re: Navy guys: how do you fill your down time?

I was a Nuke MM. I served late 80's to early 90's on a SSN, a SSBN, and a CGN. Underway life back then was different than what I've read from some posts from my fellow bubbleheads who served after me. Underway on a fast boat with limited berthing afforded you the opportunity to "hot rack". We worked either 2,3,or 4 section at sea or in port depending on manpower. I remember pulling into Hallifax Nova Scotia and having enough people qualed to go four section in port. They even put us up in hotels. We went in early and stayed for 7 days. Underway I was 6 and 6 until you got the nub qualified and could go three section. Normally it was 6 hrs watch followed by 6 hours training/drills and if you were lucky they would throw in 6 hrs of field day or maintenance. So the limited free time I would work on quals or watch a movie or play cards on mess deck. Now the boomer was a luxury liner compared to the fast boat. I had a rack and a locker to myself. The skimmers can't complain at all. That was living. Four section watch all the time and you got to go topside and see the sun! BTW forward pukes weren't brave enough to wander aft and spend much time in engineering spaces on the boats I was on. Especially while we were back in Groton and having a bad day. It usually led to someone getting EB greened to the bulkhead!

Non nuke rates who worked in the forward part of the sub were called coners or forward pukes. Forward pukes and we were F'ing nukes. Today's navy would seriously frown on the hazing that went on back then. Well they called it hazing, it was really a lot of horseplay. We would sometimes tape a guy to the bulkhead using EB green tape (a stronger type of duct tape)and leave them hanging there until some of their people from their division would come and get them. The forward pukes would do stuff like that to us nukes too on occasion. It was harder because MDIV (Nuclear Machinery Division, nuke MM's)was the largest division on the boat. Lol

One favorite thing to do was take the someone's favorite beverage mug and EB it to the shaft..working aft always granted us the opportunity to catch it slow enough to tape it on.

I stood the Aux Aft watch most of the time so it was always fun to get involved with the nukes on watch games.

We submariners are some sick people

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Non nuke rates who worked in the forward part of the sub were called coners or forward pukes. Forward pukes and we were F'ing nukes

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And then there was A-gang... the bastard children of engineering. We hated coners and nukes... we were the 'tweeners.

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BTW forward pukes weren't brave enough to wander aft and spend much time in engineering spaces on the boats I was on. Especially while we were back in Groton and having a bad day. It usually led to someone getting EB greened to the bulkhead!

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Your nukes must have been bigger/badder than my nukes because we coners ran shite even back in the eng space.

Only respectable nuke div were the EM's who were fun to drink with


My first day on the sub, ET3 DeSerres brings me to AMR to "introduce" me to A-gang.

We enter with another radioman, close the door and DeSerres shouts "Ding Ding" while making the boxing bell hand gesture

Friggin gangers crawled out of the bilges and we had a "Proper Toss Up" that finished with someone getting fish hooked by a late arriving Aganger who was standing Belowdecks watch...

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I was on a DDS boat so we did ops with SEALs from time to time. On one underway someone told them about "ringing the bell" in AMR. They were told that they had to ring the bell, run to the aft end of AMR and make it back out before we caught them.

There were about 5 of us A-gangers sitting around on the side of the diesel when we hear the ringing. We all run over to the other side of the diesel and catch SEAL #1 as he's heading out. We tackled him and beat his arse for a little while (technically he was laughing and probably could have killed us all if he wanted).

Haha fun's over so we go back and sit on the other side of the diesel again...

5 minutes later... DING DING! We're like "We're gonna frick this dude up now" and we go around the diesel again to be greeted by SEAL #2 wearing nothing but his boots and yelling "catch me! catch me!". Probably the ONLY time someone ever got a pass down in AMR.

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Well I can't speak for modern MDIVers but as for the two boats I was on we were the drinkers. The EMs would hang with us too. The ETs not so much. We were a tight knit group. Our division officers partied with us too. We always had coners wanting to go drinking with us. Probably why I don't remember much about the local landmarks from the liberty ports we stopped at. We got along with everyone. Even Sonar (unless they used all the hot water for the showers. Then it was on). Lol.

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MDIV

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I think every single wrench we had in A-gang had MDIV engraved on it. Thanks!

One deployment we started some shite with MDIV. They were fricking with my NUB all the time and one day I got him all riled up. I called this NUB Chickenhawk because he reminded me of that little fricker from the Foghorn Leghorn cartoons. He was small but full of piss and vinegar. I convinced him to go into the MDIV bunkroom right before we were about to run drills, take all their shoes out of the shoe tree, and tie them all together with knots in the laces.

My God... when that general alarm went off you should have seen the shite show. My little Chickenhawk was standing right there in p-way outside the MDIV bunkroom and yelled "HOW DO YOU MOTHERfrickERS LIKE ME NOW!"