‘Pulling In’

The Carrier was finally inching up to the pier in Pearl Harbor when the Skipper noticed a sailor on the flight deck gesturing wildly with semaphore flags! He then noticed an attractive young woman standing on top of a station wagon, also waving semaphore flags!! Always concerned about security and never having seen something like this, the Captain barked at his Bridge Signalman…

"What message are those two people sending?"

The Signalman concentrated intently and soon reported…

"Sir, he is sending FOXTROT-FOXTROT and she is sending ECHO-FOXTROT."

Not having any clue as to what these messages could mean, the Skipper dispatched an armed Marine to escort the sailor back to the Bridge! The sailor arrived, out of breath from running up the many ladders to the bridge, and saluted smartly...

"Seaman Endicott reporting as ordered, Sir !"

"Seaman!"

… shouted the Captain …

"Who is that woman on the pier and why are you exchanging signals FF and EF?"

"Sir, that's my wife, Sir, and she wants to Eat First!"

'So You Were Going To Get A Tattoo'

A FEW MONTHS after Tom and I were married during World War II, he was shipped off to Pearl Harbor. In one of his first letters, he wrote, "I'm going to have a Navy battleship tattooed on my chest." Instead of pleading, I answered simply, "Send me a picture of your tattoo, and I'll have a duplicate put on my chest." We have been married for 71 years. Neither of us has a tattoo.

‘IF YOU CAN’T HOVER YOU’RE A QUEER’

This story is from an RM2 Alex Constance from many moons ago! I added a little extra prose but it’s his yarn… just with a little extra threading!!!

These gauddamned Sailors today have no idea how great it was! The times we had and the ‘no-shitters’ we lived through!! Hell, all we knew how to do was have fun!!!

No this shit here is enlisted humor, not to be confused with officer's humor! We acted like idiots, but we probably were idiots, so it didn't bother us… much!! Trouble always found us!! It was inevitable, like love handles or gravitation… It just happened!!! 

Now this is a little known fact that Navy Crackerjack Sailors in those days were the kind of people your mother wouldn't want you to play with because they toyed with guns, knives, booze and hookers… and not necessarily in that order!! We were a wily bunch!!!

Now Flyboys on the other hand… or Aviators as they like to be called… they are a different breed! They love their planes almost as much as they love themselves, with women a distant third!! They like to show off and we like to piss them off!!!

It was somewhere around the 1979 or 80’ Med run, and we were on plane guard for The Big USS America! It was getting pretty boring, when all of a sudden out of the blue, we got buzzed by a couple of F-14s… and I mean buzzed!! They ran down both sides of the ship, buzzing the bridge wings, and generally pissing off the Skipper!!!

They made a pass around, and one made another run at the bridge pulling vertical  cracking the sound barrier! Ol’ Charlie Oscar wasn’t having any of that… can you imagine ‘Top Gun’ when the Air Boss spews his coffee everywhere?!? Yeah, he was really pissed and confused!!!

The last pass was over the flight deck, at slow speed, with an after burner kick in resulting in a sonic boom! The Skipper was having fits trying to find out what was going on, and leaned on the Air Det OIC!! He had no idea why the go fast boys would act in such a way!!!

Only after much digging did the Skipper find out that the Airedales had sewn sheets together scrawled all over the whole gauddamned flight deck with the adage…

"If you can't hover, you're queer."

They had stretched it clean over the whole deck at the appropriate time when the go fast boys could see! The cherry on top was a punctuated insult of mooning the target pilot as he passed on by… all twenty five, or so, of them at once!! Charlie Oscar was not happy as he was getting mad and you could hear him grinding his teeth and muttering under his breath!!!

Well, you know the direction that shit flows! He was like a one-armed-pimp in a bitch-slapping contest!! It was just the cost of doing business I reckon... nobody got hung from the yardarm but we didn't do much plane guard after that!!!

Chaos, panic, and disorder... our work was done! In the end, the absurd silliness and our crude pleasures outweighed all the bullshit!! When the big Navy Brass opted for a more serious, professional, totally squared-away, ‘Leave It To Beaver’ kind of horseshit over a carefree family of hormone-active shipmates who not only did their jobs but took time to light each other’s asses on fire a time or two, this here Canoe Club had lost out!!!

……

I laughed so hard my gauddamned sides hurt for hours when I read that! I’d have given a year’s pay to had been a part of that one!! Silly Crackerjack bullshit… wasn’t life Grand!?!

'Stewies'

FOLLOWING HURRICANE ANDREW, my Navy shipmates and I were called to help clean up the damage it caused in Miami. We were under a lot of pressure, and so we took our frustration out on the cooks. As part of a verbal beating at lunch, one cook was told…

"This is the worst meal I've ever tasted!"

"Yeah?"

…the cook snapped…

"Just wait until dinner!"

'Coffee'

By: LT. Richard D. Tarbuck USS Stewart (DD-224) I’m gonna tell you a secret, Which, perhaps I shouldn’t do, Because it might net me a million If I wanted to push it through. It’s the secret of making coffee, And its one you’ve never read, One sip and you’ll never forget it, You’ll remember it after you’re dead. Now, before I go any further,  I want you to get me straight. This ain’t no china cup stuff You’ve been drinking here of late. Its an old, old trick they told me, How old we’ll never know. I got it from a black coal-passer On a battleship years ago. First, you must have a fireroom And a thirst that’s full of froth, And a fireman swingin’ slice-bars, And boilers lighted off. Your face should be covered with coal-dust To start the thing out right; Your eyes like two white headlamps Peering through the night. You take a dirty old tin can, That’s been there for years or more, And throw in some Navy coffee, That you stole the day before, Then add some boiler water, And stir it with your thumb, It’s full of boiler compound And mostly dregs and scum. Then you put it on a shovel, and you hold it on a shovel, And you hold it in the fire ‘til the heat ‘most melts the tin-can That holds your heart’s desire. Then you pull out what is left there, Add sugar if any’s about, And stir it with a pencil— A little sweat helps out. You sip it through your cut-plug A drop you never lose. It’s thick, and black and smoky, And goes clean through your shoes, It kicks like a mule in a circus, But I’d make some now if I could, ‘S like takin’ a jolt of lye-water— It’s wicked stuff, but it’s good.

Artwork by Frank Delatorre

'Tunnel Of Love'

A young Seaman straight out of Boot was out on liberty with his date, Belle!  She was the prettiest thing on the block I tell you!! He had taken her to an amusement park and was explaining to his shipmates the various things he had seen and done…

“Well, I took Belle through the Tunnel of Love, and Gee… love sure is wonderful! That place is just made for love! A nice comfortable boat, the pleasant sound of lapping water! The darkness… everything peaceful and quiet!”

… but they were curious…

“Did Jane enjoy it too?”

… they asked…

“I dunno… we couldn’t get seated together!”