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Which One Are You?


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The two sailors in that anti-aircraft gun tub have two very different attitudes about rolling in a heavy sea aboard USS Langley (CVL-27) #OTD in 1945. Which would you be? The guy on the right smiling through it, or the guy on the left who looks like he'd rather be anywhere else? 

 

 
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I'm not sure which of the two gunners I am; but I know I don't want to be the photographer who is leaning out even further to get the pic.......

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I would definitely be the guy on the right grinning like crazy. Call me odd, but I loved heavy seas. 
 

I remember walking to chow and damn near walking on the bulkheads as the ship pitched and rolled. I remember getting to the mess deck and looking about at my shipmates all looking miserable and probably wishing they had joined the Army or Air Force. I recall the reactions when I yelled out something like; “Quit whinin’ and bitchin’ you bunch of pansies! Where else in the world can you experience eating grilled cheese sammiches in a restaurant that rolls 40 degrees to each side and pitches up and down 20 feet at a time? You’re in the f***ing Navy now! Suck it up mother****ers! I love this ****!”

In that moment I realized two things. 1. I did love being in the Navy, and 2. I didn’t need to get in the chow line. People were throwing sammiches to me…Well, at me, really. 
The kicker was, everyone was laughing after that.
A good memory. 

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Crossed the Atlantic on an empty troop transport once.  Hit seas like that and we were tied down at the mess table.  Hanging on to ropes in the whatever you squids call hallways.  Threw up solid for about three days.  Glad to get off and Not do it again...

Edited by Redleg Reilly, SASS #46372
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I got the pleasure of 20' seas on a 42' Ketch. When daylight happened we were in the huge rocks off Iisaccs Light in the Bahamas. I pretty much looked like the guy on the left! 

My stepdad said to keep the light off our starboard stern. Visibility and high seas soon made that impossible. When things cleared and daylight, the light was off port bow. To this day, I don't know how we got thru those rocks without hitting or just plain dropped onto one of them. My Mom & 2 sisters were down below. Dave and I never said a word after we got out of there and the storm retreated. Oh yeh!!

Edited by Eyesa Horg
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i'm more inclined to be like the dude grinning his brains out.

 

My son was in the Navy and got Captain's Mast for lashing himself to a stancheon on  a weather deck of his LST (USS Tuskaloosa) during a typhoon north of Taiwan.  The Skipper asked why he had done it.  Matthew told him because he never had before and wanted to see what it would be like.  It cost him $50.00 but no other punishment.

Edited by Forty Rod SASS 3935
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