Bill Novak - U.S. Navy

SUBMARINE SAILORS

    I think that you only find such camaraderie amongst submariners above all other services.  Living and working conditions were such that we built lasting kinship's.  Everything in this piece brings back fond memories. This is just a good read and a little remembrance of good times past.

One benefit in growing old is the gift of time...time to look back and revisit your collective 'Life Experiences'.  For old smoke boat sailors, that means time to shuffle through memories of pissing against the wind in faded soft dungarees, frayed rag-hats and zinc chromatic-spattered brogans.  You can close your eyes and be transported back to a time when men wore acid-eaten uniforms, breathed air that was worse than that in the primate house at a poorly managed zoo, surgically whittled mold and rot off food of advanced age that was being reclaimed by the gods of purification, and  then eating it.  We built up an immunity that could handle leprosy, lockjaw and cobra bites.  Submarine duty was rough but most of us survived.

Many submariners hot-sacked and for those of you who missed that life experience, hot-sacking was sharing sleeping arrangements and it required lads at the entry level of the undersea service profession, to crawl onto a sweat-soaked flash pad just vacated by another bottom-feeding shipmate.  Lads of today's modern and technically advanced undersea service would find it damn near impossible to imagine a day when lads who hadn't showered in weeks, climbed a tier of racks sharing sock aroma on par with three-day old roadkill, with their bunk-mates.  It was a time of rag-hats and communally shared blankets that looked like hobo camp hand-me-downs.

    It was a time when the common denominators of the naval supply system were the cockroaches that could deflect claw-hammered blows and reach rodeo entry size while seemingly possessing the longevity of that old exercise guru Jack Lalanne.  

In the late 50's, the submarines built in the years of World War II were rapidly approaching an advanced age related comatose state.  The navy quit making many of the replacement parts for these seagoing antiques, so we cannibalized the boats that were heading to the scrapyard.  It was like harvesting the organs from dead Rockettes to keep the chorus line performing its high kicks in unison.

    After decommissioning, the old boats would have electricians and EngiMen crawling all over them with shopping lists and wrenches.

Memory is a wonderful God-given gift.  There were sunrises and sunsets, rolling seas, visits to exotic places, ladies with overly stretched elastic panties and no AIDS.  There were consumable- combustibles on par with the liquids that propelled hardware into outer space.  

It was a time when the world's population loved the American submariner.  Boat sailors in port meant good times, hell-raising and calling in the night shift at the local brewery.  It was a time when the United States Navy neither had recruitment problems nor was it required to kiss butt  while paying incentive money to entice grown men into accepting their manly obligation to serve their nation.  Most of us who signed up for undersea service were motivated by patriotic obligation, a sense of historical adventure and a need to follow the gallant examples of the submariners who rode the boats against the Japanese empire.  We wanted to wear the distinctive insignia universally recognized as the symbol of the most successful and demanding submarine service on earth.

We were proud and had a right to feel that way.  We were accepted as the downline fraternity brothers of courageous men who put Hirohito's monkey band all over the floor of the Pacific Ocean. We rode their boats, ate at their mess tables, slept in their bunks and plugged the ever-increasing leaks in the hulls they left us. We patted the same barmaid butts they had patted but at a time when the butts were far younger and half as wide.  We carved our boats names and hull numbers on gin mill tables in places that would give Methodist ministers cardiac arrest.

We danced with the devil's mistress and all her naughty daughters. We were young, testosterone-driven American bluejackets and let's face it... every girl in every port establishment around the globe both recognized and appreciated the meaning of a pair of Dolphins over a jumper pocket. Many of these ladies were willing to share smiles and body warmth with the members of America's undersea service.

It was a time when the snapping of American colors in the ports of the world stood for liberation from tyranny and when the American sailor, in his distinctive uniform and happy-go-lucky manner, stood for ‘John swaggering Wayne’ principles and a universally recognized sense of decency, high ideals and uncompromised values.  It was 'A great time to be an American sailor in every sense of the term.

There were few prohibitions.  They were looked upon as simply unnecessary.  It was a time when 'family values' were taught at family dinner tables, at schools, at the nation's playing fields, at boy and girl scout meetings and, of course, at Sunday school or other institutions of worship. We were a good people and we knew it.

    We plowed the world's oceans guarding her sea lanes and making them secure for the traffic of international commerce.  But at eighteen, let's be real, we never thought much about the noble aspect of what we were doing.  Crews looked forward to the next liberty port, the next run, home port visits, what the boat was having for evening chow, the evening movie after chow, or which barmaids were working at Bell's that evening. We were young, invincible and had our whole lives ahead of us. Without being aware of it, we were learning leadership, acceptance of responsibility and teamwork in the finest classroom in the world…A United States submarine.

    It was a simpler time when lack of complexity left us with clear-cut objectives and the 'bad guys' were clearly defined.  We knew who they were, where they were and that we had the means, as well as the will and ability to send them all off to hell in a fiery package deal.  We were the 'good guys' and literally wore 'white hats'.

What we lacked in crew comfort, technological advancements and publicity, we more than made up for such deficiencies in continuity, stability and love of our boats and squadrons. We were a united band of trustworthy-protective brothers and have remained so for over half a century.

Since we were not riding what the present day submariner would call 'true submersibles', we enjoyed sunrises and sunsets at sea; the sting of wind-blown saltwater on our faces; the roll and pitch of heavy weather swells and the screech of seabirds.  I can't imagine sea duty devoid of contact with these wonders. To me, they are a very real part of being a true mariner

    I'm glad I served in an era of signal lights, flag messaging, navigation calculation, marines manning the gates, locker clubs, working girls, hitchhiking in uniform, quartermasters, torpedo men, gunner's mates, sea store smokes, hot sacking, hydraulic oil-laced coffee, lousy mid rats jack-assing fish from the skids to the tubes, one and two way trash dumping, plywood dog shacks, messy piers, a time when the Chief of the Boat could turn up at morning quarters wearing a Mexican sombrero and Jeezus sandals, when every E-3 in the sub force knew what paint scrapers, chipping hammers and wire brushes were for, when JGs with a pencil were the most dangerous things in the navy, when the navy mobile canteen truck was called the 'roach coach' and sold geedunk and pogey bait and finally, when the breakfast of champions was a Pitcher of Blue Ribbon, Four Slim Jims, a pack of Beer Nuts, a Hard-boiled Egg, and a game of Eight Ball.

It was a time when, if you saw a boat sailor with more than four ship's patches on his foul weather jacket, he was at least fifty years old and a lifer.  It was also a time when skippers wore hydraulic oil-stained steaming hats and carried a wad of binocular wipes in their shirt pockets.  In those days, old barnacle-encrusted chiefs had more body fat than a Hell's Angel, smoked big, fat, lousy smelling cigars or 'chawed plugs' and came with a sewer digger's vocabulary.

It was a time where heterosexuals got married to members of the opposite sex or patronized 'working girls', and non-heterosexuals were usually more private and less vocal about their activities.

    For many of us, it was the best time we would ever have. There was a certain satisfaction to be found in serving one's country, without the nation you so dearly loved having to promise you enlistment bonuses, big whopping education benefits, feather bed shore duty, or an 'A' school with a sauna and color TV.  It was a time when if you told a cook you didn't eat Spam or creamed chipped beef, everybody laughed and you went away hungry.  And, if you cussed a mess cook, you could find toenail clippings in your salad.  Our generation visited cemeteries where legends of World War II undersea service were issued their grass blankets, after receiving their pine pea coats and orders to some old hull number moored at the big silver pier in the sky. We were family. Our common heritage made us brothers. There came a point where we drew a line through our names on the Watch, Quarter and Station Bill told our shipmates we’d see them in hell, shook hands with the COB, paid back the slush fund, told the skipper 'goodbye', and picked up a disbursing chit and our DD-214.  We went up on Hampton Boulevard, bought a couple of rounds at Bells, kissed the barmaids, gave Thelma a hug, then went out to spend the rest of our lives wishing we could hear, "Single up all lines...", just one more time.

THE FEWER, THE PROUDER,

THE SUBMARINER

There are only TWO TYPES of ships....SUBMARINES and targets.   In God We Trust