"Customer Service???"

So here I am about to retire and I'm still dumbfounded by all the cockamamie brainless ideas the Navy comes up with in the event of change. I've got lots of silly stories about people being stupid in the name of professionalism but I swear I'd get better customer service from a bunch a gaudamn high school stoners in a Jack in the Box Drive thru than at Navy PSD!

Someday, some enlightened M.I.T. graduate will figure out how to modernize our Naval Institution without paying civilians to do in a week what a gaudamn seaman can do in fifteen minutes. With so many of them sons-a-bitches roaming our hallways the white hat will soon become extinct and end up transferred to the big lucky bag in the sky.

The Navy I knew is slowly being removed and replaced with ridiculous ideas that have no sense of tradition or reason... even if it is to save a few bucks. How the hell can you justify saving money to contract millions of dead presidents out to civilians when we've got the know how to do it ourselves!!!

Kids today must look at their rating badges and wonder why the damn thing doesn't say civilian subservient! Same Navy, same location, but like everything else in the government, the idiot bastards filled it full of bureaucracy for some dumb reason known only to God and some rich retired fat ass admiral with a made up billet so he can sit around gett'n his coffee cup filled by an E-3 yeoman!!

It's depressing, boys and girls… No, it's worse than that. It's the legacy we are leaving future generations. They will never know the pride we had in what once was.

I'd already seen the senseless debauchery at work while on shore duty with all the gaudamn Base Realignment and Closures (BRAC)!! With the transfer of authority from one hand to the other our facility was placed under the control of someone three states away with no gaudamn concern for our welfare. All our support was pulled from the local base in the name of the all mighty dollar!! That retired Admiral sitt'n on his ass drinking coffee & bullshitt'n about noth'n use to audit our records once a month. But now he doesn't have to because we don't fall under his cognizance... I mean what gaudamn difference does it make? We're all gett'n paid by big Navy anyway...so what sense does it make to fly someone up from San Dog to audit our records once a month...Do you follow what I'm say'n???

So three weeks ago I tried call'n five different numbers to set up a simple appointment to finish my paperwork for retirement!! Not asking a lot in the large scale of things you wouldn't think! But I couldn't get the answers I was look'n for over the phone so I walked my happy ass over yonder to accomplish a littany of deeds prior to hang'n my hat!!! Wouldn't it figure the most junior E-1 straight outta bootcamp is at the front desk running things! Not a gaudamn Chief in sight! Maybe anchor to anchor I might have gotten some real service... To every question I threw at her she had to take a trip to the back of the office to ask someone else. Finally I got an appointment for 1330 on a Thursday the following week.

Well I shit you not...the following week I show up at 1245 and they don't have me scheduled for an appointment. The young man at the front desk walks me back to talk to some gaudamn civilian who gave me the airman salute and told me I'd have to call Petty Officer "Who Gives A Shit" in the morning to reschedule! No apologies, explanations, not even a reasonable excuse... just a proverbial screw you and try again later kinda thing!!

So I call Petty Officer "Who Gives A Shit" at 0800 the next morning and he gives me a laundry list of things to bring with an appointment date a week out in advance, so I thought to myself,

"I'd better not show up with another proverbial screw you or I'll be stick'n my foot up someone's proverbial ass!!"

So the day comes and I show up with a stack of papers in hand accompanied with my medical & dental records ready to rock-n-roll!! Petty Officer "Who Gives A Shit" verifies my paperwork and says,

"Chief, We'll schedule you for another appointment at 1300 on Thursday, three days from now."

...like he's doing me a gaudamn favor!!! So I ask him,

"What the hell was this appointment?? An appointment to make an appointment???"

He told me he guess's so if I want to look at it that way!! I mean does anyone besides me see a gaudamn problem with this? 22 Years in this gaudamn canoe club and this is the service I get??

Another fella I work with went to PSD to get his kiddos signed up for the New "911 GI Bill"... They tell his sorry ass he had to re-enlist for two years to be eligible. So he does what he's told. Then they tell him,

"Oh, you have to extend for six more months in order to qualify!"

That's two years and six months now, so he does what he's told!!! Then they tell him,

"Oh we're sorry, but your rate is overmanned so you have to get a waiver to extend!"

He's got two weeks to do this before his extension will be no good! So our Senior Enlisted Advisor had to call some "Great Master Chief in the Sky" up at personnel headquarters in Millington, Tennessee to get the job done!! Talk about jump'n through hoops!!! So this fella goes into PSD with all his paperwork in a row jump'n through every hoop they've put out and PN1 says,

"I can't grant your extension or the waiver because BUPERSINSTRUCTION umpty squat says something or rather about you not being able to do that."

Really??? I mean "WTF" Over' !!!

Finally some civilian "from somewhere in the back" told PN1 to enter his waiver into his record because that's what it's for!!! So PN1 reluctantly sat down smashing his fingers into the keyboard obviously pissed off because he had to do his gaudamn job!!! Is this a sign of what our young sailors are looking forward too?

US Navy Manual for Customer Service NavedTra 14056 states:

no matter how simple or unimportant you consider a request, the customer depends upon you to provide a service. Answering a question or looking up information may require a little effort on your part, but the extra effort is a mark of good service. As stated earlier in this manual, customers usually have only one place they can go for a particular service.

But that's not what I'm seeing!

Another fella told me the first person on the base he talked to was a civilian at PSD. He sat down at his desk and was handed a pile of papers & pen and pointed to a table across the room to sit and fill it out. Not a "Hello" or "Welcome Aboard", just a stack of papers & pen, and a finger extended across the room. While he filled out the papers he came across a voluntary extension of service. He didn't fill this out but put it aside while he finished the others. Upon turning in the paperwork the civilian thumbed through the papers and noticed he didn't sign the extension papers.

He put the voluntary extension in front of the sailor and told him he needed to fill it out. Those were the first words that he spoke. The sailor refused. The civilian said he couldn't refuse because he had accepted orders that required a 24 month commitment. The sailor said he wouldn't do it. He said it was a voluntary extension and that if he had to fill it out, it was "INVOLUNTARY."

Next, the civilian threatened to send the sailor back to his previous command. He told the civilian to go ahead and do that if he wanted to. Of course, he had been one the last people to leave his last boat after it was decommissioned. In the end, the sailor was assigned to his appointed place of duty and the civilian lost out. Needless to say the sailor decided to reenlist a year later...it was all based on principle!

US Navy Manual for Customer Service NavedTra 14056 also states:

“Speaking down” implies that you consider the customer to be less than your equal. That attitude may make the customer feel that the service you provide is less than your best.

So I ask..."Why can't we follow our own Gaudamn Rules in customer service?? I suppose we as the customer are there to serve them!!!

"Stink'n Snipes”

The Good Book says God created the Earth and the Heavens in six days and that he & a couple of his minions celebrated with a few cold brewskies and a pack of Marlboros on the Seventh Day! Creation must’ve been like a Gordian Knot so they were probably on liberty every night at the local watering hole gett’n liquored up so it’s no wonder they turned out things like, giraffes, Long-nosed Proboscis Monkeys, Blob Fish & the Duck-Billed Platypuses. They had to been piss’n in the wind drunk when they conjured together that kind of Primordial Soup.

Late on the Sixth day the Ol’ Man created Snipes! He must’ve been so tanker’d he had no idea what he was gett’n himself into! Nobody would have created a Snipe on purpose…

First an explanation is needed. Navy Snipes are the members of the engineering crew aboard big grey hulky Navy ships. This includes the Engine room, Fire room, Auxiliary, Electrical crews & any other stink’n smelly ‘Bilge Rats!’

Around the War of 1812 the Navy acquired their first steam ships. To run the sons-a-bitches required not sailors but engineers from early land based steam engines. As I figure, sailors didn’t take kindly to these landlubbers as part of the crew. So the crew was divided into Deckhands and Engineers. Deck Sailors reported to the Ship’s Master while Engineers reported to the Engine Master. But due to the fact the Ship’s Master controlled all quarters & rations the Engineers got the shitty end of the ol’ stick! Because Engineers were considered second hand to the deck crew, they could be flogged & harassed at will by the Ship’s Master.

That was until a feller by the name of John Snipes. This quick witted son-of-a-bitch was a different cut from all the others. He demanded sleeping accommodations, and food equal to the Deck crew. He also declared no more harassment for his gang. When the Skipper laughed, Snipes simply had his men put out the fires in the boiler. To make a long story short, Snipes brought about changes in the system. In time these changes extended to all that are haze grey and underway! The Engineers became ‘hands off’ to the Deck hands. They became known as Snipe's men and over the years just ‘Snipes.’

Relatively new to the Rainier in March o’ 94’ and not a lot of ship’s company yet onboard there weren’t a lot of good ol’ buddy ol’ pals to hang out with. I didn’t know anyone and it was like starting a’ new. I was quickly befriended by one of these Snipes, GSM2 Bobby Tettleton. I think that drunk ol’ Man upstairs said,

“I'll create a Snipe & name him 'Bobby Tettleton' and turn the son-of-a-bitch loose on one of those Navy ships just to see what happens."

He was one of them seventh fleet sailors who’d spent his career in Japan and all he could talk about was how much better they had it over there. If you look up 'totally worthless bastard' in any dictionary’ you’d probably find Tettleton! Then again, I’ve never been accused of being a good candidate for saint hood myself. Hang’n out with Tettleton there was always something of consistency. It was always a gaudamn drunk fest. He was one of them kind of fellas that always had the need to prove he could drink everyone under the table.

Well, Tettleton took a lik’n to me and told me even though I might be a fresh air ‘Twidget’ I could consider myself an honorary snipe beings how I could drink with the rest of em!’

“Ever since you made me an honorary snipe, my I.Q. has dropped fifty points and I've been doing stupid shit like piss’n off the pier & wink’n at transvestites!”

Yep, anyone who’s been on a hulky grey Navy ship recognizes the greasy ‘Snipe’ in the chow line! They were the crazy ‘Bilge Rat’ bastards with sweat-soaked stink’n coveralls & greasy rags hang’n from their pockets always up to their eyeballs in grease & lube oil from bad tempered machinery and just being hardworking sons-a-bitches while mak’n the ship do what it was made to do! All the while dream’n about big-tittied women scratch’n their backs in the places they can't reach, with a cold brewski or a bottle o’ rum wait’n just for him!!

Gotta' love these hardy bastards... the whole lot of 'em... always work'n hard & play'n hard... cause that's what they do!!!

'How Yodeling Began'

Have you ever wondered where and how yodeling began?

Many years ago a young seaman was traveling on leave through the mountains of Switzerland while his ship was docked in Italy!

Nightfall was rapidly approaching and he had nowhere to sleep! He went up to a farmhouse and asked this farmer if he might have a place to spend the night!! The farmer told him that he could sleep in the barn!!!

As the story goes, the farmer's daughter came down from upstairs and asked her father…

"Who was that man going into the barn?"

"That's some young sailor fellow traveling through far from home,"

… said the farmer...

"He needed a place to stay for the night, so I said that he could sleep in the barn!

The daughter said…

"Perhaps he is hungry!"

So she prepared him a plate of food and took it out to the barn. About an hour later, the daughter returned with her clothing disheveled and straw in her hair... Straight up to bed she went!!!

The farmer's wife was very observant... She then suggested that perhaps the man was thirsty! So she fetched a bottle of wine, took it out to the barn, and she too did not return for some time!! Her clothing was askew, her blouse buttoned incorrectly and her hair all messed up... She also headed straight to bed!!!

The next morning at sunrise the young seaman in the barn got up and continued on his journey, waving to the farmer as he left! When the daughter awoke and learned that the visitor was gone, she broke into tears...

"How could he leave without even saying good-bye?"

… she cried…

 "After we made such passionate love last night?"

"What?"

… shouted the farmer, and angrily ran out of the house looking for the man, who by now was halfway up the mountain! The farmer screamed up at him…

"I'm gonna get you! You had sex with my daughter!"

The seaman looked back down from the mountainside, cupped his hand next to his mouth, and yelled out…

"ILAIDTHEOLADEETOO…!"

And that my friends is how yodeling began...!!!

“More Pranks and Fools Errands”

If you never were enlisted in the good ol’ boy Navy then you missed out on some special times never intended for the likes of sissies and gutless wankers without a backbone. I've somehow managed to reach the ripe tenure of Navy retirement age in this ol’ canoe club without being lynched, keelhauled, dunked from a yard arm, marooned on a beach head, tarred and feathered or sold into slavery for my litany of misdeeds! If you consider some of the sailors and rascals I ran with, that has to make me a one of a kind!

In my glorious youth as a sailor I’ve been witness to a myriad of transgressions that would make most any pirate gaudamn proud in his own right. I haven’t the foggiest notion on where to begin this tale so I’ll start from the forecastle and work my way down to the fantail. Let’s run amuck shall we?

Anyone ever heard of the Mail Buoy Watch? One of the oldest tricks in the book next to the batteries for the sound powered phones…usually plays out with some gullable rookie greenhorn on the forecastle his first underway! Poor fella stands out in the rain and high winds look’n for a buoy so he can retrieve said mail for the crew! Everyone knows how important the mail is underway!!!

Up forward below the forcastle there was a tiny self-governing lil’ place known as the 'bos’n locker'. It was ruled by a senior Deck Ape and inhabited by a raggety-ass group of scoundrels known as deck hands. Its seclusion was insured by its inaccessibility from any other parts of the ship. No one without a bos’n whistle or a chipping hammer ever had a purpose or desire to loiter in such a wretched place. I’m figuring the ‘bos’n locker’ was sacred so long as some sorry land lubber didn’t escape from a well secured tie down of a bos’n knot. Ya didn’t wanna be the victim of a training session while BM1 was giving deckhand training to his gang of scoundrels…..it gives a hole new meaning to being hog tied!!

On the bridge sometimes a senior space cadet seaman might send another to tell the OOD we’ve spotted a few ‘CGU-11s’ (seagulls) on the horizon. Some JOODs will fall for this as well…considering they’re usually butter bar Ensigns who are still wet behind the ears. Another one that might get the ship’s QMC a little heated would be to send someone to the bridge for a PRKY-7 (Prick E-7)! Most will refer the young fella to the QMC who will give him a tongue lashing from hell!! Do you remember that “Double A”?? Yeah, I sent his ass up there…..I knew you were on watch!! He-he!!

I'm sure if you ever came up to CIC you got a glimpse of the ‘DRT snake’!! In some cases it might have been referred to as the ‘DRT Worm.’ He-he… When a new fella would get shown around the ship we had a piece of equipment back in the day called the Dead Reckoning Tracer (DRT). It was essentially a table with a glass top and a hollow interior with a light where the ship’s gyro gave inputs for course and speed changes. A side panel would be opened and the poor sap would bend down and look inside. Mean while our illustrious tour guide would whip out his cobra commander into the open interior and watch as the new fella shrieked in horror while leaping backwards as though it was gonna bite’m! It’s a classic maneuver I believe was taught some place called OS ‘A’ School somewhere in Virginia…

In the berthing compartments ol’ salts can be like cannibals eating their young! Yes, watching these ol’ coots teach us how to trice up racks and stuff young’ns into the laundry bin was always a treat. I remember a few times tricing up a young sailor into his rack and duct taping his sorry ass so he couldn’t get out until someone cut him down. That sorry son-of-a-bitch could be in there for hours. One of my favorites was dousing some poor son-of-a-bitches white sheets with some fine ‘bug juice’ powder! That would be Kool aid to all you land lubbers! When the sorry fella’ starts to sweat in his rack……ooooh it makes funny shapes & designs allover his gaudamn sheets! Talk about a pissed off sailor... with horns!!

Then there are the Mess Deck Follies! This is a great place to send a fella for a bucket of steam. On one particular cruise one of the A-gangers was crank’n and decided to tactically place an unused condom into the vat of vanilla pudding on the serving line. He pushed it down into the bowl so it couldn't be seen. A few scoops later and ‘Presto’!! That son-of-a-bitch caused quite a riot!! Thank Neptunis Rex he never got caught…..but we knew who did it!!

The Engineers on a ship are always ready to have some fun. Send that poor fella’ down to the Central Control Room (CCS) to blow the MPA! That would be Main Propulsion Assistant… usually an LDO or CWO ol’ salt who’s been around a while!!

“So you wanna be funny do ya?” … as he unzips his fly!! “Who sent your ass down here? Tell them they need to come blow the MPA because they’re good at it!”

I’ve even heard where the poor SAP involved was sent down to Engineering with a bag of laundry to ask for the ‘CHENG’ to do his laundry for him…..that would be the Chief Engineer!! Doesn’t usually bode well for the young fella!

What about the flight deck? Never mess with those airdales when they’re trying to take care of the helos! You might just get sent down to supply for some good ol’ prop wash! Or what about 100 ft of flight line? These guys have their own set of pranks to pull….and they’re all good ones!!

The fantail is kinda the back porch of your float’n oasis away from home! It’s here where sailors came off watch to smoke a cigarette and tell a no shitter!! It’s the place where we could relax our guard and talk about that transvestite seaman Johnny was smootch’n with at our last liberty port! This was the place to witness a glorious sunset or watch the rooster tail as the ship was at full flank! It was also a good place for Chief to deliver a good ass chewing….As you can see, not a lot of pranks were pulled on the fantail. This was kind of a sacred place… but it was also funnier than shit to watch some poor fella tripping over the bollards in the dead of night trying to make his way out to the smoke pit!!

The last place you wanted to be pranked on was in the head. The smell of the shitters could do wanders to a young lad prone to sea sickness! Gett’n one of those fellas to stand over the shitter and continuously flush it until the swirls change direction while crossing the equator was a classic.

“Let us know when it changes direction so we can start the ceremonies!!”

This was usually done with one of the squeamish fellas who didn’t want to partake in the ‘WOG DAY’ ceremonies! He would get his… one way or the other! Then of course was the ‘Mad Shitter’!! Nothing worse than walking into the shower at 0500 hours after reveille to be greeted by a hot steamy turd in the shower! Happened all the time on the good ol’ RAINIER!!

Yep, over the years I was probably involved in every knot-head prank and foolish stunt that took place! (But I wasn’t the Mad Shitter) …We were young and dumb but the memories are still a lot of fun! Can you still remember????

‘L-O-L-A Moment’

Okay… I was gonna save this for the book but I’ve been on page 300 for over a year now and don’t rightfully know if I’ll ever get the damned thing finished!!! 

There are a lot of captured moments in the life of a Sea going ‘Crackerjack’… sometimes a familiar scent… a quick glimpse of déjà vu… or a song might bring back a memory that you either cherish or in some cases wish to forget…

I was sitt’n at the bar with my wife and her sister the other night as we came across an ol’ tune from the ‘Kinks’    L-O-L-A… L-L-L-Lola

I thought to myself… “I had a Lola moment once… Now I don’t hide things from my wife and she’s fully aware of these instances. So when I talk about these parts of my historical recollections sometimes she cringes but it was what it was and… well… you judge for yourself…

The song starts off about meeting this gal in a club where you drink champagne as she asked you to dance… now in my case the gal was built like a metric blonde with tits that’d knock out Mike Tyson…  and she said dear boy won’t you come home with me…

I believe it was December of 1988 and I had been on the ‘Baglady’ for little over a month… FC3 Beaver invited me out for a few beers at the Petty Officer Lounge (later known as the Sports Bar) so I agreed! I hadn’t been there for more than fifteen minutes and there was this beautiful blonde across the bar staring at me… Remember the Motley Crue song…  Same-Ole- Situation  ??? Well, she was built like that blonde in that video… Looked like she came straight out of a nudie magazine!! Should’a known something was fishy cause I felt like I was way outta my league… besides, what the hell was she doing hang’n out in a Sailor Bar anyways…

As the song goes…  I’m not the world’s most passionate guy but when I looked in her eyes well I almost fell for my Lola … I my case it was the cleavage that separated those lovely bodacious pillows on her chest!!! 

So we danced and played and kissed and had a heck of a time until the night got old and the bar was ready to close… Then she invited me along to the Denny’s on 24^th street in ‘Nasty City’!!!  So off we went and after the customary coffee and social plight she asked me if I’d like to head out to her house…  being the ‘Crackerjack’ sailor I was meant to be I quickly obliged and off we went deep into the heart of Chula Vista… Well before we even had a chance to get outta the car things were gett’n pretty hot & heavy. At twenty years old I wasn’t wait’n for the goods… I wanted them now and fully intended on gett’n what I wanted.  At first she pushed my hand away as I’d reach down between her legs… but before I knew it…  Well I’m not the world’s most masculine man but I know what I am and I’m glad I’m a man… and so is Lola, L-L-Lola, L-L-Lola …

Remember that seen from ‘Ace Ventura… Pet Detective’… Ace finds out that Lieutenant Einhorn is actually a man??? Showers vigorously scrubbing his mouth with soap and a loofa’!?!?!?  Yeah… Been there done that!!! 

Oh man oh man… All I wanted was a little pleasure well maybe not a little… I was seeking the full max amount of pleasure… but not that way damnit!!!

I go out and meet what I thought was one of the hottest chicks I’d ever met and I get that hide the weenie bullshit!!!  I mean… I’ve laid witness to some pretty crazy shit in my time but grunt’n & slurp’n with a gender confused Swiss Army knife ten-in-one gadget girl is not my sort’a fun… if you know what I mean!!! 

Having maintained an erection of Pr-epic proportions for the past several hours I’d realized I almost had full on sex with a Aphrodite hermaphrodite whose tongue had been down my throat and hand up along my… you can imagine… offering pleasure beyond my imagination… I was so damned confused I couldn’t make heads from tells…

I jumped back with eyes wide-open,

“I’m sorry but I’m not that kinda guy!!!”

And walked all the way back to the San Diego Trolley ball’n my eyes out!!!  I mean ‘Holy Shitballs… what would you do???

I believe I suffered ‘Honest to God’ Post Traumatic Stress for a good three months before I told anybody about that situation… FC3 Beaver had to ask…

“Hey Swinger’, whatever happened to that sweet ass blonde you met that night? She was hot as hell!!!”

“Beaver… you don’t wanna know… just leave it alone..”

“Oooh, come on!! You gotta tell us… she was someth’n else!!”

So there it was… and I finally let the cat outta the bag!!! Fear’n my fellow shipmates might disown me or think I was kinda sweet or something… I was pleasantly surprised at how well they took it!!! They actually helped me get through that ugly situation… after all what are shipmates for???

Yeah, I know it’s pretty hairy… I was wait’n for socially unacceptable comments, wise-ass remarks and verbalized stupidity… but somehow my shipmates made the situation all okay… and that’s what being a ‘Crackerjack’ was all about…

“People ‘Are Crazy”

Sea Stories are a one of a kind place in the chronicles of scribbled down tales of an ol’ salt’s memories! They’re based on facts or lack there of that are proclaimed in a lexicon only us Crackerjacks can fancy with dingy ol’ dungarees and phrases and acronyms only we can savvy! They involve the likes of scallywags and iniquitous barmaids in situations only those of us who dwelled in their likings can fully appreciate.

Well, today while driving into work I heard a good ol’ boy country song by Billy Currington called “People Are Crazy” and I thought to myself,

“The only other thing in life that remotely resembles sailors swapping sea stories would be me and that ol’ man at the bar hav’n us some beers and swapp’n I don’t cares talk’n politics, blonde & redhead chics, old dogs and new tricks, & habits we ain’t kicked”… and on and on as the ol’ song goes!

An ol’ chambray wear'n goat once said the crafting of sea stories never involves outright lying…the proper term is 'truth manipulation'. All truth is pliable…like plastic. God made plastic truth so that Crackerjacks can fashion yarns that entertain men who spend a lot of time broke, drinking beer and sniffing barmaid perfume.

That ol’ Goat couldn’t have been closer to the truth in these wise ol’ words of wisdom!

So as I sat and pondered the thought of talking about Gods grace, and the hell we raised and the ol’ man say’n “God is great, beer is good, and people are crazy” I couldn’t help but to sit and reminisce about all those memories and the women we loved and hated and all the places that amazed me!

Though that ol’ man in my scribbl’n surely ain’t no gaudamn millionaire and I didn’t end up with a pocket full o’ loot… my treasures are pretty gaudamn precious to say the least. They’d be riddled with drunken tales of a girl at every port and the debauchery and mayhem that a few young swashbuckl’n mates could manage to provoke in one night of liberty across the seven seas.

I joined the Navy to experience more than my teenage sexual angst and less tolerant routine of high school gynecology and took skill in a world of professional swashbuckl’n rum swilling swabbies indoctrinated in the flesh of carnal knowledge and original sin! Fueled on pure testosterone and cheap whisky I’d touched the far corners of the Earth and experienced the life that many can only dream of!

From the knaves and harlots of Thailand to the barmaids of Subic Bay and the inglorious animals on deck of ol’ gray Navy ships we’ve all weaved stories and tales that outta make Mark Twain twitch in his grave. I consider myself fortunate to have been touched by romantic times of grungy ol’ white hats with lucky strikes rolled up in our shirt sleeves, with Playboy pinups in every locker and plenty of foolish pranks to go ‘round.

I think I’ve met Barnacle Bill the Sailor and a few others as well in the likes of McHale’s Navy! I’ve been to Skippy’s Mast on a few occasions and lost a stripe or two here and there and have plenty to show for it. Life’s lessons are the mistakes we called experience back in the day and I’ll be damned if we weren’t force to swallow it down like Castrol oil! That was how we learned back then. Now everyone’s expected to have their smarts about ‘em before they even set foot on deck of one these multi-billion dollar yachts!

Chief Cavanaugh’s ol’ saying about hoot’n with the Owls at night and soaring with the Eagles in the morn’n just don’t add up in today’s Navy. Hell if you’re old enough to get shot at why can’t you down a swig o’ whiskey? That’s how it used to be! Hell they use to service the young lads at the ripe age of eighteen on base now you get your walk’n papers for drink’n that early. What ever happened to liquid lunches anyway? We’ve gone absolutely berserk in this ‘Right Spirit-Alcohol Deglamorization’ horse crap PC’ World… Hell, the drunken sailor bit with a gal in every port was what we joined for…that’s where the fun was at!

And we used to look out for one another too! Nowadays look’n out for one another means ratt’n out a shipmate so you can move up in the world. I always thought that showed a lack of self esteem! Hell, my Chief told me once that if he had to hear about it then we must not be doing our jobs right. It was up to us to put him out of a job. Nowadays, the Chief had better know about it and his ass will get hemmed up as well for not keeping it from happening in the first place. What ever happened to the fraternity of brotherhood amongst swabbies? Turned us into a bunch of gaudamned boyscouts…and look what happened to them. No wonder the sorry louts’ in today’s society are so gaudamned confused! Buncha’ poor sons-a-bitches aren’t even comfortable with their own set of twigs & berries! Next thing you know we’ll be making concessions for those who fornicate with dogs!! Sheeeesh!!!!

Well I’m sure your all tired of hear’n me rant about all that mess! I’ll just carry on with my reminiscence of days gone past. At least I can be comfortable there with my manhood!