A Story For Veteran's Day

Icedog,

That coffee pot story brought back some good memories. My first ship was a destroyer tender. The USS Cape Cod AD43. Since been moth balled and probably turned into razor blades by now. I spent 8 weeks in Philadelphia learning to be a welder at HT a shcool. Got to my first ship and got put into the carpenter shop, go figure. I graduated near the top of my class too. Anyway half the shop was for patternmakers the other half was us HT's making plaques, podium's and whatever else they needed. Our LPO was PM1 Bader. Bader was getting ready to retire and didn't like a whole lot of drama. The only thing that got under his skin was if the coffee pot was empty. He was the first person I ever met that would drink coffee all day. We would fill up the coffee pot in the morning and it would nearly be all gone by quiting time.

Munoz was our supply po and clutz to boot. We made him the supply po because he was just to dangerous around the equipment. I'm not sure how or who got under Bader's skin first that day, but we were out at sea and where almost out of coffee. We only had one can of coffee left. All the tobacco on the ship was gone and a can of skoal was selling for fifty bucks. He was in a bad mood all day. Munoz had somehow knocked over his coffee cup several times and gotten coffee stains on the paper work. Bader started yelling and told Munoz to get the hell out of his office and not to come back. It was the only time I ever knew him to raise his voice. He was ****ed.

So Munoz came out and started hanging out with us in the shop. Well we all got bored and Munoz said he was going to show us something. We had a disc sander with about a 48" disc powered by a 480v motor. The thing was a monster. We also had some rubber blocks that you would rub on the disc sander and it would clean the sawdust out of the grit. we used them until they got to the size of about a baseball. After that it was to close for comfort on a disc sander that would remove your fingers in a heart beat.

Munoz turned on the disc sander. Let it get up to full speed and then threw the rubber block into the disc. The disc hammered it into the tool rest table and then the ball would bounce around the shop like a raquet ball in a court. We thought that was pretty funny and since we were bored started entertaining ourselves by seeing who could get the best bounce.

It didn't take long for us to get bored with this either and started looking for something else to break. Munoz took one last throw. It bounced all around the shop, bounced off the plainer, bounced off the office door, and somehow bounced right off Bader's coffee cup spilling it on his fresh new paperwork, then it bounced off the stainless steel coffee pot knocking over the last of the coffee. Munoz ran into the office to apologize. I have never heard Bader scream so loud. I didn't think a human could scream that loud. This was a man who never screamed or cussed the whole time I knew him. He laid down a stream of cuss words that was impressive by the standards of a sailor, and a few I had never heard of before then. The rest of us decided we had work to do elsewhere and left Munoz to his fate. We cleared out of there so fast it was like ****roaches when you turn on the lights. Man that was funny.

Thanks for the laugh. That chunk of rubber hitting the coffee cup is one of those things you couldn't do on a bet.

Yeah that was a once in a lifetime occurance. First he ****es him off in the morning spilling his cup, then the rubber just bounced the wrong way to do it again. I don't know whatever happened to that guy, but I'm sure he's still spilling someones coffee.

Awesome story! It makes me glad to know we all do stupid stuff for kicks. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one screwing up (or around)!

While in the field on exercises, we would make sure we took a Stars and Stripes, which had the TV schedule for Armed Forces Network (AFN). Our GLQ team would look at the schedule, aim the antenna in the direction of Frankfurt and wait until certain shows were about half-way through...jam for 1-2 minutes, then wait some, until near the end of the show...then jam some more.

For "some reason" the housewives missed the high points and the suspense builder for the next show in most of their soap operas.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm..........

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Originally Posted by Ditch Doc

Awesome story! It makes me glad to know we all do stupid stuff for kicks. Sometimes, I feel like I'm the only one screwing up (or around)!

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You know I wish when they made war movies or movies about the military they could show how at times you can be so bored you do stupid stuff for entertainment. Being stuck out in the ocean for months at a time and by the first week out to sea you have watched all the movies onboard the ship, you start playing practical jokes and just looking for stuff to do.

Here's a few practical jokes we used to play on the ship after we had been out to sea for to long. Being on a tender we had a lot of people, about 1500 and about 300 women. So the lines for chow were pretty long everyday. We would open our doors to the shop and watch the line. Then jump in at the very end after the lines had cleared our door's or you would wait forever in line.

We had an HT1 Scribner who had a pretty devious mind. He worked in the non destructive lab taking xrays of welds so when we were out to sea he pretty much had no job but to think stuff up. He would hang out with us in the carpenter shop until the line went down and jump in with us.

One day he came in and said he was going to clear the line out today and we didn't wan't to miss this. So knowing this guy we couldn't wait to see what he had cooked up.

In the cargo handling passageway, where everyone lined up for chow, there were two blast doors to the helicopter landing pad. they were always open during the day and secured at night. From the chow line if you watched the horizon like all good newbies do, you wathc the horizon come up, hang there, then go down. Making you sea sick in time with the smell of the grease and nasty food coming up from the mess decks. It didn't take long for the newbies to loose there lunch just waiting in line.

So scribner told us had put an old type of water bladder under his shirt and filled it up with cream of mushroom soup. He was going to act like he was getting sick, lean over, and press the bladder with one hand spilling the mushroom soup out into the hall. When someone get's sick in line, just about everyone loose's there appetite.

Standing in line he start's to complain about them leaving those blast doors open because they always make him sick. After doing some pretty good acting, building up the tension for a few minutes, he leans over, presses the bladder and does his best throwing up imitation with the cream of mushroom soup splashing onto the passageway. Several of the ladies on board the ship immediatly grab there mouth and run for the nearest bathroom. Sure enough the line clears out, and were having a pretty good laugh. There are still quite a few people so Matt takes it further by walking over, and say's "Hey is that a mushroom?" Picks the mushroom up out of the spilled soup and eats it. Now even the saltiest of sea dogs start to loose it at that. Several get sick right there in line. So many people are getting sick now that I almost got sick from them. It was bad. So bad in fact we all got out of line and skipped lunch that day. We closed our shop doors because you could hear people getting in line and reaching the spot where everyone else got sick and then start to retch themselves. It was a cool joke but they carried it to far and it almost got us as well.

Oh Scribner was a genius for stuff like that. He had another one. Out at sea we would always wear just coverall's. He would put a plastic bag of peanut butter in his coverall's. Standing in whatever line it was, usually for chow, he would fart a few times. Then act like it was a big fart and then get all stiff. He would look at the person next to them and say I think I just sh*t myself. Reaching into his coverall's he would stick his finger into the peanut butter, pull it out and show them. Yep I just sh*t myself. Then proceed to lick the peanut butter off his finger. that usually cleared any line as well. He finally stopped after he got turned in for a psyche evaluation. He was trying to explain to them he really doesn't eat his own crap and it was a joke. We thought it was hillarious but the officer didn't think it was to funny.

My first deployment was a float on a lhd. I was an nbc bubba and part of being attached to a meu included training in level a suits. They're the big white biohazard suits that are self-contained. Like anything in the marine corps, it had seen better days. I was a PFC at the time so I got what was on the bottom of the barrel and of course the suit didn't fit. My arms were too long and hands were too big, so I had to cut off the gloves that were built into the suit and put on regular rubber gloves over the ends of the stubs. So, I was suited up and walking around on the flight and had just turned on the air to my SCBA when an o ring in the line blew out. Soon enough, I was the real life marshmellow man trying to tear my way out of this suit, after the relief valves wouldn't open, before the pressure inside popped my eardrums. It inflated to the point that I couldn't move anymore, but a rubber glove gave way and I shot a rubber glove missile accross the deck. I hear I got a good laugh from the tower who was watching on camera.