Two prayers....

God's will be done and may He have mercy upon us all.

About Me

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A Catholic who follows Rome & the Magisterium. I'm against gay "marriage", abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, human cloning. Altar girls, Communion in the hand, Eucharistic Ministers and "Protestant" music in the Church doesn't bother me at all. A proud American retired submarine sailor. Our borders should be secured with a 10 ft. high fence topped by concertina wire with minefields out to 20 yards on both sides and an additional 10 yards filled with warning signs outside of that Let's get energy independent NOW! Back Israel to the max, stop appeasing followers of the Pedophile Prophet. Pro 2nd Amendment, pro death penalty, Repeal all hate crime legislation. Back the police unless you'd rather call a hippie when everything hits the fan. Get government out of dealing with education, childhood obesity and the enviornment. Stop using the military for sociological experiments and if we're in a war don't micromanage their every move. Kill your television, limit time on the computer and pick up a book. God's will be done and may He have mercy upon us all.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A sea story (with thanks to Cookie).

Well, Cookie started it all by telling a story of when he blew sanitaries all over Joe Negri, a TMCM who could chew rebar and shit it out as tenpenny nails. When one sub sailor starts telling sea stories you can bet a slew of the same will follow. For a background on this I recommend going to The Cook Shack and scroll down to "Speakin of bein in real deep shit".

Here's my modest contribution from my time in Uncle Sam's Canoe Club:

Let's face it, the only people more fascinated with their shit than sub sailors are baby boys. And baby boys are a lot less ingenious with spreading it around. I was aboard the USS OMAHA shortly before her commissioning back in 1978. We had left EB Shipyard and were tied up at the State Pier in New London outboard the TINOSA. For some ungodly reason our bows both headed north.

As anyone familiar with early 688 class boats knows the sanitary overboard is located in the sonar equipment space, forward port corner of the sphere. (In first flight 688's there was another one in control but that's unimportant for this story.)

At the time the practice was to fit the drydock connection on the overboard with a yard or so of firehose attached to discharge directly into the river. The sanitary tank was to be pressurized ONLY to about 10-15 psi for this evolution. (We also had a sanitary pump that should have been used but it was as useless as tits on a teddy bear.) One midwatch a rather bored IC1 decided to press the tank up to a couple of hundred pounds and let'er rip. Though weighted at the end with a couple of weights the fire hose stood at attention in the same manner as a young recruit on his first visit to a strip club.

The angle was perfect to allow discharge towards TINOSA's weapons shipping hatch, coincidentally left open with the loading skid in place for the following day's weapons load. The loading skid in place meant that the hatch couldn't be quickly shut. The only saving factor were the March winds, otherwise their torpedo room would have gotten a full load. As it was, dingleberries and paper flew all over the topside area, the sail, the topside watch, you get the picture.

My first indication of trouble as the leading A-ganger was the sight of a well papered State Pier when I arrived the next day. "WTF" immediately came to mind. Upon coming aboard I heard it all, including the Duty Officer's threat (empty as it was illogical) that A-gang would go clean up TINOSA's torpedo room as it was our system that caused the problem. Fortunately the TINOSA moved outboard the submarine tender FULTON that same day to load her fish and we were left by ourselves. No one relished the thought of crossing over her to go on liberty. And that IC1? He went on to enter the Limited Duty Officer (LDO) program. Last time I saw him was in Charleston at the Weapons Station where he was a LCDR and the MPA aboard the tender there. Go figure.

4 comments:

Cookie..... said...

Bwahahahaha....love the way you described the event...I could just picture it in my mind....

I imagine those guys on the other boat just LOVED you guys....

Great story mate. I'm sure just about every old boat sailor has a Blowin San's story to share...if'n he don't...he pobably never did it....

ignorant redneck said...

I hate to show you guys how stupid I am--I mean, I know what a 688 is, and most stuff, but WTH is an "A ganger?" I really want to know! If you tell me, I'll reciprocate with slang I know even!

Subvet said...

Ignorant Redneck, it ain't being stupid. You're just not familiar this species of subhuman primates.

A-gangers are members of the auxiliary division aboard naval vessels. They're mechanics who are responsible for the operation and maintenance of all non-propulsion machinery. Aboard submarines this is a real grab bag of items, all the hydraulic systems, pneumatic systems, potable water, atmosphere control equipment and plumbing/sanitary systems, and whatever else can be foisted off on them.

A-gangers (along with Torpedomen) are also more often than not the most rude, crude, socially unacceptable reprobates of the crew. They don't get invited to too many formal dinner parties.

John Belushi's character in "Animal House" would have been a great A-ganger if he'd just loosened up a bit.

So when I identify myself as a retired Senior Chief (E8) A-ganger there's a lot of baggage that comes with the title. A few bloggers have commented on my ability to type words of more than one syllable. Comes with the territory.

Cookie..... said...

Hmmm...SubVet...great description of what "A-Gangers" are...but the ones I knew couldn't even get invited to the mess hall, let alone a formal dinner...and I found the terms "rude, crude and socially unacceptable" to be closer to compliments....so please stop embelishing your status in the scheme of things...you are what you are.... ;-)

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