The True Adventures
Of
Youthly Puresome
THE RELUCTANT SHELLBACKS
by
Jack Woodul
With the ORI a done deal, the big ship left the tropical paradise of banana daquaris and thrummed south, headed for Cape Horn, the Indian Ocean, Singapore, Cubi, and Veet Nam, Puresome settled into a routine of no flight ops, two-a-day A.O.M.'S, volley ball 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 (Shitty Little Duty Officer), actually had to put X's in each of his highly responsible collateral duties.
Which wasn't too bad. Puresome's role as Lawrence Legality was greatly diminished at sea, since the Ship's law firm took care of most legal stuff; as Information and Education Officer, no rating exams for sailors were forthcoming. Puresome had long since bribed ship's company types with aviator sunglasses to weld new hooks in the ready room for flight gear, so the only thing he had to do as First Lieutenant was to wander up to the crew compartment and smoke a cigar with Ladd, the Aviation Boatswains Mate that 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 it 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 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, 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 Ready Room One. Had he been a touching, caring, sharing, feeling, nurturing, supportive, Sixties kinda guy, Puresome might have despaired.
Another jolly activity that occupied Puresome's long days in the Anthill was SIOP planning. Just what a LTJG might have to do with the nation's Single Integrated Operational Plan of nuking commie furriners into quietly glowing happy particles was this: A4 and A6 crews were assigned two targets each to obliterate in case the balloon went up while they were stooging around Westpac and preventing 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-52's, ICBM's, 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 IOIC, the "integrated operational intelligence center" 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 Goes Lesbian" fifteen or twenty times in their ready rooms. To the immense disgust of bespectacled intelligence types feeding punch cards into banks of computers, Puresome and Weed sang the happy jingle "You'll wonder where..the yellow went...When we atom bomb..The Oh..Re..Ent!" at least twice a day.
So time zones loped by like slow horses. Candy Andy had already figured out that the Black Shoe Pukes had arranged 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, grossly unaware.
"If it was up your ass, you'd know," came the sly, enigmatic answer.
It was after a particularly enlightening intelligence brief made by Better-Fred-Than-Dead, the Squadron AI, concerning a recent "coupe in Thighland," that LT Loose was granted the podium during the second hour of the morning A.O.M. 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 J.O.O.D. (Junior Officers of the Deck, Underway) boat drivers. Puresome himself had been volunteered for this program, but interfacing with Black Shoe ship's company pukes proved difficult, and the fear of stumbling on weird circular activities in some of the darker Snipe spaces quickly shivered his timbers, and he quietly neglected to go anymore.
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 FNG's 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 up on officers, LT Loose had his own program at squadron level. Since practically everybody below the rank of LT were to be initiated, and especially the insolent members of the Reserve Junior Officers Association, Loose was in his glorious bull Rutenant-hood, 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 non-prophetic answer.
It wasn't that Puresome and Weed were basic anarchists, it was just that being a “Rutenant” wasn't like being an LCDR 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 fart off his program, wake up at their leisure, and show up after a good breakfast to be whacked by the Snuffies. Besides, Ensign Weed had just turned LTJG, leaving Candy Andy behind as the sole 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."
"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.
What fun the Snuffies had that day! Pollywogs crawled on their hands and knees through double lines of sailors with paddles. Beautocks were smacked hard. It was Enlisted Fu. 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, King Neptune and his court were passed and Puresome and Weed were pushed out of the process by those behind them. Covered with slime and crud, they crept off to the showers, disgusted but successful Shellbacks.
Better Fred was already under a shower when Puresome started detoxing. Being a pink-cheeked, fair-skinned 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, you could probably sign on as a replacement for the ship's port running light with them bunns!"
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 guys drove. Also, he had never had the opportunity to drop out of the J.O.O.D. Program, which was where Puresome had learned that the left light on the pointy end of the boat was red.
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 in the mad scramble to be the first down the chain for liberty. Later, at the ADMIN, 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.
Says Puresome
THE RELUCTANT SHELLBACKS is copyright 1997 by Jack Woodul
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