MY SEABAG - Fond Memories of my Navy Days

MY SEABAG - Fond Memories of my Navy Days

My Seabag There was a time when everything you owned had to fit in your seabag. Remember those nasty rascals? Fully packed, one of the suckers weighed more than the poor devil hauling it. The damn things weighed a ton and some idiot with an off-center sense of humor sewed a carry handle on it to help you haul it. Hell, you could bolt a handle on a Greyhound bus, but it wouldn't make the damn thing portable. The Army, Marines, and Air Force got footlockers and WE got a big ole' canvas bag.
After you warped your spine jackassing the goofy thing through a bus or train station, sat on it waiting for connecting transportation and made folks mad because it was too damn big to fit in any overhead rack on any bus, train, and airplane ever made, the contents looked like hell. All your gear appeared to have come from bums who slept on park benches. Traveling with a seabag was something left over from the "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum" sailing ship days. Sailors used to sleep in hammocks, so you stowed your issue in a big canvas bag and lashed your hammock to it, hoisted it on your shoulder and, in effect, moved your entire home from ship to ship.
I wouldn't say you traveled light because with ONE strap it was a one shoulder load that could torque your skeletal frame and bust your ankles. It was like hauling a dead Greenbay linebacker. They wasted a lot of time in boot camp telling you how to pack one of the suckers. There was an officially sanctioned method of organization that you forgot after ten minutes on the other side of the gate at Great Lakes' or San Diego's boot camp. You got rid of a lot of the 'issue' gear when you went to a SHIP. Did you EVER know a tin-can sailor who had a raincoat? A flat hat? One of those nut-hugger knit swimsuits? How bout those 'roll-your-own' neckerchiefs... The ones girls in a good Naval tailor shop would cut down & sew into a 'greasy snake' for two bucks?
Within six months, EVERY fleet sailor was down to ONE set of dress blues, port & starboard, undress blues, and whites, a couple of white hats, boots, shoes, a watch cap, assorted skivvies, a pea coat, and three sets of bleached-out dungarees. The rest of your original issue was either in the pea coat locker, lucky bag, or had been reduced to wipe-down rags in the paint locker. Underway ships were NOT ships that allowed vast accumulation of private gear. Hobos who lived in discarded refrigerator crates could amass greater loads of pack-rat crap than fleet sailors. The confines of a canvas-back rack, side locker, and a couple of bunk bags did NOT allow one to live a Donald Trump existence.
Space and the going pay scale combined to make us envy the lifestyle of a mud-hut Ethiopian. We were global equivalents of nomadic Mongols without ponies to haul our stuff. And after the rigid routine of boot camp, we learned the skill of random compression, known by mothers world-wide as 'cramming'. It is amazing what you can jam into a space no bigger than a bread-box if you pull a watch cap over a boot and push it with your foot.
Of course, it looks kinda weird when you pull it out, but they NEVER hold fashion shows at sea and wrinkles added character to a 'salty' appearance. There was a four-hundred mile gap between the images on recruiting posters and the ACTUAL appearance of sailors at sea. It was NOT without justifiable reason that we were called the tin-can Navy. We operated on the premise that if 'Cleanliness was next to Godliness' we must be next to the other end of that spectrum...
We looked like our clothing had been pressed with a waffle iron and packed by a bulldozer. But what in hell did they expect from a bunch of swabs that lived in a crew's hole of a 2100 Fletcher Class tin-can? After awhile you got used to it... You got used to everything you owned picking up and retaining that distinctive aroma... You got used to old ladies on busses taking a couple of wrinkled nose sniffs of your pea coat, then getting and finding another seat. Do they still issue seabags? Can you still make five bucks sitting up half the night drawing a ship's picture on the side of one of the damn things with black and white marking pens that drive the old master-at-arms into a 'rig for heart attack' frenzy? Make their faces red... The veins on their neck bulge out.... And yell, 'What in God's name is that all over your seabag???' 'Artwork, Chief... It's like the work of Michelangelo... MY ship... GREAT, huh?" "Looks like some damn comic book..." Here was a man with cobras tattooed on his arms... A skull with a dagger through one eye and a ribbon reading 'DEATH BEFORE SHORE DUTY' on his shoulder... Crossed anchors with 'Subic Bay-1945' on the other shoulder... An eagle on his chest and a full blown Chinese dragon peeking out between the cheeks of his butt... If ANYONE was an authority on stuff that looked like a comic book, it HAD to be the MAA...
Sometimes, I look at all the crap stacked in my garage and home, close my eyes and smile, remembering a time when EVERYTHING I owned could be crammed into a canvas bag.

SAILORS HAVE MORE FUN....when young!!!

One vivid memory I have of leaving for a West Pac deployment in 1968 aboard USS RANGER was sailing under the Golden Gate Bridge...we departed homeport San Francisco on a bright sunny day....the view was unlimited. Upon our return 11 months later, the overcast was heavy and gloomy - as we sailed under the bridge, nothing was in view due to a heavy fog cover, all that could be heard was the sounds of car horns blowing with a welcome home - I knew that America was still there, but what kind of America was I coming home to; much had changed in 1968-69. The sun cleared the sky as USS RANGER steamed into port, tied up, and the crowd was absolutely wonderful....I knew I was finally home, greeted by smiling faces, beautiful girls, blaring bands, and hot dogs with beer on the pier. America, you never forget her.

Thanks for rekindling a long forgotten memory...

NAVYBEAR

NAVYBEAR age 19 in 1958 NAS JAX FL

SAYING GOOD BYE IS NEVER EASY...

This was the last time we met in 1958, Joan Marie Woods now Cunningham was 18 years old, and I was nearing 20 years old...we were high school sweethearts for three years. I was departing for a new duty station, flying out of Midway Airport...Wishing you well, Joan Marie and hope you had a happy and loving life.

NAVYBEAR

SAILORS HAVE MORE FUN....for sure!

DO YOU REMEMBER THIS GUY...

1958, a bar in downtown Norfolk, VA two young Sailors, J.C. and our RAY HOLLOWAY hugging up with a young Lady...SAILORS HAVE MORE FUN!!

Here is a short remembrance of Ray's Navy days...a great sea story:

Our senior PO in our division was a hard-ass if there ever was one. No one liked this guy and most had good reason. Well, one day when my buddy from De Paul Academy, Chicago, and I were down in the compartment on our carrier sorting our laundry, we heard our favorite 1st Class on the other side of a set of lockers having a bad day! He was swearing up a storm over something or other. I opted to ignore him feeling any bad day for him was a good one for us! But, my Chicago buddy, being a kindly sort, said he was going to ask him what was the matter? I immediately voted against it, but my buddy went ahead anyway. He stepped around the lockers and calmly asked, "Gee, what seems to be the problem?" The reply caused me to double up in laughter and to place my head on my bunk and cover it with my pillow! He said, "Some dirty son-of-bitch blew his nose in my towel!".... He had just come from his shower.... I was doubled over in laughter when my buddy said, "Aw gee, who would do something like that?". I had to find a way to quiet my laughter but was having a lot of trouble controlling myself... Could not have happened to a nicer guy, I thought..! We also had a phantom in our division and he made life miserable for idiot 1st Class PO's. It was years later that I learned who he was. He stopped by to see me on his way from Mount Clare, (smile when you say it), West Virginia en-route to Wisconsin. He was a truck driver and his name was "Billy Jack". He and I were good friends and he now resides in a VA home in Wheeling as he has Altzimers... So you see, I still keep up with my old Navy friends and they with me. Billy Jack blew his nose in that man's towel, cut the tracings on another's bunk so he fell through when he jumped in, pissed in one guys bunk and threatened to leave another souvenir if this 1st Class idiot continued to play hard ass in our compartment. No one ever knew who the phantom was until some 20 years later when he stopped by to visit me. We shared a bottle of Jack Daniels before he went on his way. My wife still cannot understand why several of my shipmates still stop by to visit me in Chicago. She loved the tatooed hillbilly with the long hair and the checkered shirt the most (Billy Jack). I told her he had my back and he were good friends way back when... He was the phantom! Ray

Great sea stories never grow older, only better with time....here is another one of Ray Holloway's memories of the good old days...enjoy:

Bob: In the summer of 1958 I was playing softball for COMOPDEVFOR (Commander in Chief - Operations Development Forces) under Admiral Mendenhal in Norfolk, VA. It was fast pitch, windmill windup, 12" softball, something we never played in Chicago. But, they needed a catcher, something I did a little of in hardball. We were playing the Marines one day and everyone warned me that they are a dirty team and like to spike catchers. Okay, I said, thanks for the warning! The first jarhead came in spikes high and I moved up the line to catch him before he could spike me. I tagged him where his mother never kissed him and left him groaning in the dirt! The Marine cheering section did not like that very much and I heard several threats aimed at me... The next jarhead rounded third and was going to be out by a mile but he was hell-bent on spiking me in retaliation. I waited until the last moment and dropped to my knees putting my tag again into his groin and lifting him up over my head hard into the backstop! As he lay on the ground I went over and tagged him again in the throat to make sure the umpire saw he was out! Again, a roar from the Marine cheering section and more threats. I finally had enough of one loud mouth and walked over to their section of the bleachers inviting him to come down and make one more crack like he was doing all game! He shut his mouth and I never heard from him again.

Later, my pitcher was asked where he got that catcher from? He said I was from Chicago and we play softball without gloves! He said that we also believe that if you block a base you take your chances to get hit. We call that Chicago softball... But, if you come in spikes high, you also take your chances! That Marine team never liked me after that first game but they were very careful the next time we played them. We beat them 3 out of 4 games. I never cared much for Marines after that. Later, I got transferred to the Sixth Fleet and spent Christmas and New Years 1958-1959 in Barcelona, Spain. Best liberty port in the Med...! Ray

Photo compliments of Ray Holloway, St. Mel HS Class of 1957

CPO STANDARDS

THOUGHTS ON OUR NAVY... A Way of Life

THE US NAVY HAS A VERY SPECIAL AND DISTINCT RATE ....titled CHIEF PETTY OFFICER. The unwritten CPO By-law is a great Chief shall raise a new Officer to become a good Division Officer...the Chief may never recall all the Officers he helped form, but be assured, the Officer never forgets the Chief...it's in the DNA. Mine was AKC GARY V. CORNWELL, USN PROUDLY RETIRED....Thanks, Gary...I hope I made you proud serving at SUPPLY DEPT, NAS BRUNSWICK and again together at the PRECOM UNIT BATH, it is with my great appreciation and respect, signed:
LT BEAR HASTINGS, SC, LDO USN ... PROUDLY RETIRED (FORMER CPO and CWO4 )

P.S. Footnote: Our son, Master Chief Gunners Mate (SEAL) George A. Parkhill, IV, retired in 2006 on 30 years service willing attest to this statement. Often, I spoke highly of Chief Gary when our son was growing up.
========================================
CPO Standards Words We Live By in Our Navy....
Never forget this, a Chief can become an Officer, but an Officer can never become a Chief. We have our standards!
Recollections of a WHITE HAT.

"One thing we weren't aware of at the time, but became evident as life wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. They were crusty old bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic-oil-stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic.

Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were, and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into sailors.

You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief's kid. God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option. A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters on earth.
We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins, and combat air crew wings in my day...hard-core bastards who remembered lost mates, and still cursed the cause of their loss...and they were expert at choosing descriptive adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed.

At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of hard-earned, worn, and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that one and that one?" "Oh hell, kid, I can't remember. There was a war on They gave them to us to keep track of the campaigns." "We didn't get a lot of news out where we were. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you couldn't pronounce most of the names of the places we went. They're all depth charge survival geedunk." "Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor." We knew who the heroes were, and in the final analysis that's all that matters. Many nights, we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups of coffee and listening to their stories. They were light-hearted stories about warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal sheds at resupply depots where the only furniture was a few packing crates and a couple of Coleman lamps. Standing in line at a Honolulu cathouse or spending three hours soaking in a tub in Freemantle, smoking cigars, and getting loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because they were our heroes. When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were not men given to the prerogatives of their position.
You would find them with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to-shoulder with you in a stores loading party. "Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we can get all this crap aboard." "Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands." "Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old coot." "Horsefly, when I'm eighty-five parked in the stove up old bastards' home, I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't bullshitting.

They trained us. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Navy. There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer.

They were born as hot-sacking seamen, and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jay-bird could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 jerks come and go for so many years, they could read you like a book. "Son, I know what you are thinking. Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't be worth it."

"Aye, Chief."

Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks for peanuts.

Appreciation of what they did, and who they were, comes with long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership or let's say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others.
They had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen to Singapore . They had given their entire lives to the U.S. Navy. In the progression of the nobility of employment, Chief Petty Officer heads the list. So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to wherever the big Chief of Naval Operations in the sky assigns us, if we are lucky, Marines will be guarding the streets. I don't know about that Marine propaganda bullshit, but there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth standing at the brow to assign us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... and we will all be young again, and the damn coffee will float a rock.

Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no longer can. If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So, thanks you old casehardened, unsalvageable sons-of-bitches. Save me a rack in the berthing compartment."

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

Ending Note: When I joined our Navy in 1958, there were a few old Chiefs from World War II still on active duty, these were different breed from the so called "Tokyo Chiefs" because they had lost their war time rates, stayed with the Navy, and advanced to CPO in peace time...but they still had the war time discipline, rancor, and dislike for rules, officers, and shore duty....I loved the old Chiefs, and listened to every word they uttered...one Chief complimented me with a remark that I would someday make a great Chief, then I screwed it all up by accepting a commission in 1969 and becoming an Officer...How true words were spoken over 50 years ago. NAVYBEAR and thanks for listening Shipmates

NOW HEAR THIS.....

The Navy, Remembered from a distance....

I liked the Navy. I liked standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe - the ship beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drive her through the sea.

I liked the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship's bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC, and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work. I liked Navy vessels - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet Auxiliaries, sleek submarines and steady solid carriers.

I liked the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington , Saratoga , Coral Sea - memorials of great battles won. I liked the lean angular names of Navy 'tin-cans': The Sullivans, Dahlgren, Mullinix, Cole, O'Hare, Frank E. Evans, McCaffery --- mementos of heroes who went before us. I liked as we pulled away from the oiler after refueling at sea. I liked the special names for the submarines: Pintado, Trutta, Sablefish, Gudgeon, Barbel, Skipjack, Nautilus, Queenfish, Bluefish, and the Blue and Gold Crews of our FBM fleet, with names like Teddy Roosevelt, Ethan Allen, Abe Lincoln and Patrick Henry.

I liked liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port. I liked the multitude of supplies both mundane and exotic which she needs to cut her ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where there is water to float her.

I liked sailors, men and women from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England , from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trusted and depended on them as they trusted and depended on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for courage.

In a word, they are "shipmates." I liked the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word is passed: "Now station the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port", and I liked the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pier side.

The work was hard and dangerous; the going rough at times; the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the 'all for one and one for all' philosophy of the sea is ever present. I liked the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, a flying fish flit across the wave tops and sunset gives way to night.

I liked the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk. I liked drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and small that tell me that my ship is alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch will keep me safe.

I liked quiet mid-watches with the aroma of strong
Coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy - permeating everywhere. And I liked hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed keeps all hands on a razor edge of alertness. I liked the sudden electricity of "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations", followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transforms herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war - ready for anything.

And I liked the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.

I liked the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I liked the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones.

A sailor can find much in the Navy:
a.. Comrades-in-arms,
b.. Pride in self and country,
c.. Mastery of the seaman's trade.
d.. An adolescent can find adulthood.

In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods - the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief's quarters and mess decks. Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was ever over the horizon.

Remembering this, they will stand taller and say, "I WAS A SAILOR ONCE. I WAS PART OF THE US NAVY, AND THE NAVY WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME."