Fun With Plebes

Every year, the Naval Academy sends their prospective officer corps out to the fleet to see what being out of school and in the actual military is like. They're given positions of pseudo-authority (none of us enlisted guys ever listened to them. It was our chance to give them hell before they outranked us.) and even given jobs to do for their 2-week stay aboard the ship.

As an Operations Specialist, I worked in an area of the ship known as Combat Information Central (CIC or Combat for short). CIC always had direct communications with the bridge due to part of our job being navigation and letting those boneheads upstairs know whether we were going to run into another ship or be attacked by a rogue Cessna.

Our Captain decided to let the Academy Midshipmen sort of, but not really, drive the ship as we pulled into San Diego harbor. This meant one plebe was on the bridge and one was with us in CIC. The guy down in Combat was actually a Marine in training. A good guy, but had zero interest in being on a ship. He figured he'd be leading big grunting men with rifles into combat and that his days at sea would be minimal at best. So we opted to have a little fun with him.

Now a little geography lesson for those of you unfamiliar with our little bay here in SoCal. The harbor is 12 miles long. When entering from the Pacific (as opposed to the Atlantic?), you head north for a bit and do almost a 180 degree turn south to reach the Naval Base. Along the way, you have to pass underneath the Coronado Bay Bridge. Here it is.

Ships pass beneath this bridge every single day with nary a problem. We typically have tugboats tied alongside to help guide us and make the trip a little smoother. But our once and future Marine was unaware of this. Hence, my invention of the Mast Crank.

I told him, "Sir, has the bridge mentioned anything about the Mast Crank?"
"Mast Crank?" he asked. "No, what's that?"

"Sir, it's a crank. And it's for the mast. One of the few things the military made simple. It let's you lower and raise the mast so we don't run into the bridge."

Perplexed, he calls up to the bridge and asks if they have the mast crank ready. Our Operations Officer, a Lieutenant Commander and department head, jumps online and said, "Son, you'd better go get it. It's not up here. Last we heard, it was in in Damage Control Central." So off our little Marine went to DCC in search of the mast crank. Five minutes later he returns with no mast crank in hand. "They said it was in Main 1. Where's Main 1?"

So I take him by the hand and we go down to Main Engine Room number one. Keep in mind that not a single soul on the ship was in on the gig when this all started. It just grew bigger and bigger, everyone getting in on it as they were brought into it.

He asks some of the Gas Turbine Techs if they've seen the mast crank? "Mast crank? Oh, you mean the India Delta Ten Tango? I think it's in the Signal Bridge." (India Delta Ten Tango is ID10T when shortened and spelled out, by the way.) So we head up to the Signal Bridge. Oddly enough, they hadn't seen it either.

We pass by the bridge on our way down stairs and the Ops boss stops us and asks what our progress with the mast crank is. The Marine explains, "Sir, I haven't found it yet, sir. Nobody seems to know where it's at."
At this point, our Captain comes outside. He looks directly at the Marine and says, "Son, if I have to stop this ship because you haven't found the mast crank, you may as well call it an end to your military career," before he about-faces and marches back into the bridge.

The Marine is near tears at this point. He looks at me and says, "Petty Officer Jones, you gotta help me! Where is it? Why does nobody know where such a vital piece of equipment is located? How can you people lose it?"

At about this time, everyone in the bridge is in tears. Hysterical laughter is going on behind us and we can even hear it over the internal phones from CIC. I point behind the ship, at the bridge we've just passed and say, "Sir, it's ok. Maybe there's a future in retail for you."

Who says there's a rivalry between the Navy and the Marines?