Yeah the oxy masks, not to mention - do you remember the old OBA's for fire fighting??? Cursed devices, those damn things...
Onshore fire departments had Scott Packs for decades before the NAVY finally used up their last stocks of canisters for those things.

I'm not criticizing Jim - I flat out (F)ing applaud the spirit! You know the old barracks at Miramar used to be surrounded by barbed wire topped chainlink and the only way in or out was across the central quarterdeck where all residents had to show an ID.

~But that didn't stop us from chucking "liberated" pallets over the back fence and having bonfires in the courtyards....

I wonder whatever happened to the surviving members of the NAS Miramar "Stir-Fry Society"? It began when a buddy of mine saw me cooking over a hibachi with a WOK in one of the courtyards - we were not allowed to have any personal microwaves or hot plates in the barracks, but a small barbeque was okay.

A WOK can be used with very little fuel to cook any of several kinds of ways - and it beat the crap out of the base galley! (Mostly run by Phillipinos)
While other fine young ladies and gentlemen suffered Beef Adobo, Chicken Adobo, and finally Pork Adobo (which we were SURE was the leftover beef and chicken from the previous days) those of us in the SFS were eating Chow Mein, Stir Fried Shrimp and San Joaquin Valley Veggies, we explored "Serve Yourself SHISHKEBAB" - you picked a skewer and stacked what you wanted on it - with peppers, marinated beef, pearl onions, and cherry tomatos. Then you laid it on one of the grills...

All of this with generous amounts of cold beverages of all sorts, chilled in a six inch deep layer of ice in one of the rooms shower stalls.
It was because of us that the quarterdeck wouldn't let people get ice out of the ice machine they had down there with SHOPPING BAGS anymore

In '86 I think it was - I was checking out to go on cruise onboard USS Carl Vinson and I was told the BPO was looking for my sorry self. Something to do with a large fire on one of the drain gratings the night before - they said I SPECIFICALLY was SEEN... So I said I would be right there, as soon as I was done with my current tasking (which was to turn in my room key, and hike my butt to the flightline with my seabag)

Funny about that, when the ship pulled back in it seems there was a new BPO who knew nothing about it...

Miramar back then (aside from transient A/C) was F-14, F-5, A-4, and E2-C. The odd planes were attached to TOP GUN. They used smaller fighters to simulate the bad guys.

I'm guessing the C-9's were based elsewhere

 

Armed to the teeth. "Special operational parameters" while working in Iran and Pakistan. Lol and being a rebel, blending in, everything helps.

Mk-50s (quick wiki lookup):" The Mk 50 was intended to replace the Mk 46 as the fleet's lightweight torpedo. Instead the Mark 46 will be replaced with the Mark 54 LHT."

I didn't know you were so young.

So is it a Fu Manchu?

Edit: A Van Dyke? Anyway, good face hair.

 

I need to add this to the above story -
A WOK requires a high heat level to work best.

What we eventually "grass roots engineered" was that an empty five gallon steel can (typically a wax can) could have the top cut out (perfect fit for a traditional round bottomed wok), and holes drilled around the bottom. This contained the heat of the coals and reflected it back inside so that it became SO HOT that there was absolutely no residual smoke from the charcoal - it was entirely consumed

These things got so hot and worked so well we named them "AFTERBURNERS", because they burned up any residual fuel from whatever you chucked into them to burn, in other words they were "SMOKELESS"

* A few holes had to be cut around the top to let exhaust out.

Basic principle:
They drew air in the bottom, heated it, and let it out at the top. The hotter they burned, the more air they drew in, so the hotter they got, and so on, and so on... The damn things were pure genius, I poop thee not!
They were forced air furnaces made out of discarded five gallon buckets

*Bernoulli's law had nothing to do with it, it was pure pyrodynamics

 

Dutch, those A-4s were neat little birds, i'd think of a mosquito every time I saw them amongst the bigger planes. But they packed a punch. We didn't carry any after about '74(?), F-4s either, a-7s either. F-14 was taking over most tasking.

Yea OBAs sukd. Heavy, dangerous, took up a lot of storage space.

All the BBQ talk got me hungry.

 

Hey you know what?

We should have written all of this in a Sea Stories thread. Or something like that....

 

Good idea. Most of it is Westpac so far. It's hard to keep on topic sometimes when the fun memory bone starts tickling with sea stories. We've got plenty of room here in VZ

 

Maybe start a thread titled: "RIOTOUS and GOOD OL' TIMES"?

Sounds about right to me...
A "CATCH ALL"
An "OTHER"...

And you know, a lot of service folks do good things for the communities around them. They volunteer for all kinds of stuff (more so lately, so they can list it on their evals).

But people in the wider world never ever hear about that kind of stuff

 

Yes, some articles about the good volunteer work organized. The Navy/Marine vols here really help a lot to cut brush, paint, maintain the local county dog and cat shelter, Meals on Wheels, Habitat for Humanity. Good stuff.

I'm off to bed, like to see and hear first light come up in the mornings

 

I think I have the "VOLUNTEER" thread well wrote, see what you can dream up about an alternate "STORIES" idea

Sleep tight - don't let the Democrats bite

 

The crew pic was from 73-74. I copied it out of our Cruise Book so it isn't the greatest. I actually had a full beard, but it really doesn't show up well in the photo. Chin is kind of bare do to a cold weather "accident" a few months earlier in Adak. (When in the arctic, if it itches, for gawds sake don't scratch it!)

Only "visited" Miramar three times Dutch and never for more than a day or two at a time. The one time I can't even remember why we were up there. Might have been an aircraft fire fighting course or something. The other time was when I got my initial ejection seat quals. Had to go through the hemorrhoid packing school before I could fly in the TA 4, A-6, F-4 or the A-3's. The 3rd time, we don't talk about much.

 

Roger that

 

ALL HANDS please stand and salute a new veteran to the FORD LEGION:

04superduty6.0

 

Welcome to the Vetzone and FTZ, 04superduty6.0

Crap Dutch, ALL HANDS blaring out when i opened the thread sounded like we were heading to GQ or a fire.
*drinks more coffee to calm down*.

 

Welcome to our own little version of the Band of Brothers 04superduty6.0!

Ah shucks Rex, Dutch can't help it, he just misses his Boatswain's Pipe!

 

That got me rolling in the chair laughing, i can imagine the sounds an AT1 would make with a bo'suns pipe... it'd be to a tune of The Boss