For My Shipmates

THIS ONE FOR MY SHIPMATES. ONLY A REAL SAILOR CAN READ THIS AND UNDERSTAND AND LAUGH.

I didn’t write this but it sure is a fun one…

Me and Willy were lollygagging by the scuttlebutt after being aloft to boy-butter up the antennas and were just perched on a bollard eyeballing a couple of bilge rats and flangeheads using crescent hammers to pack monkey shit around a fitting on a handybilly.

All of a sudden the dicksmith started hard-assing one of the deck apes for lifting his pogey bait. The pecker-checker was a sewer pipe sailor and the deckape was a gator. Maybe being blackshoes on a bird farm surrounded by a gaggle of cans didn’t set right with either of those gobs.

The deck ape ran through the nearest hatch and dogged it tight because he knew the penis machinist was going to lay below, catch him between decks and punch him in the snot locker. He’d probably wind up on the binnacle list but Doc would find a way to gundeck the paper or give it the deep six to keep himself above board.

We heard the skivvywaver announce over the bitch box that the breadburners had creamed foreskins on toast and SOS ready on the mess decks so we cut and run to avoid the clusterfuck when the twidgets and cannon cockers knew chow was on.

We were balls to the wall for the barn and everyone was preparing to hit the beach as soon as we doubled-up and threw the brow over.

I had a ditty bag full of fufu juice that I was gonna spread on thick for the bar hogs with those sweet Bosnias. Sure beats the hell out of brown bagging. Might even hit the acey-duecy club and try to hook up with a Westpac widow. They were always leaving snail trails on the dance floor on amateur night.

If you understand this, you’re true blue and gold!

WWII Veterans

The following was posted by a shipmate, Bob Walker on Facebook today:

Coming home today, I drove past my dentist’s office. Instead of calling to check on an appointment I have later this week, I decided to stop in and check on it. I’m glad I did.

When I entered, I noticed a gentleman sitting in the waiting area with a WW2 Veteran hat on. I took care of my business, and he was still there when I reentered the waiting area. I walked over to him and thanked him for his service. I was wearing my USS Nashville ball cap, and he asked me if I was in the military. I told him I was retired from the Navy, and he said, sit down, son, and let’s talk.

His name is Adrian, I won’t reveal his full name. He was a medic with the 95th Infantry, serving in Germany and France. His unit had 2 medics for about 150 men, and they called him “The Man”. Among other things we talked about, he told me stories of liberating a concentration camp, the ones still alive hadn’t eaten in weeks, and were eating the flesh of the recently deceased. He closed his eyes and leaned back, and said he could still see it and smell it, even today.

He said Hitler had a plan to create a master race, and rule the world. I told him that thanks to men like him, it didn’t work out that way.

We sat and talked for about 10-15 minutes, not a long time, and I wish I could have stayed and talked with him for hours.

Folks, these are the men who saved our world over 70 years ago, and there aren’t many of them left with us. If you see someone wearing a WW2 Veteran hat, take a moment to thank them. Then take a few more minutes to ask them about their service. It doesn’t take much, only a few minutes out of your busy day… but I think it’ll mean the world to these heroes.

Bob’s story reminded me of an incident that happened to me about ten years ago:

A few years ago, I had an appointment at the Internal Medicine Clinic at Tripler Army Medical Center. This was before I began to manifest the symptoms of my Parkinson’s disease. As I entered the elevator, an Army officer in a camo uniform rushed past me into the nearly full elevator. I noticed an elderly couple also nearing the elevator and stopped the door to hold the elevator for them.

As the couple entered the elevator, the officer groaned and said, “For Christ’s sake.”

The elderly couple told me they were going to the same floor I was. As the elevator reached our floor and opened the officer pushed his way to the front, upsetting the lady, who would have fallen if I hadn’t caught her. Her husband also clutched my arm to maintain his balance. I helped them from the elevator and asked where they were going. As it happened, the were also going to Internal Medicine. I took my time and assisted them with a couple of stops to rest.

Once we reached the clinic, I helped them to check in and got them seated. As I completed my check in, the rude Army officer came from the back and sat down in the waiting area.

I walked over to him and said, “Major, if you don’t mind I would like to talk to you outside.”

We went out into the foyer. I said, “Major you owe that old man and woman an apology. When you pushed the aside exiting that elevator, they both almost fell. I see you are wearing the Combat Infantry Badge which tell me you have seen combat. Did you notice that old gentleman’s ball cap is embroidered with the Marine Corps device and the words Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa? There are also Gunnery Sargent’s chevrons, as well as the ribbons for the Pacific Theater, the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.”

He stared at me for a minute, turned and reentered the waiting room, walked over to the couple, knelt and talked with them for about ten minutes. He shook their hands, stood and rendered a hand salute.

He walked to me and said, “Sir, may I ask, what is your rank?”

I told him, “I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer.”

He shook my hand, said, “I always heard that Chiefs were a bunch of Hard-asses.” He saluted me and walked to his seat.

The Tiger Bar

By: Garland Davis

I met Ray in Yokohama in 1964 shortly after I reported to the Navy Housing Command there. Ray was thirty-one or two years old. He was a Third Class Commissaryman with three hash marks. We became good friends. Ray overlooked the fact that I was a twenty-year-old Second Class CS. He never seemed to resent my success and appeared to take pride that I outranked him.

Ray’s greatest talent was a hollow leg. He could drink more without ever showing signs of being drunk than anyone else I ever met. I once saw him drink a fifth of Canadian Club in about a six hour period and drive to the package store for another.

I guess the reason Ray and I became such good friends was because we shared the same goals. Beer and Pussy.

During the early and mid-sixties, the currency exchange rate was 360 Japanese Yen to One U.S. Dollar. Prices were cheap in the Japanese bars. Beer was usually 100Y and Whiskey water was 100Y or 150Y. Nikka Whiskey (personification of rotgut) and water could be had for 50Y. A short time with a girl usually cost 500Y to a 1000Y and an overnight about 2000Y or 3000Y. Ten dollars would pay for a memorable liberty and you would have to throw some coins away so you could say you came back broke. It was sort of like paradise.

Ray and I spent many memorable evenings in the bars of Isezaki-cho and China Town. There was a short alley in Chinatown. It was shown on the Security Department maps as Four and a Half Street. The Tiger Bar was one of Ray’s favorite places. There was the Mama-san and three older women who worked there. They were famous for the 500Y BJ’s in the back booth.

Ray shipped over for orders to Vietnam. Volunteers for Nam supposedly got a choice of duty afterward. Ray wanted to come back to Japan.

He collected a $600 reenlistment bonus for his six-year commitment. Ray insisted that I accompany him to Chinatown that night. After a stop at the Zebra Club for a few, he set a course for the Tiger Bar. There were no other customers as we entered the bar.

Mama asked, “What you want Ray.”

Ray placed Y72,000 ($200) on the bar and said, “Lock the door and everybody get naked.”

A memorable time was had by all.

Innocent
By: Garland Davis

Johnny was in love! She was the prettiest, most innocent girl who had ever actually talked to him and she said she loved him. She had told him so. He had met Mercy last week. She was a hostess at a bar on Magsaysay Avenue in Olongapo, just outside the gate of the Navy Base at Subic Bay in the Philippines.

She wasn’t like the other girls he had met in the bars. Mercy had explained to him that she was working as a hostess during the summer to pay her tuition at the University in Manilla for next semester. She explained that she only worked for drinks and didn’t go to the hotels with the sailors like the other girls did. She was a good girl and saving herself for the man she really loved.

Johnny had seen her every day except Friday when he had the duty. She told him that she was so in love with him and decided that tonight she would give herself to him. But she asked him for a favor. Her mother needed to see a doctor and Mercy asked him to loan her two thousand Pesos.

As soon as “Knock off” was passed, Johnny was in the shower, shaved and ready for a night of love. He was first off the brow when “Liberty Call” was passed. A quick stop at the Spanish Gate for a hamburger and then to the money changer. Johnny changed a hundred-dollar bill he had been saving to buy a stereo system when the ship reached Japan. The exchange rate was a little over forty pesos to one dollar. Johnny had over four thousand pesos. If she needed it, he would give it all to Mercy.

Johnny knew that Mercy didn’t start work until six, so he had a couple hours to have some beer. He was still having a problem that such a ravishing woman could love an Iowa clod-kicker like him. He heard country music emanating from a bar and stuck his head in for a look around. A couple of deck apes from the ship were at a table with two girls. One of them yelled, “Hey, Johnny, come alongside.”

By the time, Johnny was seated, a cold San Miguel was placed in front of him and someone took his arm and asked, “May I sit with you?” A very pretty girl smiled shyly at him.

“Yeah, Okay, sure,” Johnny stammered. He was astounded. She was even prettier than Mercy.

“My name is Amelia. What is your name?” the girl said with a smile.

“Johnny,” remembering that the girls got paid for drinks, Johnny asked, “Would you like a drink.”

“Yes, thank you,” she said as she signaled the waiter.

Johnny spent a pleasant hour drinking beer and talking with Amelia. She asked if he had a girlfriend and, for some reason, Johnny had told her no. Amelia said, “Can I be your girlfriend? I have a small apartment nearby. If you pay my bar fine, we can be together until tomorrow.”

“I have to go someplace for a little while and meet a friend from the ship,” Johnny told her. “I will be back later,” he added, with no intention of returning.

“I will be waiting.”

As Johnny left the Country Bar, he saw Mercy and a sailor she was clutching by the arm enter the door of a hotel across the street.

Johnny turned back to the bar and said, “Amelia, I changed my mind, let’s have a few more drinks and go to your place.