God Wore an Orange Cap

Foreward

The enlisted men serving in the U.S. Navy have always been at the mercy of the Officers assigned over them. They have especially been at the mercy of the Commanding Officer of a vessel at sea. In more ways than one this “Officer and a Gentleman” wields the power of life and death, in a sense, as would a God, over the  souls who serve beneath him. Junior Officers sometimes fare little better than the enlisted members of a ships’ crew. The greater majority, if not all of the Captains of Naval vessels, are benign Gods. But every so often one of them is perceived as a wrathful, vengeful, God by those serving beneath him. Please note that the keyword here is “perceived.” There are rules and regulations for the purpose of limiting the power of Commanding Officers of vessels at sea. But like rules and laws everywhere, interpretation is seldom deduced objectively.

In fairness to all who have been entrusted with the awesome responsibility for the safety of a sea going vessel and it’s crew, objectivity is most difficult to maintain under all circumstances. This is a tale of a fictional Commanding Officer for whom objectivity must have seemed just about impossible. It was, after all, his first command at sea.

It is also a tale about some of the ship’s junior officers leading a band of enlisted men in an underground revolt against a Commanding Officer whom they discerned as a petty, seemingly subjective Captain, whose only ambition at the time appeared to be his next promotion.  He keeps most of his junior officers in a state of constant fear, thereby maintaining complete control over them. While it is true that his very rank and position gave him complete control within reason, fear was none-the-less a constant reality for some of the junior officers in the wardroom compliment.

The ship’s mission kept it rotating between thirty days at sea, in the North Atlantic, and ten days in port. At sea, the ship operated some five hundred miles off the east coast of the United States without another ship in sight for days on end and daily 25 to 30 foot seas during the winter months. As such, many of the crew, including some of the junior officers thought that regulations could be more relaxed. However, like Captain Bleigh of HMS Bounty, this Captain kept the crew busy at all times.  Even their off duty hours were, more often than not, filled with compulsory activities. Activities for the wardroom mates were prescribed as well, even on Sunday’s at times.

Like the crew of HMS Bounty, this crew also revolts. (Or is revolting, depending on your point of view) There is no open mutiny to be sure. No one is set adrift in an open lifeboat and the ship is not taken away from the Captain. This is more a comedic revolt where the hit and run, silent, tactics of a few dissidents keeps our Captain busy as a cat trying to cover shit on a tin roof. His new found ambition is to find and destroy those who would dare to challenge his authority by making him the butt of their never ending pranks. Bent on his mission to seek out and destroy these miscreants, God prowls the  passageways and spaces of his domain night and day. Perhaps he thinks himself invisible, as he goes about his relentless searching, but he wears a bright ORANGE baseball cap that announces his approach even in near total darkness.

What follows then is a tragic comedy. There is not a man aboard the U.S.S. Myopia, indeed throughout the entire U.S. Navy even unto this day, who would not give his life for his ship and shipmates, including the Commanding Officer. Tragic indeed that so many, up to a more than reasonable point, will fearfully follow their leadership wearing blinders. Comedic in the lengths to which they will go to protest once they perceive that the reasonable point has been passed.

This tale is pure fiction, based very loosely on fact garnered from tours of duty aboard five ships and a few shore assignments over a twenty-year period.

Any resemblance to actual events, circumstances and people, living or dead is purely coincidental. It is pure and simple satire out of the mind of one whom had to keep laughing as pomp and circumstance throughout a twenty-year career in the U.S. Navy.

Some readers may be offended by the language, but the language is in itself part of the story. It has been labeled “salty” by some, but it is in fact profane. But believe me, it is mild, by comparison to the language used in some civilian jobs, to which any steelworker will attest. Having also been a steelworker, I have no qualms regarding the comparison. To anyone who has ever worked in a steel mill, a conversation between two sailors sounds like a chat between two choirboys when you compare theirs to one between two steel workers.

During the twenty years that I served in the Navy, neither a single member of my family, nor my civilian friends, really understood just what I did in the Navy. They didn’t understand the meaning of the stripes and other insignia on my uniform and they didn’t understand the Navy language. Accordingly, throughout this story, chapter by chapter, I have included parenthetical remarks wherein I have translated from Navalese to Civliianese. (Words in the sailors jargon translated into plain civilian type English) Now, those of you who speak Navy, and those of you who do not, go straight to Chapter I and enjoy a fanciful flight of the imagination on the high seas.