All About Pocket Knives

Doc B wrote:

fergusontd wrote:Sounds like a sea story only it didn't start with "This is no 'shirt'."
I agree Jerry, he's Air Force, those guys are known to s-t-r-e-c-h the truth a little. ftd

...and all the other services mumbled "I should've joined the Air Force"

Good one Doc.

jerryd6818 wrote:

Doc B wrote:

fergusontd wrote:Sounds like a sea story only it didn't start with "This is no 'shirt'."
I agree Jerry, he's Air Force, those guys are known to s-t-r-e-c-h the truth a little. ftd

...and all the other services mumbled "I should've joined the Air Force"

Good one Doc.

I do pick at the boys about being in the “Chair Force” Auxiliary. I’m a coffee drinker and I like mine black and thick like mud, what one of my friends calls Marine coffee. The other day my middle boy got him a cup and proceeded to pollute it with sugar. I told him that wasn’t marine coffee and he said, “that’s Air Force Coffee!” Lol

So it has begun.

Navy coffee....perk it on a Friday, drink it on Monday! ftd

Guess I'm more in line...with the Marines...when it comes to my tastes in coffee

Marine coffee, when you can see the bottom of a full cup! ftd

You're all wrong. When it slaps you up side the head, that's mid-rats coffee. The branch is immaterial.

jerryd6818 wrote:You're all wrong. When it slaps you up side the head, that's mid-rats coffee. The branch is immaterial.

Yup.
I used to make the coffee for Sunday morning service at our church. Made it like I did at my squadron. I was accused of trying to take the enamel off the congregates' teeth!

Good stuff Wade! I am sure they will do well, you must be proud.

313 Mike wrote:
Good stuff Wade! I am sure they will do well, you must be proud.

Thanks Mike. I am proud of them. But I’m about ready to just go get em. Lol

Steve Warden wrote:

jerryd6818 wrote:You're all wrong. When it slaps you up side the head, that's mid-rats coffee. The branch is immaterial.

Yup.
I used to make the coffee for Sunday morning service at our church. Made it like I did at my squadron. I was accused of trying to to the enamel off the congregates' teeth!

Yeah, no body at my church will drink my coffee either. They claim it’s too strong. I don’t know what’s wrong with them. Lol

Congrats on the young men and their choices. They're being trained right.

On the topic of coffee, all I can say is I hate the smell of coffee. Started back when I was about 5 y.o. My mother and her "coffee klatch" crowd were sitting around the kitchen table one morning drinking coffee. I came in and asked what were they drinking. I asked if I could try it. Took a sip and immediately spit it out on the floor. Got my butt paddled and had to clean the floor.

And now 60 years later, I still haven't taken a drink of coffee since.

I was only tasked with making coffee one time. I was a LTjg on my first ship, USS DENVER (LPD-9). We were inport Subic Bay, RP. I was Duty Ops so I had not been on the beach. I was taking advantage of the enforced "non-partying" by writing up evals that were due on some of my people.

For some reason, the wardroom coffee pot was dry when the "Officer's shore party" rolled in about 2200. As late as it was, the wardroom mess cooks had been secured for the night. Some of the guys wanted coffee, including the XO and CHENG (Chief Engineer).

As the junior officer present, I was tasked with making the coffee.

I told them I didn't know how to use the coffee pot since I didn't drink it.

I was told -

"Put a filter in it, fill the tank to the top line, put in 2 heaping scoops of coffee and push start."

I went over to the coffee pot, opened the drawer under it, found the only scoop-like utensil in the drawer, followed the above instructions and went back to writing evals. About 10 minutes later, they started pouring out cups of coffee. It turned out to be strong enough to remove etch brass and totally undrinkable, even by the CHENG, a 20 year Mustang CDR.

Turns out the "scoop" I used, a 1 cup measuring cup, was NOT the "scoop" that should have been there. The regular scoop's handle had broken so the mess cooks just got a measuring cup from the galley to use since they knew how much coffee to put in - which was about 1/2 cup.

The XO officially banned me from even touching the wardroom coffee pot for the remainder of my time aboard the DENVER.

About 6 months later, I left the DENVER and was transferred to the USS CONSTELLATION (CV64) to be the Electrical Officer there. When I reported to the XO after transferring to the CONNIE, he looked at me and said -

"I've heard about you. Don't ever touch a coffee pot on my ship while I'm here."

By the time the ship deployed to WESTPAC 5 days later, even the CO had been told to not let me near a coffee pot. The Boatswains' Mates on the bridge even put those "official" Navy engraved, plastic, red and white warning signs on the bulkhead by the bridge coffee pot

"MR Z - DO NOT TOUCH"

It was still there when I left 2-1/2 years later. For all I know, the sign was still there 21 years later when the CONNIE was decomissioned.

zzyzzogeton....should'a put you in the hole, us snipes could of used your coffee to drink to stand watch, sober up after liberty, and clean oil and grease off deckplates. We used to send our best thieves on working partys to steal the 20# tins of coffee and hide them down in the engine room. Mid wretch coffee was ok but not as good as ours. And thats a no shirtter! ftd

I was a "half-breed" snipe.

I was the Electrical Division Officer with 130 to 150 EMs and ICs, so I was a snipe but I was assigned to stand Bridge and CIC watches due to a lack of qualified officers for OOD/JOOD/CICWO. The Navy had transferred a bunch of our senior officers in anticipation of us going into the yards, but the Enterprise got delayed (for the 3rd time) in getting out of the yards, so our schedule got "re-assessed", and we redeployed really early, which is why I had 2 10 month WESTPAC deployments in 28 months.

At one point, while deployed, we had 5 people qualified as OODs, 6 as JOODs and 6 as CICWOs - 5 of the JOODs and 5 of the CICWOs were the same people and I was the only 1 qualified in all 3 categories. The Bridge/CIC watch bills were really screwed up for the first 3 months of the deployment.

On more than 1 occasion, I met myself coming and going- stand a watch as JOOD, followed by a watch as CICWO followed by a watch as OOD. I might have as much as 2 hours between watches or as little as "damn, I'm 1/2 hour late." I never had more than a 3 hour gap between watches for that first 3 months.

CONNIE had a policy where CIC would turn-over an hour before the Bridge officers changed. That way both sets weren't changing at the same time and CIC was settled in and had things under control before the bridge changed. That was implemented during the VN war when on one occasion CIC and the Bridge both changed over at the same time and "S" hit the fan when contacts were lost/misidentified/etc and a collision nearly occurred with another Navy ship.

Good looking youngsters you have there!

That's good stuff right there, Wade! As a former zoomie, I am used to the ribbing that the AF guys take. That'll toughen them up.

Anyway, those boys will have a good foundation in life, looks like they were raised right!

glennbad wrote:That's good stuff right there, Wade! As a former zoomie, I am used to the ribbing that the AF guys take. That'll toughen them up.

Anyway, those boys will have a good foundation in life, looks like they were raised right!

Thanks Glenn. My middle boy, Parker, has his head in the clouds. He can’t think of anything in the world but flying. His big dream is to be a Zoomie and fly planes.

This week they’ll train, of course, but they’ll also get to pilot some small single engines AND their going to have the Blackhawks there and take the kids for rides on them. I wonder how long it’ll take to wipe the smiles off their faces?

Back when I was in they used to give Incentive Rides in the fighters to those who had earned Airman of the Quarter or NCO of the Quarter, and such.
I was nominated a few times, but never won the honors. Even if I had, I wouldn't have take the trip - the goal of the pilot for those rides was to see how quickly he could make the passenger lose their lunch! As an avionics tech, I was quite satisfied with just fixin' 'em and keepin' 'em flyin'!