This is from something I've been noodling at:
Officer Candidate School maintained a quarterdeck watch at King Hall, its barracks building. There was a Officer of the Day, who was usually one of the company officers.[1] The OOD had a little bedroom just off the quarterdeck. It was the job of the Messenger of the Watch on the forenoon watch to find the OOD around 1115 or so, salute, hold the salute, hand the OOD the muster and sick reports and say: “Good morning, Sir. The Officer of the Deck sends his respects and reports the approach of the hour of twelve. All personnel are present or accounted for. Request permission to strike eight bells on time, Sir.” Then one dropped the salute.
When it was my turn, I was deathly afraid of screwing up my lines, so I rehearsed them, a lot. My turn was on a Saturday morning. The OOD, as it turned out, was badly hung-over. I barely said “Good morning”, when he moaned and said “permission granted.” I was having none of that, for I had worked hard to get the lines down and I was determined to say them.
I did. The OOD sat on the edge of the bed, with his head in his hands. When I finished, he moaned again and said something that sounded like “strike the fucking bells, damn you.”
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[1] Each company had a post-sea tour lieutenant as its company officer.
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As an Army SSG, I got an assignment to CINCIBERLANT Oerias,Portugal, a NATO/OTAN NAVAL command. As Additional duties, JOOD (Junior Officer of the Deck) aka SDNCO (Staff Duty NCO). Basically the same duties as a Battalion after duty hours nco. And for a change, after all the Office checks to see that all classified materials were secures, and safes were locked and initialed as locked, and adding my initials as being verified locked. Around 12am I got my own little bedroom to sleep in,with the caveat, that the duty comms section would wake me up, so I could get the DO up incase of all hell breaking loose.
After delivering my first ever 12:00 reports in the wardroom of DLGN 36, I about faced, and opened the door to a supply closet instead of the door to the wardroom passageway.
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