Ya’ll remember don’t ya?!?
…Followed by the hurried racket & pandemonium of dozens of boondockers hitt’n the ladder wells and the unquestionable thud of watertight hatches and doors as the ol’ grey lady turned into a floating mechanized menace of war! Only thing that comes close… Yell’n ‘Male On Deck’ while walk’n into a modern day shower party shindig in the female head!!
Man I got so gaudamned burned out from them there drills! You know what they say…
“Drill 99.9% of the time for the .1% chance something might happen!”
I think the concept was conceived… developed… and given birth head first by the Department of Redundancies Department somewhere in the middle of that there Pentagon building! ‘The beatings will continue until morale improves’… that is, they do what they do through relentless repetition ‘til you dream that shit under your eyelids… or your eyes start bleed’n… whichever comes first!!
Take my first ship the ‘Baglady’… the more we drilled it seemed the worse we got… as Mr. Meyers would say…
“Much work remains to be done before we can announce our total failure to make any progress!”
That was before we failed that first ‘REFTRA’ in the summer of 89’!
I ain’t shitt’n nobody when I say it seemed as though every time you’d get up to grab a smoke… take a shit… or try to catch an after dinner nooner…
‘BONG… BONG… BONG…
There goes the alarm again! It was enough to drive a grown man stark raving batshit!! I can still recall climbing outta my rack still half asleep gett’n football tackled while try’n to put my boots on… ‘Gangway’… bodies hurdling up and over in every which direction…
“Don’t stop to dress out just haul your ass down the alleyway!”
I can still remember those sweet dreams of ‘Suzie Rotten Crotch’ smell’n so sweet & sexy in her laced panties while try’n to do the horizontal mambo…
‘BONG… BONG… BONG…
Sleeping in a top bunk I’d damn near rip my scalp off on one of them damned pipe brackets six inches above my head and put me in a coma so long when I came too my civvies would be outta style! And that speaker box two feet away was sooo gaudamned loud if felt like the earwax was gonna shoot straight outta my ears!! And I’d be so damned confused I didn’t know rather to wind my ass or scratch my watch!!!
Then there were the times sitt’n on the shitter with a nekkit gurlie magazine harder than a woodpeckers lips… to read the articles of course…
‘BONG… BONG… BONG…
… And some disturbed Chief would come strut’n in…
“Let’s make like a turd and hit the trail… in other words shit and get off the pot!”
“Man this place is so in tune with dynamic harmony… it sucks as much as it blows!”
“Swing… pull yourself away from the titties and put away the magazine!”
“But Chief… First I gotta make the bald man cry!”
“Hey… if I don’t see Admiral Browning in their then the Seamen can’t take no Shore Leave… so put away that tiny garden hose and let’s go man a fire hose!”
“But Chief it’s not fair… it’s five against one and Rosie is call’n the shots!”
“Gaudamn it Swing… it’s time to NUT-UP or SHUT-UP!!”
Yeah… no matter how hard the command would beat us down… I was still able to get it up!! But if you really were dropp’n the deuce?!?
‘BONG… BONG… BONG…
… Forcing out a dump… several farts slipp’n out at a .50 caliber machine gun pace… and a face full of animated expressions!! Forget the courtesy flush… You Gotta Get To Your Battle Stations!!!
There you go putt’n on the battle dress in an area the size of a sardine can with four or five other nutty sons-a-bitches…
Just to spare the awkwardness…here’s my anal announcement… RRRRRRRRRRIPP!!!”
“Let’r Rip Taterchip!”
Yessss… a real room clearer… unless of course you were pinch’n a loaf when you left the head… then your sitt’n there with a turtle head pok’n out…
“Chief when can I go use the head… I really gotta finish that aborted dump!”
“How about never… Is never good enough for you!?”
By the time the drill was secured and Zebra Set…. The shitters looked like they’d been occupied by a pack of baby chimpanzees in the zoo!!!
Or being in the ‘Rain Locker’ when the drill goes down… Usually the power goes out before the ‘BONG… BONG… BONG… and like a blind man at an orgie you gotta feel your way around hoping to hell & high water you don’t grab the wrong knob on the way out the door! This is when accuracy and attention to detail are of the utmost importance!! Now you’d think being in the Navy I’d know the ins & outs of showers… you know ‘Soap on a Rope’ and all… but this wasn’t the time to be rubb’n one off just because the lights are off… cause they come on again real fast!!
“I see you’ve set aside this special time to humiliate yourself again in public Swing!”
“Yes Sir… this is gonna be another one of those jump through your ass-ex situations!”
Or what about one of them situations where you were in the middle of the chow line filling your glass of bug juice or just sitt’n down…
‘BONG… BONG… BONG…
“What the hell is the Ol’ man running GQ at this time for?!”
Yep… it could really make a gaggle of ‘Crackerjacks’ full of piss & vinegar! Watching everybody drop everything all at once bitch’n & complain’n…
“Gaudamn it… I’m soo hungry I could eat the balls off a low fly’n duck!”
“Yeah… well I’m sooo hungry I’m about to fall through my asshole and hang myself!!”
“Well… I’m so freak’n hungry I could eat the ass of a rabid skunk!!!”
… “And I’m so Hungry I could crawl up a pigs ass and eat a ham sandwich!”
Hahaha… those crazy ass Crackerjack Squids… always made the time more meaningful!!!
And when the drills were over and all was settled down… it was time to clean up the clusterfuck left before the Three Ring Circus came to town! Footprints track’n through the still fresh paintjob on the unsecured weatherdecks… clean’n the shit paper Cesspool in the head… swabb’n up the water left behind by Repair Three… or clean’n up the standing food that’s found its way on the deck & bulkhead in the galley and the mess!! Yeah… try gett’n help with that! It’s about as easy as herding chickens!!!
Yep… the ‘BONG… BONG… BONG… down & aft port… up and forward starboard or you might find yourself on your ass was just a part of life for us Crackerjacks traveling at two miles an hour under the speed of light! It’s no wonder after twenty plus years of that shit we all start look’n like an orthopedic rehab convention every time we get together!!
A wise man once told me…
“Don’t ever be the first… don’t ever be the last… and never volunteer for anything!”
Funny I was too busy gett’n a knot jerked into my ass! They say you learn from your mistakes… I guess that’s why I was making so damned many at an early age… so I could grow up and be a F#ck’n Genius!! Lord knows I had trouble count’n my balls twice and com’n up with the same number!!
At the end of the work week… ‘TGIF’… Thank God for Fridays… ‘Reduced Battle Rhythm Day!!!’
Holy Shit, that's for real right there.. also, don't stay up because of a drill coming sometime later, hit your rack, that crap WILL wake you up. (the only thing better to wake up the Combat Systems/Weapons department was loosing power, every swinging dick would be out of their rack to go shut down the equipment so it didn't get fried when engineering was cycling power)
ReplyDeleteDamnit Dennis...now I have to clean up my soda because I spit it out laughing so hard! I want an autographed copy of the book when it comes out. Nice one!
ReplyDeletebreathe, smell the fresh salt air...BONG, BONG, BONG! Yay!!! It's time to go put my fire fighting gear on and check on the holds down below.
ReplyDeleteYou missed the famous "In-bound Harpoon Missile, This Is Not A Drill" followed by Condition Zebra set in less than 2 minutes. Followed by the CO, "Sorry about that, that was supposed to be 'This is a drill', my bad." But, since you set Condition Zebra so fast, how about we do it like that all the time? Of course, the argument after was if he did that on purpose or it really was a mistake.
ReplyDeleteOr the Oh-dark-thirty underway fires drill by FTG to check if the Flyin' Squids were getting precoached by the command! Well, they did it to us on the Coral Sea on night and caught the entire "A" team making ready to access the fireroom from the main entrance. Stopped us all and had us show all of the things that we were suppossed to; all the while chuckling that about a third of us weren't there.
ReplyDeleteAnd they were right, a third of us weren't there. They were at the emergency access, making their way down the escape ladder with a charged line and OBA's in standby. They realized it was a drill when they entered the space to hear that the fires were still lit in the boiler!
The word went back up the line to secure the plug and bleed off the pressure. So there was only twenty feet of head pressure on the nozzle when the FTG observer in the space got hit square in the back while hearing: "Fire under control! Fire Contained! Fire out!"
Yes, we all got chewed out. Yes, we were told that our liberty was secured. Yes, we stood at attention for a solid twenty minutes of butt chewing from the XO and the CHENG and the CMC and the DCA. And when it was all said and done and FTG had left the ship, we were assembled again by a smiling CO who gave us back some of our butts by saying: "I really wish I could have seen the look on the Commander's face when you sneaked in and soaked him!" Yup, we nailed the FTG OIC!
Every duty day they'd do a security alert drill about the same time I got in the shower! It was as if they were waiting for me to get in the rain locker. There were a lot of laughs as I was on the forecastle wearing nothing but a towel and a 45.
ReplyDelete