Ahoy Matey

 

You know, when you tell enough stories, you're bound to repeat yourself now and then. I guess it's to be expected from us older types. Ideas are rattling around in my head like the marble in a spray paint can until something comes out. I was looking back through my portfolio to see if I'd written anything about my navy days, and I don't see anything, but I'm sure I've commented somewhere using an experience from then. If you've seen these stories before, please forgive me. If you plunk enough coins in a gumball machine, you're bound to get the same color more than once.

When I first joined the navy back in 1972, it wasn't because I had any desire to see the world, like their posters suggested. I was number 52 in the draft, and I didn't relish the idea of waltzing around rice paddies and swamps picking leeches off my body. Although I do like green, and camouflage is kind of cool, I settled for thirteen button wool pants and a pea coat. I hated the Dixie cup hats. No matter how you wore them, they didn't look right. At least not on me.

I knew that I was in for a wild ride when I was still in boot camp. About the third week, I was standing in line to do something, I can't recall what. We always had to stand in line for everything. Anyway, someone up the line mentioned that President Nixon had done away with the draft. I was wondering if I could get out of my commitment, but I already knew the answer, so I didn't even bother asking.

We did all the usual things that one would expect in boot camp I suppose. There was some marching and drills, physical education and rifle practice and shots. Lots of shots. At the time the first compressed air delivery systems were being used. We would stand in line and move forward towards a medical corpsman on either side. They would warn us against moving when the "shotguns" were against our skin, lest we tear the flesh. I can't recall how many shots we got at once, I just recall my arms being sore.

 

A week or so later, we were called into another cold room and told to strip down and get in line. We had to make a number of lines, one behind the other, with our arms stretched out, making sure we didn't touch the man in front of us. I soon saw the wisdom in that, and was grateful. We were then told to bend over, as one corpsman walked down the line slapping each of us on the butt with an alcohol soaked rag. In my peripheral vision I could see each person flinch as the cold rag slapped each cheek. While that was bad, the real kicker was when another corpsman walked down the line, one hand full of syringes, the other tossing them into our butts like he was playing darts. After we got our shot, we had to slap the area, and row by row get dressed. The shot, whatever it was, left a lump the size of a fifty cent piece, and we had to march for an hour to make sure the meds were distributed throughout our body, or so we were told.

After I graduated from boot camp and Radarman "A" school, I was assigned to an old WWII destroyer escort. It had been converted to an electronics surveillance ship, so we could spy on the Russians. What fun. For the first ninety days I was on board, I never worked in Combat Information Center, where the radarmen worked. I was a mess cook, helping the commissary men prepare the meals. We were up in the North Atlantic in November taking a beating, and it was a daily occurrence to have pots and pans fly off the hooks they were on and for things to fall off the shelves. One day a fifty pound bag of flour fell over and broke. It was my job to clean it up. I dutifully grabbed a broom and swept up the mess, and proceeded to dump it outside with a forty knot wind blowing. Of course it blew away in a fraction of a second and I didn't give it another thought. At least until about an hour later when one of the chief petty officers came in yelling about flour covering their dining table. Of course I feigned ignorance. How was I to know that they had their port hole open?

My assigned bunk on that ship was in a dark, dingy compartment without any air flow. I was supposed to sleep on the top bunk, which just happened to have a steam pipe running right above it. Every night it was like trying to sleep in a sauna. One particular night, we were being thrashed by the sea. Somehow I had managed to drift off, even though the drawers under the bunks were sliding open and slamming shut with every movement of the ship. With drawers on both port and starboard sides, one drawer would open on one side, at the same time, the one on the other side would slam shut and visa-versa. I was miraculously sleeping, kind of, and had a dream that someone was strangling me. When I awoke, I had my right arm across my throat hanging on for dear life to the rail on my bed so I wouldn't fall out and kill myself. It was so much fun.

Fortunately, they decommissioned that ship. For all I know, I'm still shaving with the steel from it. It would have made billions of razor blades.

My next ship was a newer guided missile destroyer. The bunks had rectangular rails with canvas stretched across the railing. It was tied through the grommets so you could adjust the bed if it started to sag. We did have mattresses, and mattress covers called fart sacks. I don't know how they came up with that name, but it was the navy, so they couldn't just say mattress covers. The bunks were stacked three in a row,one above the other. This time I was on the bottom bunk, which would have been fine, but the guy above me was a first class petty officer who was pretty large. His name was Mac Donald, but everyone called him Fat Mac. Unlike some guys who are big, Mac was meticulous with his hygiene. He took a shower every night, for which I was grateful. The problem was, he weighed so much that when he went to bed, he kind of took up some of my vertical space. I couldn't turn on my side without bumping into his bod. You could only tighten the canvas so much. I spent many nights worried that the ropes or grommets would fail or Mac would break through the canvas and I'd be smashed.

One day we went into port at Palma de Mallorca. It was a nice tourist place in the Mediterranean Sea. One of my fellow sailors had purchased a couple of hamburgers, but he forgot to get something to drink, so he left his dinner on the table in our lounge. When he came down with his Coke, Fat Mac had eaten his hamburgers. Unbelievable. The sailor was pissed, but he got revenge. Mac used to love to read Louis L'amore books, which he kept under his mattress. In a fit of genius, the sailor waited until Mac was on duty, and went down and tore the last page out of Mac's book.  Of course Mac was angry but hey, payback is a bitch.