Military Humor

When i hear of our ongoing war in Iraq, i often find myself remembering my own years spent serving our great country, and more often than naught, i think of the good times. My foundest being the humorous things wed do to each other to pass our time at sea, id like to share a few of these memories with everyone, and while im at it pass on a thank you for those who serve us now.

I remember it was a summer day and we had been at sea for awhile. Monotony a burden upon us all led us to think of many different pranks. Hours could be pored into planning the perfect ones, and days spent enjoying the results. My division had recently grown by one, a big bear of a guy with puffy checks and a smile that wouldn’t go away. Odell was his name and i remember he had joined the navy after getting a degree from a college none of us had heard of. Odell has been embedded in my mind as the most gullible person ive ever met, and i can remember many midnight watches wondering how someone could get a degree and fall for the things most people would catch on too.

It was right at dusk and odell had the 8:00 pm to midnight watch, as Signalmen (skivy wavers)we patrolled the upper most portions of the ship identifying and sometimes communicating with unknown contacts. On our decks we had numerous lockers most being hazmat containing flammables and other dangerous things not to be kept below decks. They were made of metal and raised off the deck on four metal brackets about six inches. We had taken chem lights off life preservers that could be snapped and would glow hopefully bringing rescue at night to the poor soul who used it. We had broken open four or five and spread the contents on the inside, and underneath the hazmat locker. Telling Odell he was the low man on the totem pole and he would have to clean it up. We proceeded to dress him up in a chemical, biological warfare suite, and made him wear a large oxygen breathing apparatus that the fire fighters used . We finished him off with big rubber gloves which we tapped on him . Giving him a bucket of water and a sponge we told him to clean it up. Stressing not to get any on him or he wouldn’t be able to have kids and it would mess him up from the inside out , cancer you name it we had him shaking in those boots.