When I joined the navy, the classifier, the individual whose sole job it was to give new recruits a rating or job, explained the rating of Operations Specialist like this to me.
“Operations Specialists sit in an air conditioned room all day long and work with computers. When the ship pulls in, they’re the first ones to get off the ship” the classifier told me.
SOLD
That sounded way better than the other two rates he offered me, Torpedoman or Interior Communications Specialist. I imagined those two jobs like crawling into cramped areas to clean or move or install something. Torpedoman seemed self-explanatory, Interior Communications Specialist had to be explained to me. Not that it mattered much, I heard air conditioning and computers, I was ready to go.
After boot camp and Operations Specialist, OS, “A” school where I learned the basic skills to become a rated OS, I went to my first ship, USS LABOON (DDG 58) home ported out of Norfolk, VA.
There, I learned how to do more than just my basic job from other OS-es, many of whom became close, personal friends over the years. I also learned that OS-es don’t always sit in an air conditioned room working on computers. Rather, some OS-es did that, others were outside OS-es and had to go topside on occasion to chip, sand, needle gun, or grind rust away, replace it with primer, then paint it to preserve the metal hull of the ship. Every division onboard a ship own topside spaces and have to do topside preservation or topside-p from time to time. As one of the youngest, most junior OS-es on the ship, I was often selected for jobs like this.
Another one of the daily jobs that happens onboard a ship everyday is berthing cleaners. Berthing cleaners is the crew that goes down to berthing to clean up the common areas like the lounge, the heads (rest room), the vestibules (areas outside of the berthing), the ladder wells (stairs), and the decks in each pooka (small area that contains a cube of 12-18 racks (beds)) that sailors share. An additional task that the berthing cleaners have it to inspect each rack to ensure it will pass inspection by the XO (Executive Officer, second in command of the ship) each day, usually conducted around 1030-1100 daily.
One day, after being assigned berthing cleaners with my friends, we proceeded to clean the common areas of the berthing, sweeping the floor, wiping down the sinks, cleaning the mirrors, showers, toilets, and urinals in the head. While we worked, we were complaining about being assigned berthing cleaners again while some of the other “indoor” OS-es were once again assigned tasking in our air conditioned workspace, doing less labor intensive computer-based tasks.
The three of us in berthing cleaners that particular day were all complaining about one OS especially who was always busy doing computer work while we were assigned tasks that involved berthing cleaners and topside-p. There wasn’t much for us to do that day because we’d been assigned berthing cleaners each day that week and had worked our butts off to get the berthing nice and clean, so really, it only needed a once over with a broom and some trouble areas with a sponge. Leave it to sailors who don’t have enough to do to create more fun during the day for themselves. We collectively decided to get even with the one OS who consistently had indoor work to do while we were assigned more labor intensive tasks.
Quickly formulating our plan, one of us ran up to the geekunk (candy) machine with a few quarters to buy one of those Little Debbie brownies; the ones with the chopped up walnuts on top in a clear plastic wrapper. He quickly came back with the soon-to-be star of our show and opened it up. Taking the brownie in both hands, he quickly molded the brownie into its more humorous shape like Demi Moore running a pottery wheel with a spooky, dead, Patrick Swayze sitting behind her. Another of us ran to the cleaning gear locker to get another type of brownie, this one being the nickname for a paper hand towel ubiquitous in restrooms around the world, and a bottle of spray GP (general purpose) cleaner. We put the brownie (paper towel) on the rack of the OS in question, then the re-shaped brownie (brownie brownie, the one with nuts) on the other brownie. A few quick sprays of GP to make it looks shiny and fresh and we were ready for phase two of our evil plan.
Heading to the phone in the lounge of the berthing, one of our motley crew called up to Combat Information Center (CIC or combat) where the OS-es work onboard a ship to ask for this particular OS. Good thing we knew which corner of the space he usually planted himself so we knew which extension to call and we got him to answer the phone on the first try.
“Hey man, it’s Jaysen1, you gotta come down to berthing and clean up the $h!t on your rack before the XO gets here for berthing inspection.”
The indoor OS profusely exclaimed that the had made his rack before leaving the berthing that morning and hadn’t left any excrement on it in any way shape or form.
“Whatever man,” said Jaysen, “the XO is going to be here in a little bit, and you have crap on your rack that needs to be taken care of. If you don’t take care of it before he gets here, you’re going to fail inspection.”
The indoor OS again asserted that he did not leave any stool on his rack and that this must be some sort of prank. He said to leave him alone as he had a lot of work to do and was extremely busy, then, he hung up the phone.
We spent some time getting the hilarity out of our systems before trying again. The only way to pull this one off was to be completely straight-faced when talking to the indoor OS, otherwise, he’d never believe us.
We called combat again, getting the indoor OS on the first try once again.
“Dude, seriously!” Jaysen exclaimed, Get down here and get this doo-doo off your rack before the XO gets here or he’s going to strip your rack and you’re going to have to come down for the re-inspection!”
Indoor OS once again affirmed there was no scat on his rack but he would come down to see what was going on.
After hanging-up on indoor OS, Jaysen looked at us and said, “he’s on his way!”
We immediately bolted for the pooka, scrambling over each other in vain to be the first one to climb into their respective rack, shut the curtains, and turn off the light.
We all managed to situate ourselves in our racks before we heard indoor OS’s boots on the ladder coming into the berthing. Someone had enough foresight to shut off all the berthing lights on their way past the switch. All the lights in berthing were off except for indoor OS’s rack light. His curtain was pulled about halfway so he couldn’t see the dung shaped brownie on his rack until he was halfway in the pooka.
“WHAT THE FUCK!?”
That was as far as indoor OS got. We fell out of our racks laughing so hard we landed in the middle of the aisle in a heap on top of each other. This was just too good and we couldn’t hold it in any longer.
It was quickly avowed that the turd in question (the one on the rack, not the indoor OS) was a fake and we had indeed set up indoor OS as a way of getting back at him for always having indoor work to do and not sharing the load of manual labor type jobs. We all had a good chuckle and even left the poo on indoor OS’s rack as a joke the XO found hilarious once we’d given him a bit more backstory.
Footnotes:
1 The names have been changed to protect the culprits.
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