Miss the Navy/CG after Retirement?

[carterchapman]

I know a couple of us here on CSR were in the Navy/CG. Just got this from a friend and thought I'd pass it along...brings back a LOT of shipboard memories from the Navy!

[FONT=&quot]Those of you who have never lived onboard a military seagoing vessel may not get the humor here[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]but if you don't, just pass it on to someone you know who served in the US Coast Guard or Navy.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]You will make their day.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]By. Capt. Jack Cadigan (USCG Ret)[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After Retirement:
How to Simulate Being Back on Active Duty in the Navy or Coast Guard if you miss it.

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months (Navy); white or black outside and pea-green inside (Cogard)

1a. Submarines - Black outside Pea Green inside

2. Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls and ceilings.

3. Repaint your entire house every month.

4. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.

5. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

6. Once a week, blow air up your chimney[/FONT][FONT=&quot] [/FONT][FONT=&quot]with a leaf blower and let the wind carry the soot onto your neighbor's house. Ignore his complaints.

7. Once a month, take all major appliances apart and reassemble them.

8. Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors so that you trip and/or bang your head every time you pass through them.

9. Disassemble and inspect your lawnmower every week.

10. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turn the water heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water so no bathing will be allowed.

11. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling so you can't turn over without getting out and then getting back in.

12. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say "Sorry, wrong rack."

13. Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc. Re-qualify every 6 months.

14. Have your neighbor come over each day at 0500, blow a whistle so loud Helen Keller could hear it, and shout "Reveille, reveille, all hands heave out and trice up."

15. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 0600 while she reads it to you.

16. Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 1500.

17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not. "Now sweepers, sweepers, man your brooms, give the ship a clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all **** cans and butt kits!"

18. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering the rest.

19. Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]19 a. Show the same movie every night.

20. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone shouting "Now general quarters, general quarters! All hands man your battle stations!"

21. Make your family's menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.

22. Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.

23. Bake a cake. Prop up one side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing real thick to level it off.

24. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (Midrats)

25. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button your top shirt button and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose and put out a simulated fire..

26. Every week or so, throw your cat or dog into the pool and shout "Man overboard, port side!" Rate your family members on how fast they respond.

27. Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup, "Stove manned and ready." After an hour or so, speak into the cup again "Stove secured." Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoe box.

28. (For aircraft carrier sailors.) Make your family turn out all the lights and go to bed at 10 p.m. "Now taps, taps! Lights out! Maintain silence about the decks. Taps! Taps!" (Then immediately have an 18-wheeler crash into your house. )

29. Build a fire in a trash can in your garage. Loudly announce to your family, "This is a drill, this is a drill! Fire in the hangar!"

30. Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches in front of the podium for 4-hour intervals. Best done when the weather is worst. January is a good time.

31. Next time there's a bad thunderstorm in your area, find the biggest horse you can, put a two-inch mattress on his back, strap yourself to it and turn him loose in a barn for six hours. Then get up and go to work.

32. For former engineers: bring your lawn mower into the living room, and run it all day long.

33. Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and let the pot simmer for 5 hours before drinking.

34. Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.

35. Sew the back pockets of your jeans onto the front.

36. Add 1/3 cup of diesel fuel to the laundry.

37. Take hourly readings on your electric and water meters.

38. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go to the scummiest part of town. Find the most run down, trashiest bar, and drink beer until you are hammered. Then walk all the way home.

39. Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you'll take them to Disney World for liberty. At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.

Good ship, Good crew, Liberty's canceled, Turn To![/FONT]

 

[NorCal Boater]

I wasn't in the military but very funny.

 

[alnav]

I thought of a couple we could do on our own boats, sure there are more:

Rip out all seating anywhere near the helm except for one chair mounted at least four feet above the deck and off to the side. Replace the carpeting with steel plating covered with a thin layer of green linoleum.

Assign one of the youngest family member to steer the boat using only rudder angles as directed by another more senior family member supervised by another even more senior family member. Assign another youngster to stand by the throttles and control the engine(s) only using 1/3 increments as directed by the same supervisory chain. One more child should stand at the chartplotter/radar with a towel covering his/her head and the display and report everything he/she sees but not allow anyone else to look at the display. The owner should sit in the high chair and, when not reading the paper, nod knowingly if happy or alternatively spout bitter invective if he disagrees with any of the activities of any of the crew members.

Place at least 3 family members on the bow surrounding the anchor whenever getting underway and make them stay there until the boat is at least a mile from land. Reverse this when returning to the slip.

Mount 3 mechanical clocks in the cabin and have one of the youngest family members wind them every morning then interrupt lunch to report to the owner that they've done the winding as well as to request permission to ring the bell 8 times exactly at noon.

 

[alnav]

Just thought of another one:

Tape off the head(s) immediately after breakfast and leave them taped until after lunch.

 

[rcknecht]

This is funny stuff... It was a long time ago, but these bring back some good and bad memories...

 

[mwph]

Great post Carter. Thank you & all that put up with that ****.

 

[carterchapman]

This is funny stuff... It was a long time ago, but these bring back some good and bad memories...

Rod,

I knew that (at least) you would identify with the list!

Now I've got to find the list that the retired international airline pilot does when he misses flying to Europe...

 

[carterchapman]

Just found this one - cracks me up. We've got a couple of Aussies on the board as well...

The following letter is from the Qantas (Airlines) Flight Operations Newsletter. The letter is from a Captain answering his Chief Pilot's "Request for further information."

Sir,

In your icy, indeed hostile, telephone call of yesterday, you requested a report about the alleged proceedings involving my crew at the Qantas 75th Birthday celebration at the slip port. As the reports from the local authorities and the head of the Australian legation were undoubtedly a complete fabrication, I take the opportunity to put the truth of the matter on file.

Qantas management's kind offer to "buy a round of drinks" was taken on board by the crew who decided to upgrade the event to its correct status, so appropriate quantities of libation and food were purchased, with festivities being held in my hotel suite. An enjoyable evening ensued but insufficient supplies had been obtained, so several members of the crew left for further purchases at a local bar.

In a truly magnanimous gesture, ten bar girls from that establishment helped carry the beer back to the hotel. To demonstrate our appreciation of their assistance, we served them some cool drink. They then offered to show us some local culture, and, in order not to offend, we allowed them to dance some exotic dances.

The banging on the walls of my room had, by now, quite honestly, become invasive, and it was disturbing the dancers, so we arranged an amusing little deterrent. S/0 Brown's impersonation of the Police Officer was excellent! In full Qantas uniform, with an aluminum rubbish bin upside down on his head, he goose-stepped to each room and harangued the occupants with a very witty diatribe about disturbing hotel guests. I personally heard nothing of his alleged threats of life in Alcatraz or the Gulags, claimed by the sister of the Minister of Police whose room was, unluckily, next door.

I have no doubt that this woman was the sneak who called security and hotel management and I absolutely refute that the shout "Look out, here come the Indians! Circle the wagons!" was made. The simple coincidence of security arriving just as we stood the double bed on its side across the door to make the dance floor bigger is obvious. The major damage to the room occurred when a group of gate crashers, whom we could not know were hotel security, forced their way in just as most of us happened to be leaning against the bed watching the dancing.

The subsequent events in the foyer of the hotel are an equally vicious distortion of the facts. I was explaining the importance of the 75th Birthday to the General Manager of the hotel and noting that other guests were fabricating stories of noise, drinking and singing at the celebration, when F/O Smith (ex-SAS) and several other keep-fit enthusiasts, in keeping with their almost monastic pursuit of health, organised the race up the drapes which hang along the foyer wall. It says nothing for the workmanship of some of these nations that the fittings were torn from the wall before most of the crew were even halfway up. At this stage, in an amazing display of international posturing, the Governor of the city, who was attending the National Day cocktail party in the foyer, cast some denigrating remarks about Australian culture.

Although he misunderstood our gestures of greeting, female flight attendant Williams rescued the situation with her depth of knowledge of local culture. Her rendition of the Fertility Dancing Maiden in the foyer's ' Pool of Remembrance' was nothing short of breathtaking. Normally this dance is performed wearing just a sarong skirt so FFA Williams' extra step to nature was a bold step forward. Unfortunately, during one intricate step, FFA Williams slipped and fell beneath the fountain, so we were lucky that S/0 Brown, who had the great presence of mind to strip to avoid getting his uniform wet, leapt in to help.

That the tiles of the pool were slippery is beyond dispute, as it took nearly ten minutes of threshing about before S/O Brown could actually complete his rescue. Such concern was there for these two exemplary crew member's safety, that the rest of the crew were forced to assist, and I deny that this massed altruistic rescue attempt could be construed as a 'Water Polo' game! This slanderous accusation was first put to me by the Chief of the Riot Squad, whose storm troopers had apparently been called by some over zealous Fascists at the cocktail party.

Order had nearly been restored when the fire started. I prefer F/O Smith's version of events that the drapes had caught fire from being against a light fitting, and that he dropped his cigarette lighter whilst trying to escape the flames. Had host management fulfilled their responsibilities and used fire 0D retardant material instead of velvet, the fire would not have spread to the rest of the hotel. The responsible attitude shown by my crew in assisting the bar staff to carry out drinks from the cocktail party is to be commended, not condemned, and the attempt by male members of the crew to extinguish pockets of fire using natural means has been totally misrepresented in some quarters. I cannot overstate how strongly I resent the assertions made in the Chief Fire Officer's report.

I made an official protest about these matters when the head of the Australian Legation visited us at the Police Station the next morning. However, not only did Ambassador Jones not attempt to refute the preposterous allegations made against me and my crew, but also by failing to secure our release immediately, caused the subsequent aircraft delay. I did not know Her Majesty was to be aboard our aircraft, but I am sure that her 12-hour visit to that country was appreciated by local dignitaries and probably HRH herself. (I must mention that the local manager is far too obsequious - Smarmy! Smarmy! You should have seen him bowing and scraping. Never make a Prime Minister, that chap!)

Finally, I note that not since 'Rainman' has Qantas been mentioned in so many news papers. (Some people in Qantas would die for coverage like that.) The main newspaper at the slip port incidentally mentioned Qantas 75 times on its front page alone, although some of the coupled epithets can only be described as the worst journalistic excesses of the gutter press.

I trust that now I have outlined the correct version of events, we may allow ourselves a discreet smile as to the lack of social sophistication of some of these developing nations and put all this behind us. As far as I am concerned, the crew carried on the finest Qantas traditions.

Regards, Captain......

P.S. I checked amongst the language qualified members of the crew, but no one was up to speed on Latin. Can you recommend anyone in the International Department who could translate 'Persona Non Grata'

 

[carterchapman]

Well, it is the "Tiki Bar" and I'm on a roll...

As most of you know, Eastbound European flights generally leave in the afternoon/evening (US time) and arrive in Europe in the morning.

Here's what the retired international airline pilot does when he misses flying the overnight European flights:

When I mention to my wife that I miss flying, being retired, she puts me in the mock-up around bed time for 8 hours. First, I pack my suitcase and drive around in afternoon traffic for an hour and a half. Then, when I return home, I go directly to our closet where she puts a chair in the closet, puts on the vacuum cleaner to simulate cockpit air noise, has a dim nite-lite to simulate cockpit lighting, serves luke-warm chicken with cold vegetables on a tray.

When I get sleepy and attempt to doze off, she knocks twice loudly on the door to simulate the F/As entering the cockpit.

Then after 6 hours she turns on a bright flood light pointing directly in my face on the self in front of me to simulate the sun coming up when approaching 20 west latitude.

I then get a cup of coffee that has been in the coffee maker all night.

Finally, after 10 hours, she lets me out and I have to get in the back seat of her car while she runs morning errands to simulate the bus ride to the hotel.

When we get back home, I tell her I am ready for bed but she locks the bedroom door for an hour to simulate the hotel rooms not being ready.

When I promise to never "complain" about being retired, I am allowed to enjoy my "layover" and go to bed.

Oh, and one more thing, she talks to her friends loudly outside the bedroom door to simulate the hotel maids chattering in the hall in their native language.

After two hours of sleep she calls the phone next to the bed from her cell and says this is crew scheduling calling.

 

[cpt. sundancer]

glad i am a retired army combat vet.,even though the army has alot of the same moronic things

 

[Windjammer]

22 (a) S.O.S. with grease floating on top.
22 (b) Reconstituted powdered scrambled eggs - overcooked
and served luke warm.