Fleet sailors, those who actually serve aboard ships have different ways of doing things than shore duty Navy men. Although the vocabulary is similar there are some differences.
You see unlike other military services like the Air Force or the Army the Navy attempts to change your entire vocabulary. For example simple things are called by different names in the Navy. Like there are no floors, they are decks, walls are bulkheads, ceilings are overheads, stairs are ladders, even on shore duty.
Also where a civilian would say, "pull in that rope."
a sailor would say, "Haul in that line."
The only ropes on board a ship are steel cables and they are called. "Wire Ropes." All things you would call ropes are, in the Navy, lines. There is no such thing as a cabinet on board ship, it is a locker and the dinning room is called the mess decks. This goes on ad nauseum.
There are some terms that are unique to the navy. Such as, "Gedunk," Gedunk is basically snack food and the place you can buy snack food. The Marines call it pogie bait.
There is a term known as, "Comshaw." Comshaw is obtaining something outside of official channels or payment, usually by trading or bartering. But it is also, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.
As a cook in the fleet I was in an unique position. I was in charge of a lot of things others wanted or needed to make their life at sea easer.
The galley work was divided into two teams, or "watches." These watches were designated as the Port and Starboard watches. So my watch, the starboard watch, would say, get up at 0700 on Monday. Have breakfast and go into the galley just as the Port watch was cleaning up from cooking and serving the crew's breakfast meal. Most of the time, though not required to, we would help them clean up. This served two purposes, it helped the team we were relieving to get the hell out of there. And we had a chance to set the galley up the way we wanted it. We would then start preparing and cooking the noon meal. This was called port and starboard duty. The cooks were the only division on board ship to work port and starboard.
After the noon meal we would finish cleaning up tha galley and start on dinner. Dinner was served starting at 1600 when most sailors got off work for the day. Given that we had 530 men in our crew plus the Admiral's flag and the band we were feeding some 600 men. It took a long time to run all those guys through the chow line. And the mess decks would not hold all of our regular crew at one time let alone all the extra men with the Admiral and band. The chow line would have to be held up so men could finish their meal making seats available So most of the time we wouldn't secure the galley until 2100.
The starboard team would often hit the rack early, unless we had some little white pills to keep us awake. But that wouldn't happen often as we had to be up at 0400 or 0500 to start the breakfast meal. After we secured breakfast the port watch would take over the galley and the starboard watch would be off work until 0700 the next morning.
The galley was divided into two areas; the actual galley, where the food was prepared and the chow line. At mealtime the crew would pick up a stainless steel sectioned tray at the forward end and move forward along a steam table that had stainless steel inserts filled with food we had prepared. Cooks or workers would portion out the food into the sections of the crew members tray. The menus were written up by the chief petty officer cook for each meal.
A lot has been said about how bad military chow is but from the chief on down we really tried to prepare and serve good tasting, appetizing and nutritious meals.
When men are at sea the work is usually hard and they are confined to a big metal box. You are stuck on board. So meals are about the only thing to look forward to. We were very aware of that, hey we were all in the same boat.
The crew were funny. If they came through the chow line bitching and complaining about the food we all laughed and joked along with them. But if they came through silent, and sullen. We knew we had fucked up. Fortunately that didn't happen that often.
On top of Working port and starboard the watch that worked lunch, dinner and breakfast also had to designate a "duty cook," who had all the keys to the galley, store rooms etc. and was responsible if something came up. Sometimes there will be special work parties that happen after normal working hours. Like ammunition or stores would arrive by truck late in the evening and the deck-apes would need to get up and load it into the ship. Normally the officer of the deck would grant midnight rations to the work party and the duty cook would be called to russel up some chow for them. This didn't happen very often so duty cook was mostly a formality.
We were at sea in the Caribbean I had the duty cook and the big wad of keys. I was fast asleep at 0200. Somebody was shaking my rack saying, "Stew, stew." Stew is a nickname for cook it is short for "stew burner"
I woke up and the guy shaking my rack was the chief boatswain mate.
"I said hi boats (all bowsain mates are called boats) what's up?"
He says, "My guys have been working for hours handling ammunition. We finished fast and the OD wont authorize mid rats. He said we didn't work long enough."
I said, "Boats your first mistake was asking the fucking OD. In the future come to me, man. Give me a some time and send your crew down to the chow line."
I went down to the galley sliced some horse-cock (salami, Bologna in Navy parlance because they come to us in huge bulk sausages) Opened up the milk machine. And there is always coffee on the mess decks 24/7 I made fresh. Sliced some cheese, broke out the white bread, mustard and mayo. Opened a few cans of baked beans and heated them up. Spread it out on the chow line. Salami and Baloney sandwiches are always a big hit especially when the crew can build their own sandwiches. The boats came down saw what was going on and all he did was smile and went up the ladder to his rack. When the guys had their fill I cleaned up and hit my own rack. Nothing was ever said about it. It was just between me and the boats. Nobody could get in trouble.
As far as duty cook went we would rotate the job amongst the watches so nobody had the duty all the time. One of the members of my watch was an older man, a second class petty officer named John handy, and our watch captain. He was in charge of our starboard watch.
The Navy loves it when someone is in charge of shit. If something goes wrong then they can land on someone. You know have somebody to blame.
John was in his mid thirties with a wife and two kids back in Norfolk. Given that in most of the countries in South America prostitution was a legal profession he knew full well the temptations that would present. He was also a veteran of many of these cruises so he had been to all the ports of call several times.
So he proposed a deal to me he said that he would take all my duty cook watches in port if I would stand his watches at sea. I was young and I was anxious to see and experience everything there was in all the ports.
John really liked to sleep uninterrupted at sea. It was a perfect deal. Not much happened duty cook wise at sea. The bonus was that the other cooks could see I could handle responsibility even though I was young. We kept that deal through out all three South American cruises I made on the USS Norfolk.
Usually we would start our South American cruise sailing around the Caribbean's many ports of call. Hey this was the Spanish Main of pirate fame. It was awesome the Caribbean is a magical place. Warm weather, warm water and sunsets that would knock your socks off.
In the Navy time off the ship was called, "Liberty." In the Army, Marine Corps, and Air Force time off base was called a "Pass," like a week end pass. Also, in the Navy, when you were on liberty you were, "On the beach." whether there was a beach or not.
We landed in St Thomas, Virgin Islands. The port there was too shallow for the Norfolk to moor at the pier. So we anchored off the harbor a bit and the deck apes launched and piloted "liberty" boats ferr the crew from the ship to the dock. Because we were running boats liberty was cut short. The last boat left from the pier to the ship at 2330.
Well, I had been sitting in a bar near the harbor pretty much all day and evening and I was shit faced drunk. I realized that last boat was heading back to the ship was at 2330 and I was way late. I got to the end of the pier in time to see the last boat fifty yards off heading back to the ship. I was sunk. If I was late getting back from liberty all kinds of punishments loomed.
Then I noticed someone standing next to me. It was the chief boatswain mate.
"Missed the last boat Stew?" he asked.
"Yeah Boats I did, and I am in deep shit."
"No you didn't. " he smiled.
I heard the sound the sound of a powerful motor rumbling in the tropical night air and the Captain's Gig pulled up in front of me on the dock.
"Climb aboard," Boats said. And I did.
This was a beautiful boat that was used by the ship's captain exclusively, so that he doesn't have to ride with us enlisted peons. It was also a very powerful boat and the deck ape hit the throttle hard. The boat caught up with and passed the last liberty boat and I got aboard the ship before the sailors on the last boat and way before liberty call ended . As I was climbing out of the gig the deck ape smiled and said, "Boats said I was to get you on board as fast as possible. He said you would understand." and I did.
One of the main rules of Comshaw is never ever forget a solid someone does for you. Because there WILL come a time you can return the favor.
That is why it works so well.