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Question about Life on the Boat

kmac

Coffee Drinker
pilot
Super Moderator
Contributor
Not nearly as cool as these other stories...
One of my favorite GQ memories (or maybe the only GQ memory) was when we were all in our "ready room" (read: closet) playing some Tiger Woods. For whatever reason I forgot it was GQ, so when the knock came on the door I simply cracked it open. A fully-donned Sailor peeked in and saw about 6 of us milling about playing video games. He immediately turned back to his buddies and said "clear" and shut the door. What a great guy!
 

phrogpilot73

Well-Known Member
They are lucky there.. Our mail depended on a broke-ass H3 or us going to get it ourselves..
Speaking of mail, nothing was more enjoyable on the boat than seeing the big smile on Sailors/Marines faces when you land on the ship, lower the ramp and bag upon bag of mail falls out...
 

MasterBates

Well-Known Member
When the mail is jammed in the whole cabin, up the tunnerl, on top of the fuel cell and IN the transistion section, and the crewman has to be dug out, that is a lot of mail. (we did not get mail for ~3 weeks)
 

usmc96

Registered User
On a LHA, every time they would tell us that they dropped a bag of mail in the water when doing a vert rep. and some of us would not recieve mail.

I always knew it wasn't true but was the worst rumor deep down inside when you didnt recieve any letters you had to blame it on the Navy pilots aboard.
 

phrogpilot73

Well-Known Member
On a LHA, every time they would tell us that they dropped a bag of mail in the water when doing a vert rep. and some of us would not recieve mail.

I always knew it wasn't true but was the worst rumor deep down inside when you didnt recieve any letters you had to blame it on the Navy pilots aboard.
Heard that rumor ever mail drop on every deployment...
 

robav8r

Well-Known Member
None
Contributor
I always knew it wasn't true but was the worst rumor deep down inside when you didnt recieve any letters you had to blame it on the Navy pilots aboard.
Yes, it is true. Saw it happen personally on Valentines day, 1984. HC-11 (I think) was doing a hoist transfer to our ship (USS Stein, FF-1065) when their hoist broke. They attempted to throw the mail bags to the flight deck from a low hover. As the 46 was maneuvering to stay in position, it blew two or three of the bags into the water. They ended up putting their swimmer in the water to recover as much as possible, but there were quite a few red envelopes floating in the water. Needless to say, it wasn't a very good Valentines Day for the crew.
 

Pugs

Back from the range
None
As Samuel Johnson observed to James Boswell when the two took a short trip by boat off the Scottish coast,

“No one who could contrive to get himself into jail would go to sea. For going to sea, is like going to jail, except that at sea
you can drown.”

And that was before asinine practice GQ's by the shoe's while we tried to fight a war.
 

H20man

Drill baby drill!
Yes, it is true. Saw it happen personally on Valentines day, 1984. HC-11 (I think) was doing a hoist transfer to our ship (USS Stein, FF-1065) when their hoist broke. They attempted to throw the mail bags to the flight deck from a low hover. As the 46 was maneuvering to stay in position, it blew two or three of the bags into the water. They ended up putting their swimmer in the water to recover as much as possible, but there were quite a few red envelopes floating in the water. Needless to say, it wasn't a very good Valentines Day for the crew.

When we were doing VERTREP with one of the LHDs, they broke off from us all of a sudden and did a 180. We found out a few minutes later that a bag of mail had gone over the side.

Mail is key to morale, and seeing an entire operation stop was amazing.

That was probably the most disappointing cargo loss, runner up goes to melted ice cream.
 

scoober78

(HCDAW)
pilot
Contributor
Hell...It's gonna take some adjustment for me, realizing that I'll actually get mail from someone off the ship while deployed. Ahhh...Valentine's Day on the sub...just you and all those dirty, perfumed letters from MM3 Jones...man that guy could write.:D :eek:
 
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