Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Navy guys ... true story (funny, at Air Force expense ;)

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Heh, glad I could start a thread filled with such great fun! I came from a military family. The grandfather who told me the original story was a B17 pilot in WWII, and flew in the Berlin Airlift. My dad joined the army and did three tours in Vietnam, and eventually retired as a bird Colonel. I enlisted in the army when I was 20 ... first day of basic was my 21st birthday!! Thought I'd see if I might want a career, but decided to get out after 4 years. Spent a lot of that at joint service places, where there was a lot of the good natured ribbing between the services like we've all been talking about.

One of my favorites was when a sgt in my unit went up to the desk of the marine gunny sgt who was the lead analyst at an intel shop we were working in, slammed a jar of sand down on the desk and said "Hit the beach, Gunny!!" <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Those two were great friends and sparring partners, by the way (both of them boxed).

Another of my favorite stories though, and one that makes me a bit proud of my dad, was this ...

My dad was conducting some NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical) training for the officers at his reserve unit after he left active duty. A major started grumbling about having to wear all the gear and "run around like some PFC in basic." My dad (who is 6'6" and about 250) stared at him for about 30 seconds, then said "Major, as an officer you are to lead by example. If you can't perform these skills as good as or preferably BETTER than any enlisted man in your command, not only will you not survive in combat, but you're a d$#n sorry excuse for a leader, and you as a man do not in any way deserve the respect that they give that hardware on your collar."

My dad also held the belief that officers should first be required to serve two years as enlisted, so that they truly understood what it's like.

I wish I had known more officers like my dad while I was serving.

All the best,
Liam

Sounds like a wise man and a great officer, Liam. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

No doubt. I often felt the same way.

Most of the Warrants we had were pretty good guys, although we had one who was a real walking one eye.

The lieutenants were, for the most part, just clueless.

I was in a 3rd shop maint. unit. We had one shop officer who honestly didn't know a 5 ton axle from a deuce&1/2 tranny. One of use had to go out and help him inventory parts. He had no clue what was what.

Another wanted me written up. We'd changed out an engine in an M880 ambulance. (Dodge w/ a 318) When we went to start her up, a bad carb dumped a bunch of raw fuel in the intake. I rescued the carb off the old motor, and we fired her up. Of course with the sputtering and black smoke, LT was convinced that we'd screwed up the motor by the part swap, and started giving us hell.

"Sir" says I, "With all due respect, I was a mechanic before I joined the Army. Any fool would know that this thing's flooded. It'll straighten up in a minute". This didn't improve his mood at all. (Guess we all get testy being at work at 23:00)

The Shop NCOIC smoothed it over by telling him I was absolutely correct,and I was among the top mechanics in the shop. But, my name was mud until the LT left.
7mm

'An air squadron as a designated submariner'??? When/where did you get the dolphins? I got mine by qualifying over 6 months on the USS Redfish and got pinned by my Capt. in Hawaii..

That Jap port wasn't Yokosuka, by any chance??? Very fun place to be back then. Sasebo was a close second..

Depends on what you mean by "designated". I was officially
inducted into the Navy under the Polaris program. I was
obligated to spend six years under this program and should have been sent to sub school, then sent to qualify for my dolphins. No one knows why I was sent to an air wing? If
nothing else, someone somewhere should have known I was "regular" Navy.

Bare with me, here, it's been forty years since I served.
Please forgive any misuse of terminology as I didn't have a good grasp on it then either! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

The Skipper of the air squadron I was sent to called me a submariner? And what the heck did I know, I was barely 18!

My service jacket indicated I was "???" for submarine service. If not designated, what?

It's OK. My misuse of jargon also led others to believe I was a pilot! Hopefully, I've explained what I did while in the Navy?

Been to Yokosuka and Sasebo many times. Damn, man, it's been 40 years! Give me a PM if you need more of the freakish story. I'm not trying to hide anything. It's just my military service was very unusual to say the least!

Spent time in Alongapo (sp), Philipines too. We anchored off
Hong Kong several times too. Needed to take the liberty launch to town. I liked Hong Kong very much. Had a suit made while there. No, I didn't wait on it! Picked it up next time we were in port!

"..."Sir" says I, "With all due respect, I was a mechanic before I joined the Army. Any fool would know that this thing's flooded. It'll straighten up in a minute". This didn't improve his mood at all."

I think it was the "any fool" part of that which may have caused a reaction. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> But, the "with all due respect" thing shoulda balanced it out.

Ahh- sea stories.

I served my entire time purple - that is joint. My most favorite thing to do when walking with an airman - and seeing a Navy chief was to move my hand smartly to my forhead (like a salute) the zoomie would salute immediately but I would simply adjust my cover. Got them every time.

I also worked with some Brits (army and RAF) I knew there was only 1 Brit officer on post so I always saluted him. Later when he left - big ceremony etc - he told about how this one swabbie was the ONLY one to consistantly salute him. Made me feel good.

Worst I ever saw - its cold - I am in whites, pea coat and dixie cup - Army pv2 saluted me.

I have chewed out enlisted for not saluting a Marine Capt I was walking with. frat. aside - he was a good guy - former enlisted and VMI grad.

My fav non american forces were Brit Army - funny, top notch people.

I think 2nd. lieutenants were created as toys for NCOs. Butter bars, banana bars, what ever <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> I fondly remember one Lt. Loop (God rest his sole, he was killed in a motorcycle accident) that was assigned as Tanker Branch OIC. Lt. never really gave me any chit about being an officer, he'd glare at me with an evil eye when he figured out I was playing with his mind. We nicknamed him Lt.Fruit Loop.


I always felt I had a good working relationship with the officers I dealt with..................................................

One of the flight crews I was assigned to and I flew to Tinker AFB Oklahoma to pick up my airplane from the Boeing Depot. It had some work done on it and a new paint job. When we flew the airplane out of Tinker I noticed one engine was running really hot (EGT- exhaust gas temprature) on takeoff but cooled when the pilot reset the thrust for climb speed. I told the pilot it looked warm on takeoff, he continued the flight which was uneventfull. We spent the night at Pease AFB in NH, departed for our base in England the next evening. Same thing again, the engine ran hot on takeoff.

We do a Phase Inspection on aircraft returning from depot maintenance as part of an acceptance inspection. One of the areas looked at are the "hot sections" of the engines. When engine repair inspected the engines on the airplane they found one engine that was near catistropic failure. It was the same engine I had noted for running hot (it never did reach red line but it was close). The next time I flew with the flight crew that I made the return trip with the pilot shook my hand, told me he wouldn't ever doubt my judgement again. Somehow he heard about the report on the bad engine. I was told he went out of his way to take a look at the engine himself, which I didn't know about until after the fact.

Zoomie? Never heard that one. We always called them bus drivers. I think we envied their uniform. Bell bottoms and dixie cups. [bleep], I hated wearing that damned ugly-azz thing! Whites, blues, dungerees? Only decent thing we had were flight deck boots.

Haven't seen a swabbie in uniform for a very, very long time. They still wearing that same old crap, or have they
modernized?

When I got out they ruined it - going to more of a class b Marine uni for the utilities.

I liked the crackerjack -- ladies did too all except the 13 buttons.

I uesed to stop and ask my zoomie friends for peanuts and a pillow when they walked down the aisle at work - pizzed them off to no end to be treated like a stewardess but was all in good fun.

To me the worst Officers in the Navy were the Ensigns, or Second Lieutenants for the other Services, that came straight out of ROTC not the ones out of one of Military Academies or the others who cam up through OCS and the Ranks.

Some of those old Mustangs were pretty "Salty Ole Dogs" no matter which branch of service they were in as in most cases they had already been there and done that and they pretty much with the program, Salt of the Earth People!!!!!!!

Scariest airplanes ever are the ones coming out of major maintenance. Closest I ever came to stepping outside was one that had a bleed air duct come loose. Landed at Oceana with an Aft Equipment bay fire, right engine fire light in a single engine no flap/no slat/stab shift failure field arrestment (IIRC about 163 knot final approach speed). We got it on deck maybe two minutes after the light came on yet the AIMD folks that looked at it said maybe 60 seconds more and one of the LOX bottles would have gone off and blown the tail off the jet.

In May of 1959 I received notification from the Red Cross that my dad was dieing of Cancer and I needed to go home. At the time I was stationed at NAS Norfolk going to "C" School and my Commanding Officer made arrangements for military hop to the West Coast on an old R6D into Lockeed Airport in LA. The R6D turned out to be the Personal Plane of the Admiral at NAS Pensacola and it was being ferried out to rework facility in Los Angles. I later found out that the rework facility was the last place they took an Aircraft for refurbishing before it fell out of the sky. The pilot was a Salty old CPO, his co-pilot was a LTCMDR and the flight engineer was a First Class PO, both the Pilot and Flight Engineer were both Silver Eagles and were qualified to fly anything the Navy had in it's Inventory at the time.

I was told that there was only about twelve or thirteen of the old Enlisted Silver Eagles left in the Navy at that time and I consider it an honor to have flown with them as they were a Dying Breed in the Navy at that time in Naval History.

Never liked fire warning lights...........................................

We were scheduled for an 8 hour wire mission. Must have had a 165,000 pound fuel load onboard. I was in the IP seat for takeoff. Just as we rotated an engine fire warning light came on. I waited for a few seconds (felt like minutes) for someone else to call the light, cleared my throat and announced the warning over the intercom. I jumped up and headed to the boom pod while the boom operator ran to the wing scanning windows to look for flames. Once we confirmed we weren't on fire the pilot headed out over the English Channel where we dumped fuel down to 35,000 pounds. RTB back to Mildenhall for landing. Never did find what caused the warning light, no bleed air leaks, loose wires or bad sensors. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />

Ya should have seen the look on the battle staffs faces as I ran through their compartment.

Great thread guys. Brings back a ton of memories from a lifetime ago.

Jim

Don,

They tried the modernization thing back in the mid 70's. I hated the new garb. It wasn't Navy at all. I got out before it became mandatory so I never wore it. I think they went back to the traditional bell bottoms and dixie cup.

Jim

Yea - we had bell bottoms and the Dixie as late as July of 06.

Don,

My LCDR was older than my Mother and had had a very hard life up to that point. She had just returned from her 2nd tour in RSVN. She was all Officer. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I did run into several female officers that were rather enticing but never struck up any extracurricular activities with them. However, the locals were a different matter. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Jim

Right before I got out of the Navy(in 1993), a 2nd class Signalman and I, were walking down the pier to get something from another ship. We were just walking and talking when I heard "HEY! Don't you salute Officers?"....We were both 2nd class petty officers that had both been to the Persian Gulf as well as many other countries and cruises...I looked at him and he had this big grin on his face....
I told the young Ensign to "F#ck Off little boy" and we walked away laughing.... He just stood there with his mouth open....
As soon as we got out of sight we hauled ass to the duty van and sped away....Didn't hear about it or see him again but the look on his face was priceless....