More shore stories with ET2SN..

[ET2SN]

This story involves the Bremerton right after we got her out of the shipyard but before we started getting serious about taking her back out to sea. It involves a newly qualified in-port duty officer and the horror we also called "duty day training".
Duty Day Training was supposed to be something that happened after evening chow and a duty day cleaning session. It was a tradition and as most traditions go, we hated it with a vengeance.
Duty Day Training usually started with someone yelling "Fire in the engine room" or "Flooding in AMR" but could also involve something far worse, an actual lecture where we had to pretend to be awake and interested.

In this case, a TM2 buddy of mine had been tapped to do formal training on the M-16 rifle. Everyone who had qualified to stand topside PO or pier sentry knew the M-16 forward and backwards. We either had to carry the frikken thing (or a 45 cal pistol) for a four hour watch or, at the least, we had to "shoot for score" with it once a year (and this is whole 'nother story based on how the Navy did fire arm quals). To put it bluntly, we were not fans of the M-16.

So, the TM2 begins his presentation. At this point a (nuke) MM1 starts grumbling about how he has real work to do back aft and how he'll never have to fire the stupid thing let alone pick it up.
As if on cue , the rest of us start to pile on the MM1 with taunts like "Just shut up and let the man finish so we can get out of here" or "No, he has a point" and our freshly minted DO is looking around as if to say "No, not on my first duty day..".

Our DO should have known us better.
We knew we were pushing it a bit, but we had planned this for several hours and Act Two started.

The TM2 starts acting like he's frustrated and says to the MM1 "I was supposed to tear down and rebuild this frikken thing, why don't YOU do it, smart guy??".

Now we're really pushing it but our gallant DO rises to the occasion and puts on his referee shirt to calm things down and salvage the night. "Yes, lets see how it gets torn down and rebuilt. MM1 can do it if he agrees".

Perfect.

As if by a miracle someone has a blind fold in his pocket and the duty QM has a stopwatch. "Hey, let's time it!"

I guess this is a good time to let the cat out of the bag. Our "surly" MM1 had a history with the military prior to attending Nuke Prototype. To be exact, he had formally been Army Infantry for several years before he crossed services to "earn the big bucks" in the Navy. Yep, he knew more about the M-16 than the rest of us, combined. Gosh, if only our DO also knew it..

So naturally, there was some wagering involved and we came up with a time limit of two minutes. The blind fold was applied and the stop watch readied. It became very quiet in crew's mess when the TM2 suddenly said "GO!".

If our MM1 was rusty, it sure didn't look like it and two minutes was more than enough time.

This was about when it started to dawn on our DO that someone was getting punked.

To be precise, it was a rare Triple Punk where the target looked like the TM2 and later the MM1, but in reality it had all been scripted for someone else.



The next day, we're hanging out on the worst beach in Oahu* and celebrating. For some reason, the beer just tasted that much better.


*- Our devious MM1 had also figured out how to get to the Worst Beach on Oahu. It was, maybe, 50 feet wide and 100 feet long and boasted almost two inches of surf. The best part was the chain link fence which separated it from the taxiway where the 747's would run up their engines prior to take off. Well, that and the idea that NO one in their right mind would bother us.