whole damned idea… He stated something to the effect that we were to respect the Filipina women and he’d better not hear of any stories about his divisional personnel whoring the town… One of the fellas made a smart remark about them being legal prostitutes anyway and ‘Hot Lips’ threatened to put him on report for his so called ‘repugnantly racist and chauvinistic remarks if he ever heard them again’… or something to that effect…

Yeah, the fella was definitely a hot head full of steam who could turn on you in a nanosecond… had that happen on the way back from Naval Gun Fire Support Training at Coronado. We were riding together back to the ship when ‘Hot Lips’ spotted a big ol’ gal waiting at the front of the pier for one of our shipmates. He made a comment about her size and stature and that he’d hate to be the fella seen with that… considering I knew the fella she was dating I alleged it was GMSN Umpty Squat’s girlfriend and mentioned that he’s a black fella and he likes his women big!!! Ol’ ‘Hot Lips’ was fuming and shouted,

“I never want to hear you make such a racist remark ever again or I’ll have you at Captain’s Mast quicker than you can snap your fingers!!!”

Man I thought I was in deep doo-doo at that point... had Sir Mix-A-Lot's 'Baby Got Back' been out he might have understood…  as I tried to explain myself but he told me to drop it… end of discussion… he wanted to speak of it no more.  I later caught up with Ltjg Meyers to explain what happened as he told me not to worry… he explained that ‘Ensign Hoorahan’ was a bit high strung and he would take care of the situation… man I tell you it was like night and day between those two cats!!! 

It didn’t take a real long time before everyone in the Division took a disliking to ol’ ‘Hot Lips’…  Always very self-centered and thought of himself as superior in intelligence… after all he was an Officer!!!  I didn’t get to see it personally but there was a story about our GMC taking ‘Hot Lips’ into the Gun Mount and ripping into him something fierce with words of the sort uttered…

“ Been in this Gaudamn Navy since your Momma was wiping your ass and I don’t need some F@#king snot nosed Butter Bar telling me how to run my gaudamned Division so back off Ensign!”

Now I don’t know how true that was but it was definitely very explicative and undeniably confirmed by several of the Gun Monkeys from Mount 5’1…

Now some fifteen to twenty years later… I’ve dawned the ol’ Khaki uniform and lived to understand the complicated relationship between Junior Ensigns and Chiefs in the Navy!!  I’d also realized in my more enlightened years of reverence that certain things were more important than others… like ensuring anyone of the likes of Seaman, Recruit, and Apprentice should not have a lot of free time to lollygag on their hands… it always leads to bad things… as soon as possible get their happy asses into some really dirty grimy work right after quarters… this will keep the C.O.C. off your back and curb any real light hearted shenanigans in the name of fun… cause in today’s Navy good ole ‘Political Correctness will do you in!!!

I had also learned that a Chief cares deeply about his/her people… and the importance of being properly trained… and a good Chief will be a good mentor for that junior ‘Butter Bar’… if the situation allows of course… cause a good Ensign knows to listen to the sage advice of his senior personnel and beckons for prudent council rather than issuing out blind orders… 

Ironically I had several good Junior Officers to work with as a Chief and only one real dumbass who happened to be a full Lieutenant ‘flyboy dropout’ and practically untrainable… but that’s a different story for another tale!!! 

As a good Chief I always felt it was my responsibility to look out for that JO… it might be fun to let a jackass Ensign hangout to dry but I figure it would probably be a reflection of me as well to do so… and it probably wouldn’t get anybody anywhere.  Although I’ve got to admit there is some humor in the element of the inexperienced know-it-all who gets paid more for going to college but is too gaudamned incompetent to tie his shoe laces and doesn’t listen to his Chief then goes out and does something stupid to get his ass reamed… usually the guys will back up the Chief in this case… usually!! If not you’ll get what’s coming to ya!!!  

After all… you know what they say is one of the most dangerous things to hear in the Navy… ‘An Ensign who says,

“It’s been my experience that…”

But even more amusing is a Chief who says,

“If you thought that was funny, you gotta see this shit!!!”