| Comments: Have served on 8 ships and once had a copy of the Arnheiter Affair. Gave it to a department head when I transfered so that he would be able to figure out what was going to happen next. I was on one ship where the CO used to get so drunk at sea that he stank of booze and the bridge once asked us to slowly turn down the power output of the sonar system so that the CO would get a good sleep or perhaps I should say sleep it off. Had one where the mess cook was cleaning the CO cabin and there was a noise in the false ceiling. He put his head up there and got hit in the head by a empty bottle of booze. The cabin was being prepared for the new CO. Needed one of those as the old one had run us into the side of a Navy Oiler. I was trying to look up some microfiche records and the whole stack of microfiche would start moving and I would have to move it back again. Suddenly I realized we were turning at high speed durring refueling. Anyone who has ever refueled will realize that the last thing you do durring refueling is turn at high speed. I had just enough time to say "EXPLETIVE DELETED" before the first of two collision alarm beeps went off. That was all the warning we got. The CO was on the bridge wing and a young Signalman was filming the refueling from the signal bridge and caught everything. Film ended up in the Admiral's VCR shortly there after and the film made into a training film for JAG corps. Title I heard was "How to suscesfully prosecute collision at sea". Seen a weapon 8 feet in the air when all the ball bearings in the chain hoist came pouring out. Suffice it to say that it was a weapon you don't even want to think about scratching the paint let alone dropping. There was some serious pucker before we got it down to the deck. Saw one CO who made a mistake conning the ship and blamed the mistake on CHENG. He ran up to him on the bridge and hit CHENG up the side of the head. Everyone knew that the CO had made the mistake. |