"The day I learned War is not a movie"
I had an Uncle named "Jim" who was a Navy NCO. He was a bear of a man, larger than life, with big tattoos on both arms, all of them Naval. As a young man, he served as a PT boat gunner in the Pacific during WW2, and his stories were always amusing, terrifying, or both. I'll never forget these two he told us kids when we were boys. I am not a naval expert, so any naval inaccuracies are mine and mine alone.
I believe the patrol location was to the southwest of the "slot" in the Solomon Islands, which featured some of the longest and bitterest naval fights of the war against the Japanese resupply of their forces in the area. They had become separated; it was night, and the visibility was reduced to less than a mile. They turned into a harbor that was their home base. Unbeknownst to them, they weren't even close. As they groped into the harbor, they found their dock and a small freighter tied up to it as well. They brought the PT boat to the free side of the dock, and were about to tie up and shut down when they heard voices... Japanese voices. I can only picture the momentary "oh s**t" expressions on their faces, as they slipped free from the dock, as quickly and quietly as possible. They got some sea room, torpedoed the freighter, and hauled ass out of there before any response could be mounted. They did manage to find the correct island bay which was their base of operations. I'm sure the boat navigator or equivalent bought the beer that night.
The second story I found memorable was one which taught me two things - war is bloody and miserable, and U.S. soldiers were not the John Wayne characters from the movies we grew up on... they were fighting a dirty war with an implacable enemy.
Uncle Jim's PT boat found a large but isolated Japanese freighter, and put a couple of "fish" into her. It went to the bottom, leaving the warm Pacific waters teeming with Japanese swimmers. The ship had been carrying a large number of troops as well as the crew. Dozens if not hundreds of them were clinging to debris, or struggling to swim.
"What did you do then, Uncle Jim?"
"My skipper told me to man the 50's. We shot them all in the water."
We were stunned. U.S. troops did not machine gun helpless men. I think Uncle Jim understood our shock, and proceeded to explain.
"It was both necessary and a mercy. The Japanese were desperate to reinforce their presence, and if these troops had been rescued, they would have entered the fight and killed our Marines. We had no way to take so many prisoners. If we had not gunned them, they would have either died a lingering death, been eaten by sharks, or on the off-chance of rescue, would have joined the fight. Besides, they would have done the same to us."
Uncle Jim passed away maybe 20 years ago. RIP to a fine career Navy man.
Story my boss told me a couple of weeks after showing up at Battalion: He's a platoon medic overseas, and some JOC officer is constantly doing things to piss him off. So my boss steals the sir's toothpaste, masturbates into a cup, aspirates his ejaculate into a syringe, then puts the stuff into the sir's toothpaste and replaces it. Awesome. Don't piss off your medics either.Originally Posted by Blademaster
A person needs balls to pull off a stunt like that
Last edited by tankie; 15 Jun 09, at 12:44.
TANKIE. ECO WARRIOR , SAVE THE TREES
Get to Bragg, I'm a fairly freshly promoted E-6, and I meet with my BN CSM a day or two after leaving reception; got all high-speed looking for a real unit again, after nearly two years in TRADOC learning a language and new job AIT and whatnot.
CSM: C'mon in SSG [X], close the door, sit down.
Me: Roger. Morning, Sergeant Major.
CSM: Where ya comin from sergeant?
Me: [Tell him, 15 second little schpeel]
CSM: Alright, sergeant. Well, I'll tell you what I tell every new NCO I get: A good NCO doesn't need a haircut. Do you know why sergeant?
Me: Negative, sergeant major.
CSM: Because he already got one before he needed it.
Me: [Smile, nod]Roger, sergeant major.
[There's a 5-10 second pause, I look at him waiting for the rest of his talk...]
CSM:That's it, sergeant. Nice to have you, get the **** out of my office. Leave the door open.
That's a good ****ing CSM right there.
sOUNDS LIKE A D**k to me.)
So did you "need" a haircut at the time??
I got to Bragg and that yellow fever?? or some kind of fever shot kicked in on me when reporting to the CO, Fell flat out on the floor, woke up in the hallway with the BEST looking mail clerk I ever seen patting me down with a cool washcloth. Got up, went back in and the best CO I ever had said "don't sweat it, happens all the time". And he was right, two of the next newbies did the same thing.
So when and where were you there OWO? That kinda sounds like my old CSM.
Nah, I was almost nearly rocking the high and tight- a look I hadn't exhibited much for literally two years prior to that. I talked to people afterward and that really was his incoming NCO speech. I guess a parable about a good NCO being a forward-planning/leaning-forward-in-the-foxhole type thing mixed with the usual "always be professional" talk, just awesomely summed up in a handful words, designed to 'make you think'. Or maybe I just read too much into it and he seriously didn't have shit to say except "Make sure to always have a haircut". I dunno.
This was early last year, 519th MI BN/525th BfSB.
OK! Sea stories!
Now, this ain't no shit... Early '72, USS Penacola, LSD-38. E-4 corpsman. The Pepsi has now gone to Taiwan, but was new construction when I came aboard in '71. Nobody in the yard (this is important) had ever sawed off the millions of 1/4" bolt ends.
When I got on, there were only 2 other corpsmen, HMC Willie J. Coleman & HM2 Robert (Battlin' Bob) Callan (genuine war hero; Brown water Navy, Navy cross, silver star ++, bronze star ++ - not bad for a corpsman). I was "Doc". Shortly afterward we got HN Stephen (Rocketman) Larsen.
Later on, Chief Coleman was an HMCS, Callan was an HM1, I was an HM2 (story there, too) & Larsen was an HM3. We had, arguably, the best sickbay in PhibRon4 & Willie J. was gratetful, as he was able to spend most of his time in the Goat Locker or whatever it was called back then doing whatever chiefs do.
Rocketman was a stone maniac, who had a rule that all should acknowledge to be a universal principle. "If you look like you're supposed to be doing it no one will ever question your doing it."
We were wandering around in a famous & legendary mediterranean city's attached harbor town when we came upon a little square stone building that identified itself as the "Mayor's Palace." It was surrounded by a black steel fence masquerading as wrought iron, the verticals of which were topped by billiard-cue sized skirted brass balls. Larsen unscrewed one. Time passed & we returned to the ship.
Occasionally the brass ball got tossed around the "Corpsmen's Stateroom" (the little 9-bed ward in which we lived instead of our assigned racks which I, for one, never saw) & then one of us screwed the thing onto one of the bolt ends. It fit.
We all looked at one another for awhile with jaws adrop, & then got up, grabbed some overnight bags, hitched a ride back to the harbor & revisited the Mayor's Palace. We then, applying "Larsen's Law" unscrewed the remaining 143 balls from the fence & returned to the ship. Naturally, no one hindered us in any way.
Have you ever seen a water fountain? Maybe, but I doubt it. What you've seen is aluminum or steel flashing hiding a bunch of twisty pipes held together by band clamps. Each band clamp has a 1/4" bolt holding it tight. Our water fountain didn't have the benefit of flashing, & none of the bolts was sawed off. It did have lots of band clamps. Our unofficial quarters absorbed most of the balls, & the water fountain took 34.
The place, especially the water fountain, looked like some sort of brazen Christmas.
Willie J. dropped by later to deliver one of his amusing faux menacing instructions, stopped in the middle, looked around slowly & said "Better keep them f*ckin' things polished." And left.
The Prof
OK. For some reason this question has never occured to me. It did today, & now I'm on the perfect forum to ask it. The Pepsi was recently given or sold to Taiwan. To all you pretty impressive tactically & strategically experienced folks out there, & to you folks from either of the Chinas, what use on Earth would the government of Taiwan have with an old fast attack transport? To invade the PRC? Surely not.
Doc
I was looking forward to a bunch more of these, but it's been a week since I stuck my finger in. I feel as though I jinxed the thread. Just in case, I'll give it another shot. But beware. If y'all dont contribute, then I will. Minor & trivial, this, but come on, guys. No doubt you guys have some better ones. At your peril...
Again in '72. Again from the Pepsi archives. We're in Naples (Italy. Don't sneer. ?Georgia? Tennessee? Missippi?) The sickbay trio has Willie J. taking our duty again & has gone to this "American bar." (Define that term, sailors.) Joining us are a couple of corpsmen attached to Marine platoons in the squadron. One of them is a fine, upstanding bespectacled 6'3'' gentleman named Fred Roberts, who is currently a neurosurgeon in Georgia, if he's still alive.
While we're sitting in a booth across from the bar a minor-league serious social encounter breaks out. Being a bunch of sensible medics, we lean back, put our feet up to repell human shrapnel & watch the fun.
One of the active participants hits another in the head with a full vodka bottle. Naturally, unlike in the movies or on TV, there was a sort of "thuck", resulting in an unbroken full bottle & a bleeding squid all over the floor.
We break the shield wall, scoop him up, drag him in amongst us and resume watching.
Except for Fred. He starts trying to find out whether the spouting wound on the dude was serious. The victim woke up almost immediately & started trying to kill anyone within reach. Fred had pulled out a flashlight from somewhere was trying to scope out the injury while the guy tried to dismember Fred. Fred kept saying, "Hold still! Hold still, dammit!" Shit! Ouch!" until finally he picked the guy up by the lapels & slammed his head into the wall behind us several times. Then he went back to work on his sedated patient with the flashlight. The dude survived.
Doc
Is that what you call field expedient sedation?by Prof
Fred kept saying, "Hold still! Hold still, dammit!" Shit! Ouch!" until finally he picked the guy up by the lapels & slammed his head into the wall behind us several times. Then he went back to work on his sedated patient with the flashlight. The dude survived.
Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
(Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)
Sappersgt:
by Prof:
Fred kept saying, "Hold still! Hold still, dammit!" Shit! Ouch!" until finally he picked the guy up by the lapels & slammed his head into the wall behind us several times. Then he went back to work on his sedated patient with the flashlight. The dude survived.
Is that what you call field expedient sedation?
__________________
Reddite igitur quae sunt Caesaris Caesari et quae sunt Dei Deo
(Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's and unto God the things which are God's)
El Shaddai sayeth: "Those transgressions that applieth to the paramedics of old shall not be extended to military corpsmen, for bad craziness is valuable to health withal."
We get by. That ought to be stamped on the caduceous or something.
Doc
I warned you...
My old man was a lawyer. He practiced in the now-obsolete field of Interstate Commerce Law, so while Perry Mason was comforting the afflicted & afflicting the comfortable (apologies to HLM) my Dad was filing suits against evil trucking companies with established routes who had the temerity to object to his clients' manifest need to obtain authority to haul the route in question or for excellent trucking companies who justly needed authority to haul a route in spite of those obviously unjust objections from previously established route haulers. From month to month, sometimes those in contention were the same companies. He didn't tell amusing stories about his Law practice.
He did tell amusing stories about his years in the USAAF during WWII as a tech Sgt. These were all in keeping with the V-mail cartoons he sent my Mother, & he was an excellent cartoonist. I'm prejudiced, but I put him in the Bill Mauldin class. The V-mails themselves have all disintegrated over time, of course, but he had them duplicated before they were gone, & later I had those duplications restored & duplicated themselves, so I have a nice little collection of very funny art.
His anecdotes told the story of a war consisting of back-to-back amusing anecdotes, ranging from North Africa at the beginning to France & Germany by VE day. He was a radioman, & spent all his time on the ground, always apparently, by context, in the rear with the gear.
In the early '90s I started a software company developing products for diagnostic imaging. He became the treasurer. We were to compete in the '93Windows World Open. Microsoft wanted minibios of the officers. My Father, in his, asserted that he & some USAAC major were responsible for our initial development of close support tactical bombing doctrine.
He'd never suggested any such thing before. I didn't really want to call him on it, but he had been a little flaky since a bypass proceedure a few years before, so I watered down his statement some, making the assertion a little less cartegorical. We won the competition in our category but the company ultimately failed.
The years passed & he became increasingly flaky. He was a non-compliant type 2 diabetic, & developed pretty severe small vessel brain disease, leading to significant dementia manifested primarily by profound short-term memory loss. It got to the point that he couldn't take care of my Mother anymore, & she was developing what ultimately turned out to be completely crippling rheumatoid arthritis, complicated by COPD. We moved them into our house, where they had an aparment in our basement.
She died on New Year's Eve '99. He died in 2003. Got his service record for a VA headstone. Looks like he wasn't exaggerating much about his service record, although I couldn't completely confirm that bombing doctrine stuff. He had also won both the bronze & silver stars, plus a Heart, little somethings he forgot to mention, I guess. His commendations & wound were awarded for directing air traffic from exposed positions. Guess it might be true, after all. Got him a little shadow-box shrine, of sorts, now on the wall in the den.
Good for him. I don't know whether I want to kick his ass or give him a hug for keeping it secret.
The Prof
Urrrh. Let's hear some stories, here. Don't want to waste a 5-star thread, right? Back to the Pepsi.
This is actually sort of sad, but lots of amusing stories are.
Every outfit has a screw-up. Ours was a seaman recruit (only guy with the actual E-1 rate out of boot camp I'd ever seen) whose name was something like L.(G). (Why take the chance that the guy might read this? He might have survived & learned to read). The guy was epic in his incompetence.
Once, BM1 Reed (a genuine popeye-the-sailor-man) who should have been a chief but never was, but who was never demoted either (a complex & eternal mystery), came unto me in SickBay & said, "Doc. Come with me. You gotta see this."
I followed him down to the crew's lounge, a little compartment probably set up for some ancient photo-op but rarely used by anyone. He pointed to the door.
It had "Crewes(sic) Lounge" printed on it. The letters were small to begin with, & broken up intentionally as though stencilled, but got gradually larger & lower on the door, like letters on the descending limb of a rainbow. With dribbles.
The funniest part was that very meticulous attention had been paid to making the letters appear as though they had been stencilled. Instead of going to the paint locker & getting a "Crew's Lounge" stencil cut (~5 minutes) & spraying black paint on it (~15 seconds), the perp had spent a really long & laborious time "saving" himself "all that" labor by free-handing his work & screwing up the door requiring repainting later.
When we got to the door, BM1 Reed did a "behold!" gesture. It was obvious. I said, "Louie?" He said, "Yep."
The door got repainted & restencilled without delay (I mean, what does the Navy do better than paint?). Never asked Reed what he had done with the guy. What could he do with him? Some people just get a pass.
That's L.G.
Not too long afterward L.G. came to SickBay to offer his stiches to evaluate for infection. He was obviously proud of them, & had a tale to tell. (Close paraphrase to follow)
Doc: "L.G? What did you get these for? (No suggestion of any sort of laceration at all under the elaborate, extensive & well-done suturing.)"
L.G.: (Proudly) "I tried to kill myself."
Doc: Well, Hell, Louie, why'd you do that?"
L.G. Everybody treats me like shit.
Doc: "Uh, what did you use?"
L.G.: "Paint scraper. But sharp!"
Doc (being obtuse): But there isn't any sort of cut here. Who did this suturing?"
L.G.: (Proudly) Rocketman!
Doc: "Rocketman?"
L.G. "Yeah! He sewed me right up!"
I redressed the idiot's wrists, honked Larsen on the 1MC & urgently requested his presence. Furious. The more I lit into him the less I was able to keep from laughing. Rocketman, through outrageous mapractice, had hit on the perfect solution to L.G.'s misfeasance. Wasn't any real trouble after that. Someone had listened to him, & had done something concrete & heroic to fix it. 'Course, we had him all over us after that.
Doc
Pepsi Sea Story again:
We had a striker, Jeston (Jud) Powell, FA, who was terrific. Damned good; sort of a natural corpsman. He picked everything up faster than anyone I've seen & got so good that after a while that even the stern Willie J. was willing to allow him to take watches by himself. Jud was a good dude. But callow. & pure. He was about 18yo, but looked & acted younger. We had a sort of elderly Sick Bay & he stood out.
We were moored in Trieste. Ran into a guy in a bar from some place in Yugoslavia. Cold war was about dead, the Warsaw Pact was falling apart & Yugoslavia wasn't part of that, anyway. He was getting married. Seemed like a kindred spirit. I guess we did, too. We got invited to the wedding.
We were told we were going to some town in Macedonia. On a modern map it looks like Croatia is more likely, although Macedonia, for all its historical significance, isn't on that one. Whatever. We went to the wedding, & took Jud with us.
We had a Martian, typical Navy-procurement-overkill coffee pot in Pepsi's Sick Bay. This, remember, was for a 9-bed ward. The coffee pot was one of those things you run into in a large civilian cafeteria. Maybe a 3" tall, 2" thick cylindrical monster percolater. If you take the top off you'll see an internal compartment separated from the external compartment by a perforated cylinder. In the external compartment is a space which will, as God is my witness, hold 36 flat vinyl fifths of booze. I suppose this was common Navyknowledge, because the only place you could get flat vinyl fifths of anything, that I knew of then, was in port towns.
Our "coffee pot" was pretty much full of Jim Beam. A gallon of Exotic American Bourbon didn't seem exessive as a wedding present, so 5 of our remaining fifths went to that. We also bought the guy & his bride-to-be some blue jeans, which were also apparently rareities. Oh. Five cartons of Marlboros (@ $2.50/ctn, ship's store).
Went to the Wedding. It was something. Our presents went over better than well. We were Gods. Lots of lamb & shit. & Borscht. Important. Good fun.
One of the alcoholic beverages being passed around was retsina. This is a sort of claret distinguished by the addition of turpentine (no shit; long ago when the Greek insular culture was dominant but the best wines were mainland-grown the amphorae used to transport the good stuff were sealed by plugs glued by pine resin, hence the addition of a little turpentine nowadays for taste). Another was one of the many mediterranean basin spirits that taste like liquorish. In this case, I think, Anise, but I'm not sure. Maybe Ouzo. Who knows. Pernod. Strega. There are a million of them. We'll call it Ouzo.
Everyone was getting pretty rowdy by this time, including the old folks. I stuck to some mint tea some bigwig was drinking, & I think Callan & Larsen did, too. Jud drank & ate retsina, LOTS of ouzo, borscht, roast lamb, lamb stew, rice, kibbi & all kinds of shit.
He then, quietly & calmly, leaned over his plate & vomited. He made almost no noise doing it, & filled his rather deep, previously empty plate up to the meniscus, without a single drop spilled. With PINK vomitus. I was horrified.
They weren't. The place exploded in applause. Turns out, (& turned out) that Yugoslavian (or wherever we were) wedding parties always result in drunken rowdiness, & that Jud's puke was something of a ledgendarily cool vomit; unequaled in History in terms of taste & decorum, & the whole crowd, old Grandmas in black bombazine dresses & all tried to equal his excellence later.
I certainly enjoyed the NAV.
Prof
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