‘Pistolas, Trainwrecks & Finding Your Happy Place’



I must be suffering from retarded maturity because things keep coming up in my analog cobwebbed memory banks that make me wanna say Hmmm…! I bring you another non-regulated legendary sea going diatribe full of horse pucky and a whole lotta you ain’t gonna believe this shit kinda stuff!! Ownership of your secret decoder ring for all the gauddamned ‘PC’ crap will be left at the door cause that nonsense ain’t allowed passed the Quarterdeck on these here pages!! So buckle up your kapoks and get ready to heave-hoe ‘cause these are some real no shitters!!!

I really don’t know what happened to the Canoe Club of old when men were men made of iron and women were women who ran away scared! Now they’re cavorting together in fan rooms, under canvass cover of the RHIB, or various other dank voids around the ship!! Instead of buck’n it up and taking it, most of them seem to gobble Prozac, Lithium, Xanax and Zoloft like starving anteaters in a termite nest, but they never abuse drugs… not in this here improved Armada!!!

Now our new hero in the latest of sea tales was the greatest repeat offender of bad luck throughout the West Coast as the unrepentant Lord of all screw-ups! I’ll leave his name out of this as he was a big corn fed fella who could probably break me like a twig and had that don’t-fuck-with-me look about him that made you want to be his friend… or somewhere else, but you didn’t wanna be in his way… that includes me!! He was one of them types that didn’t have much to say and managed to make it all the way up the ranks to FC1 before he lost his paddle in the middle of shit creek and commenced to go over the falls!!!

You know how it goes gett’n ready for watch and putt’n on your best summer duds with razor blade creased trousers, spit shined shoes and a crack’n snap salute that Bull Halsey would be proud of! It was about that time of day I remember as the Duty Gunnersmate was handing out them semi auto 9MM Italian made P-shooters and dispensing the goofy Kevlar vests…  usually six sizes too big and equivalent to a four inch thick lead kimono!! Included with that was a cranial cavity protector for the young booter type knot heads as they damn near exploded with excitement and anticipation before they got berated by the Gunnersmate to check the Pellet Pushers in the clearing barrel before handing them off and relieving the watch!!  Don't try this at home… some things are best left to idiots!!!

This was about the time when FC1 was given his US Navy issued Pop gun where he holstered it and headed out as the Roving Security Watch topside! But apparently he enjoyed showing off to the youngsters on how to make a proper sight picture and squeeze rather than jerk the trigger while roving them decks!! I don’t know if he was play’n  ‘Quick Draw McGraw or emulating Barnie Fife while practicing for the great shootout at the OK Corral… but he caused quite a stir near his favorite lifeline and somehow with a Scurry & ‘SKALOOSH’… dropped his side into the drink!! Apparently his dexterity wasn’t quite thimble enough to chomp a bugar and adjust his pistola at the same time… and after such an incident he probably felt like he needed one them there half gallon tubes of Preparation-H!!!

Now for reasons beyond me that I’ll never understand… he never received more than a verbal reprimand for such a calm and cool deed! Hell I recommended he get requalified standing his watch… but no go… it didn’t happen!! Maybe it had something to do with having enough qualified gun toters on the Security Force Watchbill… not quite sure, but it was what it was and that was that!!!

Now let’s mosey along to a couple months down the road shall we?!?

Before I go on you must understand, ol’ FC1 had the basic watchstanding manners of a Junkyard Guard Dog… you know the Leroy Brown type… in the song, but without the ‘Ol School Mentality!’ No instead of risking him toss’n another piece of hardware down to Davey Jones he’d been stuck in the Ready Service Magazine to suit up the watch as a Duty Gunnersmate!! Hell we figured… “How bad can he screw that up?!?”

But there comes the twist… as a flint lipped, beady eyed ol’ biddy of a battle ax First Class Electrician had figured into the picture! The passageway in front of the Ready Service Magazine was secured during watch turnovers but EN1 decided it was a good time to take a short cut in said area figur’n this was stupid stuff that topsiders did and they’d never shoot at girls!! FC1 had warned her the first time not to cut through the secured zone as the watertight doors adjacent to both sides of the Magazine were closed yet she paid no mine to such details!!!

So the second time came around and…

“I told you not to come through this way M-O-T-H-E-R-F-U-C-K-E-R… GET Down On the DECK… NOW!!!"

…Here everything went to hell as our duty electrician must’a been wracked with sobs and a cascade of uncontrolled tears as she hit the deck... can you say deployable disposable undies?!? Security Alert was called away and after a heartfelt ‘ASS’ chewing by the CDO ol’ FC1 looked like he’d just got caught french kiss’n a jackass’s south end!!

“I'm not going ANYWHERE near the aft gun locker when FC1 is on watch without a life insurance policy and a standing funeral home pre-paid reservation!”

… Now it must be obvious to a mentally retarded monkey that nothing can stop this fella from putt’n himself in bad predicaments! I’m not one to deny that at all… but when I was a young Crackerjack… this is exactly what would have been expected of the Sentry who stands his post and challenges all who enters the area… am I right?!? Back in the days before panties got bunched up and knickers would get pulled up through peoples asses if you did something stupid enough to have a side arm pulled on you… the next question the ‘Skipper’ would ask…

“Why the Hell didn’t you shoot the sumbitch!”

… Well my how times have changed! Nowadays everything evokes the PC’ whiners!! We must never, ever say or do anything that might upset them, as virtually everything does!!!

Next thing you know ol’ FC1 is front and center at ‘DRB!’  Talk about foxes watch’n the hen house!! I think we sent FC1 in and out the door a half dozen times while discuss’n the situation and our diverse disagreements in this trainwreck of thoughts…

“He had no right to pull a firearm on EN1… This egocentric masculine flowering has to be stopped!”

“This is such bullshit! He dropped a gun over the side a few months back and no one noticed… he stands his watch by the book and everyone loses their fucking minds!”

“That’s the kind of attitude that must be expurgated in favor of a more civilized tone!”

“You’ve got to be shitting me!”

… as I just shook my head!!!

Yep… he got tarred and feathered and ridden outta town on a rail! But since he technically followed his general orders he wasn’t sent to mast but forever stripped of his Gun Quals and dignity onboard!! Now that’s enough to make any man loose his frick’n mind!!!

A few months later we ended up in the yards in Seattle! Now I remember a time wanting to push a certain Ensign’s nasal cartilage through his colon… being he was such and Asshole and all!! But I always knew never to act upon it… or even say it aloud!! After a steady dose of criticism, moaning, complaining and the previous history… I think ol’ FC1 had about enough of this petulant little snot nose of a man!!!

Poor ol’ FC1 must’a got ate up with the dumb ass cause he finally went off the deep end threatening to break the young FCO in half if he didn’t back off! The Ensign panics… he’s noth’n but a buck-0-five soak & wet and doesn’t know how to handle this big ass son-of-a-bitch…

“Chief Swing do you think you could go in there and calm FC1 down, he’s really agitated and I do believe he’s ready to kill someone!”

“Well… Sir… what did you do to agitate him? I don’t wanna get involved… it’s your bullshit that got you into this mess!”

“But… But…”

“Alright… I’ll talk to him!”

At some point, you get sick & tired of the lightweight backstabbers and do-gooders… THAT, I understood about FC1! I explained to him about the ways of Briar Rabbit and how he had to find his happy place… and how FC1 needed to find his happy place when everyone was just piss’n in his Wheaties!! Hell I understood the big bloke… he was pretty gauddamned simple to figure out!! The Navy was changing and he was caught in the crossfire… just wasn’t smart enough to figure how to tap dance with the details!!!

He ended up in the Hospital and never came back again as far as I remember…

But maybe I’m just a barnacle encrusted son-of-a-bitch! Hell I ain’t gonna give you the walking barefoot twelve miles daily through eighteen inches of shark-infested snow kinda bullshit… But it seems the military is giving special attention to challenging the social norms even entertaining the idea of tranny’s and cross dressers these days!! The whole epicene circus smells weak to me!! But what the hell do I know?!?  

Yeah I get it…

“Dan The Navy Man, you talk like you were raised by wolves carrying contagious ignorance, stupidity and contractible poor behavior!”

… Well, all I got to say… If you think the personalities of pit bulls and cocker spaniels are equally warm and fuzzy, you probably outta stay away from dogs!!!