'Nocturnal Reveries'

Now for all you ol’ Salts out there… this is a ‘No Shitter!’  So gather round and listen up!! Like Forrest Gump… there’s a saying out there that goes…

“Life is like a ten-dollar hooker… you never know what you’re gonna get!”

Way back when young Crackerjack boys were expected to look up girls skirts and down their cleavage with an occasional slap in the face… we were a bunch of oversexed young rascals with a need to get laid regularly or we’d explode and go blind! We were young, fearless and stupid as hell…!! At Nineteen I was no different… a walking hard-on, just like any other young American Boy!!!

Well in my early days as a Boot Camper straight into RTC Great Mistakes, I think it was Week Seven… hell, like I could ever forget… I know it was Week Seven! I had the oddest dream experience!!  Like your average Booter, I’d been on a roller coaster of sleep deprivation hardly gett’n a wink in here and a wink in there between watches!!!

I was having one of them adult oriented nekkit lady dreams where sexual encounters were taking shape far beyond panty elastic and bra hooks! I was dream’n in Colors so loud they would’ve made Stevie Wonder blink!! As I professed my undying love and lustful affection, I was caught up in my own reverie with the girl back home!!  Attractive as she was, she had the kind of ‘Double D’s’ that could poke a man’s eye out!!!     

So there we were in the middle of the fifth position gyration of the Horizontal Mambo when something threw me for a loop!  I’d abruptly awoken with a glob of goo in me skivvies that could fill a gallon jug … I swear!! I let out a sudden…

“Oh Shit!”

… Then the shipmate in the rack above wakes up and asks…

“What’s wrong?”

“I think I just had one of them nocturnal emissions!” 

… Seven Weeks of no wimmins and I was so horny the crack of dawn had to be careful sneak’n up on me!!!

Though there was a mess I didn’t dare clean it up!  I forced myself back to sleep in spite all that man gravy stick’n to me skivvies! To that point… one of the craziest life episodes I’d ever had!! I guess the ‘Salt Peter’ didn’t work as well as they claimed!!!

The next morning as we all awoke to that incessant sound of the bugle they call Reveille, I realized the man gravy in me skivvies case-hardened into a substance rather similar to the ‘Crazy Glue!’  The look on my face must’ve been priceless as my shipmate asked me…

“You gonna be alright?”

… to which all I could say…

“Don’t breathe a word to no one or I’ll kill you!”

But you know what they say… Lack of sex is hazardous to your health! I suppose that’s what happens when you can’t ‘Buff the Bishop’ in a room of Eighty other Swing’n Dicks absent the civilized influence of the perfume smell’n fairer sex!! You see we didn’t have the wimmins in Boot Camp back in those days… at least not in Great Mistakes!!!

For a bunch of young red blooded American boys, testosterone-loaded to the gills, Erotic Dreams of removing lingerie and fondling gorgeous nymphos with torpedo tits was as good as it got!  It eventually led to lots of superficial one night stands and commercial conveyor belt ‘Love you Long Time No Shit’ ladies in faraway places!! A few days later the Company Commander pissed as a Grizzly awoken with a sore head said…

“Swing… You could fuck up a Wet Dream!!”

... How the hell did he know?!?

And as Paul Harvey would say…

“That’s the rest of the Story…!!!”

'Fleet-Enema'

There used to be a product called a Fleet Enema. Came in a green box with the word FLEET printed on the box. They sold them in every PX and Ships Store on military bases. Do they still make it? If you can’t find the humor in that… your just a dried up old prune in need of some juice!!!

'Another Story From The Preacher'

Storytime mates, and it ain't no shit neither...

Gather round and I'll tell ya about way back when the Preacher was a starry-eyed Airman Recruit, back at the Lakes! Our company commander was a BT1 name of Bobby Ray, and he was a certified tinplated ass wipe… Got really physical on the guys!! Back then the CC's could get away with a lotta stuff!!!

Well, this one kid named Ahlberg or Ahlborg, somethin' like that, couldn't march for shit and one day Ray had him drop for 30 pushups! He didn't like the way the kid was doin' it, and every time he came up, Ray would stomp him down!! His dungerhall pants were dirty an' ripped when it was over and Ray gigged him at bag inspection the next day for havin' damaged clothing!!!

We all wanted to do somethin' but bein' new boots we just didn't know what to do! A few days later we was out on the grinder for some more marchin' and when we were doing an oblique, I screwed up!! So he pulled me outta ranks and started chewin' me out scream’n…

"Look at that other company - every man of 'em is doin' it right. LOOK!"

An' he took my head in both his hands an' snapped it to the side to make me look - and I went limp and let myself fall to the grinder!!!

Rifle gouged my finger but I ignored the pain an' stayed there without moving a mite! Yelling, Mass confusion, Ray scream’n at everyone to shut the fuck up!! Finally after several minutes some vehicle (didn't see cause my eyes were shut of course) roared up and I knew the corpsmen or docs had showed up!!!

Knowing they were gonna check my eyes I rolled 'em back and sure enough someone opened my eyelids and let 'em close again! They put me in the vehicle and took me over to the base hospital!! I let myself ‘wake up’…

"Wha... Wha... Where am I?"

 Some doc asked me what happened…

"It was BT1 Ray sir, but I dunno what happened!"

Very vague so it'd sound like I wasn't really rational! I stayed there a day an' a half where it was just lie on yer back, take it easy, an' forget about marchin' an' inspections!!!

When they let me out and I went back to my company, Ray was a different guy… Quieter! No one got hit or stomped or even touched!! I don't think he got an article 15 or they'da replaced him...prolly just got an ass reaming but it did put the fear of God into him!!!

Two birds killed in one go… put the guy in his place and get some much needed skate time! Resta boots went fairly uneventful, plus I could do no wrong in the other guys' sight!! All right, tale's done, let's get this space squared away before liberty call sounds!!!

 

'Rainlockers'

Rainlockers were designed by an undertaker who buried Munchkins, or some bastard who turned out phone booths for the relatives of Snow White's dwarfs! You had to Vaseline your butt to turn around in one of the sons-a-bitches!! Water squirted in your ear at the rate of a blue jay taking a pee and the Boiler Techs in the Engine Room who made the freshwater, would threaten to kill you and all your unborn children if you took more than sixty seconds to satisfy your immediate personal hygiene needs!!!

This was just enough to satisfy the sizable mildew crop in our sour towels!!!

When making fresh water, the evaps produced heat at twice that of Dante's inferno, which in turn produced hot, sweaty, foul smelling Crackerjacks! The ugly bastards down in the Engine Room kept watch on the use of fresh water tighter than parents keeping an eye on their seventeen-year-old daughter's virginity!! You could take a quick 'douche-down'… A birdbath for armpits, face, and that was about it!! Going without regular showers was one of the rough adjustments you had to make in the ol’ Canoe Club!!!

-Bob Armstrong

'More Riggin' Bill'

Just the semi-articulate account of a long ago Crackerjack and his troubles & tributes with women and the lost ways of life in those days!!!

Dear Bill:

Every time I began to hear wedding bells you have cotton in your ears! A girl like me has gobs of chances to get married… especially when she works two blocks from the Navy Yard… And I don’t want you to forget that!!  The sea going line you throw out looks good in the moonlight but during the day it evaporates into bilge!!!

Most of my friends are getting married and I’m beginning to think there’s something wrong with me! When they see us together, the girls say the only thing that’s wrong with me is you!! When a sailor is single as long as you have been it begins to get singular!!!

This is the Third date you have broken with me and three strikes is an out!  However, it just happens that my brother who is in the marines is coming to town on Thursday!! He gets in on the three o’clock train at Grand Central so I’ll be there to meet him and I’ll be looking for you as you say you’ll be there too!!!

You will like my brother!  He was the heavyweight boxing champ at the marine barracks in San Diego for three years!! I’ve written him about you and he is very anxious to have a little talk with the two of us!!!

By the way, my brother is rather quick-tempered and he doesn’t like sailors!  However he probably will make an exception if the sailor is planning to be his brother-in-law!! I’ll see you in Grand Central Station dear, and maybe those wedding bells are closer than we both imagined!!!

Yours,

Annie Knight

'Mass Conflag'

On the Good Ship Never Sails we were setting up for a Mass Conflag Drill during General Quarters! The Chief Corpsman had conducted a class in triage -- sorting out battle casualties according to the likelihood of survival and all that jazz!!  We had applied theatrical makeup to several of the sailors to simulate different wounds!!!

Pointing to one of the casualties he said to the group…

"This man has severe brain damage. What would you do with him?"

... From the back someone yelled...

 "Make Him an Officer!!!"

… And That is a No Shitter…

'A Letter Home'

"Dear Dad…"

…read the young sailor's first letter home while on deployment…

"I cannot tell you where I am, but yesterday I shot a polar bear!"

Several months later came another letter…

"Dear Dad, I still cannot tell you where I am, but yesterday I danced with a hula girl!"

Two weeks later came yet another note...

"Dear Dad, I still cannot tell you where I am, but yesterday the doctor told me I should have danced with the polar bear and shot the hula girl...!!!"

USS Rainier 'FC' GANG

Look… The Gang’s all here! The ‘FC’ Gang, USS Rainier AOE-7 Westpac-1997!!!

Chief Collet, Ensign Connor, Neil Saucier, Brian Christiansen, Keith Needham, Dennis Swing, David Baker, Robin Woodbury, ‘Big Nose’ Henry, David Shrader

CIWS … Nato SeaSparrow … TAS

'Schoolhouse Shenanigans'

Have no idea if I can run out the statute of limitations on the things we did back in our heyday in the ol’ Canoe Club… including lying to the Workcenter Supervisors, LPOs & Chiefs as well as the brass end of the COC!  Not that I will ever face a convening Courts Martial of my piers or the ol’ coots who used to beat me until my morale improved kind’a thing!! 'FTN’ or ‘Fuck the Navy' was our motto in those first four years… who would’ve ever thought we’d make a career out of the damned outfit?!?

Story goes…

As God's gift of tact and polite interaction with a diverse group of Aussies & Coasties… as many times it be the case, I had a customary tradition of drawing iniquitous doodles on chalkboards, whiteboards, scrap paper, nautical charts and a deck log or two, or three or four… who’s counting?!?

You might recall a previous yarn about a doodle I’d created in CIC underway concerning a couple of shipmates and some farm animals! Or a few doodles I left in the ASROC Rover Log Book a time or two, that almost got me sent to Mast!! Yeah, I was a trifling young man at that age… couldn’t help but laugh and make funny jokes out of each situation that arose!!!

Well, you wouldn’t believe what I pulled out of the ol’ trusty Seabag just the other day!  A picture of me doodling away on a whiteboard in full uniform with shipmates laughing up a storm…

CIWS ‘C’ school was where I’d been assigned on this particular little caper on Dry Side FTC San Diego!  Each classroom in the Gun building had a rather prominent whiteboard at the front of the class! Not unusual as any classroom might have… yet white boards were kind of the new thing at a time when they were replacing all the black chalkboards that we previously grew up on!! From the third floor we had a scenic view of downtown San Dog and it was always a beautiful day for a young lad like me to get caught up daydreaming out the window instead of doing what was expected!!!

In anticipation of learning about that electronic whizbang ‘R2D2’ with a great big hard-on, I had quite a few comical situations that happened in that school house!! There was the typical ‘tap dance on each other’s Coroframs’ as a matter of words… and who could ever forget the ‘shit my pants’ moment… when I literally, well… shit my pants!! Then there were the times we sat in class shooting the proverbial shit and that’s when the ‘Expo’ Dry Erase markers became the source of an artistic curiosity that poor Whiteboard will never forget!!!

In anticipation of graduation and orders back out to the fleet, we spent many hours lollygagging without any real adult supervision! That’s when I took out the magic marker and illustrated a depiction of several classmates on hands and knees enjoying the golden shower offered by the Navy Counselor handing out Sea Billets in order to those with superior marks in the class!! Looking back I realized the great deal of trouble we all went through to keep the COC from turning us on our ears!! I think FC1 Andreski popped in on us and got so mad the veins stood out his neck!!!

"You miserable good-for-nothing sons-a-bitches… this ain’t art class!"

But Andreski was a class act!  He allowed his anger to get the best of him for only  a moment, then immediately recognized the humor of it all…

“Alright, who’s the Picasso that put this orgy of ecstacy on the whiteboard?”

To which one of our Aussie mates replied…

“I will give you the facts as I know them, the Tooth Fairy did it!”

… The rest of us just stood and grinned a lot looking stupid as usual…

“Alright… well it better go away before Chief see’s it and all hell breaks loose!”

… After all, we were all sailors as a matter of fact!!!

As I recall, a lively conversation ensued, regarding the ideas of professionalism and appropriate behavior… Then all the good little boys finished their milk and cookies and went promptly back to being Sailors again! And I can’t help how the whole class had expressed their entire admiration of my masterpiece which was quickly wiped away to be lost and wasted away in the back of our memories!! But wait… years later I find a picture of that one moment in time… a tidbit of the past… those damned pranks and shenanigans we were so often involved in!! Boy wasn’t the ol’ Canoe Club Great back then?!? 

‘The Bosun Whistle’

This here is some Classical Crackerjack Sea Going Humor… if you take offense then get your panties out of a wad… it’s a joke!!!

We all know what a pain in the derrière it is to wake up to the Bosun Whistle at Reveille underway!  Here are a few anecdotes for your pain…

Why is a low whistle better than a Bosun Whistle?

The low whistle is easier to stomp on!

What’s the difference between a snake and a Bosun Whistle in the road?

People might swerve to miss the snake!

What’s the difference between a Bosun Whistle and a trampoline?

You take off your shoes when you jump on a trampoline!

How do you get the Bosun not to play his whistle at reveille?

You shoot him!

Gentleman defined… A Bosun who knows how to blow his whistle but doesn’t!

In short, if you woke up to the song of the Bosun… you embraced the suck!!!

‘Translation Guide For LBFMs ‘

For those times when your little head is doing all the thinking...

Now, what happens when you finally get that long-sought for leave, and travel to the exotic destinations of the Orient, looking for another beer, and a girl to share with?  Well, it doesn't matter if it’s in Angeles City, Bangkok, Pattaya, or Pusan you'll have to learn the lingo first!  Here's a translation guide for those special moments…

Now if she says:

"Hello, Honeyko!"      

She means…

“Hello, Moneybags!”

She says…

“Kumasta Ka Na?” 

She means…

“How are you future boyfriend?”

She says…

“You handsome!”

She means…

“I’m cute, you big ugly fuck and I’m gonna take all your money!”

She says…

“Mahal na mahal kita!”

She means…

“I love your money!”

She says…

“You buy me lady drink?”

She means…

“500 pesos please?”

She says…

“You pay my barfine?”

She means…

“May I have 1500 peso please?”

She says…

“I’m 18!”

She means…

“I’m 16!”

She says…

“I’m 21!”

She means…

“I’m 32!”

She says…

“Where you from?”

She means…

“Where will you move me and my family?”

She says…

"I Cherry Girl (alternate 1)"

She means…

“I haven’t been fucked in the ass, ears, or nose yet!”

"I Cherry Girl (alternate 2)"

She means…

“My Filipino boyfriend won’t let me spend the night with you. How much money you have again?”

"I Cherry Girl (alternate 3)"

She means…

“I haven’t been screwed for a whole week and I got my VD test last Tuesday!”

She says…

“You too hard on pussy!”

She means…

“The Two-by-Four strapped to your ass is chafing my thighs!”

And finally she asks…

“You butterfly?” 

She means…

“Are you smart?”