Remember the ones? The Snot Nosed Arrogant Elitist bastards who held the rank of Officer?? Not all of them mind you… bout’ 70% of em’ were okay by me… but there’s always the ones that really got my goat if you know what I mean… Lord Farquaad comes to mind…
Lord Farquaad was the main bad guy… antagonist villain in the original Shrek movie!! Short in stature, ruthless to the point of expecting everyone to kiss his ass and lived in a towering castle to compensate for what he lacked in stature!!!
That about sums up Lord Lieutenant Farquaad Martinez II back on the mighty MOMSEN… I think it was Chief Ryan who gave him that name. Heath Ryan was a rather large man… Six Foot’ Four, Two Hundred Eighty Pounds of large man!!! The kinda man you wanted on your side in a bar fight!!! He also slept above me on the top rack in Chief’s berthing… It took me four years to be certain the pop rivets in the bunk weren’t gonna pop-out and I’d have Two Hundred Eighty pounds of Baby Huey crushing down on me when the sonar dome hit that perfect wave, but once again… I regress
Heath Ryan enjoyed nothing better than giving that son-of-a-bitch a good heckl'n when chance revealed itself. He said Martinez must’ve been one of them nerds who got beat up a lot in school so now he got off on the power and authority of wearing the officer uniform!!!
I gotta tell ya, he looked pretty gaudamned ridiculous in his dress whites… put that combo cover on his head with the ol’ officer crest and he looked like he was gonna tip over!!!
Then the movie ‘Team America’ came out… one of the damned funniest flicks you’d ever seen! Low and behold, Lord Farquaad got a new nickname… ‘Kim Jong-il’… the villain who supplied all terrorists alike with weapons of mass destruction, and his supporting cast from the Film Acters Guild (FAG)!!!
“How wuu wike me now Team Chief Mess! All enwisted peopowe incwooding Chiefs can kiss my ass… I am WEPS and I have Weapons of Mass Distwuction!!!”
Don’t get me wrong, it’s not officers I necessarily disliked, I think they hold a vital role in the Navy… from the past to the future… but that gaudamned ‘holier than though I’m better than you attitude was what most of us couldn’t stand…
Lord Farquaad Kim Jong-Il Martinez II was the epitome of this type… always look’n down his nose, holding everything we said in disdain, and condescending to the bone… always questioning us with intensity never giving us any benefit of the doubt!!!
I don’t know who the son-of-a-bitch was that mentored this asshole but he was definitely a monster in the making! It was quite evident this fella’s only concern in life was for himself!! He was a smug kinda man who’s rank was his only way to achieve respect, and couldn’t just leave it at the job…
Hell even the Wardroom had contempt for him… our whole department was the joke of the ship thanks to this guy… on a destroyer… the Weapons Department!?!? We couldn’t get a break in edge-wise!!!
He could never back his Chiefs and treated just about all ‘Chits’ like some kind’a ‘declaration of mutiny’… that was about the end of it for me. One of my young'ns ran a request chit to go on leave and after about three or four days I went to hunt the son-of-a-bitch down where all roads ended at the Weps Stateroom. He swore he never got the chit and tried to keep the young fella from going on leave because I wouldn’t be able to get a new one ran up the chain fast enough… so I personally walked the damned thing up to the CO!!!
He wasn’t too happy about that… but that was about his speed…
I guess Core Values were shitcanned in this guy’s indoctrination into officerhood. So needless to say, he made no friends and plenty of enemies with the crew…
This is an important theme to my story here as you will find out…
You see Lord Farquaad Kim Jong-il Martinez II had a bad habit of nodding-off on watch late at night… sometimes we’d play pin the tail on the backside of the TAO… “Kiss me if you feel lucky” or “Kick me in the Jimmy” and even the gaudamned Watch Officer would get in on it…
So there we were on the midwatch underway in CIC… attention on deck was called as the Skipper came through the port entrance and Weps was the TAO on watch… the eyes and ears of all things tactical and important to the purpose of our existence underway!!! Lord Farquaad Kim Jong-il Martinez II was out cold at the TAO console… as the Skipper just stood over him for about ten seconds waiting for him to awake…
Needless to say the ol’ Skipper was not so well amused… ‘woke his ass up’ and asked to meet him in his cabin when he’s more alert from his slumber. Boy, Lord Farquaad Kim Jong-il Martinez had his tail between his legs at that point!!!
When he came back from his ass chewing he says,
“Why didn’t anybody let me know? I can’t believe you guys let me down like that!!”
Well Mr. WEPS, if you had a little more tact and courtesy towards your subordinates and didn’t’ treat’m like stepping stones for your own devices… you might get treated in kind… never gonna get anywhere in this Navy with ‘bullying and browbeating’!!!
Kind’a reminds me of an ol’ joke I once heard…
Officer: “Hey Shipmate, do you have change for a dollar?”
Sailor: “Sure do buddy!”
Officer: “That’s no way to address an officer! Now let’s try it again!”
Officer: “Shipmate, do you have change for a dollar?”
Sailor: “No SIR!!!”
VERY well put, Shipmate! I think that all of us salts had at least one "Farquad" aboard, and it is a VERY fresh breath of salt air hearing that at least ONE got what he/she deserved!
ReplyDeleteReminds me of LCDR Elkins on the California. The new skipper didn't think much of him. When he got a Navy Achievement medal (from lots of kiss ass to the previous C.O.) the new C.O. presented it to him at morning quarters in the wardroom. He told him to hold out his hand and dropped the medal into it in front of everyone. The the C.O. says "see, there is a Santa Clause isn't there?"
ReplyDeleteReminds me of the Weapons Officer on the Schofield. If you didn't wear khakis you were not to be trusted or awarded for anything.
ReplyDeleteA prime example of "leadership by example" proved itself to me when we were unfortunate enough to have Lord Farquad as the CO on one of the ships I was assigned to... that particular ship had an overabundance of junior farquads as a result, and crew morale suffered for it. The primary reason I did not re-enlist for a third stretch was the fear of having such a CO again, because if we did go into harm's way the attitude that people like him embraced would have probably killed allot of good men.
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