| Jim Johnson |
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Reply with quote | #1 |
For all you old sailors, REMEMBER WHEN!!!!!!!! !!!!!
One of God's Better Inventions
You remember them: those ton and a half monsters that took the annual
production of thirty-five sheep to make. Those thick black rascals with
black plastic buttons the size of poker chips. The issue coats that
drove shore duty chief petty officers stark raving nuts if they caught
you with the collar turned up or your hands in your pockets.
"Hey, you rubber sock, get those damn hands outta them damn pockets!
Didn't they issue you black leather gloves?" So, you took your hands
out of your pockets and risked digital frostbite rather than face
whatever the Navy had in store for violators of the 'No Damn Hands In
Peacoat Pockets' policy. There's probably a special barracks in Hell
full of old E-3s caught hitchhiking in sub-zero weather with hands in
peacoat pockets.
As for those leather gloves, one glove always went missing. "Son, where
in the' hell are the gloves we issued you?" We? I don't remember this
nasty, ugly so-n-so being at Great Lakes, San Diego, Orlando or
Bainbridge when the 'jocks and socks' petty officers were throwing my
initial issue sea bag at me and yelling, "Move it!!" As for the gloves,
once you inadvertently leave one glove on a bar stool or on the seat of
a Greyhound bus, the remaining glove is only useful if a tank rolls
over the hand that fit the lost glove.
In the days long ago, a Navy specification peacoat weighed about the
same as a flat carload of cinder blocks. When it rained, it absorbed
water until your spine warped, your shins cracked and your ankles
split. Five minutes standing in the rain waiting on a bus and you felt
like you were piggy-backing the Statue of Liberty. When a peacoat got
wet, it smelled a lot like sheep dip. It had that wet wool smell, times
three. It weighed three and a half tons and smelled like 'Mary had a
little lamb's gym shorts.
You know how heavy a late '50s pea coat was? Well, they had little
metal chains sewn in the back of the collar to hang them up by. Like
diluted Navy coffee, sexual sensitivity instruction, comfortable
air-conditioned bungalows, patent leather plastic-looking shoes and
wearing white hats configured to look like bidets, the peacoat
specification has been watered down to the point you could hang them up
with dental floss. In the old days, pea coat buttons and grocery cart
wheels were interchangeable. The gear issued by the U.S. Navy was tough
as hell, bluejacket-tested clothing with the durability of rhino hide
and construction equipment tires. Peacoats came with wide, heavy
collars. In a cold, hard wind, you could turn that wide collar up to
cover your neck and it was like poking your head in a tank turret.
The things were warm, but I never thought they were long enough.
Standing out in the wind in those 'big-legged britches' (bell bottoms),
the wind whistled up your cuffs and took away body warmth like a thief.
But, they were perfect to pull over you for a blanket when sleeping on
a bus or a bus terminal bench. Every sailor remembers stretching out on
one of those oak bus station pews with his white hat over his face, his
head up against his AWOL bag and covered with his peacoat. There was
always some 'SP' who had not fully evolved from the apes, who poked you
with his billy club and said, "Hey, you! Get up! Waddya think yer
doin'? You wanna sleep, get a room!"
Peacoats were lined with quilted satin or rayon. I never realized it at
the time, but sleeping on bus seats and station benches would be the
closest I would ever get to sleeping on satin sheets. Early in my naval
career, a career-hardened (lifer) first class gunner's mate told me to
put my ID and liberty card in the inside pocket of my peacoat. "Put the
sonuvabitches in that gahdam inside pocket and pin the damn thing
closed with a diaper pin. Then, take your heavy folding money and put
it in your sock. If you do that, learn to never take your socks off in
a cathouse. Them damn dockside pickpockets pat 'cha down for a lumpy
wallet and they can relieve you of said wallet so fast you'll never
know you've been snookered. Only an idiot will clam-fold his wallet and
tuck it in his thirteen button bell bottoms. Every kid above the age of
six in Italy knows how to lift a wallet any fool pokes in his pants.
Those little locals learned to pick sailor's pockets in kindergarten.
Rolling Bluejackets is the national sport in Italy."
In Washington DC they have a wonderful marble and granite plaza
honoring the United States Navy. Every man or woman who served this
nation in a naval uniform, owes it to himself or herself to visit this
memorial and take their families. It honors all naval service and any
red-blooded American bluejacket or officer will feel the gentle warmth
of pride his or her service is honored within this truly magical place.
The focal point of this memorial is a bronze statue of a lone American
sailor. No crow on his sleeve tells you that he is non-rated. And,
there are further indications that suggest maybe, once upon a time, the
sculptor himself may have once been an E-3 white hat. The lad has his
collar turned up and his hands in his pockets. I'm sure the Goddess of
the Main Induction laughs at the old, crusty chiefs standing there with
veins popping out on their old, wrinkled necks, muttering, "Look at
that S.O.B. standing there with his collar up and his damn hands in his
pockets. In my day, I would have ripped that jerk a new one!"
Ah, the satisfied glow of E-3 revenge. Peacoats -- one of God's better inventions.
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| Richard Peterson |
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Reply with quote | #2 |
I agree 100% that even though they were heavy, and could be warm under the right circumstances, wearing a wind tunnel on each arm and the "silk/rayon" lining turned you really cold in a hearbeat.
Now, how about the flat hats? Does anybody remeber when the last district to allow flat hats was 1st Naval?
Mine dissapeared in a bar in Brooklyn. |
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