by CDR Jack D. Woodul, USNR(Ret), artwork by Carl Snow

Reluctant Shellbacks

With the operational readiness inspection in the seas and skies south of Puerto Rico a done deal, the big gray boat thrummed south, leaving in its wake the tropical paradise and its banana daiquiris.

Headed for Cape Horn, the Indian Ocean, Singapore, Cubi Point and Veet Nam, Puresome settled into a routine of no flight operations, two-a-day AOMs, volleyball in between aircraft stuffed on the hangar deck, and being a Naval officer first and an aviator second. Since there weren’t going to be two hops a day to hide behind until the ship reached Cubi, Puresome, who was the designated squadron SLDO, actually had to put X’s in each of his highly responsible collateral duty boxes.

Collateral Duties

Which wasn’t too bad. Puresome’s primary role as Lawrence Legality was greatly diminished at sea, since the ship’s own law firm took care of most of the squadron’s legal stuff. As information and education officer, Puresome knew that no rating exams for sailors were forthcoming for a while.

He had long since bribed ship’s-company types with aviator sunglasses to weld new hooks in the ready room for the squadron’s arrogantly obnoxious orange flight helmets. The only thing he had to do, then, as first lieutenant was to wander up to the crew compartment and smoke a cigar with Ladd, the aviation boatswain’s mate who was in charge of crew spaces. Since there weren’t swept-wing jits whanging onto the flight deck just overhead and tugging out the local arresting cable, the crew head had not filled up with hydraulic fluid lately, and Puresome’s head was the spiffiest aboard ship.

The one collateral duty that was a real, constant arsepain was that of movie officer. Puresome took hits from everybody for everything, from the movie choice du jour to the quality of training for the enlisted projector operator, who had to be drafted, trained and certified by some ship’s company ensign. The fact that the squadron movie projector regularly ate film, and once a reel had come off the machine and bounced down the deck to the front of the ready room by the skipper’s feets, just proved demonic possession to Puresome.

Since the movie was the most important event of the day, Puresome was regularly pelted with popcorn for not being able to bribe Brand X squadron for their cinemascope lens or for being slow in hot-reeling “Alonzo, Wild Stag of the North” from the folks in Ready Room 1. Had he been slightly more sensitive than a train wreck, Puresome might have despaired.

Another jolly activity that occupied Puresome’s long days in the deeps of the Iron Anthill was SIOP planning. Just what a young junior officer might have to do with the nation’s Single Integrated Operational Plan of nuking commie furriners into quietly glowing happy particles was this: A-4 and A-6 crews were assigned two targets each to obliterate in case the balloon went up while they were stooging around WestPac to prevent dominos from tumping over, thus keeping a tiny, Asian country safe enough for its premier to wear yellow flight suits and lavender scarves. Or lavender flight suits and yellow scarves.

Each target had to be meticulously planned for navigation, weapons delivery and especially timing in order to avoid being fried by B-52s, ICBMs and the Doomsday Machine. But mostly, meticulous planning was needed because the pilot had to brief the CAG and the Flag on his particular targets, a dog-and-pony show Puresome particularly dreaded.

So he spent hours in Integrated Operational Intelligence Center (IOIC) making fancy strip charts decorated with tic marks to the second, and cryptic notes about bomb stuff, while Phantom pilots exercised their wrists and watched the coveted “Gidget Gets Gross” 15 or 20 times in their ready rooms.

So time zones loped by like slow horses. Candy Andy had already figured out that the blackshoe pukes had arranged for all to lose an hour of sleep per zone on the way over and on the eventual way back.

“How do you know?” asked Puresome, who was chronically, even grossly unaware.

“If it was up your pachunga, then you’d know,” came the sly, enigmatic answer.

Looking Forward to Crossing the Line

It was after a particularly enlightening squadron intelligence brief made by Better Fred Than Dead, the air intelligence officer, concerning a recent “coupe in Thighland,” that LT Loose was granted the podium during the second hour of the morning AOM. LT Loose was the “senior boat-schooler present aboard” the squadron, and, as such, was in charge of volunteering junior officers for such career-enhancing programs as JOOD (junior officer of the deck) boat drivers. Puresome himself had been volunteered for this program, but interfacing with blackshoe ship’s company pukes proved difficult, and the fear of stumbling on weird circular activities in some of the darker snipe spaces most certainly shivered his timbers.

But today’s subject was the ship’s scheduled crossing of the equator the next day. In Navy tradition, a ceremony must be held, in which those who had previously actually survived such a ceremony, called “shellbacks,” got to wail on all the Frabbing New Guys who had not. LT Loose had suffered exceedingly as Midshipman Loose, and had seen to it that subsequent pollywogs suffered maximum humiliation permissible under the laws of King Neptune.

While the heart of the ceremony was to be conducted by the ship’s enlisted company as a legal opportunity to whomp upon officers, LT Loose had his own program at the squadron level. Since practically everybody below the rank of lieutenant was to be initiated, and especially the insolent members of the Reserve Junior Officers Association, Loose was in his glorious bull rutenanthood, prepping plebe pollywogs on their obligations on the morrow. Rockets One, Two and Three looked on indulgently.

As Loose finally finished his instructions and Rocket Three, LCDR Paganuch, returned to orchestrate the third hour of the AOM, Weed looked at Puresome. “Surely he don’t mean us.”

“Naaah,” came the nonprophetic answer.

Missing the Party

It wasn’t that Puresome and Weed were basic anarchists — it was just that being a “rutenant” wasn’t like being a lieutenant commander or skipper or XO. A rutenant was kinda a less junior junior officer, and seniority among junior officers was like purity among nasty girls.

So the two figured they could just fart off his program, wake up at their leisure and show up after a good breakfast to be whacked by the Snuffies. Besides, ENS Weed had just turned LTJG, leaving Candy Andy behind as the sole squadron brown bar, and he was feeling the power of less visibility.

So it was that when the phone in their stateroom began to ring about midnight, a sleepy Weed fumbled for the phone, rendered less than required military courtesies and hung up. When it rang again, some “frabbs!” were said, and this time, Weed left the receiver off the hook. Puresome thoroughly approved and went back to sleep.

The situation escalated when someone started whanging on their door and hollering. Since Puresome and Weed had had the foresight to barricade their door, they knew they were safe and just hushed up until the whangers and hollerers got tired and went away. Then, because of clean living and pure hearts, they slept like large rocks.

In the head the next morning for showers, other junior pollywogs had tales of a sleepless night of horseshit and humilation in the ready room rendered by LT Loose and his cohorts.

“You guys are in a world of doody!” was the word. “Loose is going to make you guys wait until we come back from WestPac to go through the ceremony. There won’t be many wogs, and special attention can be rendered to your beautocks.”

“Uh-oh! I have trod upon my manly parts with golf shoes yet again,” wailed Puresome, who as usual had not foreseen any way he could have been had.

But Weed had figgered. He had not been invited to seek his fortune outside the ivied walls of Aggieville because he was a dumb child; his solution was simple and direct. “Let’s just put on our grubbies and get in line.” Puresome, who never should have doubted, agreed there was salvation in numbers, and they joined the long lines of initiates in shorts and T-shirts.

Joining the Fun

What fun the Snuffies had that day! Slimy pollywogs crawled on their hands and knees through double lines of sailors with paddles. Beautocks were smacked hard. The journey involved traversing half a jet engine container filled with water and slops from the galley. Puresome was especially thrilled to kiss the slime-covered beer-belly of the Royal Baby.

Finally, Puresome and Weed passed King Neptune and his court and were pushed out of the process by those behind them. Covered with slime and crud, the two crept off to the showers as disgusted but successful shellbacks.

Better Fred was already under a shower when Puresome started detoxing. Being a pink-cheeked, fairskinned sort who had taken more than his share of hits, there was a glow below like a neon light. “Hey, Better Fred,” Puresome submitted, “if you ever get tired of the coupes-in-Thighland business, with them buns you could probably sign on as a replacement for the ship’s port running light!”

Unfortunately, Better Fred didn’t see the possibilities of Puresome’s suggestion, probably because he was major tired of Puresome’s lewd questions about Thigh food and interest in just exactly what kind of coupes those Thigh-guys drove. Also, he had never had the opportunity to join the JOOD program, which was where Puresome had learned that the left light on the pointy end of the boat was red.

Dodging the Bullet

The good news was that Puresome and Weed stayed one step ahead of LT Loose until the ship dropped anchor at Singapore, where the matter was forgotten amid the mad scramble to be the first down the chain for liberty. Later, at the squadron admin and with the help of lots of whiskies, Puresome was able to successfully plead temporary insanity and being mistaken for someone who gave a shit. As comrades in the great adventure, the issue quietly dissolved in the frantic possibilities of the great candy store of shore liberty.

The better news was that, on the way home under a wide and starry sky, nobody whacked on their door or phoned them when the ship crossed the equator.