Originally posted by Apocal:
Personal sea story of mine, in spoiler tags. Apologies if I told this one before, looking at my old sea-story threads I didn't (too 'fresh') but I can't find them all.
... and it takes place a few years back, while crossing the North Atlantic. Now normally, aircraft carriers get "bombed up" off the coast of the US, onloading close 10K bombs, a few hundred missiles, several thousand rockets, bullets, flares, chaff, torpedoes, etc. This is done because every assessment of the ship's speed, seakeeping, and handling assumes we are at or near maximum displacement. Loaded down with bombs, the ship rides lower in the water, cuts through bigger waves and gives a much more stable ride than otherwise.
In our case, we had a holy trinity of not necessarily senior, but very poorly placed officers who ensured this did not happen on the basis of it being a safety hazard to travel rough seas with ordnance. This is typical of that shennigans that happen when you allow aviators to do things other than fly aircraft. In this case they managed to take their ignorances and mold them together into something more stupid than the sum of it's underlying idiocy.
So for an easy visual of what it was like to be onboard my ship while crossing the Atlantic, put a cork in a bathtub filled with water, then repeatedly stomp the water with your foot.
Background out of way, let's introduce someone I'll call "Dumbass." Dumbass wasn't just a normal guy who had an above-average number of blonde moments or someone who just learned slower than others. Dumbass was a complete moron. We're talking borderline retarded here. You couldn't tell Dumbass ****. It'd go in one ear, then ricochet off the rock he had for a brain.
I had the (mis)fortune of being two consoles down from Dumbass when on watch (the period of the day I spend watching radar screens). On one hand Dumbass provided endless laughs at his own expense. On the other I had a job to do and holding Dumbass' hand wasn't it. But that's neither here nor there. Well we're in the middle of crossing the pond and seas are rough. CDC (where I stand watch) is located very far forward of the boat and the boat is back heavy, so we're grooving to every wave. It was like riding a rollercoaster for hours on end. Things were so bad that virtually everyone, except a few salt dogs like me (shameless self-promotion), had tied small plastic bags (like the kind you find in an office) around their beltloops, in case the urge struck them unexpectedly.
In spite of this, Pizza and Wing Night was still going on, because like any time-honored naval tradition, nothing stops Pizza and Wing Night.
Myself and a buddy specifically tell Dumbass, "when you get a chow relief, eat the wings, don't eat the pizza. I repeat, DON'T. EAT. THE PIZZA."
Dumbass asks an unsurprisingly dumb question, "Whay nout (why not)?"
"Because Dumbass. Pizza has cheese on it, cheese is a dairy product, diary products don't sit well in your stomach."
"Huhuhuhuh, I wanna ate (eat) it, I dun wanna shet (sit) with it!"
(That's really what he said)
"Whatever, just stick to the wings."
Naturally what does Dumbass do? Not only does he NOT skip the pizza, Dumbass is only ****ing idiot on the whole boat stupid enough to eat the goddamned Cheesy Double Cheese pizza... and he gets multiple servings.
About forty-five minutes later, Dumbass returns and immediately starts turning... colors. Like literally. I had my own Dumbass impersonation moment and ask, "What's wrong with you?"
Let's examine the facts: Pizza and Wing Night, Dumbass eats like a slob but has no chicken grease on his face or hands and really does not feel good. Clearly not a case requiring Sherlock Holmes here. But I was too slow at the time to realize it.
Well, Dumbass burped a moment later. It wasn't just a mildly unpleasant smell. It seriously smelled like rotten milk, hot garbage and dirty *******. I gagged a bit right then and there. My buddy chimes in first with, "Dammit, we told you not to eat the damned pizza!" Dumbass opened his mouth to make up some bull**** excuse but nothing came out.
At least, no words came out.
Instead he reaches over and grabs my buddy's bag and pukes in it. And the smell hits my like a heavyweight uppercut. The rotten milk, hot garbage and dirty ******* smell, multipled thousands of times. Instinctively I spin around in my chair and grab the strike officer's bag and vomit right in it; bearing in mind this is attached to his beltloops. No sooner than I finish then does the strike officer palm my face and rather roughly shove my face away, then he cuts loose himself.
(After all this was said and done, he apologized and said he first didn't understand why I was using his bag, but then the smell hit him and he had to get me off his bag ASAP.)
I shake the nausea away a little and look around and it's a chain reaction.
The people close to Dumbass and puking because of the smell of his vomit. The people too far away to get a good, strong whiff are puking because everyone else is and it appears to be the fashionable thing to do. Dumbass is still puking because dairy doesn't sit well in rough seas. And there is a slight whiff of the smell across the entire space, which was acting like the ignitator of an explosive, it was getting people started.
The TAO (tactical action officer, guy in charge of defending the ship) was one of the short bus squad who's idea it was to cross while unloaded. He made a heroic effort to not pitch his Oreos and maintain some semblance of control, decorum and unsplattered gear. He stands up, turns around and the words as I recall them were, "You people need to get it under control! Sto-sto-- GUUUUUUUUURGH!"
He spun back around and emptied the contents of his stomach all over his console, his big screen display, his radio controls and himself. Which would have made me LOL but at the same time I saw that, I saw a girl behind a status board vomit from her nostrils and that was the bell for my round 2.
This went on for a solid three or four minutes. SOLID.
I found out later one of the ASW console guys wasn't rogering up to the guys in the ASW module (a different space). So one of the ASW module guys walked over to CDC (only a narrow p-way and doors seperating them), opened the door and immediately smelled all the vomit and presumably a good whiff of Dumbass' extra cheese. So he covered his mouth, beat a hasty retreat back to the ASW mod and as soon as he got inside and opened his mouth, he puked everywhere, including on some chick in there. Which set her off. And allegedly a guy who really could not stand her laughed out loud then puked through his laughter.
Notable People who I saw puke:
1) Flag Watch Officer (CAPT, O-6)
2) Admiral's Chief of Staff (CAPT, O-6)
3) Command Master Chief (E-9) a half hour after the fact when he walked in to view the carnage.
One of the more squemish console/display repair FCs puked when I told them about later. And it was ****ing nasty. There was vomit all over the goddamned place. It was on the bulkheads, on the decks, on the consoles, on the status baords, on the radios, on the IFF, on the door, on the big screens, on the PCs. Everwhere a person could conceivably point their mouth uncontrollably, it was there. And a few places I felt were just showing off, like the overhead of Air Intercept, which is like 8 feet up. Which also made me wonder who the **** was stupid enough to look straight up while vomitting.
The theory me and a few other people hashed out was that one of the AICs (edit: air intercept controllers) was assed-out asleep in his chair, with his head hanging backwards. He must've been so assed out, he vomitted without waking or moving his head in time. Although it's hard to imagine someone staying asleep through vomitting straight up and onto their own, they'd get dozens and dozens of saltly points for doing it.
Thankfully, I put all my vomit into bags the first go around. None of the bags were mine, but it didn't matter because everyone piled up their bags for Dumbass to take down to the hangar and throw away. And Dumbass also had to clean the general areas and places where officers had blown. Dumbass seriously spent 12+ hours cleaning that space.
Once again, there is no moral to this story.
... and it takes place a few years back, while crossing the North Atlantic. Now normally, aircraft carriers get "bombed up" off the coast of the US, onloading close 10K bombs, a few hundred missiles, several thousand rockets, bullets, flares, chaff, torpedoes, etc. This is done because every assessment of the ship's speed, seakeeping, and handling assumes we are at or near maximum displacement. Loaded down with bombs, the ship rides lower in the water, cuts through bigger waves and gives a much more stable ride than otherwise.
In our case, we had a holy trinity of not necessarily senior, but very poorly placed officers who ensured this did not happen on the basis of it being a safety hazard to travel rough seas with ordnance. This is typical of that shennigans that happen when you allow aviators to do things other than fly aircraft. In this case they managed to take their ignorances and mold them together into something more stupid than the sum of it's underlying idiocy.
So for an easy visual of what it was like to be onboard my ship while crossing the Atlantic, put a cork in a bathtub filled with water, then repeatedly stomp the water with your foot.
Background out of way, let's introduce someone I'll call "Dumbass." Dumbass wasn't just a normal guy who had an above-average number of blonde moments or someone who just learned slower than others. Dumbass was a complete moron. We're talking borderline retarded here. You couldn't tell Dumbass ****. It'd go in one ear, then ricochet off the rock he had for a brain.
I had the (mis)fortune of being two consoles down from Dumbass when on watch (the period of the day I spend watching radar screens). On one hand Dumbass provided endless laughs at his own expense. On the other I had a job to do and holding Dumbass' hand wasn't it. But that's neither here nor there. Well we're in the middle of crossing the pond and seas are rough. CDC (where I stand watch) is located very far forward of the boat and the boat is back heavy, so we're grooving to every wave. It was like riding a rollercoaster for hours on end. Things were so bad that virtually everyone, except a few salt dogs like me (shameless self-promotion), had tied small plastic bags (like the kind you find in an office) around their beltloops, in case the urge struck them unexpectedly.
In spite of this, Pizza and Wing Night was still going on, because like any time-honored naval tradition, nothing stops Pizza and Wing Night.
Myself and a buddy specifically tell Dumbass, "when you get a chow relief, eat the wings, don't eat the pizza. I repeat, DON'T. EAT. THE PIZZA."
Dumbass asks an unsurprisingly dumb question, "Whay nout (why not)?"
"Because Dumbass. Pizza has cheese on it, cheese is a dairy product, diary products don't sit well in your stomach."
"Huhuhuhuh, I wanna ate (eat) it, I dun wanna shet (sit) with it!"
(That's really what he said)
"Whatever, just stick to the wings."
Naturally what does Dumbass do? Not only does he NOT skip the pizza, Dumbass is only ****ing idiot on the whole boat stupid enough to eat the goddamned Cheesy Double Cheese pizza... and he gets multiple servings.
About forty-five minutes later, Dumbass returns and immediately starts turning... colors. Like literally. I had my own Dumbass impersonation moment and ask, "What's wrong with you?"
Let's examine the facts: Pizza and Wing Night, Dumbass eats like a slob but has no chicken grease on his face or hands and really does not feel good. Clearly not a case requiring Sherlock Holmes here. But I was too slow at the time to realize it.
Well, Dumbass burped a moment later. It wasn't just a mildly unpleasant smell. It seriously smelled like rotten milk, hot garbage and dirty *******. I gagged a bit right then and there. My buddy chimes in first with, "Dammit, we told you not to eat the damned pizza!" Dumbass opened his mouth to make up some bull**** excuse but nothing came out.
At least, no words came out.
Instead he reaches over and grabs my buddy's bag and pukes in it. And the smell hits my like a heavyweight uppercut. The rotten milk, hot garbage and dirty ******* smell, multipled thousands of times. Instinctively I spin around in my chair and grab the strike officer's bag and vomit right in it; bearing in mind this is attached to his beltloops. No sooner than I finish then does the strike officer palm my face and rather roughly shove my face away, then he cuts loose himself.
(After all this was said and done, he apologized and said he first didn't understand why I was using his bag, but then the smell hit him and he had to get me off his bag ASAP.)
I shake the nausea away a little and look around and it's a chain reaction.
The people close to Dumbass and puking because of the smell of his vomit. The people too far away to get a good, strong whiff are puking because everyone else is and it appears to be the fashionable thing to do. Dumbass is still puking because dairy doesn't sit well in rough seas. And there is a slight whiff of the smell across the entire space, which was acting like the ignitator of an explosive, it was getting people started.
The TAO (tactical action officer, guy in charge of defending the ship) was one of the short bus squad who's idea it was to cross while unloaded. He made a heroic effort to not pitch his Oreos and maintain some semblance of control, decorum and unsplattered gear. He stands up, turns around and the words as I recall them were, "You people need to get it under control! Sto-sto-- GUUUUUUUUURGH!"
He spun back around and emptied the contents of his stomach all over his console, his big screen display, his radio controls and himself. Which would have made me LOL but at the same time I saw that, I saw a girl behind a status board vomit from her nostrils and that was the bell for my round 2.
This went on for a solid three or four minutes. SOLID.
I found out later one of the ASW console guys wasn't rogering up to the guys in the ASW module (a different space). So one of the ASW module guys walked over to CDC (only a narrow p-way and doors seperating them), opened the door and immediately smelled all the vomit and presumably a good whiff of Dumbass' extra cheese. So he covered his mouth, beat a hasty retreat back to the ASW mod and as soon as he got inside and opened his mouth, he puked everywhere, including on some chick in there. Which set her off. And allegedly a guy who really could not stand her laughed out loud then puked through his laughter.
Notable People who I saw puke:
1) Flag Watch Officer (CAPT, O-6)
2) Admiral's Chief of Staff (CAPT, O-6)
3) Command Master Chief (E-9) a half hour after the fact when he walked in to view the carnage.
One of the more squemish console/display repair FCs puked when I told them about later. And it was ****ing nasty. There was vomit all over the goddamned place. It was on the bulkheads, on the decks, on the consoles, on the status baords, on the radios, on the IFF, on the door, on the big screens, on the PCs. Everwhere a person could conceivably point their mouth uncontrollably, it was there. And a few places I felt were just showing off, like the overhead of Air Intercept, which is like 8 feet up. Which also made me wonder who the **** was stupid enough to look straight up while vomitting.
The theory me and a few other people hashed out was that one of the AICs (edit: air intercept controllers) was assed-out asleep in his chair, with his head hanging backwards. He must've been so assed out, he vomitted without waking or moving his head in time. Although it's hard to imagine someone staying asleep through vomitting straight up and onto their own, they'd get dozens and dozens of saltly points for doing it.
Thankfully, I put all my vomit into bags the first go around. None of the bags were mine, but it didn't matter because everyone piled up their bags for Dumbass to take down to the hangar and throw away. And Dumbass also had to clean the general areas and places where officers had blown. Dumbass seriously spent 12+ hours cleaning that space.
Once again, there is no moral to this story.
.....
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