NAVY #09 Equal but Special or What's My Navy Coming To?

originally posted in 1998

Here's how it all began. We received six people TAD from Great Lakes Naval Training Center. TAD stands for Temporary Attached Duty; aka (Traveling Around Drunk) that means they're on loan and we gotta send them back without breaking them. It's kind of like renting a car. These kids were straight out of Boot Camp waiting to go to their first Technical School. The reason they got sent to our mighty warship was twofold. The first was to let them experience the Fleet Navy and learn a little about the jobs they were being trained for. The second reason was that we were desperate for warm bodies. If it can hold a paint brush we need it.

These kids --- three males, three females --- were all 18 or 19 years old. Remember that age? When I was 18, I had a terminal hard-on and I knew everything. I was a walking, talking hormone. These kids weren't much different.

When they got to our Mighty Warship, they were treated to a warm reception: "Welcome aboard! Here is your chipping hammer. Here is your paint brush. Have fun!" And they went straight to work for Deck Department. After about two weeks of being yelled at, smashing their fingers with chipping hammers and generally getting more paint on themselves than on what they were supposed to be painting, the kids were sent to work for me. That's because Mr. Jesus hates me.

Okay, so they weren't all that bad. They got here eager to learn. Bright-eyed, chipper, young, cheerful, energetic, smiling. . . all the things I hate in a person. I was told that they were here to learn, not just to do the crappy work. "What the hell?" I thought. I am The FC1. That means I am a Firecontrolman First Class. That means I am also the Leading Petty Officer or LPO of two severely undermanned divisions. I have 17 years active duty under my belt. That means that all these kiddies work for me, along with the other five technicians I own. And as The FC1, I chip paint, I take out trash, I do all the crappy jobs just like my people do. If I can do it, they can do it, too.

When the kids reported into work for me, I laid out my Three Rules of High Quality Leadership.

* 1. Do your job.
* 2. Don't whine.
* 3. Don't cause me extra paperwork.

Pretty simple, right? Not a very difficult code of conduct. As it turned out, the kids did okay. Every once in a while one of them would do something stupid and I would get my butt chewed, but that is to be expected from young, new people, and that's what I get paid for. To take butt-chewings for my people. Me and my butt are pretty much immune to that sort of treatment. Hell, it's not like they're getting virgin butt meat.

At first I had them doing simple stuff, like driving a broom and a swab. (fancy Navy talk for mop.) Once they mastered the swab, I taught them how to use a chipping hammer and a paint brush. Most of them did okay, except one of them kept trying to suck the paint out of the bristles. But he just got married and he still ain't right because of it.

Once they proved they could follow directions and complete a task, I let them start helping us work on the Weapons Systems. They turned out to be a pretty good bunch of kids. Awfully damned young, but decent nonetheless.

All except for one.

SA (Seaman Apprentice) Pinhead (her name has been changed to protect me from her damned attorney) seemed to be having a great deal of trouble adapting to the massive chaos that makes up day-to-day life in the World's Greatest Navy. I knew she was going to be a pain in my butt from the first day.

For example, once, during a Department Personnel Inspection, the Department Head noticed that she was chewing gum while she was standing inspection.

* "What's that you are chewing on?"
* "Gum."
* "Why are you chewing gum during a personnel inspection?"
* "For relaxation, exercise, and enjoyment,"

I should have smacked her in the forehead with a hammer right there on the spot. That's what we used to do with troublesome livestock on the farm. Pop 'em right between the eyes and call the mobile butcher to wrap 'em up and stick 'em in the freezer. If I would have done that iIt would have saved me a lot of grief and paperwork. I hate paperwork.

Another day I and my new children were swabbing water up off the deck from the rains the night before. Ladybugs were everywhere. I guess it was ladybug mating season because there were easily 100,000 of them all over our ship. We must have looked like a cheap motel to them, one of those that rent rooms by the hour. (Don't act like you don't know what it is I'm talking about.) You couldn't take a step without stepping on copulating ladybugs. They would screw their little bug brains out, lay a bunch of tiny bug eggs and then die happy with smiles on their little bug faces.

While we were getting the water up off the deck, the horny little ladybugs were oblivious to us, and oblivious to the water. They just kept getting their ladybug freak on, listening to the ladybug equivalent of Barry White, little ecstatic bug smiles plastered across their little bug faces. Certainly I could understand how they felt. Neither rain, sleet, snow, ringing telephones, or dogs staring at my naked butt can make me stop once the wife has succumbed to my virile manly charms (and about two hours of begging).

So in the middle of this delicate procedure, SA Pinhead, who has driven her swab for perhaps a full second, maybe a second and a half, suddenly stops. As I watch dumbfounded, she begins to rescue the ladybugs as they backstroke through the puddles in the afterglow of their little blissful insect orgy.

* "Whatcha doing?" (I was trying sooo hard.)
* "I'm saving these ladybugs."
* "You are supposed to be helping us get this water up off the deck. Everyone else is busy working, and here you are playing with bugs. Leave the bugs alone and help us get this water up off the deck."
* "Well, excuse me for caring," she cried.
* "Well, excuse me for putting my boot up your ass." (I should of tied a rock to her ass and pushed her over the side.)

Later that day we were all sitting around the shop talking. The subject of loved ones came up. Ms. Pinhead tells me that she is engaged to a young man from Nashville, Tennessee (my hometown). It turns out that she is from New York City.

* "Have you ever been to Nashville? Have you had a chance to meet your fiancé's people yet?" I asked politely. (I was still trying.)
* "No. But I have talked to them on the phone."
* "Wow, Ms. Pinhead, are you ever going to be in for a culture shock."
* With contempt she said. "No, I already know what to expect. All of those Country People are the same."
* "All those Country People are the same? When have you ever been around Country Folks?"
* "My boyfriend took me line dancing, and all those people were two-faced. They would be nice to you to your face, but then they would talk nasty about you behind your back."
* "But what does that have to do with Nashville or Country People?"
* "Country People, Line Dancers, People from Nashville, they are all the same," she replied.
* "Ms. Pinhead," I said, shaking my head, "you are a wacko."

About a week later, she asked me what we had on the work schedule for the day. I told her that we had to finish putting the forward gun mount back together, and lubricate it after tearing it down for maintenance.

"You are going to have to find someone else to do that. I'm not going to do that," she announced. "Oh, you're not, are you?" I was about ready to do a Dr. Kevorkian on her ass. Instead, I had an inspiration, "Okay, then. I have to lag out (insulate) this space. And you can help me while everyone else is working on the gun mount."

Lagging. That's how you insulate a steel bulkhead. Another fancy Navy term. This task entailed pulling all the old waterlogged fiberglass panels off of the bulkheads of the main engine air intake, and putting up new fiberglass panels in their place. That morning I had been told that the engines would be shut down for maintenance so the job HAD to be done that day. All my other people were busy on the gun or standing watch or doing something else that also absolutely had to be done that day. When I looked around for a warm body to give the lagging job to, I discovered that mine was the only warm body left. It was the nastiest job on the work schedule. I was also the only person who had any experience doing it and could do it in about half the time as any of my people could.

So I figured that SA Pinhead could give me a hand. I figured that even she could step and fetch without screwing it up. I could also keep an eye on her and make sure she didn't do something stupid like sink the ship.

I was ripping down the old insulation and gluing up mounting studs for the new insulation. I had already chipped off all the rust and painted out the space. Every time I turned around, Ms. Pinhead was either messing with the damn ladybugs or had disappeared entirely. I was sweating like a pig. I had fiberglass all over me. I had worked through lunch, and I wasn't a happy camper. But the job had to be done that day. So I did it. I didn't like it, but I didn't have to like it, I just had to do it. The joys of responsibility.

After I got all the old insulation off, I had a mess around my feet. I found SA Pinhead sitting on her butt, smoking a cigarette and performing coitus interruptus with a lot of desperate ladybugs. I told her I needed her to bag up the trash and take it down to the dumpster at the head of the pier while I finished up the lagging.

* "I can't do it, it's too heavy," she whined. "I have a bad back."
* "It's not that heavy," I said encouragingly. (It weighed about 35 pounds.) "You can carry it down."
* "I can't doooo it," she insisted. "I'll go find someone to carry it down for me."

Before I could say anything else, she disappeared. About 20 minutes later she came back up and reported, "I couldn't find anyone else to take it out, so you are going to have to do it."

Oh, I am, am I?

Right about now, one of the ship's Bosun, a Warrant Officer, comes up to see how the job was going and offer some helpful advice. Actually he just wanted to stand around and make fun of me. That's what Bosun's do. (A Warrant Officer is an ex-enlisted who has made Chief Petty Officer and then been converted to Commissioned Officer. They are usually all old crusty bastards who first served on the Ark with Noah. A Bosun is the senior Bosun's Mate on board. Contrary to what Admirals think, Warrant Officers run the Navy,) Instead of telling the Bosun that if he really wanted to help, he could crawl his big ass in here and get dirty with me, I just said hello and kept doing what I was doing. (I figured it would take longer for me to finish teh job with his foot stuck up in my ass) While he was giving my work the critical once-over, I told SA Pinhead that if the bag was too heavy she could separate it into two bags and make two trips, but that she WAS going to take out the trash, and she was NOT going to get someone else to do it for her.

Her response was, "No."

You should have seen the Warrant Officer's face. He turned purple! I thought he was going to have a heart attack right there on the spot. He turned around, looked at her, and walked off muttering and shaking his head.

* "No? What do you mean, no?"

* "I'm not reaching into that bag of trash to pull it out and separate it. I joined the Navy to work with my brain, not to be a trash man."

* "Ms. Pinhead, I've been in the Navy 17 years and I still take out trash. My Chief takes out trash. The Executive Officer, the second-in-command, even he takes out trash on occasion. So you can take out trash, too. Put on a pair of gloves if you need to, and split that pile into two bags and take out that trash."

* "No."

* "Are you telling me that you are refusing an order to take out the trash?"

* "I think that you should respect the fact that I am a female and take out the trash yourself."

* "Seaman Apprentice Pinhead, I am ordering you to take out that trash. I don't care if you take it out in one trip or several, but you will take out this trash. You will take it out today. Or you will suffer the consequences."

* "Okay, I'll take out the trash, just so you can feel more like a man."

This time it was my face that turned purple. When I first joined that navy and I was a young Seaman, I once told my Leading Petty Officer that he was an idiot and that I wasn't going to do a damn thing he told me to do. He gently reminded me that he was senior to me, had more experience than me, and had much more responsibility than me. Then he gently suggested that I do as he asked. It took about two weeks for the swelling from that suggestion to go down enough so that my hat fit right again.

But this being the politically correct, kinder, gentler, respect your feelings, respect your individuality, respect your humanity Navy, I was powerless to offer her a similar suggestion.

I told her to put the bag down and come with me. We went to go see the Chief. Now, I had been complaining about SA Pinhead ever since she had reported aboard. It was a struggle to get her to do anything, nobody wanted to work with her, and she demanded special treatment. The other two females that were TAD with her were worth their weight in Gold. They were getting qualified in everything that they possibly could, they were volunteering for stuff just so that they could learn more, but not this one.

I had bent over backward to try and accommodate her. When what I really wanted to do was to kick her butt up between her shoulder blades. But in the New Navy I was required to respect her humanity.

The Chief asked what was going on. I told him. Then he asked Ms. Pinhead to give her side of the story. She told him the same thing I did, but she said that there were extenuating circumstances. She said that since I didn't respect her, she didn't have to respect me. That I should respect the fact that she is a female and not make her do stuff that gets her dirty, or make her lift heavy stuff. That I should respect the fact that she joined the Navy to use her brain and not her hands. And then she told him that I wasn't a nice person.

Oh my God! That hurt! My guys have, on occasion, referred to me as Mr. Warmth, due to my tact and diplomacy (I have none). And now she thinks I am not a nice person? How am I going to live with myself? How am I going to be able to sleep? Oh the pain. Oh the heartache.

I thought I had been a pretty nice guy. I hadn't hit her in the head with a wrench or anything.

So finally Chief told her she was going to take the trash out and she did it. I sat there and managed not to vocalize my disappointment that keelhauling had been outlawed in the Navy years ago.

Chief looked at me and laughed. "How in the hell did you keep from popping her between the running lights?" I just shrugged my shoulders. Chief said, "She's a wacko. She's outta here."

When a person violates an article of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice, there are several options, depending upon the seriousness of the offense. You can counsel them. You can assign them Extra Military Instruction after normal working hours to correct the deficiency. You can send them to Captain's Mast for non-judicial punishment. Or you can court-martial them, which is a judicial process, with lawyers, a jury and the whole works.

The decision was made to send her up to see the Captain. Now, the Commanding Officer of a ship has powers that that are unique in America. If a member of the Navy should elect to accept NJP (Non-Judicial Punishment), the Commanding Officer can deliver the following punishments:

* Reduction in Rate (loss of a pay grade),
* Forfeiture of 1/2 a month's pay for two months,
* 45 days restriction to the ship, or
* 45 days extra duty (two hours a day, six days a week, after normal working hours).

Over my career, I had become somewhat of an expert of NJP, usually being on the receiving end.

In certain circumstances the Commanding Officer can also award Brig Time, Three Days Bread and Water (no peanut butter, no kool-aid, no tootsie pops, just bread and water) or even Separation from the Naval Service.

What is so unique about this process is the Rules of Evidence. There are none. If the Commanding Officer feels you are guilty, then you are guilty. And you can appeal the punishment, but you cannot appeal the conviction. Once found guilty, you are always guilty. A Commanding Officers power at sea is absolute.

I was nervous about SA Pinhead going to Captain's Mast. I had to go, too, as a witness. Now, I have been to Captain's Mast five other times, but never as a witness. I was always the Guest of Honor. I was nervous because every other time I had been before the Captain, I had been awarded something myself. And it wasn't an Ed McMahon-type award either. It usually involved a stripe, the forfeiture of some money, and a short restriction of my mobility.

SA Pinhead went to Mast and emerged grinning like the cat who swallowed the canary. She got off rather light in her punishment. I was shocked. She was reduced in rate from E-2 to E-1 and sent back to Great Lakes. I had recommended that we hang her from the yardarm. Promotion from E-1 to E-2 is pretty much automatic if you can use a fork without accidentally stabbing a shipmate in the eye. By sending her back to Great Lakes, she would be sitting in an air-conditioned office somewhere, kicked back, doing nothing. We had just thrown Brer Rabbit right into the Briar Patch.

When It was all over, I felt like I had been screwed. There had been no justice. She hadn;t learned any lessons. She hadn't learned anything about teamwork or self-sacrifice, or the importance of doing whatever was necessary in order to complete the mission.

I felt as if I had failed. I was depressed for two days. All I had done was to pawn my problem child off on to someone else. I felt that as a leader and a supervisor, I should have either been able to get her straightened out, or kicked out of the Navy. Now she would probably go on to have a long career filled with a sense of entitlement.

She was a pinhead and a pain in the ass. I am glad to be rid of her. But I feel sorry for her, too. It must be sad to go through life without a clue. The way the Navy works these days, they will probably offer her a commission, and I will be working for her in a year's time.

Never forget the two rules of government service:

* Competency never goes unpunished.
* Stupidity never goes unrewarded.