That's where the Yuts go for a snack after they finish procuring the roll of flight line and finding the buckets of prop wash.
Military Memes
- Thread starter Wildman
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That's where the Yuts go for a snack after they finish procuring the roll of flight line and finding the buckets of prop wash.
...getting a BT punch, A.S.H. Receiver, standing mail buoy watch, fetching some relative bearing grease....
OP
Getting a box of grid squares, muffler bearings, & I can't remember more right now... Getting old SUCKS.
Fastest I ever saw anybody move on a ship was the result of a kid standing the "Mast Watch" for Sea and Anchor detail. We used to run an elevator switch and sound powered phone line through a stuffing tube to the missile house and have a new boot stand the mast watch. His job was to push the down button on the elevator switch when the "bridge" told him to lower the mast going under the Cooper River bridge out of Charleston. I really did look like you were gonna hit it but there was plenty of clearance.
Billy Wayne Reese (side note-He showed up with no middle name-William NMN Reese-but Tom Trovillo told him it was tragic that his momma didn't love him enough to give him a middle name- WE loved him and his middle name was now Wayne. He went by Billy Wayne as long as I knew him) was on watch and when the mast didn't move, our "Safety Officer" started screaming at him that "We're gonna crash! Run down to One Fire and have them crank it down manually!!!"
That little chubby son of a bitch didn't even know where he was going, but he took off faster than I've ever seen anybody move for an emergency, real or imagined!
The mast watch was one of the best gags I've ever seen. We used it every chance we got.
Billy Wayne Reese (side note-He showed up with no middle name-William NMN Reese-but Tom Trovillo told him it was tragic that his momma didn't love him enough to give him a middle name- WE loved him and his middle name was now Wayne. He went by Billy Wayne as long as I knew him) was on watch and when the mast didn't move, our "Safety Officer" started screaming at him that "We're gonna crash! Run down to One Fire and have them crank it down manually!!!"
That little chubby son of a bitch didn't even know where he was going, but he took off faster than I've ever seen anybody move for an emergency, real or imagined!
The mast watch was one of the best gags I've ever seen. We used it every chance we got.
Another one we used to love was sending a boot to get a trash bag of exhaust from a vehicle for the "Exhaust analysis maintenance check"
We do that with "weather samples" from the cat walk off the control tower and have them take the bag to weather. Weather will ask them "Did you take the elevator? Yes? Well that's no good. It decompresses the air too quickly. Go do it again but use the stairs."
I also heard one of my marine coworkers tell me a new one today. We have secure protable tunable radios with the nomenclature of "PRC-140" or "PRC-119" and the like. Pronounced "prick one nineteen." They would send a newb to the Master Sgt and ask for another "PRC-E8"
C.J. Roberts
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When I was a Young Marine, I was an 81mm Mortarman, and we had a few. Sending a Boot out for Firing Line was popular, but our favorite was sending one to the Armory for a Baseplate Jack.
One time when we were deployed somewhere, while we were laying in the Guns, (Mortars are "guns" because they are smoothbore), our Platoon Sergeant was running up and down the Gun Line like a crazy man. It was his first time getting the guns up, and he was trying to make a good impression.
Right in the middle of it, I suddenly stood up and hollered at him, "Sgt. Blah", (it was 40 years ago, what do you expect?) "Tell the Lieutenant if we can't get our Gun up it's not our fault! Smitty, (Armorer), forgot to bring the Baseplate Jack!"
"RIGHT!" He proceeds to run over to the Lieutenant and repeat what I said word for word. Right when he said "Baseplate Jack" you could see on his face that he just Got It. He turned around, looked my way, and the whole Platoon, Lieutenant included, just busted out laughing. He just shook his head and laughed right along with us.
He was Sgt. Baseplate Jack for the rest of the deployment.
One time when we were deployed somewhere, while we were laying in the Guns, (Mortars are "guns" because they are smoothbore), our Platoon Sergeant was running up and down the Gun Line like a crazy man. It was his first time getting the guns up, and he was trying to make a good impression.
Right in the middle of it, I suddenly stood up and hollered at him, "Sgt. Blah", (it was 40 years ago, what do you expect?) "Tell the Lieutenant if we can't get our Gun up it's not our fault! Smitty, (Armorer), forgot to bring the Baseplate Jack!"
"RIGHT!" He proceeds to run over to the Lieutenant and repeat what I said word for word. Right when he said "Baseplate Jack" you could see on his face that he just Got It. He turned around, looked my way, and the whole Platoon, Lieutenant included, just busted out laughing. He just shook his head and laughed right along with us.
He was Sgt. Baseplate Jack for the rest of the deployment.
You know what the beauty of all those stories is?
Nobody got butt hurt, nobody got counseled, nobody got written up, nobody needed any sensitivity training or safe spaces.
We just went about the business of the day and worked with our brothers (and eventually sisters) and became even closer.
Sometimes someone DID get butthurt and we doubled up on fucking with them till they toughened up or got out. Either way, the unit was stronger and more effective.
Nobody got butt hurt, nobody got counseled, nobody got written up, nobody needed any sensitivity training or safe spaces.
We just went about the business of the day and worked with our brothers (and eventually sisters) and became even closer.
Sometimes someone DID get butthurt and we doubled up on fucking with them till they toughened up or got out. Either way, the unit was stronger and more effective.
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I had some troops that got butt hurt and even had a few who tried to file complaints about me but most of the time as you said they all got over it and marched on.
Yeah, I had two kids in 23 years complain.
One said I was racist because everybody that made him work was racist- charge thrown out along with him.
One just complained that I called him a crank (Navy food service personnel, everybody serves at least 90 days cranking), we're supposed to call em Food Service Attendants now.
Told the Command Master Chief if he didn't like the way I ran my mess cranks, he could run em his damn self.
FWIW- when I left my last ship, the entire division-30 motherfuckers, jumped me and held me down for a pink belly as a goodbye.
No paperwork and no complaining even though there were stitches involved for two of my Gunners Mates.
There are still a lot of good folks out there. Senior leadership? Not so much.
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My funniest one was I'd repaired the generator out at the main gate in Iraq. We were supposed to have the civilian KRB guys do it but after waiting 3 hours I said fuck it and went out and worked on it. I mean it was my job before I'd become a 1SG. So I come walking back into the building turning the A/C and the spotting scope back on. And I'm thumping my chest "I'm A Fucking God I'm A Fucking Generator God" well this PFC who was always on my shit list goes up to the SGM and whines. Man I had fun smoking his ass when he came back.
Had another tell me that my cussing offended him. So I was like OK buddy, let me just hear you curse just ONCE and your ass is MINE.... He back pedaled real fast...
While I miss it I'm glad I ain't in anymore cause I'm sure I'd get in tons of trouble now.
Now, this is no sh*t.
I was on a USNS ship, which was run by the Military Sealift Command for the Navy. I was part of a detachment assigned to the ship. We had a bunch of radio electronics technicians, radio operators, a couple of quartermasters and a big compartment full of electronic stuff, state of the art 1971!
Because it wasn't a 'real' Navy ship, things were a little lax. Also, 90% of the ETs had at least two years of engineering college, which sort of intimidated the poly-sci and English majors that the officers on board had.
We were in Little Creek, VA and the skipper came into our space and asked where we thought we should go next. We knew we had to go to AUTEC because it was a new ship and they wanted acoustic signature recordings, but that's an island in the middle of nowhere.
For some inspired reason, I said we should go to the Coast Guard Station in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, so we could calibrate our LORAN-C (A/N SPN-38) navigation receivers. He agreed, so off we went. The old LORAN receivers were built to take a 10kt direct hit and weighed about 500 lbs. We had three of them, two active and one spare. We unbolted them and manhandled them to the boat deck. We could not tie up for some reason, so we dropped one of the LCVPs in the water. We got two of them into the LCVP, but the third one got loose and headed for Davy Jones' locker. A couple of the other ETs and I took them over to the Coasties and we met a Chief with hash marks from here to eternity. He greeted us warmly by asking, "What the f are you swabbies doin on my station?" I produced a large bottle of Kentucky's finest and told him I needed him to take a couple of days to calibrate these things and then write up some report that says they are OK. The bottle disappeared and we had two great days in Lauderdale, and we got our receivers calibrated.
BTW, there is no calibration procedure for the LORAN-C receivers. Even though I was the only Radar ET onboard, for some reason the Navy had sent me to LORAN receiver school in Groton, so I was the onboard 'expert'.
After about six months somebody blabbed and the skipper called me into his (tiny) office. All he said was, "Don't do that again, unless you let me in on it." He was really an oceanography prof from the USNA doing his mandatory sea duty rotation, and was pretty cool.
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C.J. Roberts
TJ Addict
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