Pre-Com Synopsis Department: Rx Author: The Chemist Era: 1975 Date: 01/17/05 What could be better than being an Nuke ELT assigned to Pre-Com on a Bird Farm ?? "Work" from 9-11, then go to the local strip joint (The Foxy Cat) for the rest of the afternoon. Not to mention being housed in a pretty nice townhouse in Newport News on the Navy's tab. The only thing better would have been having the Boatswains Mate wife next door service me at lunch time...oh, wait...SHE DID !!!!

Pete R gets a payback Department: Rx Author: Brian Teifer Era: 1983 Date: 01/17/05 If you were in RX dept in the early 80's you can't help but remember Pete R. He was infamous for many reasons. My most memorable one was this: For several months I would be sitting in the berthing lounge drinking foul RC cola when inevitibly Pete would come down th ladder, snatch up my soda and take a big gulp, followed by "thanks Teif, I needed that". This would piss me off to no end. One Day I was sitting there with my friend Dirk H when I heard Pete Coming. Dirk was a Copenhagen addict and had a RC can he was spitting in. I quickly swapped cans with him. Pete came down the ladder and as always stole what he thought was my soda, took a big gulp and then proceeded to hurl in the nearest shit can. Needless to say he never stole my soda again.

Elves Department: Rx Author: EM3 annonymous Era: 2004 Date: 01/19/05 Often in the navy, suppliers of food stuffs(ie. pepsi and keloggs) will donate things to boost morale. As many of you may or may not know Ike has been in Northrup Grumman Newport News shipyard for the last four years for the RCOH(refueling of the reactors) and in May of 2004 the mess decks reopened for the crew to endulge in the finest cousine 4 weeks of mess school produces. In celebration of the reopening and to raise the spirits of the crew, Keloggs donated life size cut outs or Tony the Tiger and Ernie the Kebler elf proudly standing at attention, saluting the crew. With RX on rotating shift work, working 11+ hour days and the rest of the crew in an 8 section duty rotation, never at work later than noon, the supply dept.'s prized card board figures dissappeared without a trace. There were actually entries in the ships' POD requesting any information about the whereabouts of our beloved cartoon characters. Weeks passed with no leads and topside morned the loss, eventually accepting the fact that they would never again see they only thing keeping them going with there grouling work load. But ask any Rx Electrian and they would have gladly shown you 2 SWGR's escape trunk where Ernie happily called home until RSE(Reactor safegaurds exam) in August when he was discovered by members of our chain of command that lack the humor of RE Div. Oddly enough there was an addition made to his little elf polo over the right breast pocket, in 4" bold permanent marker the leters "IB". No one has been able to figure out its significance, but made some day, someone out there will be able to shead some light into its meaning. Until then stay classy Eisenhower.

Chief's Mess Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1982 Date: 01/19/05 Right outside of our division office (RM Div) was a small elevator used to transport food destined for the Chief's mess up from the bowels of the ship. The mess cranks would stage the boxes of food right outside our office on their way down to the mess. Frequently we would raid this treasure - mainly for the cans of fruit and other delicacies. The rest of the food, we would vandalize ... sparring practice with boxes of eggs, jumping up and down on palettes of bread, etc. When the mess cranks finally opened up the boxes down in the chief's mess, they were no doubt surprised that half the food missing and the other half ruined... 5 or 6 of us would gorge ourselves on the fruit and end up throwing most of it away. Not that we really disliked the chiefs... but after all, they did represent "the man" so it was great being able to get the best of them every once in awhile.

Hangar Deck Larceny Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1982 Date: 01/19/05 When IKE was gearing up for a cruise, the hangar deck would be packed with mountains of supplies waiting to be distributed to the various divisions. If these piles were guarded at all they were guarded by at the very most one sailor and I am sure he was very disinterested in his job. Thus, it was fairly easy to raid this treasure. The problem was that most of the boxes were unmarked so one had to smuggle it out of there to find out what was in it. My most lucrative heist was a box of 2000 pairs of ear plugs... You would think the Navy would want to protect our hearing but the whole time I was aboard it was always a hassle getting earplugs. This box was a Godsend. Instead of cramming the same dirty, greasy earplugs in our ears time and again, thanks to me, we had nice fresh clean ones whenever we so desired.

Berthing Thief Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1983 Date: 01/19/05 One time on my way back to berthing, I was corraled by the Master at Arms force and held with a bunch of other sailors outside of berthing. I could see down the ladder that the lights were off and a purple glow was eminating from berthing. Turns out that a sailor(MM2 Koster) had complained to the MAA about a thief - so they had set up a sting operation with him. They dusted money in his wallet with a powder that would glow under ultraviolet. When it turned up missing, he called them and they showed up with their ultraviolet lamp. So we all had to go down one at a time and hold our hands under this light. All of us were clean but.... Person after person in RE div turned up positive - turns out they were painting 4th deck and the paint on their hands had the same glow as the powder. Afraid we never caught the thief. And no one thought too much of my idea of throwing the entire RE divsion in the brig just to make sure.

Navy Showers Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1980 Date: 01/20/05 When I first reported aboard the IKE, the heads had normal showers. But in the yard period before one of our cruises (the IO I think) the shower heads were replaced by a 2 foot black hose with a white spray head. To get any water flow (actualy more like a mist), one had to constantly depress the button on the spray head. Having to hold your arm over your head and keep the button down for the entire shower was a royal pain (which was the idea I'm sure - get us to quit using as much water). In very short order, someone discovered that the shower curtain clips made great clamps that could keep the button pressed. We could then prop the spray head up in the shower and sort of take a normal shower. Everyone's shower kit now included soap, towel, and the curtain hook. The downside was that with all the curtain clips stolen, the shower curtains were all held up with only 1 or 2 clips. You still could get written up if the MAA timed you in the shower longer than a certain amount...

Water Hours Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1983 Date: 01/20/05 Priority use of water was: (and I think this is correct) 1) The Reactors 2) The Catapaults 3) Airdales endlessly washing their damn planes! - Enough already!!! 4) If there was any water left, the crew got to take showers. Periodicaly, we'd get put on water hours - which meant 2 hours of water a night - so most of us went without showers. Ever notice the ELTs never seemed to complain? - they would just make free use of the Decon shower. Once, we had a major water shortage thanks to the nukes in 1 plant. They were painting the bilge and had rigged the vents for some pumps with tygon tubing. Without getting too specific, the end result was that they contaminated just about every Reserve Feed tank with bilge water... which meant 1 plant was close to being put out of commision. After a hell of a lot of work and wasting many thousands of gals of water - they figured out the problem. The ship was on water hours a hell of a long time while they tried to make up the lost water.

Chuck and Battle Dress Department: Rx Author: Anonymous Era: 1975 Date: 01/22/05 This stoy supposedly took place on the Med cruise 94-95. There was this electrcian named Chuck that was a complete loser. Well one day he was inline at the ships store. He had to take a dump, so instead of getting out of the long line he set battledress on his pants and shit himself so he wouldn't lose his place in line. He asked those in front of him if he could go in front of them b/c he crapped himself.... If that wasn't bad enough he had the audacity to put those clothes in the laundry. Of course they were found by some unsuspecting person loading up the laundry. They endedup in a ziploc bag placed on top to the TV in the lounge. Its amaizing he thought it was okay to put them in the laundry. Me I had bowel problems and I may have truley cristened my poopy suit but I hand washed that sucker and never thought about putting it in the laundry for some poor soul to put his grubby mits on it.

Speaking of bodily functions... Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1983 Date: 01/22/05 An MM1 in Rx berthing (by the name of T-Bear) had a very weak stomach and would frequently vomit after coming back from liberty. T-Bear was on the top rack and instead of being polite and blowing chow by blasting it out through the curtains, this guy turned inboard and threw up against the partition between the racks. The puke then dripped down the partion, anointing the 2 racks beneath him. I can just picture the poor occupants of those racks - Talk about a rude awakening... imagine being awakened by someone's vomit slithering past mere inches from your face! People delighted in getting T-Bear sick - One time in Athens, T-Bear was very shit-faced. His drinking buddies (the Noodle gang) had just been eating pickles. I'm not sure if the word "Yammas!" is a Greek toast - but they seemed to think so. Anyway, someone handed T-Bear the jar of pickle brine and then they raised their beers and called out "Yammas!"