Wishing in RPGs, military orders

[spikepipsqueak]

I hope the person who set it up eventually heard about your success. ...?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I hope the person who set it up eventually heard about your success. ...?

Oh, yeah, that sort of thing goes thru the boat instantly.

We timed it, once. We were a boat patrolling the Atlantic. Noticed that they had combined Pacific targeting in our reference book. Started a rumor at one end of the boat that we had been assigned Pacific Target Aresas. Meaning we were going to have to transit a long way from home.
Not five minutes later the senior officer in the Engine spaces called to verify our PATROL ORDERS.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You are a mean little man.

Thanks!

But the real beauty of this story is how you just went with the set up . . . and carried it home.

The Navy is great for that. It's like a big Wolf Pack. Thry smell blood and start circling.
I didn't fall for the request for a left-handed wrench, or a crescent hammer. Didn't run for a bucket of steam or the serial number of the water slug. Didn't blink when told to get ten feet of fallopian tubing.

But one day, chief was trying to rivet something and all our rivets were too small. Showed me how the rivet gun wasn't going to work. Sent me up to the tender for a BT punch.
I went to the fire Control support shop. Up three decks to get out of the sub, up four levels on the ship.
Asked to check out a BT punch.
"Oh, we don't carry those, you gotta get that from Engineering." Got directions.
From the main deck down to the sixth deck, where the ship's diesels are. Start asking around. Someone says i need the Second Class. I find him. Explain the need, mention my chief. "Did hou piss him off?"
"Daily, but what do i have to do to get a BT punch?"
"You stand right there." He walks off. Comes back leading this e-goddamned-NORMOUS human being. "This is Boiler Technician Smith."
And i recall that my boot camp company commander was Chief Boiler Technician Sharkey. BTC. BT being the designation for that rating. We had no BT's on the sub. Nuclear power is cared for by Machinist Mates (MM). So, naturally, a BT would be in charge of the BT punch.


That's about when the penny dropped.

This fist comes at me from about Ohio. Hits center mass. Blasts me against one of the diesels. I sink to the deck, trying to breathe. "You take that back to yo' chief, shipmate." I wheezed in reply.
I literalky crawled up the ladders to the main deck. Hands and knees.

I was able to walk down the brow, but not without holding the brow.
Kinda fell down the ladder into the ship. Got to MCC where the entire division wanted to see the bruise.

No one had called ahead to arrange any part of this. Fucking fuckers. Division officer just about laughed his face off when they told him.

 

[Keith&Co.]

"Yezh, it's mostly harmless. But rotating blades on an electric shaver? Those spin fast enough they drive the particles INTO YOUR SKIN. You get these little blue freckles. And if you get too many, your face becomes an explosive hazard."[/Bullshit]
'Oh, wow. Thanks."

Oh! I forgot to kention Crosby.

One of our sonar techs had made his own fireworks when he was a kid. And when one didn't light off, he leaned over the tube...and it exploded. Unburned gunpowder was drilled into his cheeks. Had blue freckles for the rest of his life.

When the Ensign stood a familiarity watch in Sonar, he was confused. And scared. "Weps told me that was bullshit!"
Crosby had heard the story and winked. "Yes. But Weps NEVER sleeps in the missile compartment."
----
Crosby was also part of another officer story, now that i think on it.
We had a drill where another sub spilled a beaker topside, supposedly full of primary coolant from the reactor.

The whole lower base shut down. We had a missile hatch open, so we needed guards topside. I was selected, as was Crosby. We dressed out in the canary suits and gas nasks, got guns, went up to relieve.
Hadn't thought to put our ID cards outside the sesled suit.
A commander, playing drill monitor, watched as the guy i relieved shook my hand. He could feel the amputation of one finger under my glove, reported a positive identification, went below to decontaminate.
The other stationed guard just looked Crosby deep into the face. Saw the blue freckles. Positive ID.
Commander put it down as a failure to maintain adequate security. They never saw our military ID, couldn't see our entire face to match the ID to the person, couldn't possibly claim they knew who relieved them. Our CO was pissed. Until Weps explained. In private.
All the Commander ever knew was that suddenly, the CO was satisfied.

 

[hyzer]

My high school had an elevator in the oldest building, a huge 5-story, 20' ceiling-height-each-level, 1930's collegiate Greek Revival pile. At some point in the 1960s some enterprising wags in the school's print shop made up "Elevator Passes", printed in the official school colors, official school crest, "good for one semester" - all for only $5.00. They were still circulating in the mid-1970's (apparently there was a box of a few thousand from the original printing in the print shop) and many were bought by gullible freshman every year in September, usually after the first week of school when the slog that those stairs represented had sunk in, along with only 5 minutes between classes - all despite the "Teachers Only" signs at each set of elevator doors . . . getting caught in the elevator was good for instant detention - having a pass earned a second Saturday.

 

[Keith&Co.]

One off-crew (the training period where one of the two crews for an SSBN is ashore), the chief came into the office and said it was time for divisional training. I said, "All in favor, say 'Divisional Training'." Well, favored or not, there was no real option, so half the division said, "Divisional training." And we went and we did that thing.
A week later, it was time for the simulator. All in favor, say, Simulator. And they all said, Simulator. And we simulatored.

By the end of off-crew, i had shifted to nonlinear word associations.
Department training? All in favor, Sasquatch.
Lunch? AIF, Gypsies.
Line-handler training? AIF, Hiroshima.

And everyone, even people in other departments, would chorus the favor.

We took the boat. I stopped waiting for suggestions. At random moments, i would just blurt out, "All in favor, say 'Shakespeare'." And no one would pause in what they were doing, just mutter "Shakespeare."

Weps was always a beat behind. He was certain that i was conditioning everyone, and at some point an inspection team or the admiral would be greeted by all hands innocently shouting "Cunt!" or "Sockfucker!"

But, no.

We finished patrol, had a stand-down period. Got back to the office. First day of real training, chief came into gghe office. I said, "All in favor say 'Liberty'." And the chief said, "Liberty." And we took off as if shot from a gun, off on liberty. At, like, 0715 in the morning.
Nice day.

NEXT day, chief asked, "Where did you fuckers go yesterday?"
"You put down liberty, Chief!" my supervisor pointed out.
"When did i put down liberty?"
"All in favor," i said, "say 'liberty'."
Chief was still staring at SUPR, but off-hand said "Liberty." Voooooom!

THIRD day of the pre-patrol training period, he dismantled the partitions around the Weapons Department space in the office so he could barricade us in. And we had a discussion about the formal putting-down of official liberty, and what it would look and sound like, and very specifically what it would NOT sound like i am looking at you Keith.

But mad as he was, he went and bragged to the other chiefs about how one of his guys put seven months work into stealing two days of libs for the division.

 

[Keith&Co.]

he went and bragged to the other chiefs about how one of his guys put seven months work into stealing two days of libs for the division.

Forgot to mention, about a month after this, A-gang was dividing their tasks, getting everyone's input. As it approached finalized, one said, "All in favor?"
MM chief bellows "None of that shit in Engineering!"
Two people thought he meant all-hands voting was communism....

 

[Keith&Co.]

I reported to a submarine tender in Scotland in 1984. Every work center and every berthing space on the ship had a television tied to the CCTV system run out of the ship's interior communications office.
Every night, after chow, they would put a video tape in and play a movie for the duty section. The duty IC-man typically hit PLAY, then locked up the space. The tape would end and they'd secure the system first thing in the morning.

Several of us in the Weapons Department had our own VCRs that we could hook up to the TV if we didn't want to watch whatever the movie was.

So, one duty day, i noticed a guy in my duty section coming aboard with a bag from a video rental store. He was bumped in the line and i saw that he was bringing in porn. Not terribly legal in the Navy, but his worksoace was down in the missile magazine, so he was unlikely to get caught.
Unkess, of course, he did not isolate his TV from the CCTV when he connected his VCR.

That night, a duty officer was watching the movie, got called on some duty-related issue. Came back to the wardroom hours later, about midnight, and the TV was still on. The movie had ended, so ANYTHING
broadcasting on the wire was sent to all TVs. Thus, there was intercourse in full swing on the big TV.

He assumed it was being broadcast from IC, ran down there to find no one. Got the duty IC-man woken up, they secured the system...poor guy had to rewind and fast forward thru the whole tape to show it was Mary Poppins, not porn recorded over the top. Somewhere during this, the gunners mate finished his porn and turned his player off.

The next day, at quarters, our Division Officer said they were investigating a report of porn on the TV. I was curious as i knew porn was on board, and asked, "Was it 'Chicago Cheerleaders in Heat'?"
Div admitted to not knowing the title. Chief told him, "Keith's just pulling your leg, sir."
Oh. Whoops. I guess that might have looked incriminating if he had known the title, and i was right...
But the command never isolated the porn source.

So, it was a mystery for a while, outside of Duty Section 3, where GM1 Femiak was no longer allowed to hook the VCR to the TV without adult supervision.

But then the Marines did the exact same thing. Porn for all hands at midnight.

The comnand never did understand what was happening. Their understanding of the CCTV system was that the IC shack was the source of anything seen on the TV. So, every night, part of the duty officer's day was spent inspecting the night's movie, maintaining custody of the verified movie until after dinner, watching the IC-man install it and hit play, then lock the space, retaining the key until 2230, when they would return, remove the tape, and power down the system.

I thought of this from time to time when managers who don't know how my stuff works told me how to perform my job.

Or maybe my coping mechamnism for stupidity was to think of hot, nearly naked cheerleaders.

Six of one...

 

[Keith&Co.]

When i worked at SWFLANT, we sometimes had teams of Russians fly in to inspect our fidelity to treaties, such as RVOSI. The shole command shuts down for these and military are given jobs in escorting the team around or getting twelve foot long sandwiches or taking them to WalMart for jeans.
The robocall to tell me i had the wonderful honor of standing in a hallway blocking the fire exit for eight hours never asked for a response. Which meant the "you must be at HQ at 0600 for escort duty" played immediately after i, or my answering machine, picked up the line.
So, if we were not home when the inspection was announced, we returned to find a lot of silence on the tape.
So, i was late for a few inspections. I mean, i had a blank message. Nit being psychic, i did not translate that to a military order. But the machine insisted i had been notified.
My chief said if i got a blank message, i should just assume it was the command robocall, then call him for further instructions.
I tried to point out that we got, like, three blank messages a month. Used to get similarly programned robosales calls, and alerts from the power company, so it was not unique.

But he insisted.

So for a week, i called his house every other night to ask if the Russians were coming, until he ordered me to call the duty desk instead.
In reality, i'd just unplugged the machine. Anyone wanting yo reach me could just call back.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Oh! SWFLANT was also where i perfected my technique of forwarding calls. It's a weird command. Has about thirty buildings scattered all over the base, a few miles apart. At the Waterfront i had nothing to do with Headquarters, Calibration, Ballast, Assembly, Vertical, any of the other buildings. But in the phone book, they're all listed right beside each other. About twice a month, we'd get a call from someone who i guess imagined that we were across the hall from who they wanted.
We'd say, 'Wrong number,' and they'd ask if we could just call forward them to the right number.

I never did learn the exact sequence of buttons to do that. And it didn't work every time if i did look it up. So, I would just say, "I'll try, but the phone system has been acting up recently, so if this doesn't work, the extension you want is XXXX."

Then i hang up.

 

[Keith&Co.]

One of my shipmates was named Zwyrt.
If an enlisted asked, he said it was pronounced "zert."

If an officer asked, he said, "Smith, sir. Everything's silent."


Similar vein, there was a guy on another boat going for his doctorate in psychiatry. The Missile Tech detailer was willing to release him, so he could finish his last classes ashore, but the submarine detailer would not. Every officer in the chain just shrugged. "Well, finish after you retire, i guess."
Howsoever, he learned that he could transfer quite a few of his credits to a different program and become a doctor of theology.
And the Navy's policy is that they cannot refuse a formal religious request. So, he got his PhD, returned to the fleet as an MT, as a Doctor, and as the command Chaplain.
If an enlisted referred to him/called him, by watch, rank, or team position, he responded. "Hey, team leader," or "hey, Launcher," he'd ask what they wanted.
Any officer? "Hey, Launcher Watch?"
"That's DOCTOR Launcher, sir."