Platte Scuttlebutt

PEACOATS

by Bob 'Dex' Armstrong

You remember them... Those ton and a half monsters that took the annual production of thirty-five sheep to make. Those thick black rascals with black plastic buttons the size of poker chips. The issue coats that drove shore duty chief petty officers stark raving nuts if they caught you with the collar turned up or your gahdam hands in your pockets.

"Hey, you rubber sock, get those gahdam hands outta them damn pockets! Didn't they issue you black leather gloves?"

So, you took your hands out of your pockets and risked digital frostbite rather than face whatever the Navy had in store for violators of the 'No Gahdam Hands In Peacoat Pockets' policy. There's probably a special barracks in Hell full of ol! d E-3s caught hitchiking in sub-zero weather with hands in peacoat pockets.

As for those leather gloves, one glove always went missing.

"Son, where in th' hell are the gloves we issued you?"

We??? I don't remember this nasty, ugly bastard being at Great Lakes when the 'jocks and socks' petty officers were throwing my initial issue seabag at me and yelling, "Move it!!"

As for the gloves, once you inadvertantly leave one glove on a whorehouse night table or on the seat of a Grayhound bus, the remaining glove is only useful if a tank rolls over the hand that fit the lost glove.

In the days long ago, a navy spec. peacoat weighed about the same as a flat car load of cinder blocks. When it rained, it absorbed water until ! your spine warped, your shins cracked and your ankles split. Five minu tes standing in the rain waiting on a bus and you felt like you were piggy-backing the statue of liberty.

When a peacoat got wet, it smelled a lot like sheep dip. It had that wet wool smell, times three. It weighed three and a half tons and smelled like 'Mary had a little lamb's' gym shorts.

You know how damn heavy a late '50s peacoat was? Well, they had little metal chains sewn in the back of the collar to hang them up by. Like diluted navy coffee, sexual sensitivity instruction, comfortable air-conditioned topside security bungalows, patent leather plastic-looking shoes and wearing raghats configured to look like bidet bowls, the peacoat spec. has been watered down to the point you could hang them up with dental floss. In the old days, peacoat buttons and grocery cart wheels were interchangeable parts. The gear issued by the U.S. Navy was tough as hell, bluejacket-tested clothing with the durability of rino hide and construction equipment tires.

Peacoats came with wide, heavy collars. In a cold, hard wind, you could turn that wide collar up to cover your neck and it was like poking your head in a tank turret.

The things were warm, but I never thought they were long enough. Standing out in the wind in those 'big-legged britches' (bell bottoms), the wind whistled up your cuffs and took away body warmth like a thief. But, they were perfect to pull over you for a blanket when sleeping on a bus or a bus terminal bench.

Every sailor remembers stretching out on one of those oak bus station pews with his raghat over his face, his head up against his AWOL bag and covered with his peacoat. There was always some 'SP' who had not fully evolved f! rom apehood, who poked you with his billy bat and said,

"Hey, YOU!! Get up! Waddya think yer doin? You wanna sleep, get a gahdam room!"

Peacoats were lined with quilted satin or rayon. I never realized it at the time, but sleeping on bus seats and station benches would be the closest I would ever get to sleeping on satin sheets.

Early in my naval career, a career-hardened (lifer) first class gunner's mate told me to put my ID and liberty card in the inside pocket of my peacoat.

"Put the sonuvabitches in that gahdam inside pocket and pin the damn thing closed with a diaper pin. Then, take your heavy folding money and put it in your sock. If you do that, learn to never take your socks off in a cathouse. Them damn dockside pickpockets pat 'cha down for a lumpy wallet and they can relieve you of said wallet so fast you'll never know you've been snookered.
!
Only a dumbass idiot will clam-fold his wallet and tuck it in his thirteen button bellbottoms. Every kid above the age of six in Italy knows how to lift a wallet an idiot pokes in his pants. Those little bastards leard to pick sailor's pockets in kindergarten.

Rolling bluejackets is the national sport in Italy."

In Washington DC, they have a wonderful marble and granite plaza honoring the United States Navy. Every man or woman who served this nation in a naval uniform, owes it to himself or herself to visit this memorial and take their f! amilies.

It honors all n aval service and any red-blooded American bluejacket or officer will feel the gentle warmth of pride his or her service is honored within this truly magical place.

The focal point of this memorial is a bronze statue of a lone American sailor. No crow on his sleeve tells you that he is non-rated. And, there are further indications that suggest maybe, once upon a time, the sculpturer himself may have once been an E-3 raghat.

The lad has his collar turned up and his hands in his pockets.

I'm sure the Goddess of the Main Induction nearly wets her panties laughing at the old, crusty chiefs standing there with veins popping out on their old, wrinkled necks, muttering,

"Look at that idiot sonuvabitch standing there with his collar up and his gahdam hands in his pockets. In m! y day, I would have ripped that jerk a new one!"

Ah, the satisfied glow of E-3 revenge.

Peacoats... One of God's better inventions.

Dates on USS Platte Summer of 1941 to late 1944 or early 1945 (still working on when he got off the ship)
 
Rate/Rank & Division:  S1c, Starded out on the deck crew working the winch for the oil hose. And in March of 1942 took over Ice cream store.
 
Most remembered Shipmates:  Red Guest, H.L Mason, Bud Bullard, Homer England and Bill Martin (who became a brother-in-law)
 
One of the most exciting events while aboard the Platte: This is a day out of his diary.  Tuesday, Oct 26, 1943.  Crossed the equator at 0400 this morning.  The "Royal Court" met at 0930 of which I was a member.  The captain took our picture and we hade quite a time getting things set up as some of the pollywogs kept turning the fire hose on us.  We finally got into session.  The prisoner was arraigned before the Royal Clerk ( Meyer, Y1c) and heard his charges read.  He was then sent to the Royal Judge ( Lieut. Armstrong) who then sent him to the Royal King ( Cornellier, CGM (AA).  The King had him kiss the Queens hand ( Williford, S2c) which was covered with grease and the Queen would smear it on good.  Then he had to kiss the Royal Babies (A. B. (Firpo) Collins, S1c) which was covered with grease.  He then reported to the Royal Dentist ( That was me ) for an examination.  They all got there teeth cleaned with a four inch paintbrush and a mixture of flour, water, cherry syrup, black and red pepper, chili powder, sage and few other ill tasting things.  The Royal Barber ( Gamblin, S1c ) also thinned there hair and gave them a massage with grease and ketchup.  He was then put on a table and given a throat spray with liquid soap and a mouth wash with Castor oil and quinine by the Royal Doctor ( Whitley, PhM1c ).  He was then brushed off with a foxtail that was charged with electricity.  Next was the belt line and then the "Tunnel of Love".  A large canvas tunnel just large enough to crawl through with plenty of garbage.  When you reach the other end of the tunnel you were indeed a "Shell Back".
 
Family: Erik Baze oldest son and me Larry Baze.
 

I feel it's my duty to straighten out you young BOOTS on a couple of things:

When I went to sea in 1943, the old MAA's crossed anchors tatoo did NOT say "Subic Bay, 1945." What it said was "Tsingtao, 1930".

You talk about boot camps as if only San Diego and Great Lakes existed, ever. Most of the sailors in my early days came out of Farragut in Idaho or Sampson in New York - huge institutions producing thousands of new hands for the BIG WAR.

We lived out of seabags to the end of the war in that ship......... no lockers, rare fresh water showers, and in some of the compartments sailors still slept in hammocks. War was hell, except that we only got shot at once.

Among the fears I had when I reported for sea duty was either dropping my seabag plus hammock and matress into the drink or falling off the ladder with it. I saw it happen once and the poor bastard that fell off the ladder was never allowed to forget it, for the duration.

The war ended and a bunch of us who were too young and single to have points for discharge went to the occupation of Japan for a year. Life was good and easy that year, and when I got home to Western Missouri I was the coolest sailor imaginable when I got off the bus in Kansas City:

I was wearing BLACK, TIGHT "tailor mades" with dragons embroideried inside the cuffs, with, my white hat on the back of my head. Sometimes I truly feel like I would like to do it again - better, cooler, smarter AND with an old man's sense of humor. Then I wake up.

P.S. That Pcoat smell was moth repellant. Woody

THE SEABAG........

There was a time when everything you owned had to fit in your seabag. Remember those nasty rascals? Fully packed, one of the suckers weighed more than the poor devil hauling it.

The damn things weighed a ton and some idiot with an off-center sense of humor sewed a carry handle on it to help you haul it. Hell, you could bolt a handle on a Greyhound bus but it wouldn't make the damn thing portable.

The Army, Marines and Air Force got footlockers and we got a big ole' canvas bag.

After you warped your spine jackassing the goofy thing through a bus or train station, sat on it waiting for connecting transportation and made folks mad because it was too damn big to fit in any overhead rack on any bus, train and airplane ever made, the contents looked like hell. All your gear appeared to have come from bums who slept on park benches.

Traveling with a seabag was something left over from the "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" sailing ship days. Sailors used to sleep in hammocks. So you stowed your issue in a big canvas bag and lashed your hammock to it , hoisted it on your shoulder and in effect moved your entire home and complete inventory of earthly possessions from ship to ship. I wouldn't say you traveled light because with one strap it was a one-shoulder load that could torque your skeletal frame and bust your ankles. It was like hauling a dead linebacker.

They wasted a lot of time in boot camp telling you how to pack one of the suckers There was an officially sanctioned method of organization that you forgot after ten minutes on the other side of the gate at Great Lakes or San Diego.
You got rid of a lot of issue gear when you went to the SHIP.. Did you ever know a tin-can sailor who had a raincoat? A flat hat? One of those nut hugger knit swimsuits? How bout those roll your own neckerchiefs...
The ones the girls in a good Naval tailor shop would cut down and sew into a 'greasy snake' for two bucks?

Within six months, every fleet sailor was down to one set of dress blues, port and starboard undress blues and whites, a couple of whitehats, boots, shoes, assorted skivvies a peacoat and three sets of bleeched out dungarees.
The rest of your original issue was either in the pea coat locker, lucky bag or had been reduced to wipe down rags in the engineroom. Underway ships were not ships that allowed vast accumulation of private gear.

Hobos who lived in discarded refrigerator crates could amass greater loads of pack rat crap than fleetsailors. The confines of a canvas back rack, side locker and a couple of bunk bags did not allow one to live a Donald Trump existence. Space and the going pay scale combined to make us envy the lifestyle of a mud hut Ethiopian.
We were the global equivalents of nomadic Monguls without ponies to haul our stuff.

And after the rigid routine of boot camp we learned the skill of random compression packing... Known by mother's world-wide as 'cramming'. It is amazing what you can jam into a space no bigger than a breadbox if you pull a watch cap over a boot and push it in with your foot. Of course it looks kinda weird when you pull it out but they never hold fashion shows at sea and wrinkles added character to a salty appearance. There was a four-hundred mile gap between the images on recruiting posters and the actual appearance of sailors at sea.
It was not without justifiable reason that we were called the tin-can Navy.

We operated on the premise that if 'Cleanliness was next to Godliness', we must be next to the other end of that spectrum... We looked like our clothing had been pressed with a waffle iron and packed by a bulldozer.

But what in the hell did they expect from a bunch of jerks that lived in the crews hole of a 2100 Fletcher Class can. After a while you got used to it... You got used to everything you owned picking up and retraining that distinctive aroma... You got used to old ladies on busses taking a couple of wrinkled nose sniffs of your peacoat then getting up and finding another seat...

Do they still issue seabags? Can you still make five bucks sitting up half the night drawing a ships picture on the side of one of the damn things with black and white marking pens that drive old master-at-arms into a 'rig for heart attack' frenzy? Make their faces red... The veins on their neck bulge out... And yell,"Jeezus H. Christ! What in god's name is that all over your seabag?" "Artwork, Chief... It's like the work of Michelangelo... My ship... Great huh?" "Looks like some damn comic book..."

Here was a man with cobras tattooed on his arms... A skull with a dagger through one eye and a ribbon reading 'DEATH BEFORE SHORE DUTY' on his shoulder... Crossed anchors with 'Subic Bay 1945' on the other shoulder... An eagle on his chest and a full blown Chinese dragon peeking out between the cheeks of his butt.
If anyone was an authority on stuff that looked like a comic book, it had to be this E-7 sucker.

Sometimes I look at all the crap stacked in my garage, close my eyes and smile, remembering a time when everything I owned could be crammed into a canvas bag. Maturity is hell.

Dick Hasher USS Platte Class of 64 to 66

The Missing WhaleBoat

I have thought about my time on the Platte and remembered a few things that may be interesting to our shipmates. I joined the ship in aug 1941 as a Fireman 2nd.The ship was on a steady run, San Pedro to Pearl harbor with fuel. In about Sept. 1941, we were docked in San Pedro. Capt. Henkle had been ashore and approached the stern of the ship. The deck dept. had been spot painting over the side with red lead. Some enterprising young sailor had painted a large swastika on the stern. By the time the Capt reached the quarterdeck he was about to explode, so I was told. The deck dept was called out and they didn't go ashore that evening.Capt.Henkle made his fourth stripe in the next month or two. I never figured out if his name had anything to do with that sailor painting that swastika. About 1943. Anchored off Lotaka, Viti Levo in the Fijis. Capt. Keeler went ashore and envited some of the natives tothe ship.That evening several boatloads of men and women came aboard. They brought their band and we had a party on the cargo deck. As per their custom the women ask the men to dance. Needless to say we all had a good time. The case of the missing whaleboat: In about 1972 I was living in Brooksville Fla. A neighbor and I were talking about WW2. He told me that he was stationed on the island off Funafuti in the Ellice Islands. I remembered that the Platte had been anchored there. Someone had stolen a whaleboat, that was tied up alongside. We looked all over that little island and couldn't find it. We sailed without it . My neighbor said "Yes we needed a boat" I ask where they had hidden it and he said "We sunk it till after the Platte sailed. custom the women would ask us to dance. Needless to say we all had a good time

John A Callen

Military history never ceases to amaze me!! Some little known American military history.

The U.S.S. Constitution (Old Ironsides) as a combat vessel carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (i.e. fresh water distillers!).
However, be it noted that according to her log, "On July 27, 1798, the U.S.S. Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum."

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping." Making Jamaica on 6 October, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores, arriving there 12 November. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

On 18 November, she set sail for England. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

By 26 January, her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

The U.S.S. Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February, 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water.

GO NAVY

Mike Brown USS Platte Class of 64 to 67

Sea Stories

There have been sea stories for thousands of years. Going back to when men first floated on the water,on a log,or on a large number of reeds tied together. These stories differed from conventional stories,in that they were told by men who had ventured on the water, and had risked all of the imagined dangers,and some very real ones,that men encounter on the waters of the world. There are sea stories that can be told in few words,but most are imaginative, filled with wondrous events,unbelievable acts of derringdo,beautiful women,and usually involve the teller. Sailors, from all parts of the world,have told these tales to their shipmates,and the same tale may have been revised,or changed entirely,by one of the listeners,so no sea story is entirely true,or entirely false. The teller of any sea story, must have had some years of experience at sea,and he must have been in a number of far away places,before he can be taken seriously. His language must at all times reflect all of the terms and profanities used by sailors of any era and any seagoing service. It is not a language used by non sailors,landlubbers,and those people who consider sailors to be something less than human. Sooner or later,every young man going to sea for the first time will hear his first real sea story. He will either swallow it whole,and be filled with wonder at what he was told,or he will think he has heard an impossible tale,and think that he was considered a fool for even listening. He should have paid close attention,for by listening and remembering he could have become a teller of sea stories himself. He would have felt the strong attraction of such stories to men of the sea. Sea stories do not always start out the same,but usually they have a short preamble by the teller. The difference between a sea story and a fairy tale is this. A fairy tale always starts out with "Once Upon A Time",and a sea story usually starts out with "THIS IS NO SHIT"

Dick Hasher USS Platte Class of 64 to 66

The Collision between Platte and Kittyhawk... June 1967

You asked me for my version of the shipwreck. Here it is. As you know, we had just gotten out of the yards after a million dollar overhaul and two days before sailing we got Captain Snowden. This was his training ship for deep draft ships. Next step would have been a carrier. We were three days out of Long Beach and refueling the Kittyhawk to port and their destroyers to starboard. I believe it was the USS Blue alongside at the time. The UNREP helmsman was a fireman who was disenchanted with the fireroom and wanted to be a Quartermaster (I think). In any case, the Blue slid to port some and bumped us. As you know, this wasn't that unusual and we had fenders for this reason. The snipe looked out and saw the bridge of the Blue practically in the starboard lookouts station and decided to get away. I heard he put the helm over a few degrees to clear the destroyer but failed to tell the rest of the bridge. Captain Snowden and the OOD (Probably Mr. Van Slyke) were on the port side with the carrier. The Kittyhawk tried to clear the area by turning to port but the difference in turning radii between the ships put their starboard sponsen (stbd flight deck brace) in line with our kingposts, booms, and stack. Crunch. Everything aft took on a 45 degree list to starboard. The booms were bent in two like a broken soda straw. My involvement was zero. Our radar was secured to protect the personnel on the flight deck. At the time of the crunch, I was in the transmitter room. We effected an emergency breakaway and cleared the area. No one was hurt but all of us were scared as hell. No fire, no explosion. I think what saved us was that the ship was so rusty, there wasn't any real metal to spark. We went to Pearl Harbor for repairs and that was another million and a half. Life with Captain Snowden was not so good after that. Some E3 snipe had just took him out of contention for a command of a carrier. If I recall, he lost 100 numbers on the seniority list, which pretty much killed his career. Later, as a reserve, I spent two weeks on the Kittyhawk and went looking for the scars. I couldn't find any damage and no one aboard had a clue what that "OLD chief reservist" was talking about. Our fleeting moment of infamy wiped out by a dozen coats of haze gray paint. This is my take on the great wreck. There may be other versions just as true as this one.

RD1 Gary V. Jones - USS Platte Class of 65 to 69

Platte Food

Whether you were a plank holder or put the Platte out of commission, you ate, and bitched, about the food. My tour was in the late 60s but any of you could relate to this. Everyone complained, gained weight and bitched when there no seconds. Navy pancakes, a.k.a. collision pads. You could pour a quart of syrup on one and none would leak out. No one could eat more than one. Hard and soft boiled eggs were always hard because the '"soft"boiled eggs were cooked in the galley for three minutes then put on the steam line for an hour. The original super ball.

S.O.S. (minced beef on toast) whats to say ? I liked it. Still do.

Foreskins on toast (creamed chipped beef) so salty you would swear it was cooked in sea water.

Boneless turkey and boneless pork roast. The only way you could tell them apart was the rolled rubber turkey was served with cranberry sauce and the rolled rubber pig had applesauce.

Stuffed bell peppers (shit in a seabag) nobody ate the seabag.

Noodles romanov (noodles and puke (tasty)

Chicken noodle soup. Recipe 10 gallons water, 2lb. fine noodles, boil noodles until overcooked then quickly drag a chicken through the water.

Weevils were a part of our diet and the cooks said they were tasteless. The baker would bake white bread until the weevils got so bad they passed it off as cracked wheat.

Shredded wheat(shredded straw) two pillows in a box. add milk, wait till the weevils swam to the two rafts, then enjoy.

Grape nuts. (rat turds.) pour on milk. The sinkers are grape nuts, the floaters did the back stroke.

Our cooks did what they could to keep the cockroaches under control, but some were bigger than the midget messcook. Beware of bran muffins with blueberries.(count the legs on the berries)

My grand kids think it was gross when they find out I ate the weevils and spit out the other vermin. I tell them if I only ate food without bugs, I would had to live on seagull.

As a radar man, I respected the cooks, the job they did and the handouts I earned by bullshitting them about how good the food was. I never missed a meal and Navy ice cream was the best.

RD1 Gary V. Jones - USS Platte Class of 65 to 69

Captain J.S. Holtwick, U.S. Navy
U.S.S. Platte AO 24
4 -1947 to 12 -1947

Capt. Holtwick arrived at the Platte in a tiny english car. It might have been an Austin or Crosley. He came up the gangplank carrying a miniture dachshund. I believe her name was Gretchen. From that day on things begin to get better aboard ship. We hoisted the Captain's tiny car onto our new cargo deck and secured it. Capt. Holtwick discovered that we had no facilities aboard ship to occupy our off-duty time. He brought sporting equipment, dark-room equipment, leather craft tools and more aboard and made it available to everyone. This of course, boosted morale 300%. He taught us how to use the darkroom equipment (a facility I used quite offten). To make room for the darkroom, he moved an Ensign from his cabin and had him bunk with another Ensign. I understand the two Ensigns were not happy about that change. Gretchen was found dead one morning after a short time aboard ship. The doc check her and found that she had consumed something that contained ground glass. We all mourned for Gretchen and missed her very much.

We docked at a port that I have long forgotten and our first order of business after the ship docked was to put the Capt's tiny car on the dock (this was true every time we docked). Some of us were playing penny poker when a Lt. comes into our quarters, takes our pennies and puts us on report having money on the table while playing poker. We were called up before the Capt. when he returned. Capt. Holtwick said it was against regulations to have money in sight while playing poker and that we should use poker chips instead of cash. We explained that we had no chips. He gave us two hours extra duty washing the bulkheads in the messhall after evening chow. A night or two later the Capt. came to our quarters with an arm load of poker chips. He said he didn't want to see us again for the same reason.

Captain Holtwick was respected by officers and crew and he never demanded respect, he earned it. You might say he was a Captain's Captain. Protocol would never have allowed us to express our fellings,our wishes and our thanks to him. So at this time on behalf of myself and the men who served under his command I would like to say, may your seas be calm and your course true where ever you may be. God's speed Captain J.S. Holtwick. We love you.

Uss Platte - Seaman 2/c Bill Campbell - U.S. Navy

Hazardous Atmospheres Aboard Ahip

Subject: Safe work practices in potentially flammable atmospheres msgid/genadmin/cnsf/-/may

A Petty Officer was treated at a Military treatment facility after complaining of shortness of breath after working in an enclosed workspace with several other personnel. The dining facility had served a mexican meal for lunch, causing suspected high methane and sulfite levels in the atmosphere from the crew's flatulence.

Many Navy Personnel work in facilities and on ships where flatulence may exist, and due to mission urgency are not able to immediately vacate the space should the air become foul. This mishap serves as a strong reminder that the expression of flatulence can be extremely dangerous in these areas, unless they are specifically listed as intrinsically safe. The navy has developed the following safe work practice to address this problem: effective immediately, the practice of expelling flatulence, commonly referred to as "farting," "breaking wind," or "passing gas," is prohibited aboard all naval ships, boats, vehicles, aircraft, and shore installations.

This regulation applies not only to audible flatulence, or incidents that are claimed by their perpetrator, but also to covert events such as "deadly whispers," "cheek sneakers," "air dustings." unauthorized expulsion of flatulence is to be punished under the ucmj. "he who smelt it dealt it" is considered sufficient basis for prosecution. "I didn't know it was going to stink" or "I ate at the galley" is not to be accepted as an excuse for failure to control oneself. Commands are instructed to ensure known gas producing foods are avoided at the dining facilities. Mexican themed meals, navy or baked beans, chili, cabbage, and egg salad are no longer authorized menu items. The lighting of flatulence with any type of open flame is still prohibited.

Dewain Maricle USS Platte - 56 -60

How To Relive The Sailor's Life Again!

Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.

Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.

Repaint your entire house every month.

Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.

Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.

Once a month, take all major appliances apart and then reassemble them.

Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors, so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through them.

Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and

Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so no bathing will be allowed.

Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack".

Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.

Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 am, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 a.m. while she reads it to you.

Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 pm.

Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.(Now sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all shitcans over the fantail.)

Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.

Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting that your home is under attack and ordering them to their battle stations. (Now general quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations.)

Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.

Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (midrats)

Set your alarm clock to go off a random during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the back yard and uncoil the garden hose.

Every week or so, throw your cat or dog in the pool and shout "Man overboard port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup "Stove manned and ready". After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.

Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room, and run it all day long.

Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.

Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.

Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.

Take a two week vacation visiting the red light districts of Europe or the Far East, and call it "world travel".

Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for "liberty". At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.

Dick Hasher USS Platte Class of 64 to 66

NAVY CHIEFS: Recollections of a White Hat

One thing we weren't aware of at the time but became evident as life wore on,was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. They were crusty bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of ushad time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic oil stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic.

Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year-old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into sailors. You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief's kid.

God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option. A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters on earth. We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins in my day...

Hardcore bastards, who found nothing out of place with the use of the word 'Japs' to refer to the little sons of Nippon they had littered the floor of the Pacific with, as payback for a little December 7th tea party they gave us in 1941. In those days, 'insensitivity' was not a word in a sailor's lexicon.

They remembered lost mates and still cursed the cause of their loss... And they were expert at choosing descriptive adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed. At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of hard-earned worn and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that one and that one?" "Oh Hell kid, I can't remember. There was a war on. They gave them to us to keep track of the campaigns. We didn't get a lot of news out where we were. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you couldn't pronounce most of the names of the places we went. They're all depth charge survival geedunk. Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor. We knew who the heroes were and in the final analysis that's all that matters."

Many nights we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups of coffee and listening to their stories. They were lighthearted stories about warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal sheds at re-supply depots, where the only furniture was a few packing crates and a couple of Coleman lamps.

Standing in line at a Honolulu cathouse or spending three hours soaking in a tub in Freemantle, smoking cigars and getting loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because they were our heroes. When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were not men given to the prerogatives of their position. You would find them with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to-shoulder with you in a stores loading party. "Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we can get all this crap aboard." "Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands." "Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old coot." "Horsefly, when I'm eighty-five parked in the stove up old bastards' home, I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't' t bullshitting.

They trained us. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Naval Force. There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer. They were born as hotsacking seamen and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jaybird could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 jerks come and go for so many years, they could read you like a book. "Son, I know what you are thinking. Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't be worth it." "Aye, Chief."

Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks for peanuts. Appreciation of what they did and who they were, comes with long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership or lets say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others. They had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen to Singapore. They had given their entire lives to the United States Navy. In the progression of the nobility of employment, CPO heads the list.

So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to wherever the big CNO in the sky assigns us. If we are lucky, Marines will be guarding the streets. I don't know about that Marine propaganda bullshit, but there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth, standing at the brow to assign us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... And we will all be young again and the damn coffee will float a rock.

Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no longer can. If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So thanks you old casehardened unsalvageable son-of-a-bitches. Save me a rack in the berthing compartment.

Dick Hasher USS Platte Class of 64 to 66

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