‘In The Days Of Wooden Ships and Iron Men’

In the days of wooden ships and iron men an ol’ Salt was retired from the Canoe Club due to blindness!

Word was the local shipyard was look’n to higher so the ol’ Salt figured he’d give it a go… after all he’d been sailing the seven seas for years and new his lumber!!

So the next day the ol’ Salt went to the shipyard and asked the Master Ship Builder if he could have it a go! The Master Ship Builder realizing the ol’ Salt was blind figured he wasn’t cut out for this kind of job, but figured he’d have a little fun with the ol’ geezer and give him a test!!

They went to the docks and the Master Ship Builder placed a board in front of the ol’ Salt…

“Now tell me what you can about this here piece of lumber!”

… says the Master Builder! So the ol’ Salt took a whiff of the board and declared…

“Why it’s a number two pine, has three knots and it’s slightly warped!”

The Master Ship Builder was amazed, the ol’ Salt was absolutely right! So he placed another board in front of the blind ol’ coot and says…
 

“How about this one?”

 

The ol’ Salt took another whiff and proclaimed…

 

“It’s red oak, came from a hundred year old tree and it’s of great quality!”

 

To the Master Ship Builder’s surprise, he was right on! But he wasn’t quite ready to give this blind ol’ coot the job!! He had just one more test to give him!! So he had his secretary undress and lay down on the testing table!!!

 

“Okay old man, if you can figure this one out then you’ve got the job!”

 

So the ol’ Salt bends down and takes a strong whiff… but he was a bit puzzled & confused!

 

“Hmmm… I’m not sure about this one, flip it over for me so’s I can get another whiff!”

 

The secretary rolled over and the ol’ Salt took another whiff, then smiled…

“Aaah, you’re trying to trick me ain’t ya?!? This here’s an old plank that used to be part of a shit house door on a tuna fish’n boat!”

 

And that my friends is a nooooo shitter!!!

 

 

 

‘CHIEF PETTY OFFICER SAVES JUNIOR OFFICER’

In other News a U.S.N. Chief Petty Officer Saves The Life of a Junior Officer During a Horse-Back Riding Mishap

Yet another unselfish act of heroism performed by a man wearing Anchors:

A young Ensign decides to try horseback riding, even though he has had no lessons or prior experience. He mounts the horse, unassisted, and the horse immediately springs into action. As it gallops along at a steady and rhythmic pace, the ENS begins to slip from the saddle. In terror, he grabs for the horse's mane, but cannot get a firm
grip. He tries to throw his arms around the horse's neck, but he slides down the side of the horse anyway!

The horse gallops along, seemingly impervious to its slipping rider. Finally, losing his frail grip, the ENS attempts to leap away from the horse and throw himself to safety. Unfortunately, his foot becomes entangled in the stirrup, and he is now at the mercy of the horse's pounding hooves as his head is struck against the ground over and over and over.

As his head is battered against the ground and he is mere moments away from unconsciousness, to his great fortune, a Chief shopping at Wal-Mart, sees him and unplugs the horse.

'A Navy Memo'

Subject: The SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING program

This memorandum is a notification that the Department of the Navy (DON) has in order to assure the highest levels of quality work and productivity from sailors, it will be our policy to keep all sailors well trained through our program of SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (S.H.I.T.).  We are trying to give our sailors more S.H.I.T. than anyone else.

If you feel that you do not receive your fair share of S.H.I.T. on a regular basis, please see your Leading Petty Officer (LPO) or Chief Petty Officer (CPO) as soon as possible. You will immediately be placed at the top of the S.H.I.T. list and our LPOs & CPOs are especially skilled at seeing that you get all the S.H.I.T. that you can handle.

Sailors who do not take their fair amount of S.H.I.T. will be placed in DEPARTMENTAL EDUCATIONAL EVALUATION PROGRAMS (D.E.E.P. S.H.I.T.).  Those who fail to take D.E.E.P. S.H.I.T. seriously will have to go to EDUCATIONAL ATTITUDE TRAINING (E.A.T. S.H.I.T.). Since our LPOs & CPOs took S.H.I.T. for so long they don’t have to do S.H.I.T. anymore and are full of S.H.I.T. already.

If you are full of S.H.I.T. you may be interested in a job mentoring others. We can add your name to our BASIC UNDERSTANDING LECTURE LIST (B.U.L.L. S.H.I.T.).

For sailors who are intending to pursue a career in leadership and management we will refer you to the Department of MANAGERIAL OPERATIONAL RESEARCH EDUCATION (M.O.R.E. S.H.I.T.).  This course emphasizes on how to manage M.O.R.E. S.H.I.T.

If you have further questions, please direct them to our HEAD OF TEACHING SPECIAL INTENSITY TRAINING (H.O.T. S.H.I.T.)

Respectfully,

BOSS IN GENERAL SPECIAL HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING (B.I.G. S.H.I.T.)

OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY

'Seaman Samples'

Got this story from a Puddle Pirate named Bob…

 

Aboard CGC VIGOROUS, we had a Seaman J. Samples! He was pretty good at taking the harpoons he got for his name!! SN Samples had an injury and didn't go on a fishery patrol with us!!!

We were at the mouth of the Thames River and got diverted on SAR (Search & Rescue) case, and were delayed getting home! Some of the crew's wives were waiting at the pier with SN Samples, when they were informed of our change in schedule!! Some of the wives decided to go to a local restaurant for some coffee and breakfast, and they were nice enough to take SN Samples with them!!!

A few weeks late, the ship's ombudsman sent out a newsletter, and one of the stories had the following title…

“VIGOROUS Wives collect Seaman Samples on Street Corner."

… On our next patrol, copies of that newsletter showed up all around the ship!!!

 

 

 

 

'Three Sailors And A Girl Montage'

I remember a time when the ol’ Canoe Club was a trade of honest drunks! Many a Crackerjack were audacious, smart-assed, ballsy, hilarious, hard-nosed, and downright full of shit!! Better company there never was!!!

You see, young Crackerjacks were wild men…  Always had been since the days of Noah! It's what made them worthwhile, if sometimes difficult!! It was also the fiber of our comradery… the soul of our brotherhood!! That was before the ‘PC’ Goody-Goody-Two-Shoes arrived with knots in their knickers and mucked things up!!!

 

While there were immense problems abound on the ‘Good Ship’ Momsen, there’s no doubt fraternization imposed the most devastation to the crew! We’d lost a number of Chiefs including the CMC to this debauchery!!  The Momsen became a life-sucking degrading entity … an amazing proctologic curiosity!! The soul of the ship became as dark as a cannibal's intentions!!!

I specifically remember coming aboard during Christmas Stand down with this nauseating feeling deep within my gut! Every morning someone was called to the wierdroom for some sort of witch hunt inquisition and a few Khaki Brethren had left the fold with no rhyme or reason as to what had happened!! We were left in the dark never knowing who was next!! But none of the cases seemed as destructive and overflowing as the one that hit home with my shipmate Jeff McSweeney!!!

 

A young female sailor who looked like her face had been set on fire and put out with a mallet, told a couple other shipmates how her Chief was cleaning her pipes, and word got around!  Now, some gals in the ol’ Canoe Club are pretty damned scary! I mean you can get PTSD just from being around them... It's a gauddamned medical fact!! That being said… I don’t know why anyone would take the time to paddle her pink canoe or play hide the salami!!!

 At one point, Chief Storekeeper Lou Russell, a lousy excuse as a Chief who couldn't inspire loyalty or ambition on a bet, got wind of it all and sought her out! After brow beating the young gal time in again, she said Chief Russell assisted her in presenting her statements!! I suppose ol’ Chief Russell was more interested in climbing up the knives in McSweeney’s back than getting down to the truth of the matter!! Working down in radio she was nicknamed radio station because she was so damned easy to pick up!!!

Well, this set off a shit storm and a case was initially investigated by the EMO within the life lines as fraternization was later to be found without merit!  But the Skipper wasn’t satisfied!! He whistled a different tune of his own… as his comprehension of sailors was about as analogous as a pygmy understanding a TV set!! Five months after the fact, he had the NCIS investigating the case as a rape!!!
 

But this gal wasn't innocent by any stretch of the imagination! I tell you she had more pricks in her than a second hand dartboard!! According to the NCIS investigation she kept track of how many sailors she’d been diddle whacking by placing an ‘X’ over their photo in her commissioning book!! She yearned for the attention… kissing so many damned sailors her lips moved in and out with the tide!! She’d even reenacted an xXx rated ‘Three Sailors And a Girl’ montage on the beach during sail around from Maine!!! 

Although eyewitness testimony often seemed at odds, they were fairly consistent in that Chief McSweeney didn’t rape the ‘poor girl’ and the charge was downgraded to fraternization and adultery! That’s when the really fun shit began!! Soon a Summary Courts-Martial would follow and I would end up the star witness in behalf of my Khaki Brother McSweeney!!!

The story unfolds at the CPO Barracks of Copp Hall on the dry side of the 32nd Street Naval Station in October, 2004! We’d just had a ship’s party across from Schneider Hall but the sun was to set with no way to get rid of coolers full of beer, food and other party favors left from the festivities!! Someone had the prudence to check out a room at Copp Hall so we could store said sundries without recourse… and that we did!!!

That’s when things took a turn for the worst! There was in all a good number of ten to fifteen male and female shipmates left behind when the drop off was made!! A few barnacles stuck around for another beer and a few left!! It all seemed pretty harmless and above water!!!

 

There was the room, a common area, and the catwalk that goes around the inner circle of the barracks where a few were shooting the shit for all of a good thirty minutes to an hour! According to the ‘investigation’ when the female shipmate in question went into the common area, she had already downed twelve beers and laid across McSweeney and two others while they poured beer into her bellybutton and commenced to do body shots!! Of course all of the males involved denied this and no one there could ever validate her story … how rich is that!!!

 

Evidently at this point she was feeling overwhelmed and invited herself to the bedroom where she laid on the bed as the ship’s Yeoman laid beside her! This is where I come in… one of my fellow Chief brethren mentioned leaving so I went to the head to drain the dragon and as I went into the bedroom to get to the head, there on the bed was YN1 and our ‘female protagonist’ talking about ‘I don’t know and I don’t give a shit!!’ When asked if anyone else was there…

 

“There may or may not have been… I didn’t pay attention and could give two shits less!”

 

When I came out of the head, they were still there and still talking so I had left!!!

 

This is when her story got real fuzzy…

 

According to Miss ‘I Get Around,‘  YN1 and her were just lying on the floor when her Chief entered the room! She had mentioned they both had bald heads and she was only semi coherent at the time… but someone with a bald head was kissing her and she was very drunk and couldn’t remember!! Funny how convenient that story is…huh!?!

 

YN1, who had a separate Courts-Martial and was not found guilty of Fraternization or Adultery, had already got himself in a jam when his stories were found to be inconsistent! YN1 had already admitted to lying and admitted to crawling into bed with the young woman and kissed her repeatedly but never had sex… Yeah, that’s believable!! So he essentially admitted being the culprit but McSweeney fell on the Sword!?!

 

Never mind YN1 had already admitted to sharing a hotel room with our young lady in Panama City, Florida during the commissioning!!!

 

Now before this tale goes any further… realize Summary Courts-Martial is nothing more than glorified Captain’s Mast with the Desron Command! The Desron delegated the task to a Lieutenant Commander who just happened to set in a desk across from our young lady in question for six weeks TAD awaiting the proceedings!! Imagine how unbiased our Judge & Jury must have been after six weeks of an ear full from ‘Miss Blue Balls!!’ Not the kind of situation ol’ McSweeney wanted to be in!!!

 

Now when the Courts-Martial took place a year had already transpired since the incident and a new Skipper had come aboard! After taking over the command that made the Navy Times for Sex, Drugs & Shots Fired in the… that’s another story, this new Skipper fully intended to make a name for himself!! The first whiff of trouble and ol’ Chief McSweeney was guilty before proven innocent!! Topping it off… Desron was the Skipper’s Executive Officer just a few years prior on another ship… pretty tight running mates wouldn’t you think?!?

 

 For anyone who doesn’t know better… the Military Justice System ain’t hardly fair and impartial! Once they got their eyes on you… you’re toast!! I gave my testimony…

 

“When I got back to the ship roughly around 2300 hours that night, Chief McSweeney was in the Chief’s Mess watching TV and eating a ham sandwich!”

 

 … But it didn’t matter as it was clear the Hearing Officer already had her mind set! Chief McSweeney couldn’t get a word in edgewise as it was considered ‘irrelevant’ or ‘extraneous’ to the case by said Hearing Officer!! I felt as useful as Captain Hook at a Gynecologist Convention!!!

 

The Lieutenant Commander was left unswayed and in the end McSweeney was busted to First Class Petty Officer and shamed to retirement after Sixty Days Restriction and a Formal Reprimand! But according to the NCIS investigation there was no testimony or evidence in corroboration with any alleged sexual misconduct!! I suppose Chief McSweeney got screwed through the Drive-Thru!!!

 

Just another incident that left a sour taste in many a mouth with the ‘Good Ship’ Momsen!  It was the most socially dysfunctional Goat Fuck I’d ever had the pleasure to have served!! Our tactical skills were off the charts… but socially we were as fucked up as a football bat!!!

 

Everything I was taught in the ol’ Canoe Club about keeping within the ‘lifelines’ and taking care of shipmates went out the door! We were moving into a new world rather we chose to or not!! I suppose such is the way of the Ruling Gas… just wait for you to Fuck up so they could hand your ass over on a silver platter!!!

 

Next it’ll be ‘Gay-Sara-Sara… What Ever Will Be Will Be’ with all the damned Transgenders! Can you imagine Skippy’s Mast for Sexually Harassment of a RuPaul look alike?!? It’s gonna happen… mark my words!!!

 

 

 

'Moral Of The Story'

A U.S. Navy Crackerjack in his dress blues walks into a bar while on liberty in some liberty port away from home while a grizzly look’n local yocal with a watch cap and a plaid shirt stares him down as he takes a seat at the bar…

 

“Boy, you look like you need a good ol’ fashioned ass whoop’n!”

 

… The sailor not wanting any trouble ignores him…

 

“I’m gonna brush your teeth with my dick when I get done with you!”

 

… Remembering the Chief’s words during his liberty brief he doesn’t acknowledge…

 

“I’m gonna beat your ass so bad your grandkids will be born dizzy!”

 

… To which our sea faring hero simply grits his teeth and orders a pitcher of beer…

 

“And when I’m done with you… I’ll screw your old lady in the ass and bitch slap your kids at the funeral!”

 

… The sailor clutches the pitcher as the bartender serves him and pours a glass…

 

“You’re nothing but a pussy marine!”

 

… while knocking over the Crackerjack’s pitcher of beer and drinking the glass that was in front of him, and looking over at the waitress…

 

“Get over here you fuck’n whore and poor me another pitcher so I can pour it over his head!”

 

… and THAT’s when the fight started!!!

 

Moral of the Story… ‘Don’t confuse Sailors and Marines and never mess with a Crackerjack’s Choice of Drink!!!’

 

 

'The Fanroom Express'

I don’t want to tack-weld this yarn together… but memories oxidize & rust and this account goes way back to my days on the ol’ Baglady, so if I don’t get it 100% right… it was all those late nights of iniquity, I promise. Now the Baglady was a ship where everybody seemed to know everyone else. We were a rag-tag bunch of fellas probably something culpable to McHale’s Navy.
 
Now put that group of seagoing misfits in the PI and see what happens. A naturally sheltered harbor, Subic had been the Navy's Westpac crown jewel since the turn of the century, with ship services & dry docks, an airfield and enough room for the whole seventh fleet at once. It was also hot enough to incubate a dozen chickens from under your armpits. the land of Milk & Honey… all attributed to the ‘LBFMs’, men seldom got drunker to pick up easy women and prove their manhood!! With so much to do in Subic, it still bewilders me to this day why any young man would do what my boy Douggy did.
 
Fan rooms were commonplace to smoke the ol’ wacky weed in the years before piss tests. And yes, that habitual tradition carried on well into the years after ‘Operation Golden Flow’ came to be!! But some fools never bothered to check where the fan exhaust went. That’s when a couple of Crackerjacks were discovered smoking in the fan room.
 
First off… vents travel all around the ship and there’s no telling where the scent may end up. If you’re gonna be a pothead, you need to close those damned vents or block them up. If your vent doesn’t have a switch or lever, throw a wet towel over it.
 
There was one story I’d heard of a sailor who made sure the fan room exhaust went outside the skin of the ship… only to find out later the exhaust was over a refueling station and the ship was alongside for Unreps, bathing the Bos’n in charge as well as twenty or so line handlers with that warm smell of colitis rising up through the air.
 
Well… This was one classic case where the Seadog in question was smoking the ganja in a fan room which fed air to the Electronic Warfare Shop. It was a pretty laid-back evening in the PI. I was out in the town chasing the Honey-Koes when this happened so I got wind of it through second-hand smoke if you know what I mean.
 
Somewhere about 2000 Hours the EW1 was on duty hanging out in his shack when the shit literally hit the fan. He scowled and sniffed until he zeroed in on the overhead ventilation duct. Yep, the smell was unmistakable… and since he owned that fan room he knew exactly where to catch the culprit.
 
At that point EW1 was as pissed as a fart in a vacuum cleaner… and after sitting in his shop breathing in the incense, he probably felt like one too. He was about to make himself known… as welcome as a hole in a lifeboat to whomever it was in his fan room stink’n up the joint like a skunk in heat.
 
♫♪ “Ooooh that smell… the smell of cannabis all around you!” ♫♪
 
… That’s all he could think about touting his way out to the weather decks!!!
 
EW1 moved with intent as he headed out. He knew it was coming from the 03 level, portside fan room. For inspection purposes, it was the EW crew’s property and responsibility.
 
First he grabbed the dogg’n wrench, and after little thought gave it a quick knock…
 
“Open up in there!”
 
… with that he got no answer! Again…
 
“Come on out… I know you’re in there!”
 
… this went on a few minutes! Finally…
 
“Here’s a hint, if we don’t answer the first few times, what makes you think the next few are going to get us to come out?”
 
… This got EW1 pretty hot under the collar!
 
“I said get your asses out here or I’m coming in!”
 
… To which some moron replied…
 
“My Mom said never to talk to strangers and since you're really strange... I guess that means I can't talk to you… Ha-Ha-Ha!”
 
That was it… with his head pressed against the bulkhead, he wrestled with the dogging wrench. He said he could hear murmuring coming from the space! As the dogs receded, he slowly swung the hatch open, held his breath, and poked his head in. That smoky compartment revealed a couple of young characters encircled with the bouquet of sinsemilla.
 
There was a dead silence, so dead you could hear mice pissing on cotton or was that cotton mouth… or something… anyway. Once the smoke cleared EW1 said he could see a couple of bleary-eyed idiots in the back look’n like they just walked out of a forest fire. When asked what they thought they were doing in ‘his’ fan room they all wondered together in unison and harmony… coming away empty.
 
Apparently Douggy didn’t bother to put down the doobie attached to his hand as tenaciously as panicked barnacles!
 
“Put that shit down… and keep rolling your eyes at me! Maybe you’ll find a gauddamned brain back there!”
 
Clearly disappointed, we knew he was a goner as soon as word got around… ain’t nobody gonna be forgiven in that instance.
 
“Douggy, what the hell got into you? That idea didn’t seem any sillier than bathing in used motor oil!”
 
“It wasn’t my idea… Seaman ‘Such-n-Such’ had some Thai Stick and offered to share!”
 
“So you had to be weak and go along with it?”
 
“Now, remember, I’m a sailor who’s always ready to oblige a shipmate, so without question I felt I had to oblige!”
 
“But there’s so much to do here… why take the chance?”
 
“Well I was on duty, and I figured what the hell… you only live once, and most people don’t even do that!”
 
“I hope it was worth it!”
 
“WoW… let me tell you. I took a hit off that Thai Stick and I swear I was on a rocket ship to Pluto! Within an hour the Tooth Fairy strapped a rocket booster to my ass and launched me into outer space. I now fully understand what ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’ was all about.”
 
… Shaking my Head…
 
“I was feeling no pain I took one step and went two miles....taking a stroll through the ship, afterward was a real adventure...something like a maze in a psychedelic art museum or riding one of them funhouse rides at the carnival.”
 
 Look’n yonder at the hillside overlooking Olongapo…
 
“Wow man… all the plants are so green you’d think they had batteries in them!”
 
“So what are you gonna do now… work at some factory making bowling trophies or recycling old beer cans?”
 
“Beats sitt’n here year after year in this inescapable hull of haze grey and unspeakable monotony while some low-voltage idiot rambles on about that which would drive a garden slug to suicide.”
 
To a young sailor… if it ain’t worth doing, then it’s worth doing to wild excess. Most of us were nothing but riff-raff… some salvageable, some just not worth a damn. Almost all were involved in smuggling back from liberty of some degree… hell, I even found a bag of weed stuffed in a CO2 nozzle.
 
And Shipmates, that ‘Ain’t No Shit!  That’s also why they nicknamed the ‘Good Conduct Medal’ the ‘I Ain’t Got Caught Yet Medal’. Those were crazy days, yes they were… !!!