USS New Jersey (BB-62): Shellback Initiation by Kevin H., on Flickr

Asked this on the Underway Life Facebook Page:

Haze Gray and underway might be an expression, but what about hazing? It was real life when I was in. What’s your experience?

Here’s a few responses:

-> I don’t know, maybe I was just to close to it or too used to it, but it didn’t seem that bad. Of course if you want to talk about crossing the line or CPO initiation that was a little more extreme in my day than it seems to be now.

-> I was in ’94-’98 when they started to go crazy about the hazing. I feel like I missed out because I couldn’t have my fish tacked on. I believe that I missed out on an important rite of passage.

-> There wasn’t much on the ole Von S. CO didn’t go for that much. Other than dolphins being blessed to ur chest the rest was minimal.

What has your experience been? Ever been schoonered? Painted someone else with prussian blue? Been taped to the piping?

Drinking coffee. It’s part of Navy life, heck part of all military life. Coffee on the boat though, that was real mans coffee.

Real men drink coffee made with old grounds piled on new in the filter, from a cup that was cleaned before the weighed anchor. I’m sure this is where the term ‘mud’ originated.

Tough cleaning problem? Pour on some coffee.

Need to stay awake for that third watch in a day? Pour on some coffee.

Coffee in military life is a valuable commodity. When something comes in 20 lb. cans, it must be important.

More than for drinking yourself, cans could be exchanged for favors.  More than one bit of work on the boat got done quick with a bit of black stuff exchanged.

Sure the sailor might stray to something softer once in a while, like a beer. But the days don’t go by that won’t find him/her cup in hand, steam a rising, and so dark you can’t see the bottom.

Coffee. Drink of soldiers everywhere.

Original photo by Telstar Logistics.

Ship’s Store guest post by Rex Dixon:

I bet a lot of the readers here remember the way the “old Navy” was. Not the clothing store, but the way things were. Back in the day when you waited for the ship store to open once you were in international waters. Since I was an east coast sailor, we’d have once to twice a month operations out in what they called the VACAPES. Wasn’t a code name, just an abbreviation that stood for Virginia Capes.

Once you are 12 miles off the coast of the United States (VACAPES), you are in international waters. Once the ship store opens, everything is sold tax free. Nice. Now back to the days of the old Navy, the main item that went like within the first hour of the ship’s store opening was cigarettes, smokes, etc… At $7 a carton you couldn’t beat that with a stick.

Now that I look back on it, I think that being that I was in the “old Navy” smoking was more or less the defacto standard if not encouraged a bit. Quite strange I’m sure from the more modern 21st Century Navy.

I know another favorite item was all that junk food, cup o’ noodles, pringles, etc… Most of the guys on my ship had 2 lockers, and one usually had their “stash” in it. Guys on my ship. Yes, I know, times have changed! That’s a story for another post though I’m sure!

What items did you like to buy and stock up on when you were at sea? Do you ever wonder how the old Navy compares to the 21st Century Navy? How about those that served in both centuries and saw both Navy’s?

Rex Dixon served 4 years in on the USS El Paso (LKA-117) – gator freighter, 2 Med Cruises, 1 north Atlantic cruise, 1 Gitmo Refresher. Honorable Discharge as E-5 (Radioman). Rex has his own blog Technically Speaking, and can be found on Twitter, @RexDixon.

What was your underway must have?

I was that guy on the boat, the one always reading something. Bible browsing, men’s adventure novel, or 3M manuals, I covered all the bases while underway.

Reading books helped me escape for minutes or hours.  Drifting off to sleep with visions of dragons in your head or even scary clowns was better than pondering oil temps and midrats.

What else was good to have on long runs?

Playing cards takes my #2 must have on the boat. Long runs found us playing endless spades and pinochle tournaments. (okay, maybe on fast attacks we weren’t bright enough for cribbage)  Bonus time with cards is you rarely played alone, though I just have spread the cards for solitaire hundreds of times.

Any creative outlets?

Writing took up a noticeable portion of my off time. It seemed I started more stories, and journals than a guy should admit to. There were poems, diary entries, and rants at people and God. (He gets His own post some day soon.)

Many shipmates were artists of sorts. I was amazed at drawings and sketches more than once. Art for me at the time was doodles during training.

What else?

Board games? Magazines? Collections? And what sort of books? Mens adventure? Love stories? How to guides? And not to be left out, how about you closet musicians?

Radio, not just operations support.

Deployments are tough for many reasons. Separation from family and friends is toughest. How does the ship’s radio figure in?

Receiving actual letters from home while underway is sporadic at best. Submarine life means even less mail runs. Port calls are exciting just for the mail bags.

Radio helps in the between with one way notes from home – family grams. Family grams are short messages your loved ones draft for sending over the Navy radio system. Stateside commands would take a note from a spouses, screen it for ‘flagged’ words, and send it off to every ship in the Navy.

Yes. Every ship.

Radio men screened the initial note for overly sexualized language, death reports, and other potentially emotional words. No use in having a guy go AWOL over such a message, or everyone reading about how ‘satisfied’ they will be once they get home.

Receiving these wasn’t limited to in port time.  Family Grams were broadcast on a schedule.  We’d wait anxiously in the galley if they were supposed to be coming in.  It was a nice surprise though to be woken up and handed one.

Do you have fond memories of family grams? Was there one that really stands out? Did your spouse have a secret code for those provocative topics?

“As you celebrate the Fourth of July, please keep in mind that many of our Sailors are deployed and can’t be with their loved ones, but they do so in order that our fellow Americans can spend it with theirs. Currently, we have more than half of our ships and submarines underway, including five carriers and six large-deck amphibious ships, and more than 10,000 individual augmentees deployed ‘boots on ground’ around the world in support of overseas contingency operations.” from Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy (MCPON)(SS/SW) Rick D. West Independence Day message

Missed many holidays?

Holidays, they are the high points of the year, where everyone celebrates. The Fourth of July is the largest national holiday of the year in the US. Many people plan for months for the perfect evening out.

Neighbors and even friends of a Navy family may miss the fact a loved one won’t be celebrating. Those sailors most likely aren’t just docked in Norfolk or San Diego. Carriers, slow boats, and more are deployed around the world, holiday or not.

Missing the big ones

Deployed for Easter might seem a small loss to some in the Navy, but to many Easter is a sacred day.  I was fortunate when not home for Easter weekend to have captains that encouraged Easter Sunday services.  Our spouses did a video of an Easter party during one deployment. It was a big hit.

Deploying never caused me to miss Christmas. Having duty did infringe a bit though. Not sure how I got lucky over the several years on two boats.

Finally, Fourth of July celebrations were occasionally missed. I never put much value on celebrating until I didn’t celebrate it at all. We did nothing special on either boat.

What did you miss?

So which holidays did you miss? How about beyond that? Miss a bunch of birthdays? Anniversaries perhaps?

(disclaimer – photo by bestrated1 on Flickr licensed as CC)

Beer.

It’s a beverage just about every sailor has consumed. Liberty or those beer rations perhaps, old and skanky or fresh from the tap, it’s all but synonymous with squids.

Growing up in the home of Budweiser and Falstaff, your idea beer gets a bit skewed. Heck, even in Great Lakes the primary beer was Bud Light.

Sailing to foreign countries and along the Eastern seaboard opened my eyes to lots of new things. Beer varieties were no small part of that. Who knew about Moose Head, Guinness, and more existed?

A truly novel experience for me was my first taste of Guinness stout. Sure man, you’re a six pack drinker in a night. That’s about one Guinness. It’s a good thing I could walk back to the boat.

Few things compare to watching the head settle on a tall pint of Guinness the first time. Dark, rich, and heady, it hits the mouth hard. The stomach harder.

Taste romping didn’t stop there.  I sampled local brews wherever we landed. Usually a bottle was all I could afford; sometimes that was plenty.  The big exception came in Belgium. Someone should have warned me Brussels has a brewhouse on every corner, and sometimes two.

Our couple of days in Brussels, we sample exquisite pastries and chocolates, bought teddy bears from one of the oldest manufactures in the world. The locals made us welcome at shops and restaurants but one group was especially welcoming, the tavern owners.

Two days, over a dozen beers, and only my second hangover ever.  It was a rough recovery but I was amazed. The idea of microbrews was still unheard of back home, yet I’d found more varieties of beer in one section of this town than I’d had in a dozen port calls or nights out on the town in St. Louis.

Post Navy

After that began my lifestyle of moderation and sampling. Opening my eyes to beer those many years back has kept me on the lookout for that perfect sip of beer.  Not just one either, but one for a thick steak, one for nachos, and one for sipping at a cafe in the hot sun.

With a glass here and there, I’m proud most of my most recent experience, a beer pairing.  It’s about finding the right beer for different food tastes. Good stuff for another post at my main blog.

What about your tastes?

What’s your most eye opening food, beer or whatever dining experience? Did you first eat seafood while away? Have your first pig’s Spill the beans!

(* the picture is of my wife and yet another beer)

Gibraltar Monkey by Tojosan, on Flickr

Liberty call can be pizza and a beer or sitting on the beach in Bermuda. There’s times you’ve likely spent an evening in the bar but I think climbing the Rock of Gibraltar was a highlight for me.

What’s your favorite or most interesting liberty call?

The photo, while on liberty at Gibraltar, includes one of the scary monkeys.  Word was the monkeys were very aggressive and disease ridden. Note how we carefully steered clear of them. Of course, they said the same thing about the British soldiers stationed there.

Sharing these memories with friends and family is fun, and often times met by looks of disbelief. Life outside the States and after months at sea can be dang unusual or crazy.

Got a favorite liberty memory? Care to recall it for us? How about one your spouse shared with you?

For this go round, be sure to keep the language PG.

Midrats. It’s like Taco Bell’s Fourth Meal except Midrats existed first and didn’t come in a sack.

What are your memories of Midrats?

Midrats is that meal at Midnight on the boat. It’s breakfast for the guys and gals just getting up to go on the mid-watch and dinner for 3rd watch folks. Midrats is notorious for not being a full blown meal and often more like an overgrown late night snack.

Beans and weenies has to have been my favorite midrats meal. Sure there was the random eggs being cooked, or left overs. Heck, sometimes we even had a sandwich bar.(read lazy cooks)

Nice thing about beans and weenies is it was simple. Throw it in a bowl, toss in some catsup and a drop of mustard. Add a slice of bread on the side. Bam. Meal time.

What was your favorite midrats meal? Were you a cook by chance and if so, what was your favorite meal to serve for the late nights?

Blue Overhead by Tojosan on Flickr

Blue Angels ripping up the sky sure is showy. For some that’s all the Navy they’ll ever get. We know the Navy from the passages, bulk heads, and bilges. Our families know it from the absences and the odors.(diesel smell never comes off)

Coming home it’s often our spouse or a single loved one greeting us on the pier. No cheering crowds or cameras.

What was your best homecoming memory? Or is best memories?

One of my best homecoming memories is my wife coming down on the sub when I couldn’t leave right away. There we sat in the mess chowing down on spaghetti and chatting with the other guys, some with their loved ones.

Sharon is an inveterate engager. She’s the first to strike up a conversation and make friends. The sub was no different.

Sitting with us in the mess was one of the cooks. I’m sure it was Toothless.(do we all have a guy with that nick name or was it just my crew?) Immediately they were talking, swapping stories. Talk about turning a boring evening on standby into laughs.

From that day forward I think my wife was better friends with some of the guys that I was. I’ll never forget the impression she made with the guys. Her visits were always welcome afterwards.

What’s one of your best homecoming memories? It doesn’t have to be a ticker tape parade. It could be the warm waters and cold beers poolside.