‘The Natives’

Here’s an ancient drunken Sailor story from many moons ago! Now this one has got to be older than your Grandmother’s Kick-Start Vibrator!!  But you know what they say about Sea Stories… this one’s a no shitter & when you mix it with alcohol, sometimes the truth just needs a laxative!! Well this one is one I added a little prose too, but it’s a nice one… I hope you enjoy it!!!

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There is many an ol’ adage about drunken sailors who cuss like sailors! So writing a   Sunday Sermon about Crackerjacks is about as asinine as trying to Vaseline a Bobcat’s ass! You know the ol’ saying…

“If something is worth doing then it’s worth overdoing… and overdoing well!”

A long time ago when the earth was young... the USS Wintle was based out of a number of ports previously inhabited by the Japanese occupation, and the local aboriginals seen few to no ‘white people’ in their lifetime! Apparently they had quickly learned that their sea shells were collectibles to the US Crackerjack types, and they would come alongside and trade them for food and sundries!!  None of us silly sons-a-bitches could speak Fiji or Samoan or any of the other assorted native languages so communication was accomplished by hand gestures!!!

These were exotic places they don't tell you about in National Geographic! We’d seen stuff and did things we never dreamed of!! The 'keys' to the kingdom were our Military I.D. and a Liberty Card!!! 

Now some of those tropical south pacific Islands were hotter than a pair of balls on a blow torch and being sailors we needed something to quench our thirst! Alcohol combined with inherent stupidity led to many unforgettable moments in those their islands! We’d drink stuff like bilge wine and hooch from all over the Pacific that would give your liver a real spank’n!! But it was long ago… so long ago that only Noah, John Paul Jones, and about a handful of other retired old farts would know for sure how liberty played out in those days!!!

According to Sonar Chief Arthur Clifton, the natives of Fiji made a drink that they sold to the sailormen, called a ‘Butterfly!’ Now if you knew Chief Clifton, you would’ve known he was the sort of man who would always blame his hangover the following morning on the lemon which was off in his whiskey the night before!! If you asked him what his favorite drink was he would always tell you 'the next one!!!’

Well this ‘Butterfly’ concoction was known to turn young Squidly-Do-Rights into Gutter Huggers! One of the primary intoxicants of the beverage was Av-Gas or aviation fuel!! After partaking a few said drinks, crews had to be carried back to their ships!!!

It was like fast times with the Blackout Brigade! Some of those GOBs were complete dead-weight!! And it figured they’d cram the liberty boats full of young red-blooded American idiots so drunk they were piled up like cords of wood!!!

Hell some fellas were brought onboard with cargo nets… it left the Quarterdeck watch confused as a fart in a perfume factory! The ones who could stand or lean could barely speak…

“What the hell did he say?”

“I don’t know! It sounds like English, but I can't understand a damn word he’s saying!”

The next day not a gauddamned soul was any better use than an Iron-on Tattoo! Some of those fellas were so damned drunk that… well, let’s just say we’re glad cannibalism went out of style!! The natives were real sports when it came to helping a drunken sailor… if it weren’t for them and some of their canoes, our boys may not have had made it back!!!

We all had one of those moments… the once in a lifetime memory keepers! These were some of mine as we hooted & hollered and broke the mold!!  It’s just another of my pain in the ass escapades from my Navy Days!!!