Chief of the Boat
A Non-Sequential Fictional Short
Master Chief Boatswain Mate Kurt Bray, Chief of the Boat, looked out through the periscope and walked the compass the way he did every morning as a matter of routine. The horizon had not changed, and there were no targets between the boat and the horizon. In the world of submarines, there were only boats and targets. He muttered, “I’d rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother on a skimmer.”
In truth, the USS Triggerfish was not a happy boat and hadn’t been for as long as the Chief of the Boat could recall. The COB was not the skipper, and the skipper was no longer onboard.
“Everything good Master Chief?”
Bray looked under thick gray eyebrows at the First Class Quartermaster with his gimlet eyes. “Air in the banks, shit in the tanks, ready to submerge below… sound the diving alarm!”
No diving alarm sounded, and the boat didn’t move any more today than it had for the last eighty years.
Davy McKay asked the same question every day for the last eighty, and the response was the same. Every day he had the same routine baked into it. It’s not as if it was Groundhog Day or anything like that. A boat required routine.
“Remember that I approve the berthing bill, McKay. Any of your bilge today, and you’ll be hot-racking it for a week. Am I clear?”
“Do we have a B.O.C.O.D., Master Chief?”
The question asked and answered the same way every day bothered him, but he shook his head. No. He reflected on his wife, who he hoped was not acting like a WestPac Widow during his long absence. “No BOCOD, Petty Officer McKay.”
He noticed granulated dust on the Emergency Blow Actuation Valves and asked McKay, “Why is there sand on the Chicken Switches?” No response. The Master Chief looked around, and McKay wasn’t there, so he took the bullshit flag out of his back pocket and tried to remove the sand, but for some reason, it didn’t come off. The day’s frustration was no different than any other day on the USS Triggerfish as she conducted what some believed to be her last patrol.
The Crank showed up in the control room where he wasn’t supposed to be, pushing his mop bucket, referred to as a Cadillac. Master Chief Bray felt his blood pressure rise. Newbies never changed, and Tommy Fisk had been an apprentice seaman since they left Bremerton eighty-some years before. You’d think that the kid would have learned something in all that time. Everything on the boat had an acronym, and the one that applied to the Crank was C.R.I.S. – Cranial Rectal Insertion Syndrome.
Seaman Fisk passed gass loudly.
The Master Chief said, “Damn, man, your voice has changed, but your breath still smells the same.”
McKay echoed through the hatch, “Keep talking, lieutenant; we’ll find you.”
“I’m leaving Master Chief Bray,” Tommy Fisk said as he pushed his mop bucket onward.
“D.I.L.L.I.G.A.F?”
A broadcast on the 1MC caught him by surprise, “There are divers over the side, do not rotate screws, cycle rudders, take suction from or discharge to the sea, blow flood or vent any tanks, or operate any underwater equipment or activate sonar. There are divers over the side.”
“We’re submerged,” he said silently to himself, slowly shaking his head from side to side. “What the hell is going on? And where is the Captain? Sure, he was a Double Digit Midget – A short-timer with less than 100 days from EAOS, but it didn’t give him an excuse to leave the boat during the middle of a patrol with a bunch of freeloading oxygen breathers like Tommy Fisk onboard.”
He walked aft, ducking through the watertight door, muttering, “I got more time sittin’ on the shitter sucking rubber and reading piping tabs at test depth than these non-qual dinks have time in the Navy.”
Petty Officer McKay followed him, asking when they’d see fresh fruit again, getting under his skin. “If you are looking for sympathy, you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis,” McKay.
Another announcement on the 1MC, “There are men working in the sail. Do not raise,
lower, rotate or radiate from any mast or antenna. There are men working in the sail”.
Master Chief Bray pivoted and walked back toward the Control Room. Who was working in the sail? They were underway and sub…were they submerged? His mood was more than a slight down-bubble at the moment, and he felt confused. And why wasn’t the ping jockey at his station?
The 1MC sputtered to life, “The smoking lamp is out in Machinery One while purging Oxygen Generators.” He turned around, unsure of where and even who he was. “Zulu 5 Oscar,” he muttered, feeling like he didn’t belong there on Triggerfish anymore.
Bullet Points:
** Everyone needs a Plan B if Plan A goes the way of the Iron Horse.
Big trouble may be brewing in little Moldova, which is starting to look like a staging area for the European Union to offset an emerging Russian victory in Ukraine. Whether such a plan, if attempted, would succeed is not clear. But Moldova is not the most stable country in the world with the nation split between pro-EU and pro-Russian elements.
US troops are now in Moldova with Romanians, ostensibly for a military exercise called JCET 2024 (Joint Command Exchange Training). The exercise started on April 1 and will continue until April 19.
** If President Trump was guilty of half of the things he’s accused of, he could run as a democrat.
** The AAMC’s DEI Competencies, issued in October 2021, details the new social justice skills that medical students must acquire. In addition, the AAMC has discouraged using the rigorous Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) as a filter to help select medical students. Dozens of the 158 allopathic (MD granting) U.S. medical schools have made the MCAT optional. Several medical schools, including the prestigious University of Pennsylvania, have programs to admit students from designated “underrepresented” identity groups without requiring the submission of MCAT scores. The MCAT itself has been revised to include social justice questions that are easy to ace because the answers are always the same: structural racism is the cause of any group disparities that disfavor underrepresented groups. But even this re-engineered test shows persistent group disparities in test scores, which means that Asian applicants must score almost four times higher than black applicants to have an equal chance of admission.
** Swords – Sword thickness matters.
** These are YOUR tax dollars… all being spent on illegal immigrants!!
NEW YORK:
– $1.47 BILLION spent on temporary food & housing services
– $53 MILLION debit card program
– $1,400 a month SNAP benefits
LOS ANGELES:
– Full-coverage health insurance for 700,000 illegal immigrants
– $1,000 per month through LA County’s guaranteed income
CHICAGO:
– $300 MILLION spent on temporary food and housing services: laundry, mental health screenings
– $150,000,000 in rental support to selected illegal immigrants.
** If Biden is re-elected (American Thinker), Americans will unlikely re-elect a frail, rapidly declining octogenarian to be our commander-in-chief. Still, one should never underestimate the Democrat party’s uncanny ability to spread lies, cheat early and often, and steal elections by any means necessary. Should old, senile Joe Biden somehow get re-elected, his handlers will unfortunately have to make provisions for his rapidly accelerating dementia. We’re talking simple things, like the elder shoes with huge soles and fake laces that Biden already sports.
During his next term, as the old coot gets harder and harder to put one foot in front of the other, his handlers should insert wheels into those soles, like the Heely brand shoes that kids wear. Ol’ Scranton Joe can then pretend he’s walking while Dr. Jill — or the Easter Bunny if the good doctor’s unavailable — pushes him. The White House staff installs a long wooden ramp from the South Portico to Marine One, and voilà: you’ve got a photo op of our president briskly leaving the White House for yet another extended vacation, the floral nightmare Dr. Jill’s wearing, providing all the visual distraction necessary.
Speaking will be a real problem in Biden’s next term, too. He already garbles his words, yells angrily, whispers creepily, mixes up names and places, makes up apocryphal tales of personal glory, and clears his throat after every third sentence—and it will only get worse.
The solution? Simple. Have an experienced translator tell us in English what poor old Joe’s saying while he mumbles in the background at a reduced volume. If necessary, give the translator a printed copy of Biden’s intended remarks so the White House staff won’t have to walk anything back the next day. And since this White House speaks only to its fellow lefties, perhaps have a second person elucidate what Biden’s rambling on about with a lesbian liturgical interpretive dance. It can’t hurt.
***
Identify the Aircraft
1
2
Identify the Vehicle
3
PARTING SHOTS
Two Ladies Talking In Heaven
1st woman: Hi, Wanda!
2nd woman: Hi, Sylvia! How’d you die?
1st woman: I froze to death.
2nd woman: How horrible!
1st woman: It wasn’t so bad. After I quit shaking from the cold, I began to get warm and sleepy. Eventually, I died a peaceful death. What about you?
2nd woman: I died of a massive heart attack. I suspected that my husband was cheating, so I came home early so that I could catch him in the act. But instead, I found him all by himself in the den watching TV.
1st woman: So, what happened?
2nd woman: I was so sure there was another woman somewhere that I started looking all over the house. I ran up into the attic and searched. Then, I scurried down into the basement. After that, I went through every closet and checked under all the beds. I kept this up until I had looked everywhere! Finally, I became so exhausted that I just keeled over with a heart attack and died.
1st woman: Too bad you didn’t look in the freezer. We’d both still be alive.
2 – Short S.25 Sunderland developed just before WW2 for long range reconnaissance.
Re The hippo people forget animals are not human.
Identify the Aircraft:
1. Macchi C.205 Veltro
2. Short Shetland
Identify the Vehicle:
3. Jackal
“…with his gimlet eyes.” That right there is why you are the Host with Skills. Total descriptor. Oh, after reading the Short I feel like I got a Naval terminology education.
*
“Illegal Spending of taxpayers monies”- How is this – “operation ruin America from within” – by the Morons In Charge not illegal? Gotta be some language in state/city Constitutions that forbids using our money for non-residents. Bottom line: Time to stop paying taxes for a year, let these freeloaders and their handlers feel some reality. Time For A Reset (TM) (yeah, I’m a broken record)
*
Hippo- Then there’s this guy who should be dropped into the Wind Rivers – preferably at the top of Gannett Peak – in nothing but his tighty-whitey’s (and I know exactly where he resides)…Rod Miller has it right: https://cowboystatedaily.com/2024/04/06/rod-miller-of-wolves-and-assholes/ (check the article linked picture…yeah, and a/h who deserves something appropriately painful).
*
Hmm, #3…if there was a way to a monster snowblower on the front of that…and it has a cupholder…that would round out the Homestead Defense Force garage choices. Does it have heated seats?
Geez, need an edit button. Grammatical errors aside (add these to the ever growing Faux Pas list), the last thing I want…under the guise of Socialized Medicine by the backdoor by The Idiots Who Think They Are Charge…is looking across the exam room – and I have nothing against anyone who wishes to be this weird or unkempt – at some grinning weird/rainbow-haired pierced tattooed cross-dressing self-identifier of whatevertheheck because they were “assigned” some other “gender” at birth by an actual medical doctor (as if it took an MD to figure out what any 4 year-old already knows). It’s a risk I’m unwilling to take with my health. Then again, there’s the reprobate AMA who promotes cutting parts off little kids while telling us to mask up to avoid a manipulated cold virus. Yeah…JSMN ™…altho I’d settle for some Heavenly Smiting as some [most?] of these so-called ‘first do no harm’ “doctors” need to meet their Maker. Tomorrow.
I got no problem with killing a wolf that’s after a rancher’s livestock, in fact I rather think that should be encouraged, but this is a little beyond that. Anyway, the real Code of the West was that some assholes just needed killin’ and that’s one asshole who needs it desperately.
Exactly, a lousy insulting $250 fine. Pain should be felt. And yes, taking out a wolf or coyote that is stalking or attacking your livestock is not wrong, especially now the do-gooders have released Canadian gray wolves into the states, these are massive and hunt for sport in packs (Shoshoni, Wy being one area).
…continuing until april 19th. there’s that date again…happy eclipse day. i’ll be mowing the lawn and tending the dozen new hens that we added to the flock. does emp affect lawn mowers?
Mowing the lawn huh…ours just lost its snow. Reminded me that Costco flier had The EV zero turn for $1000 off…read the description; 12 4ah batteries and three double chargers (half the batts at a time…hmm). No run time. But how much coal-fired generation is required to do an acre? And can it be done on a single charge? Small EV mowers like the Ryobi are terrific for a small lawn, butnthis? Not sure.
That comment speaks to blatant disregard for the existential threat of global warming.
Yup. Funny, when the power fails for any length of time the same people demanding wind and solar start getting nervous, then another hour passes and they start demanding the power be turned back on, immediately. Consequences should hurt when you demand your folly be foisted onto everyone else.
my neighbor bought one of those ev mowers. now he has to mow every day a little at a time to keep up with his rather large yard. he’s all-in on ev.
Yet can’t see the inconvenience for a large yard…altho maybe he likes doing a little bit over 3-4 days, maybe the household isn’t all that great and the Duracell Mower gives him a legit reason to get outside away from the fray. Brother has the Ryobi pushmower, works perfect for his little town yard, but on the 35 acre rural property it’s the diesel compact tractor and bushhog. But a grand off for the Greenworks…how much is this thing?…hang on…$6500. In contrast the Husqvarna Z254F Zero Turn Lawn Mower 54in 726cc 24HP V Twin is only $3300 with Free Freight and a 12″ wider deck. (Acme Tools.com) No contest judge.
Hah! I have an electric mower. A Black and Decker from the 1970’s. Corded. Has the “flip handle” so you don’t have to turn the whole mower around at the end of a row. This is important because the flip feature allows you to keep the cord orientated correctly. ‘Cause you prolly don’t wanna run over the power cord. The thing is older than PKG and it just works. When it finally dies, I won’t have a pesky battery disposal problem. (But to be honest these days I pay some guy exorbitant amounts of money to bring his obscenely gigantic, incompletely-burned-hydrocarbon-spewing monstrosity over on a trailer (hauled by a dreaded ICE truck) to mow the dang lawn in literally about five minutes.)
Biden needs neural link. Elon should give him one, coded appropriately….
After reading the short story and gazing upon the picture, I flashed back to a dementia ward in a nursing home. 80 years? I didn’t think naval vessels could last that long, outside Old Ironsides. I was at a loss trying to decipher naval lingo and abbreviations. As far as requiring DEI and the entrance exams, we have had that problem since the mid 80s. The new crop of doctors coming through were not ones I would use as a primary doctor or even on a consult. The skill sets and training have been coopted for a long time. One of the main reason I go to nurse practitioners and even now seeing the same degrading of education and social justice pablum. As far as the tax dollars being spent on these invaders, I am renouncing my US citizenship, slip over to mexico and then slip back into the US of a and demand my shake down. I can get away with it, I have some Spanish blood flowing in my veins… Finely, That Jackel, I would be sold if it had A/C and cruise control and eligible for a handicap sticker… legs are shot.
The problem I’m seeing in clinical medicine is not so much DEI for entrance into medical school [1]. It’s FAR more a problem of non-US medical graduates (by which I mean mainly Indians, Pakistanis, and MENA people [2]) getting into US residency and fellowship programs, after which they can practice in the US.
—
For those who don’t know how the US medical education and training system (the pipeline) works:
1. You need a college degree (4 years) and an MCAT score (so far, mostly) to apply
2. You go to medical school for 4 years [3, 4]
3. You graduate medical school and enter residency (typically 3 to 5 years). At this point, as a resident [5], you ARE already a “real doctor” in the sense that you have an MD degree, and if you are in a residency program, a limited (trainee) license.
4. After you graduate residency you can apply for a full (unrestricted license) and be a “real” independently practicing physician.
5. Some of us are freaking idiots and go on to fellowship AFTER completing residency. This is an additional 1 to 4 years.
—
Functional retards getting into medical school (step #2 on the list) is a problem, but that has always happened. The real problem is people entering the pipeline at #3 (and also #5). Many of these FMGs (foreign medical grads) have a VERY different ethos than your typical cornfed Murrican boy or girl. These people tend to be from the 2% of their home country (Indian, Pakistan, Iran, you get the idea). They are used to shitting down on the 98% “below” them and have generally been able to get away with all sorts of stuff. That entitlement does not go away. No few have contempt for their patients. And with no few, you also have the self-pity/victimhood (muh colonialism) resentment complex going. Despite the fact that these pampered two percenters have lived FAR more privileged lives than over 90% of Heritage Americans. Getting boned by a person who was probably too stupid to have gotten into medical school except because of their melanin content is one thing. Getting boned by a person who couldn’t be bothered to do the right thing because he’s skated by since childhood, and because he despises you, is another thing. The outcome is perhaps equally bad, but I would argue that the moral failure part is worse.
—
This is not to say there are not good, even great, Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, etc physicians practicing in the US. I have had the privilege of working with many. Some are friends, some are mentees, a few have even been (peripheral) mentors (but many STRONGLY tend to look out for “their own” over the rest of us Americans, so far as mentorship and hiring goes). But there are also many bad ones as well. Call me parochial, but if we are going to have bad, sloppy, indifferent doctors, I’d rather be boned by bad American doctors than bad foreign doctors.
—
[1] med school entrance: DEI exists, certainly. But med school is a LATE bar. Let’s stop it at the college level. And if you really want a look into who is TRULY underrepresented, and who is over-represented at the most influential colleges, look up Ron Unz’ seminal piece “The Myth of American Meritocracy”. My God that was an eye-opener. And if you think “Ivy Leagues don’t matter to my daily life”. Fair enough, but consider that, except for Amy Coney Barrett, the Supreme Court justices are all Harvard Law or Yale Law. Elite schools are gatekeepers to power, and it really really matters.
[2] FMGs (there is a more PC term these days, but I don’t remember it. Plus we all say FMGs.) FMGs from western Europe or the UK are not the problem, by and large.
[3,4] Most medical schools are 4 years. First two years strictly classroom, last two “on the wards” meaning seeing patients (under supervision). That’s MD (allopathic) schools. DO (osteopathic) schools are similar. They actually learn a few things that we MDs don’t, but they have different boards, and DO schools are generally less competitive than MD schools in terms of what it takes to get in. You find fewer DOs as academic physicians, also. So far as I personally am concerned, MD and DO are equivalent, but snobbery says different. Some few schools now have 1 year of classroom and 3 years on the wards. And MD/PhD programs are a different kettle of fish. But you still generally have at least 2y on the wards. (And IMNSHO the classroom stuff is about 60% bullshit, especially the first year.)
[5] Residents are MDs (or DOs) and therefore “doctors”. An intern is a first-year resident.
Excellent treatise Mike for those of us viewing this stuff from the cheap seats. Dr. Bells, my early life family doctor (who made emergency house calls), added to hi home, that was his family practice office…always available and competent. He, like many of his ilk, is a tough act to follow, despite medical advances that are supposed to get to a successful treatment “quicker”, and a lot more better meds. But…and it’s the underlying theme…is some people have to meddle, fix what isn’t broken, to, in their jaundiced [demented] eyes, make it more equitable regardless of demographic or proclivity.
Mr. C,
In 1974, I enrolled in a BS.N program as well as training/working as a paramedic and as a nursing assistant in a regional trauma center (we went from 2 choppers to 5 while I was there.
To the point- by the time I walked away from the american “healthcare” system in 2015, it was unrecognizable from the starting point.
I wholeheartedly concur with your general observations. I would list incidents/examples of illegal and unethical medical as well as financial practices by the subset you described but for the fear of some sort of legal recourse against me.
I would like to add, the latest “generation” scare me witless (gen x/z types).
The general response of the “virus scare” helped cement my view on the industry.
I thank G-d daily for generally good health, and being a dinosaur. As to children and grandchildren…
Changing the subject a bit,
Cederq outdid himself today!
His 12 Commandments and gunday I found delight in.
https://bustednuckles.com/
To Mr. L,
I truly appreciate your work, site, dedication to “the cause”.
Also, I hope you read Conservative treehouse being censored due to reader’s comments.
The sun is not the only light being threatened.
Goodday gents
Juan
1: Plan A/Plan B:
Is Chișinău still eyeing that hunk of fertile swamp (it feels belongs to it) between Lacul Razim and that lagoon called the Dniester Estuary? is București?
Perhaps we should ask Vladimir Vladimirovich how he feels about it.
2: ever since I saw a video of white-gowned (paid?) morons dancing to the strains of the “Covid cha-cha” I no longer have a fear of growing older – it ain’t gonna happen. At least the VA is still providing burial benefits.
3: I continue to cavil at your use of the phrase “illegal immigrants” – they are not in any sense of the word(s); they are invaders, by definition.
USS Triggerfish. Shades of the B-24 “Lady Be Good” and the 1970 movie “Sole Survivor”.
Or ever so possibly the 1963 ‘The Thirty-Fathom Grave’.
Appears to be a Virginia class boat in reality. :)
Virginias don’t have periscopes.
But they do have photonic masts. Different technology to achieve the same ends.
Yep.
I did think about that while writing this.
Awesome short story, bu you early BOCOD setters are a problem.
Now that there are female sailors underway, what do they do when conversation shifts to BOCOD coming up? I don’t know, but I do know they have come up with something at least as … locker-roomish.
What happens when the free money stops? Maybe all those “newcomers” will decide to return to their origins?
as long as there’s one liberal with a penny, his or yours, the flow will not stop, and the recipient will not return to COO (country of origin)
Your penny, not his, ask Bernie.
The tale of the Little Red Hen.
Now you have me wondering what happened to the captain of the Triggerfish. Interesting short story and a good lesson on Navy acronyms.
Hippos. I would call that natural selection in action.
Vehicle. As Paul M says put a plow (or blower) on the front and it would be a great addition to the vehicle fleet.
Great short I enjoyed it as it triggered some forty year old memories for sure. Pretty good with the lingo as well not being a real bubble head i might add. Lord knows you did not want to be dink….
SS 237… Well done. Yep, Hippos gonna hippo…
What did Master Chief Bray do, for him to end up in Hell? Because that’s where he is, right?
re the submarine short story, I’m guessing he’s in hell or a bad dream.
several decades ago on a submarine, a shipmate was telling us about a bad dream he’d had that he couldn’t get out of his head. it sounded a fair bit like your story, so real and then something else weird happens and you’re not sure if it’s real or memorex. In the shipmate’s story, he was on Ustafish all by himself while the boat was underway. He kept going all over looking for someone while the boat ran itself, then on the 1MC a voice goes “Dive, dive!” and the diving alarm goes off and he thinks to himself “this is bad” (in a Stephen King book kind of way)
This is why I couldn’t stand English Lit class in HS, always the literal for me (God’s fault for making me with an engineer brain)…whereas the teacher (a good one) wanted the metaphor. I didn’t pick up on what you suggest AT ALL in our Hosts musings…but In my own defense I did whack my head on a shelf in the shop earlier, and even that didn’t fix my bland thinking, save for a few self deprecating choice words.
But he’s not tormented. You might say he’s in a place he considers more comfortable than some other unknown environment.
Some people can’t let go…
I still don’t claim to know what is going on in the story (or what subtext you meant, if any). But from my perspective, not being able to let go is EXACTLY Buddhist Hell.
@Ed: It seems to me that being in a place that should be familiar, but where EVERYTHING continually goes wrong; an existence wherein you are a stranger and a foreigner in your own home, in your heimat, is indeed torment. I don’t know how that squares with Christian or indeed any Abrahamic Hell, but the Master Chief is in a bad place. (If this were YouTube comments, now’s when some jackass would swoop in with “Chill, dude. It’s just a story.” Lieber Gott but YT comments are a cesspool.)
@Paul: I hated high school English class because the emphasis was not on getting us TO think about a story and what it might of meant (if anything apart from a rousing yarn), but we were told exactly WHAT to think. I am reminded of the Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall wherein some gasbag is loudly giving his opinion on the works of Marshall McLuhan, but presenting his opinion as fact, speaking ex cathedra as it were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wWUc8BZgWE
Good sub story today. And Zulu 5 Oscar… well done … so many way to take that… all I could think of was a pilgrim trapped in an unholy land…
Hippos… never trust them…
Thanks, Al. The reader decides…
Great short, LL.
I had a strange dream at sea once. I found myself the only person onboard. The ship was running on autopilot, seas were calm, and the weather was beautiful. I walked all over the ship, and no one but me was onboard.
That’s it….short, boring dream that seemed real at the time.