Christmas in the Fast-Attack Navy

[Bullwinkle58]

A re-print form the Usenet naval science newsgroup. Re-posted there annually. I thought a worldwide audience might get a laugh. For those of you unfortunate enough to have never spent a Christmas at sea, or even under it, a peek into a different world.

I don't know the original author. Might be "Max." NOTE: the original has words which will be marked out here. I have attempted to edit the F-bombs and others while still leaving the original flavor.

"It's time for my annual Seawolf (SSN 575) Christmas Story... May it
brighten your Yuletide spirits and fill you with the Ghost of Joy.
(This heartwarming story is best enjoyed with a mug of hot chocolate,
and Burl Ives singing Holly Jolly Christmas)

One of the best Christmas dinners I ever ate was 600 feet underwater,
somewhere very cold . . .It was in the Pacific, (I can't be specific -
the mission was too classified)

Jim sat in the crew's mess on Christmas Eve, waiting for the mess
attendants, called cranks, to bring the evening meal of pea soup,
knackwurst, boiled potatoes and cranberry sauce when Santa popped up
through the battery well hatch in the deck next to his feet. Jim just
glared at the corpseman, Doc, across the table.

Rising from the hatch, Santa's voice was like a chainsaw, as he shouted
"Merry Christmas you friggin' motherfriggers!!!" Santa was quite the
sight! At six feet three inches, and two hundred-sixty-five pounds, he
was dressed in filthy, oil stained red and white velour, and sported a
ten year old K-mart beard that couldn't quite conceal his own red
greasy stubble, nor the fact that he was really Tex, the torpedoman.
"Ho Ho Ho! I got some shit for ALL you motherfriggers" Santa bellowed,
tossing packages across the crew's mess. Jim wasn't interested in
presents, though. Thirty-six hours spent rebuilding the starboard
emergency diesel generator had left him surly and in dire need of a
meal and sleep.

Santa-Tex's bounty began to reveal itself: a deck of girlie cards here,
and there, over there and behind that other guy there. Everyone got
girly cards except Doc. A carton of smokes there, a mostly-fresh
October's issue of Juggs magazine; all of these presents were from the
crew's welfare fund, but there were more, too -- gifts from wives and
girlfriends.

Jim got a pack of the girlie cards, but all he really wanted was dinner
and then his rack. He glared across the communal dinner table at Doc,
who hadn't gotten any presents -- Doc was married. His wife had
forgotten him after all. Sometimes it happened, and the crew were ready
to rally around Doc.

Tears were welling in Doc's blue eyes. "Here, shut up and take mine,
Doc. Friggin' pussy" said Jim. Doc shook his head and pushed the deck of
cards away; Doc was sensitive, and besides, his wife had to approve his
pornography before he left for sea. (This explained why Doc's porno
stash consisted exclusively of polaroids of his wife polishing their
Chevy nova in go-go boots and a thong.)

Jim began to repeat himself, louder and louder "Hey CRANK! WHERE'S MY
KNACKWURST GODDAMIT?" Santa-Tex leaned close to Jim and whispered "shut
the frick up asshole, I'm not done." Then, loudly, "Ho Ho Ho Merry --
wait, I forgot one present," and he reached into the battery well to
retrieve the largest present of all! "Why this one is for the
peckerchecker; here ya go, Doc."

And Dear Sensitive Doc almost cracked -- his wife had sent a present
along after all! He wiped his eyes and uttered an unsteady thanks to
Santatex. What could it be? It was rather large, compared most of the
gifts. A microwave?? No, too light. And stupid. Clothes? Well, they
wouldn't stink for an hour or so.... maybe a small boom box (iPods
having not been invented for another three decades)...

Doc unwrapped his present and found -- a Luv Ewe! With little black
patent leather go-go boots! Doc's wife was always a big kidder.
The crew crowded close around Doc, the better to see his present, and
express their love for him, and was he really going to use it or could
they borrow it when he was done?

Jim, out of his mind with sleep deprivation, his patience strained
past its limit by Santatex's interruption of the evening meal, actually
felt the very last fiber of his already tentative social grace snap
(his eye twitched), and screamed "I WANT MY FRIKKIN' KNACKWURST NOW
GODDAMIT!!"

Santatex, by now completely fed up with Jim's antics, unzipped his
pants, flopped his manhood on the table in front of Jim and bellowed
"Here's your goddam knackwurst, ASSHOLE!" Jim didn't miss a beat. He
picked up his soup spoon and whacked Santa with it. Hard. Very hard,
on the end. Santa shrieked, and sprinted off to the torpedo room,
clutching his pain.

The crew buried Jim in a pile of bodies, as Doc went to the medical
supply safe, returning with something that knocked Jim out for two
days, then headed for the torpedo room, in search of Santa-Tex, his Luv Ewe packed with ice.
And that's how I came to know the spirit of Christmas."


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! ESPECIALLY OUR MEN AND WOMEN AT SEA!!! [:)]

[sprior]

I spent a Christmas underwater. Some of the things I can tell you:

1. One young lady gave one of the lads a set of her undies soaked in perfume. The boat stank of the stuff until an amnesty was offered and he handed them in to be sealed in polythene. He did get them back at the end of the patrol
2. Lots of guys had booze given to them which is illegal to have on a ship in the RN (yes they are wet but the booze has to be bought on board so everyone knows how much is being consumed). After a few nips another amnesty had to be declared so it could all be handed in
3. Food is served by the officers on Christmas Day. I came off the forenoon watch to be greeted by the grumpy Weapons Officer. "I suppose you want some lunch Chief?" was his opening line. I made him go back and forth to the galley at least 4 times
4. My Christmas pressies for that year were the NACV and MEDC expansion sets to Harpoon for my Amiga
5. I could write the 23:59 log entry for the first watch in the missile compartment from the night before but this is a family forum

Happy Christmas to all the members of our armed forces away from loved ones today.

[geofflambert]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Jim sat in the crew's mess on Christmas Eve, waiting for the mess
attendants, called cranks, to bring the evening meal of pea soup,
knackwurst, boiled potatoes and cranberry sauce when Santa popped up
through the battery well hatch in the deck next to his feet. Jim just
glared at the corpseman, Doc, across the table.


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! ESPECIALLY OUR MEN AND WOMEN AT SEA!!! [:)]

Is that an intentional misspelling? [X(]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: geofflambert

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58
Jim sat in the crew's mess on Christmas Eve, waiting for the mess
attendants, called cranks, to bring the evening meal of pea soup,
knackwurst, boiled potatoes and cranberry sauce when Santa popped up
through the battery well hatch in the deck next to his feet. Jim just
glared at the corpseman, Doc, across the table.


MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL! ESPECIALLY OUR MEN AND WOMEN AT SEA!!! [:)]

Is that an intentional misspelling? [X(]

I think so.

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: sprior

I spent a Christmas underwater. Some of the things I can tell you:

1. One young lady gave one of the lads a set of her undies soaked in perfume. The boat stank of the stuff until an amnesty was offered and he handed them in to be sealed in polythene. He did get them back at the end of the patrol
2. Lots of guys had booze given to them which is illegal to have on a ship in the RN (yes they are wet but the booze has to be bought on board so everyone knows how much is being consumed). After a few nips another amnesty had to be declared so it could all be handed in
3. Food is served by the officers on Christmas Day. I came off the forenoon watch to be greeted by the grumpy Weapons Officer. "I suppose you want some lunch Chief?" was his opening line. I made him go back and forth to the galley at least 4 times
4. My Christmas pressies for that year were the NACV and MEDC expansion sets to Harpoon for my Amiga
5. I could write the 23:59 log entry for the first watch in the missile compartment from the night before but this is a family forum

Happy Christmas to all the members of our armed forces away from loved ones today.

We had atmospheric containment bills; no perfume. No aftershave. No spray pit juice. Etc. After one patrol I vividly recall going up the ladder to the tender for the first time and a female sailor swept by trailing a wave of Chanel. I am not embellishing when I say I was knocked against the bulkhead by its force.

We had no booze. OK, the goat locker had booze. We had no legal booze of any kind.

We did the officers-serve thing on Halfway Night every patrol. I only recall being at sea one Christmas. The Gold crew got lucky in my era. We were out most of the summers though.

New Year's Eve log entries are an old USN tradition I think we copied from you guys. I don't think any are ribald, as they're public documents and sent to the national archives at some point, but the entries can be quite creative and intricate. Navy Times magazine used to publish a selection every year of the best. I don't know if that tradition has survived into the current "corporate Navy" era. I don't think we ever did anything special on Christmas Eve in the logs.

[pws1225]

The submarine navy sounds very different than the airdale Navy I recall. And methinks it's a good thing!

[spence]

Way back in '72 I recall the snow falling gently falling on the wings of the bridge as we rocked back and forth on Ocean Station Bravo and the sweet voices of the stewardesses on the airlines overhead wishing us a Merry Christmas as they passed by.

(Not a submariner just in case you didn't figure it out)

[1275psi]

One of my Christmas memories

Up before dawn, then a complete rebuild of 1A feed pump to be done (it was only about 150 degrees that day in the the boiler room).
15 minutes for what remained of Christmas lunch, then down to that bloody pump again for another twelve hours of pain.

lovely memories............

[Numdydar]

While slighty off topic, in the stupidly idioticy of my youth, I turned down an appointment to Annapolis (the US Naval Academy). The reasons why escape me, but I am pretty sure they had something to do with girls and lack thereof [:)] (the Academy was not coed at that time yet). Instead, I went to civilian college where I found plenty of girls, but discovered time is limited. So spending X time on A leaves less time for B [:(].

So after being kicked out of college, I eneded up in the service anyway, but the Air Force instead of the Navy. Again, the reasons revolved around lack of girls as I was sure I would be stuck on some patrol somewhere for six months to punish me for turning the appointment down. Did not want to tempt fate anymore than I had to [:)] But alas, fate has a way to get you no matter what.

When the Air Force was formed after the WWII, their budget was, shall we say, a little lacking [:)]. So they scrounged excess equipment from everyone else. A lot of this equipment came from, you guessed it, the Navy [:D]. So when I went into the Air Force, I became a Nav Aids (Ground Based Landing and Navigation equipment for aircraft, Instrument Landing Systems and TACCAN to be specific) specilist. All of the equipment I worked on was Navy hand me downs from WWII no less. The manuals actually had sections detailing what to do if you and the equipment was in danger of being captured. My personal favorate was the section that described digging a six foot hole and burying as much of the equipment as possible [X(]. Am I really going to spend all that time to dig a six foot hole when I am about to be overrun? Really?

But working on the equipment really gave me a sense of what it would be like to try and fix equipment on a ship. This was because the equipment was designed to withstand the conditions of being under sail. So EVERYTHING was screwed down so NOTHING could wiggle loose (did I mention that ALL this equipment was tube based as well [X(]. As in vacum tubes.). So this made repairs and mainatance even more 'fun' than if we just worked on equipment that was NOT Navy designed [:D] Needless to say, it gave us a better appriciation of Naval personal than most of the rest of the base. It also helped out in our free time as well considered we were stationed at Langley AFB (NOT Langley CIA) which is just a stone's throw away from Norfolk Naval Yard [:)]

In retrospec our little group felt a lot more like Naval personal on detached duty versus Air Force. So fate still had me 'in the Navy' regardless of my earlier stupidity [:)]

In case anyone wants to know how the 'girl thing' worked out, not too good. Took me 40+ years to find the right one after going through a lot of 'wrong ones' that I thought were right [:(]. Of course to punish me further for trading a naval career for girls, I had three daughters along the way [X(] to REALLY make sure the 'lesson' sunk in. Do not mess with Fate [:D]

[Symon]

Our military Christmases were mostly pretty quiet, thank the Good Lord. The REMFs in Saigon and at Corps were too fubar’d on Dickel eggnog to notice what was going on anyway, so if something was in the works, somebody, somewhere wouldn’t get the word (wink, wink) and it would get postponed. But there was Gene at Pleiku. Cannot for the life of me remember his last name or the unit number, but he had silver hair (at 24) salt and pepper mustache and a perpetual grin. Was a real swamp cracker from north Florida with a drawl to match his grin (big, real big). He ran a platoon of transport helicopters and he flew a Santa mission on Christmas Eve to every FB in his op area. His guys stole what was left of class 6, and anything else they could get their hands on, and would swoop down, in formation, with Gene in the point bird, wearing a green elf hat and a demonic grin. “Hoe, hoe, hoe ! ya stainkin leetle thangs ! Santa’s here to hep with what ails ya !” Now, that’s Christmas.

Wherever you are, Eugene, my thoughts are with you. God Bless and Keep, my comrade. John

[ed] Memory is a strange thing. I remember his delivering two cases of quart cans of turkey, deboned, one each, skinless, mark 2 (know a lot of you remember that stuff). Couldn't steal any stuffing, so he had some plastic bags of vit nuong chao to go with. Know that a lot others of you know just what that is. I actually got to like it and I use it sometimes when I'm mking a duck or a capon.

Them of you who has been there knows how Catholic some of the Vietnamese were. Just think of Christian charity in the midst of war.

John

[reg113]

Spent Christmas '71 on the Big E with Task Force 74 making big circles in the Bay of Bengal in case we were needed to evacuate Americans due to the India - Pakistan War. We had just come off the line in Tonkin and ended up so low on provisions that we got steak and powered eggs for every meal. Boringiest 3 weeks of my naval life.