Sunday, November 3, 2013

Harassing the FNGs

I was in the store and saw this in the sporting goods/boating section:


That was one of the common things to do to a FNG (fucking new guy) was to send him for fifty feet of shore line or water line. Another was to tell a guy to go get a bucket of prop wash from the fire room. The boiler techs would tell the FNG that they were fresh out and send him elsewhere. A common one in Charleston was to send a guy looking for the mast crank so that they could lower the ship's uppermost mast before passing under the Cooper River Bridge.

On some ships, the harassment of FNGs got into the kind of hazing that, in time of war, are called "atrocities". A couple skippers and command master chiefs were fired over that.

This is no shit: On one ship, there were some gunner's mates doing some maintenance on the after 5" mount. One of the junior petty officers told a FNG that they were fresh out of relative bearing grease and that the FNG should go to the forward fire room and get a tube of it. The kid did. The boiler techs grabbed the FNG, rubbed grease in his hair and on his face and sent him back to the gun mount.

The XO found out about it and did some ass-chewing of the Weapons Officer and the Chief Engineer. The truth of the old saying that "shit flows downhill" was demonstrated to all concerned.

About six months later, the same petty officer told the same kid to go down to the fire room and get a tube of true bearing grease. The FNG said: "There ain't no such thing as true bearing grease." The petty officer said: "Yes, there is, it comes in a tube like this" and held up a tube of DC-4. The FNG said: "Oh, OK."

Off he went to the fire room. The boiler techs told him to get the fuck out. They told their chief, who passed the word up to the Chief Engineer. Who then informed the Weapons Officer.

About three weeks later, the Weapons Department had to send four sailors mess cranking. A certain junior petty officer was one of them. He was made to understand that the alternative was to be taken to Captain's Mast, where he would be busted down to seaman, have half of his pay taken away for two months, be restricted to the ship for 45 days, get 45 days of extra duty and be sent cranking on top of all that.