My First Navy Day

I was the biggest, so I was handed the orders for five other recruits at AFEES in Des Moines, Iowa. Some how we survived our cab ride to the airport, but we had a couple of hours to kill before our flight left. The bartender saw the gym bags we were carrying and knew we were headed to basic training somewhere. We were all under age, but that didn't seem to matter to him. We proceeded to get plastered.

We made it to the plane, but the stewardess wouldn't serve us any liquor. About four hours later, we landed at LAX for a small layover and another plane to fly us down to San Diego. The LAX bartender served us a several pitchers of beer on the house. After a couple of hours, I left a sawbuck under an empty pitcher and we were off again. 

When we landed at Lindberg Field, we still had a couple of hours of freedom before check-in time. Again we found the airport lounge and were allowed to drink, but the only freebies this time was popcorn. With about 15 minutes left on the clock, Cinderella time, we managed to find our way over to two lines of Marine and Navy inductees. A Marine Sergeant was screaming up and down his line of recruits, and our Navy Chief just took our orders and told us to remove any contraband we might be carrying, and to place it in a trashcan by his podium. Then he told us to stand at attention while our final transportation arrived, bound for NTCSD. 

The Marine recruits all looked terrified. The Navy recruits looked upon them with more curiosity than concerned. Since our Chief wasn't yelling a bunch of obscenities at us, we were relieved and patiently watched the show across from us. When our Chief was satisfied there were no stragglers, he told us to head out the concourse front door, stay on the sidewalk and line up at the first chain-link fence and stay together as we wait for our transportation.

Shortly thereafter, we accompanied by the Marine recruits who were being chased around by the screaming Sergeant. He told them not to talk or move and to stay away from the queer looking B.S. staring at him on his right. Then their Sergeant took off.

The Navy recruits spoke among themselves and smoke cigarettes as we waited, on the other hand, the Marine recruits were petrified into silence as they became part of the brick wall they were leaning up against.

Five minutes later, a shiny Marine green IH cabover towing what looked to be a cattle car, pulled up to the curb, idling and set its brakes. A lone Marine Corporal exited the cab, walked over and stood on the curbside, then straightened his campaign hat, blouse and checked his sharp creased pant legs. All the while ignoring us, as he then walked to the side doors of the trailer, proceeding to latch open the two side doors. All at once he started hurling all manner of derisive, heckling and degrading epithets at his Marine recruits. All the while, he beat on his charges with his riding crop as they were trying to clamber inside and over of one another. It was pandemonium. Screaming, crying and yelling was dispatched across the entire airport concourse. When time was up, he slammed the doors closed on recruit hands and legs. After latching the doors, crying and futile sobs could be heard from within the Marine green cattle car. The Corporal once again paused to re-arrange his apparel as he stood before us. He looked over at the now terrified Navy recruits and said,"You're next." The Corporal then walked around the tractor, mounted the driver's seat, released the brakes and pulled ever so slowly from the curb, into darkness...

We were shaking in our shoes and speechless. As we awaited our demise in the salty air, another vehicle slowly approached us. This time it was a nasty looking, faded gray International school bus. As it finally squeaked to a halt, the side door flipped open, but everyone was still clinging to the chain link fence in fear for their lives, so no one budged. After a moment or two, this fat, bald civilian pops his head out and says in a toothless, whinny speech, "If youse boys is head'in to the Navy boot camp, get on this bus now, 'cuz I ain't got all day!" 

"Whew!''

Messdeck Duty

Once a sailor begins his career in the Navy, you are thrust into the rigors of military life, part of which is indoctrination into military domestic service. The demand for cleanliness and neatness is constantly stressed. From the time you step on the base of a Naval Training Center (boot camp) cleanliness and neatness effect each of your chances of success in each and everything you do. Cleanliness will be a burden to bare throughout your service in the U.S. Navy. Your physical appearance, place you work and your ship or station are constantly scrutinized by the higher ups. They’ve devised inspections for every facet concerning naval life and there is no escaping attention this particular obstacle. After all, our summer dress uniform is dress whites.

In boot camp you learned about clean haircuts(short or long,) clean shaves(whether you have whiskers or not,) clean uniforms, clean shiny shoes, clean living quarters, clean finger/toenails(with absence of toe jam,) and even maintaining a clean record. Hopefully you make it out of boot camp unscathed (many don’t make it and are weeded out) and you look forward to your first duty assignment. Trouble is, unless you’re an admiral or maybe a captain, unless you’re really special or have some rare talent, you’ll arrive at you new duty station/ship, check-in onboard and go directly to the mess decks for 90 days of messman duties(I think the Army calls it K.P. and they’ll usually use it as a form of punishment in that branch of service.) Then after that’s over and done with, you go back to your original division and they slave you out to be a compartment cleaner for another 90 days cleaning berthing spaces and cleaning up after a bunch of knot-head sailors.

When I first came aboard the U.S.S. Dixon, I felt as though I was betrayed. I trained to be a Hull Maintenance Technician, not a subservient dishwashing, deck swabbing squid. Well surprise, surprise. Everyone I met hated working the mess decks, but if you’re smart, you get over it and get to work. Time flies when you’re having fun, then you move on to better things. Just do as L.P.O. asks and get it done fast as you can. Then you can kick back and take a smoke break, daydream or whatever ‘till the next evolution your services are needed.

Any way you look at it, the work wasn’t really hard on the mess decks unless you got stuck on a working party loading provisions and stores. That never happened to me ’cuz I did my job assignment as best I could, never got into trouble(or got caught) and I always showed up for morning muster clean shaven, in a clean uniform and in shiny shoes. The cleanliness next to Godliness thing, always helped me survive in the Navy.

The Dixon had two dishwashing compartments called sculleries. One was on the port side of the mess decks, the other was to the port. Commissaryman 1st Class Hippolito assigned me as the “Starboard Scullery Captain,” in charge of three fellow dish washers. The reason why Hip made me the lead guy was anybody’s guess, but I suppose it had to do with my being 6’4” and big enough to keep the others in line to get the job done.

Hip was an alright dude. We got along real well. He told me what to do and I did it. At first he’d bird dog me to make sure I did as I was told, but when I figured it was a weak communication problem(Hip was a Philipino and his brand of English was a little hard for me to understand.) So I learned to repeat back his orders to me until he shook his head up and down, smiled at me, then left. As long as I did this, he’d leave me alone unless he had something else he wanted to add.

Working in the scullery was a drag at first. No one on the mess decks would switch jobs with us. It was fast paced, hot, cramped, wet and noisy in that scullery compartment. At the end of a meal we were usually drenched in dishwater and sweat from our toil. Yet on the plus side, we were always the last messmen to start work and the first to complete our assigned tasks and kick back until the next meal was served. The faster we worked, the more time we had to kill. Once I convinced the others in my charge of this fact, we worked as a team and were in constant competition with the port scullery. There was no finer crew to be had for the scouring of Navy issue dishes and cookware.

When a crew of 1,500 sailors set down for a meal, lots of clean dinnerware is needed and with only one hour to serve and eat, dishes might come through the scullery for washing several times before the meal was finished. You never want to run out of clean dishes or there’d be hell to pay from the Messdeck Master-At-Arms. At sea we ate off of stainless plates that resembled over sized T.V. dinner trays, since they were unbreakable if they were tossed to the deck in rough seas. In port we ate off of homestyle Pyrex platters, dishes and bowls which had a tendency to shatter into a million glass slivers if they accidentally were dropped on the green tile covered steel decks of the Dixon. Breaking dishes was greatly frowned upon by CM1 Hippolito.

One fine summer day, we were in the midst of a typical afternoon meal. We were all grommets and elbows at our given tasks. One squid would bring in the dirty dishes and serving trays from the mess deck, scrape them clean and stack them near me while I would pre-wash them in a large sink and stack them. Then the squid next to me would place them in wash racks and feed them into the belt fed scullery machine that steamed them clean and blew them dry. The last squid would finish the process by emptying the scullery racks and place the hot Pyrex in stacks upon shelves along the bulkhead next to him. Let me tell you those dishes were hot! And since they were so hot he’d stack them on the vibrating scullery counter to let them cool a little before stacking them on the shelves.

Well, I forgot to mention that we were all high as kites that day(more often than not.) One of the guys brought in some killer Redbud that morning and we took turns blowing the smoke up and out of the scullery exhaust vent. Yesiree, we were one happy crew that day! Trouble was that the guy unloading the machine was paying more attention to not burning his fingers on the roach he was bogarting, than the three stacks of vibrating platters he had yet to put away.

One by one each of the stacks of explosive Pyrex walked off of the counter. Crash! Crash!! CRASH!!! To the deck below they went. Everyone in the galley and mess deck heard the calamity. We could hear sailors hooping and a hollering at us over the din of the scullery. We laughed so hard and long that we had hardly noticed CM1 Hippolito standing in the scullery with us, seething with displeasure. Hip was jumping up and down screaming his foreign dialect. Then drug me out into the passageway where I had to lie our way out of a Captain’s Mast. I told him that one of the guys must’ve stepped out to use the head and that the rest of us were too busy at our tasks to notice the sliding stacks of dishes. Hip did admonish us and he pointed out the cost of those platters, but all was back to normal before the next meal.

That Redbud was good though.

Bob: An Uncommon Soldier

Bob:


A good friend of mine, Bob, is not doing too well these days. I guess when you’re ninety-one, age has a way of slowing you down.

As a young soldier, Bob wore the 79th Division’s "Cross of Lorraine" on his shoulder. As a sergeant in a mortar platoon, Bob’s first vision of Europe was at Utah beach, from a Higgins landing craft, D-Day+6. Bob told me,"The first day we were there, we had two men die during our thirty mile run off of the beach."

The invasion of Normandy, so many years ago, had the members of the 314th Infantry Regiment, 79th Infantry Division fight their way from Utah Beach, through Cherbourg, into La-Haye-du-Puits, across France, through the For Lt de Parroy, into Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and then conduct operations as part of the Army of Occupation in Czechoslovakia. The 314th was the first U.S. Army unit to cross the Seine River and the first into Belgium.

Sometime during Bob’s travel through Czechoslovakia, the troops stopped to rest in a section of a small town that was pretty much blown to bits. These troops were dog tired. Bob told me that they did manage to find shelter from the rain in an old abandoned hotel ballroom. The men were quite happy about being able to dry out and being allowed to start a fire. Before long, one of the soldiers found a piano and started playing a melody on it. Then a trombone popped up, and another dogface was found that could blow a tune with it. Then a while later somebody located a violin started plucking it's strings. Bob played a "fiddle" as a kid, and he came a running when he heard that familiar plucking noise. Well before long they had a little band playing some half way decent music! They had a grand time of it. Bob said,"We sure made the best of it, with what little time we had to rest. Now the boys were dancing and laughing it up. Bob said,"That’s something I hadn’t seen since we were in England!" When the company got ready to move out, the CO told Bob to stuff the "fiddle case" into the relative safety of his Command Jeep's windshield cover. The "fiddle"was played whenever time allowed.

When Bob got ready to muster out of the Army, he asked his CO what he should do with the "fiddle." It wasn’t his, and he wanted to give it back to the owner. Bob was told that there was no way he or the Army were ever going to find the owner in this mess they were in. "Take it home and play it for the children your going to have." So he did.

In 1977, Bob, his wife Nona, and his son Phillip, went to Europe for Bob’s retirement vacation. They saw their new Volvo station wagon built in Sweden, and then drove it throughout Europe, visiting most of the places Bob had to walk through before, some thirty years prior. Bob told me it only took him three months to see the sights in a Volvo.

He never did find the "fiddle " owner, although he’d tried several times. I got to hold that fragile old looking "fiddle" he so dearly cherishes. I looked it over very carefully and I noticed a piece of paper glued inside of the body of the instrument. As I held it beneath a light, I saw the word "Stradivarius" and it had a date saying the instrument was over 200 years old. Bob smiled when he saw the look on my face. "It’s just a copy." he said.


314th/79th Tentative Casualty Statistics 'Killed in Action: 2,476'

'Wounded in Action: 10,971'

'Later Died of Wounds: 467' 'Captured or Missing in Action: 1,699'

'Disease and Non-Battle Injuries: 14,875'

'Prisoners of War Taken: 35,466'




Bob’s Passing

Bob passed yesterday afternoon, May 15, 2006. He'd finished mowing his lawn, returned to the hospital to visit his wife Nona, and collapsed in mid-sentence while speaking with her. He was ninety-one years young. So long Bob. You were one of the finest men I've ever had the pleasure to meet.


Bob’s funeral:

Bob passed on the 15th of May 2007. His funeral and remembrance celebration was held on the 20th of May. I was honored to be one of Bob’s pall bearers.

These are some of the new things I’d learned of Bob:

Bob Thistlethwait, was the oldest man in his company when he went through Army basic. He took pride in running on the heels of his Drill Instructor whenever he had the chance. After basic, Bob was assigned to the 79th, when the “Cross of Lorraine Infantry Division” was reactivated at he beginning of WWII.

Bob was wounded badly three times during the war, twice he was sent back to England to recuperate. He always went back to his mortar company when he healed up. During one heated battle, Bob and a buddy dove into a shell crater for cover from a mortar attack. Bob found a wedding band in the dirt as he was lying in the hole. He put the golden band on his ring finger since it fit and thought about, Nona, his girl back home. Soon afterward a German mortar round exploded nearby killing his friend. Bob grabbed his buddy to see if he could administer first aid to his dying friend. Bob told me, "As I held this dying man in my arms, I noticed a hot, searing pain coming from my ring finger." Shrapnel from a German mortar round, sliced the wedding band from his finger and left a burn in its place. "If I hadn't stuck that ring on my finger when I did, I think I would have lost my finger!" Bob mustered out of the 79th when it was deactivated, as a Sergeant First Class.

Bob's many medals were among memorabilia displayed at his visitation. Two medals I recognized right off the bat were the Purple Heart and his European Campaign Ribbon with four bronze stars.

After the war, Bob was a mail sorter on the mail train from Kansas City to Chicago. His new wife, Nona would often meet his train and wave at Bob when it went through Burlington. She met his train more than once to give him a couple of apple pies to snack on. The first time she did this Bob was afraid his gruff boss would admonish him for this breach of work ethic. When he finally got up the nerve to tell his boss about the pies, the boss got nose to nose with Bob, snatched the mail out of his hands and yelled at everyone to stop what they were doing. It was time for a pie break.

Bob loved his job on that mail train. Being physically fit as he was, he could jump flat footed from the floor, up onto the mail sorting table some 36" high. He had to be careful about hitting his head on the ceiling, but he took a dollar from everyone, including his boss, for that feat. The new guys in the mail car always ended up a dollar short before they’d reach Chicago or Kansas City.

Bob had a mouse problem once. He was playing his fiddle in Nona’s kitchen when a mouse came out of the pantry and stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor to listen to his music. When Bob stopped playing, the mouse would run back into the pantry. When Bob fiddled a tune, he’d come back out of the pantry and listen to Bob again. Nona didn’t mind the mouse listening to Bob, but his living in her pantry didn’t sit well with her, so Bob made a live trap for the mouse and freed it in a corn field outside of town.

Bob used to attend the reunions of the 79th Cross of Lorraine Infantry Division. Membership kept shrinking, so Bob stopped attending. Bob’s son Phillip called the 79th’s last registered survivor and told him of Bob’s passing. He said that he new Bob and remembers him very well. He said Bob was well respected by his men.... “Bob was a Sergeant’s, Sergeant.” There wasn’t a dry eye in the church after they played a tape of Bob’s rendition of “Foggy Mountain Breakdown.”

"KNOCK OFF SHIP"S WORK!"

Between working on damage control equipment, avoiding HTC Little, and making sure my guys did their jobs; I had a long day. We were coming up on a pay period, so that meant everyone was pretty much broke. So after ‘knock off ships work’ I lounged around the carpenter shop for an hour or so, and waited for chow to go down. I couldn’t afford to eat elsewhere. Once I got chow out of the way, I proceeded to the berthing area to get a shower and relax a bit. The ripe locker room smell of Engineering berthing was enough to convince me to clean up and get the hell off of the ship for the evening, broke or not. After a nice Hollywood shower, I dug around in my locker for some smelly water to splash on my cleanest dirty civie shirt, and to my surprise, I found a nice wad of loose bills and change I’d squirreled away in a sock. Beer Money! What a deal, damned near twenty-five bucks!

After getting all duded up, I went on a search for someone to drink with, but all of my friends had already hit the beach. So I set out on my own. More beer for me! Mobile was tied along pier 5 at the 32nd Street naval base. Getting off of the Quarter Deck was a real boost to my spirits. The warm evening, salty air and hot money burning a hole in my pocket renewed the spring in my step. I didn’t have any gas to drive my bus around so I opted to hoof it to the bar. The EM club was closest and the beer was cheap, but every time I’d gone into that place, some drunken squid would try to put some whoop ass on me. Not tonight, I just want to mind my own business and have a good time. I could visit the Western Club (a.k.a. ‘The Cow Barn’) and drag some pudgy Westpac Widow around the dance floor. Maybe later, I wasn’t drunk enough for that yet. The night was still young and I really wasn’t up to speed yet for that loud Buck Owens crowd.

There are a ton of bars strung up and down National City’s Miracle Mile, but I was tired of walking and settled on this hole-in-the-wall establishment, not too far from The Cow Barn. I didn’t catch the name, but it looked like your typical city dweller, tiger pit. You know the kind of dive that tests your six senses. A little stinky, glitzy, and somewhat foreboding. Where people go to get drunk and they don’t want to know your name. Just right!

As I saddled up to the padded horseshoe bar, the sinister looking greasy barkeep gave me one of those ‘you really don’t belong in here, don’t start anything, hurry it up and get out of here glances.’ I asked him for a pitcher of beer and the smart ass asked me if I’d like to have a glass to go along with it. "Only if it doesn’t cost extra", said I. Well at least the beer was as cold as my welcome, and this pitcher was a big nice big one. Before I got to swallow down my second glass of foam, I heard this familiar crusty sort of whine coming from around the other side of the horseshoe shaped bar. There was this island of mirrored shelves that held all of the bottles of booze and It blocked my view of the other side, where other patrons were sitting. But that familiar whiney sound, sounded a whole lot like Mobile’s very own little, HTC(Head Turd Chaser) Little. HTC Little, was a first class prick(his true rating.)

Chief Little had just reported on board Mobile, replacing, HTC Holdgrapher, another real first class prick. There were a lot of fine Chiefs that had crossed the quarter deck of the Mobile, but those guys never made it to R-Division when I was aboard Mobile. HTC Holdgrapher, spent most of his Navy career behind a desk until he got sent to the Mobile. ‘R’ division showed the shining example of his knowledge and leadership; It was a wreck under his direction. The officers thought he was tolerable. But his men either usually avoided him, or hated him enough that they wanted to toss him over the side while we were underway. He never walked the weather decks at night. The thing I liked most about HTC Holdgrapher was that he retired shortly after I came aboard Mobile.

HTC Little, was a dandy replacement part for Holdgrapher. I don’t know where Chief Little came from, but he had this nasally, New England accent. As a replacement, we could have done worse, but as our luck would have it, it was hard to see how. Chief Little was a runt both physically and mentally(I never measured him, but he had to be buying his uniforms in the children’s section at the P.X.) Chief Little was a suckass around the officers. He was a real salty, fatherly type to our new green division officer, but most of the time he acted like he hated his own men. That’s ok, because we hated him back.

Chief Little had a real knack for inventing nicknames for the men in ‘R’ Division. The Hair lip, The Spick, The Crip, The Lurch (I was The Lurch), O’ Fuzz Nuts, That Pretty Boy, The Jesus Freak, The Doper, That Squirrel Bait, The Hillbilly, and Laurel and Hardy, this is how he addressed us(What a motley sounding crew.) It's no wonder that as with HTC Holdgrapher, HTC Little didn’t dare walk the weather decks at night. If it weren’t for HT1 Braun and HT1 Watkins holding things together, the whole division would have went AWOL.

Little Chief was usually drunk on his off duty hours, and with regularity, he’d be bleeding at the eyes each morning at muster. If you were one of his underlings, you didn’t want to be around the guy ‘till after lunch. Then he’d be happy for an hour or so, till his lunch wore off. Yes, the little guy liked his booze.

Anyway, back in the Tiger Pit, I had just inhaled my first beer and I working on the second when I come to realize that I’m sitting in the same bar with HTC Little. This matter of fact has really got me sucking down my brew! I don’t want to see this little S.O.B., especially when I’m on the beach trying to relax. And from the sound of his voice, the Little Chief is already three sheets to the wind. As for myself, down the hatch! Glug, glug, glug!

I’m about half way through my pitcher when HTC Little wheels around the bar, still wearing his rumpled, khakis, chief’s uniform . The little jerk was on the way to the head when he spotted me, " Lurch! Howz it goin’ ya squid!" As he passes me, he jabs me in the ribs with his thumb for good measure. Then the sinister looking bartender eyes me and says, "You know that little turd?" I didn’t have a snappy answer, so Mister Sinister sez, "Get him out of here! Yer buddy’s worn out his welcome here, and he’s about to get decked by the guy he’s been slobbering on for the last hour. I mean it Buddy, get lost! Take him outta here!"

I felt hurt, insulted and I was still thirsty, so I pointed at my pitcher to show I wasn’t yet ready to leave, but Mr. Sinister went for it as if he were going to dump it out, but I got to pitcher first and started to slug it down(guess I didn't need that glass after all. I got it sucked down at about the same time the Little Chief came wandering out of the head. By the look on Mr. Sinister’s face, I could see it was time to leave. I glanced at my wristwatch, hell it wasn’t quite 1900 hours yet! What a drag! I told the Chief Little it was time to go, but he resisted my efforts and called me a bunch of bad names. So I grabbed him by the arm and drug him out to the sidewalk like I had a mad little dog on a leash.

As I tried to hail him a cab, Chief Little began acting pretty stupid. He kept running in circles, growling and trying to stomp my foot to get away from me. Eventually a cab pulled up, so I opened the door and I threw Chief Little into the backseat. Before I could get the cab fare out, the Little Chief got out on the driver’s side and proceeded to stumble around in the middle of National City’s, Miracle Mile. Great! Were having fun now. After a couple of near misses of my own, I catch up to Chief, drag him back and tossed him into the car again before we both got run over. This time I'd climb into the cab and sit on him so he couldn’t hit on me or escape.

Now I’m pissed. I’m headed back to the ship way too early and I’m burning up the last of my beer money on a cab I’d never normally ride in. The Little Chief wasn’t too happy either with me squishing him into the car seat. The cabbie, on the other hand, thought the whole damn thing was pretty funny and couldn’t wait to see the expression on the Marine sentry’s face as we pulled up to the gate at 32nd Street.

I had my I.D. out, Chief Little didn’t need to show his ‘cuz he was still in the uniform of the day. The Marine did salute us, but he stared pretty hard. I don’t think he didn’t really wanted to have anything to do with us. Thankfully, he let us proceed. The cabbie is what probably save our asses from Shore Patrol involvment, he probably took the edge off of our tense situation with the way he was laughing his butt off.

Now the real fun begins. Our cab driver won’t drive us on the pier ‘cuz he says it’s not legal. And as it just so happens, the Mobile is tied up at the very last berth at the very end of the pier. Now I’m really, really pissed! But in a sense, that’s ok ‘cuz the Little Chief is really, really, really pissed also.

I was deaf to threats of death, Captain’s Mast and going to the brig. I’m a man on a mission now, besides, after all of the beer I'd chugged down, I really had to pee. "Chief Little, we're going back to the ship!" I had to drag him out of the cab, he now wanted to stay in. Little Chief was kicking and screaming at me. The cabbie was still laughing at us. And now the Quarter Deck watches of the ships along the pier were starting to hoot and holler at the Chief and me. I jerked him out of the cab, and with the hold I had on his wrist, he couldn’t get away from me.

I wasn’t paying much attention to what the Chief was doing, just dragging the little ankle-biter along as best I could. Then I felt this sharp sting up the side of my head. He jumped up and sissy-slapped me! I’m sure Little Chief thought it was a K.O., but I was still standing, and now I was starting to laugh, along with the Q.D. watches that were cheering us on. This caused Little Chief to elevate his anger level even further. He reached out with his size six shoe and kicked me right in the shin. "OUCH!!" This stopped me from laughing, and I let go of the little prick, but kicking me also elevated my anger level. He tried to run off, but I ran faster. I picked Chief Little up by the neck and crotch, tossed him on my shoulder like a seabag and started running towards the Mobile with the little bastard.

Boy, with the crowd cheering me on now and the pitcher of beer kicking in, I felt as though I was going in for a touchdown or something. The Little Chief was quiet now, except for the gurgully grunts he made in count with my stride. "Ye-ha! We’re going for the gold! I’m the champion of the world!" We made it past an LST and almost made it up to a destroyer before I tripped on an expansion joint in the pier. Little Chief and I were both flying through the air in slow motion, or so it seemed. We hit that concrete pier pretty hard. Uh-Oh! The laughing had stopped.

There was nothing but silence now. The O.O.D. from a ship nearby, called down and asked if we were alright. After I stumbled to my feet, I said, "We’re just finer than frog hair on a foggy day, Sir!" Yeah right, by looks of the Little Chief, it’d be a dead frog. He really didn’t look so good. Little Chief was out like a light. He wasn’t moving, except his chest was still going up and down some. He was bleeding like a stuck hog from his head. Maybe that was a good sign, since it meant his heart may still be pumping blood. Still clutched in his fists was half of my civy shirt he'd managed to rip off of my back. I took that piece out of his hands and wrapped it around his bleeding head. "Now he looks like a real little pirate!", I thought to myself. I stuffed his hat in his shirt pocket and sort of stood him up. Nope he wasn’t dead yet. Dead folks ain’t this warm and sweaty are they? Then I noticed I was covered in bloody road rash from the spill on the concrete pier also. I began saying prayers for both of us now.

I had the Chief under the arms in a nut to butt bear hug, sort of walking him along the pier. Kicking his feet to keep him in step, we had to be a sight. I wished someone would start up the laughing again. Nobody did. Man that was one long walk. Little Chief started mumbling as we started our climb up the Mobile's ladder tower. That was a good sign. Right?

Well, we made it up the series of ladders, across the gang plank, up to the Mobile’s Quarter Deck. Thank God, "A" gang’s, Mr. Hunt had the Q.D.! I held up my I.D. and asked for permission to come aboard. We really must have been something to see. Although mere words may not have described our appearance, the look on Mr. Hunt’s face was sure saying a lot. Mr. Hunt asked me if the Chief were dying or drunk. I said, "I hope not and yes, very!" Mr. Hunt told me to take him up to his rack. Then I asked for another hand to help carry the Chief Little. Although Mr. Hunt allowed us to cross the Quarter Deck, He refused any assistance ‘cuz he didn’t want us bleeding on the whites of his watch standers. Besides I managed to bring him this far under my own power. "You'll make it alright. Goodnight Bohnenkamp."

Great! Three more steep ladders to climb with little Mr. Rubber Legs. To heck with it, "Sorry Chiefie, seabag time!" With that I tossed him over my shoulder and proceeded upward. When I finally burst into the chief’s berthing, I saw this naked fat chief shaving his mug in the head. "Chief! Could you tell me, where’s Chief Little’s rack is at?" The fat Chief showed me the way and I dumped the Little Chief in his bottom rack with a thunk and covered him with a blanket off of another guy's rack. With the fat chief still standing there, I tucked Chief Little in snug as a bug in a rug and squeezed his hand saying, "We let them Jarheads have it tonight, didn’t we Chief?" I patted his arm and stood to leave, but the Fat Chief blocked my path wanting to hear the whole story. I told him he’d be hearing our Little Chief brag for months about this one, "Just let him tell you the story Chief. I'd hate to ruin it for him chief." Then I got the hell out of there.

Next morning at Quarters, Chief Little was a no show. LTJG Lewright told us that Chief Little would not be with us for the next few days due to injuries sustained from an incident last night. Good God he wasn’t dead! I was sweating that big time, what a relief. Later Mr. Lewright took me aside and asked me what went down. I told him it was kind of like a car crash, but we used Jarheads instead of a car. He rolled his eyes back and just walked off. No further questions. I guess he didn’t really want to know all of the gorey details.

It was three days later before Chief Little showed up for morning muster. His head was all wrapped up in white bandages. He had his little hat perched up on top of the mound of bandages like a cherry on a hot fudge sundae. What a sight. He looked damned miserable; so it boosted the morale of ‘Repair’ division’s men without fail for weeks to come. He was still his old growly self though, a little weak yet from his ordeal, but he was still a little jerk.

HTC Little never once said a word to me, about that fateful evening. Nor I a word to him. People made up different stories about the incident. I just stuck to the original story. "Us Squids stick together when there are Marine asses to be kicked!" Yea, right!

Is It The Real Thing?

One hot summer day I was headed aft to the Shipfitter’s shop to locate one of my guys. USS Mobile was tied up in San Diego at the time for some routine maintenance, so the ship was crawling with sweaty deck-apes armed with paint chippers and paint soaked brushes. BM2 Hollingsworth(can’t remember his real name. Old-timers decease I guess,) was overseeing the progress of several men when I happened by.

Hollingsworth was a red-headed, red-necked, REDMAN tobacco chewing, tall drink of water from the state of Montana. He was usually full of piss and vinegar, as was the case this fine morning. We stood around in the shade of an “LCM-8" boat, admiring the day and sharing scuttlebutt. Hollingsworth noticed my ice cold can of Coke and asked if he could have a sip, (WARNING:If you ever gave Hollingsworth a drink of anything, he’d usually spit some REDMAN juice into it to mark it as his, or he'd do it just to start a fight.) "I break your redneck if you put your lips to my Coke. Take a slug of your own damned Coke!”, I said, referring to his own tobacco spit filled Coke can. Feigning heartbreak over my comment, Hollingsworth let a long brown slimy honker of tobacco spit slide into his own Coke can. Then he gave me a mischievous look as he held a finger to his pursed lips.

BM2 Hollingsworth tippy-toed over to the bullwork near one of his guys who was busy knocking away loose paint from the deck. Hollingsworth covertly swapped Coke cans with the one sitting on top of the bullwork, above the toiling deck-ape. Then casually, Hollingsworth took his place by my side, whilst sipping on his fresh new Coke. It wasn’t a long wait before his thirsty deck-ape reached up and took a long pull from his not-so-frosty Coke. And a long pull he did take. The deck-ape was on his second to third gulp when he’d realized something was drastically wrong. Maybe it was clue he got when he saw the two Second Class Petty Officers over in the shade, choking on their own spit from laughter! Then Hollingsworth takes a last slug off of his tasty Coke and offers it to the deck-ape, “Looking for this!?” Immediately, Hollingsworth drops the Coke and takes off on a dead run down the main deck! The deck ape looks over at me with shear hatred, but he doesn’t want me nearly as bad as he wants Hollingsworth. So with paint chipper in hand, he’s quick to his feet, and in hot pursuit of the tall, laughing, red-neck, disappearing in front of him, down the main deck.

Up ladders, down ladders, port, starboard, forward and aft of the ship they ran. It was like watching some demented episode of a Popeye cartoon. I don’t remember ever laughing so hard in my life. Eventually the deck-ape lost steam. He lost his chipping tool over the side when he threw it in a wild attempt to hit Hollingsworth. After an exhaustive chase, the deck-ape gave up hope of ever catching Hollingsworth. As the deck-ape stumbled his way down to sickbay for a cure to tobacco spit poisoning, he started puking and having the dry heaves. The poor guy thought for sure he was dying a horrible death.

Then it was the sadistic Corpsmen’s turn to “cure” the poor bastard. They made him drink some black solution then pumped his stomach to get rid of the nicotine/spit poison. The Corpsmen did other stuff to him, but it was all behind closed doors. Later on one of the corpsmen told me that they'd utilized the deck-ape as a guinea pig, "poison control dummy" for training purposes. Sick puppies them Corpsmen.

After all was said and done, BM2 Hollingsworth came away from this incident squeaky clean. Sometimes you get lucky I guess. The deck-ape, at best, survived the ordeal. And I forgot why I was headed aft to the Shipfitter Shop, so I went back to the Carpenter Shop for some coffee and to share my story with anyone who would listen .

USS Mobile, LKA-115: Sailors, Marines and Shipboard Water Closets

We’d been underway for a couple of days headed for NORPAC amphibious training. Mobile had her full compliment of Marines(250) on-board and was transporting them to southern Alaska for mountainous maneuvers.

I was this evening’s Duty Section Engineering Department Petty Officer, as well as Repair Division’s Duty H.T. I just made my rounds, seeing to it that the sweepers had done their jobs before I went up to the ship’s nightly movie. No sooner had I settled down in front of the movie screen with my soda, kipper snacks and crackers, Mobile's 1MC blares out, "Duty HT, lay to the bridge."

I had a bad feeling it was another distress call from troop berthing. Each night, since we’d been underway, the Marine on watch down in troop berthing would call for the Duty HT to come down and unclog their water-closets in their compartment's head. As always, it was just before the evening movie went down, and the head was always a stinking mess. I grabbed, Mendez, my duty gopher, and immediately, he started pleading and whining, trying to get out of our latest detail. "Follow me!" was all I said.

Up to the bridge we went, and sure enough it was the troop berthing head again. Troop berthing holds 250 Marines. It’s situated centerline-amidship, is as wide as the ship, and is at the bottom of the ship(7th deck), below the waterline. You enter troop berthing at the aft bulkhead of the compartment, go down a couple long ladders and your standing on the keel(bottom) of the ship. Continue to walk to the compartment's forward bulkhead, past the 250 racks that are stacked six high, you see two more long ladders, port and starboard, leading up to the shower and head. These two separate compartments are purposefully situated several feet above the ship’s waterline for drainage purposes. When you go up the long port ladder, you’ll be standing on the landing leading into the head. Open the door and your standing in the head.

The forward bulkhead of the head held four plugged urinals, plum full of Marine excrement. To the right of the plugged urinals, were four water closets, three of which happened to be full to the brim with the same brown smelly stuff. The last water closet was still functional and occupied. A line of five or six noisy Marines were rooting for it’s occupant to hurry and evacuate his bowels. What a stinking mess! I noticed that the wash basins had crap in them! These Marines had been awfully busy today. And were these boys ever happy to see Mendez and me. Hooping and hollering. Cussing and carrying on as they were. I ignored their taunts as best I could, and told them, "No problem Marines, we’ll have you Marines fixed up in a jiffy!" I looked over at Mendez and saw that he was about to faint. "We’ll be back as soon as we can. First we have to get some gear!"

I could have passed this little ditty on up to Chief Little. It would've been the proper thing to do. He even hated Marines worse than he hated me. But he was a total jerk, so I chose not to get him involved. Besides, I had a more fun and interesting plan. Up to the Carpenter Shop I went.

Meanwhile, I had Mendez open the small access panel next to the door to the head and run a 1-1/2" fire hose up through it. I brought back a ton of stuff from the shop. A pair of 5,000volt rubber electrician gloves, a Mark V gas mask, a partial bucket of okem, several wooden DC plugs, one 1/8" 7018 welding rod, a 24" pipe wrench, and a 4"clean-out plug with a custom made 1-½" female swivel adapter I’d up made earlier.

When I returned, I saw where Mendez had lost his lunch on the landing by the head’s door. After I made sure I had enough hose to work with, I told him to stand by at the bottom of the ladder, guard the fire hose and wait.

The Marines thought I was pretty funny looking, wearing the gas mask and gloves. I assured them I’d have them fixed up in a jiffy and proceeded to empty two of the porcelain bowls. I ‘bout puked in my mask, but I was a man on a mission. What the Marines did was toss in oranges, apples, pop cans and rolls of toilet paper, just to see if they would flush. When that didn’t work, the Marines then filled the bowls up the rest of the way to the rim with various shades and textures of excrement. As soon as I emptied their crud on the deck, I packed okem into the turd chute and tapped in a DC plug nice and tight. I did this to two of the four bowls. Keep in mind that the puckey filled urinals and sinks utilized the same four inch drain manifold as the water closets; these I left alone and untouched. I replaced the 4 inch drain manifold's clean-out plug with the fire hose adapter plug, and attached the 1-1/2"fire hose to it.

One Marine was still occupying the last bowl. I didn’t bother him or the other five of his Marine brethren still waiting in line. I excused myself for a moment, stripped my mask off and called Mendez up the ladder. I told Mendez to man the fire plug, and his eyes got big as the smile on his face, "When you hear me beat on the bulkhead with this wrench, charge that hose with everything it's got and then, get lost! I’ll be right behind you so don’t get in my way!" As Mendez left, I closed the hasp on the head door and twisted a welding rod in place as a padlock. "BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!", went the pipe wrench. Down the ladder rails I slid shouting, "MAKE A HOLE!!" At about the same time I ran over a Marine, 150PSI of salt water forced its way up into the head via a 1-1/2" firehouse. I heard this muffled, "BUH-BOOM!" and some garbled screaming and yelling on my way out of troop berthing.

The movie was nearly over when I sat down. I guess I must've smelled a little rank, ‘cuz these guys gave me funny looks as they got up and left the movie. I kept waiting for the ship’s 1 MC "Flooding Alarm" to go off, but it didn’t. So I left the movie and cautiously made my way to the Carpenter Shop to see if there was any fallout yet. The Sounding/Security watch showed up an said he’d heard what Mendez and I did in troop berthing. I admitted nothing of the sort. "Mendez must be on drugs. Don't listen to him!" says I. "Go back to your watch before I place you on report!"

The aftermath was kind of amusing. The two bowls I had plugged up, stayed on the bulkhead. The only casualties during this exercise were the last two exploding porcelain bowls, and the sitting Marine. When his pot exploded, he tried to jump over the water closet door, and in the process of escape, scraped his legs all up jumping over the shitter's door. The sinks and urinals got cleaned out, but the opposing bulkheads needed cleaning now. The Marines standing in the head got a free mud bath and refreshing shower courtesy of the Mobile's Repair Department . Even the deck and all of the Marine gear and laundry in troop berthing, from the second rack down, got a free salt water wash job. A ton of water a minute that can spew out of a 1 ½" fire hose pumped up to 150p.s.i. Who knows who, how or when that fireplug got shut off.

Not one gripe reached my ears. Not a single warning or threat. Not even a peep from HTC Little. The two broken bowls weren’t replaced till after we returned to San Diego. But best of all, there were no more complaints or repair calls from troop berthing during the rest of that cruise. Another satisfied group of happy campers, compliments of the USS Mobile!

USS Mobile, LKA-115: Navy Oxygen Breathing Apparatus(O.B.A.) Training

After my arrival and indoctrination aboard the USS Mobile, I was given the honor of bringing the ship’s company up to date on their damage control qualifications. What better way to become the most popular guy on the ship than to show the Damage Control training film documenting the USS Forrestal flight deck fire of 1967? For two weeks this thirty minute video showed before our nightly ship’s movie. Each crew member was required to sign a statement that they’d seen the movie. Our captain also required the movie be shown to all of his officers.

What had happened to the Forrestal, can happen aboard any ship at sea. Conflagration is a ship’s worst nightmare. If the fire is not put out, the ship will burn, sink and perish along with a lot of good men. 134 men were killed and 62 were injured in this fire. Those that weren’t killed by the fire or explosions, were mostly casualties of smoke inhalation. Many men were found dead, as they were trying to improperly use the Navy Oxygen Breathing Apparatus(O.B.A.)

The mandatory movie didn’t make me popular with the crew, but it got the point across. Every sailor is a fireman, no matter what their specialty, and every man needs to know how to don and operate an O.B.A.

My own Section Four Fire Party didn’t exactly worship me either, but you can bet that they were never bored with any of the training evolutions I came up with. I trained them as best I could and drilled them as I felt they needed it. I never duplicated a fire drill. I exposed each of my men to each piece of Damage Control equipment onboard the ship and required each man in my charge to demonstrate it’s usage. Section Five Fire Party also knew the quickest way to navigate their way around the ship due to the never ending variety of the drills we exercised.

When our other LKA sister ships tied along our side would have a fire drill, we’ve called away the “Rescue and Assistance Detail” to render assistance to their stricken ship. More often than not, we’d be on the scene of their casualty before their own Damage Control crew would be. That was a giant feather in our cap.

Anyway, we had training many times before on the O.B.A. , but I wanted some extra special training for my guys. Today we were going to have everyone in the Fire Party light off an O.B.A. This training, if it went well, would replace our duty section D.C. drill. Earlier in the week I got with the duty corpsman and asked him if he could come up with something to gas out the Carpenter Shop with. Nothing to hurt anyone, just something to get their attention during the training evolution. He said he’d talk to the ship’s doctor and maybe come up with some sort of plan. A couple of days later, our corpsman said he was all set for the show. He was so anxious about it, he even had me a little spooked since he wouldn’t clue me in on any of the details. He assured me though that no one would die from the experience.

Well, our duty day arrived. I had all of my guys mustered in the morning and warned the guys of the O.B.A. training session following the evening meal. Our corpsman acted really obnoxious and kept hinting to the guys about how something bad might happen during this evening’s training evolution. I told the corpsman to clam it up and reminded the guys that they’d all better know their O.B.A.s inside and out since tonight's training session would be special. All day long these guys hounded me about O.B.A.s and tonight’s exercise. When I wouldn’t tell ‘em about what was going to go down, they’d walk away shaking their heads mumbling.

With evening chow out of the way, I had the Section Five Fire Party muster in the Carpenter Shop along with any other interested personnel seeking O.B.A. refresher training. We emptied each repair locker on the Mobile of their stock of O.B.As and returned to the Carpenter Shop. Meanwhile, our faithful corpsman had a Bunsen burner setup inside of a large stainless wash basin, setting on our workbench. He says to me, “You’re really going to enjoy this!” He had me wondering.

I had the men don their O.B.A.s, fit up their face masks and check ‘em out for air leaks. Having done so, I had them remove their masks and had them tucked into their O.B.A. harness, at the ready. Now all these guys needed were the chemical canisters that slid up into the bale assembly of their O.B.A.s. This canister(when operating properly) scrubs out the CO2 of your breath and acts as a re-breather, producing oxygen needed to breath. Once the canister is in place, a lanyard needs to be pulled to activate the canister and you have to make sure the cotter key is at the end of the lanyard or else the thing won’t light off and you won’t have air to breath.

We had about twenty guys dinking with their O.B.A.s, including a couple of officers I hadn’t counted on. It was getting kinda cramped in that little Carpenter shop. The more the merrier! Then there was a knock on the shop door. I opened it to see our ship’s doctor standing in the passageway wearing a bright yellow Nuclear/Biological(Big Bird) jumpsuit and gas mask. In his rubber glove covered hands, he’s holding a wooden box with skulls and crossbones adorning it in plain view. He sat the box on the workbench and tells me and the corpsman to done our gas masks. Needless to say, the guys wearing the O.B.A.s were getting a little anxious and started asking me when I was going to hand out the O.B.A. canisters. I gave out the canisters, had them loaded into the O.B.A.s, but don’t don your masks or pull the canister lanyards till the Doc gives the word.

The Doc had to be sweating his butt off, wearing that Big Bird suit, but he was very methodical as he and the corpsman poured that special clear liquid into the beaker. Then the corpsman placed the beaker on the burner and the Doc tells him to let him know when 45 seconds lapses. The Doc then measures out a dose of green powder from a little brown bottle he’d retrieved from that skull box. “Forty-five seconds Doctor!” The Doc then poured the powder into the beaker and nasty looking green foam started overflowing from the beaker and doused out the burner fire.

“GAS!” The Doc yells! Then I reached over and turned out the lights in the shop... All I could hear were hearts pounding, breaths of muffled anguish peppered with colorful swear words from the twenty men wearing the O.B.A.s.

After a short period, I flicked the lights on and inspected the survivors. Other than the extra wide eyeballs bulging out of their face masks, everyone learned how to properly don and operate an O.B.A. An experience I’m sure that they remember to this day, thirty years later.

The Ship's Doctor wanted to do it again to his com padres in the wardroom, but it was so much work. After cleaning up the mess and disposing of the canisters, I just had to pass.

I asked the Doc what the “Gas Potion” was. "Vinegar and lime Kool Aid."

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