BigDon you tell tales of a macho world aboard carriers, where the strong mock the weak and use violence as a punishment. Do you think that has any connection with the sexual abuse scandals in naval aviation?

There are far fewer scandals there than in the corporate world.

Which thread were you reading?

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Measure once. Cut twice. Power tools are fun.

Howdy Tailhook, welcome aboard.

If you've read the rules and can play nice I don't mind talking.

__________________
"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

But far more publicized!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Hey, BigDon
Did you see the "Jet engine / aircraft carrier question" post by Jens? Looks to be right up your alley!

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Okay, this is a good lead in for the Ordies. That would be the Aviation Ordinancemen.

A closely allied shop. We maintained the communications, ECM, ECCM, navigation and weapons systems, everything between the pilot's trigger finger and the missile itself.

The Ordies assembled, tested, and hung the missiles on the aircraft. Plus they maintained the entire gun system. They are the guys in the red flightdeck jerseys who get eaten by sharks first in a crowd situation. Next are the Senior Aircraft Handlers in their yellow jerseys. There is a very good reason popular fishing lures are these colors. Swim away from them.

Nor should you wear those colors in the ocean in my opinion. I wore a green jersey. Dark blue is another good survivor color.

Now through a weird quirk of personnel, most of the 30 odd Ordinancemen were Southerners. I mean about twentyfive of them, so it was kind of obvious. Even they couldn't explain it. Other than Southeners like blowing <stuff> up so the rate was full of them.

Now before I continue I have to say I've told this story about three times at various gatherings and camp outs and each time some woman would come forward and say, "Where were these guys when XYZ happened", and then procede to tell me some heart wrenching story that pert near made me ashamed to be human, much less male.

Please, I don't want that. I'm not making these guys up like characters in a play. These were them. This is what was rumored to have occured. I try to make it a point to remove exagerations. Less to defend here as we have experts in all walks of life who are more than happy to question an artistic embellishment.

Okay, back to the sea story.

Now you all being the academic and professional types that you are, you may or may not be aware that some men, when away from the authority of home and beyond what they think will ever get back to people they know will sometimes turn into veritable monsters. They may be proficient at their jobs, pass inspections and look ten-hut and four-O. But they were bad people. And sometimes they would "cross the line". Like developing a liking for hurting women, often as a result of overexposure to prostitution.

Now the Ordies had a corp cadre of guys who would be the first to step in on behalf of a woman, often at their request. Sometimes a person just can't go to the police, due to extenuating culpabilties. Sure in a movie on tv if a waitress is out buying cocaine and XYZ happens to her some folks would feel she deserved it. And some men are idiot enough to brag about it. These were the guys who said, "Oh no you did not!"

Mind you off duty, especially overseas, the Ordinancemen partied like Satan's own cabana boys.

It's when some guys crossed the line and tried to make too dark a fantasy come to life that these guys would shut you down. They partied in more intense circles than I did.

Now you might think, "Oh, intolerance!" No, its not like that. But let me give you two examples that I can tell here on a moderated board and you decide.

WARNING! THE LEAD UP IS PAINFUL TO READ, (AND WRITE), BUT NO BAD HAPPENED!

I'm going to take a deep breath and type this out. (Okay, I'll need to get a drink too.)

One of the things that seperated our squadron from our sister squadron was unit cohesion. Not just in the shops, but between the shops as well. In their case they were broken up into bickering subunits that offered no help to each other.

A prime example is when the civilian tech rep who helps both squadrons, but hung out and partied with us, told us that a bunch of E-4s would be pouring over the pubs (wiring schematics, short for "publications") trying to solve a malfuction and he asked the supervisor who he worked on the same problem on another aircraft 3 days earlier why didn't he tell them what was wrong and the supervisor said, "I don't like them."

They were riddled with that.

Along comes our protagonist. This was so brave I'll tell you his name, so the world remembers. AO2 Whittington. If I recall correctly his first name was Dan. I believe he was from Georgia. Ours, not Russia's. He felt if he reached out he might be able to help their Ordies.

So he struck up a friendship with one of their Ordies he knew from the flightline who seemed to know what he was doing, ratewise.

But if you want to know what a man's like you go out and party with him.

(Okay, as a father of daughters and a big fan of the female gender this is the hard part.)

Whittington goes to a party with this guy and a bunch of other VF-24 ordinacemen (Yeah, no cap for them)

This girl fell asleep at the wrong party. In the bedroom being used as a coatroom.

It's about midnight and all the other female guests (and seemingly decent men) have left the party. This major creep comes out of the coatroom and tells the group at large that a woman has fallen asleep in there and wouldn't it be swell if they all had relations with her.

The other scum in the room agreed, that, indeed this would be swell.

There was twelve of them altogether, counting AO2 Whittington.

So they drew numbers out of a hat. AO2 Whittington drew number five, I recall him saying. He said that he turned to the guy who had number one and gave him 50 dollars for the number one spot.

So he went into the bedroom and woke the girl up.

Now as embarrassing as this read is for the guys, women here aren't getting off scott free either. I kid thee not, I have met women who would not have minded. That's what he was trying to find out when he told her what was about to happen.

She started to cry and told him she was only 14.

(Now at this point Whittington himself stopped relating the tale and said there was no way in *Hell* this was happening while he was alive.)

So he tied a loop in a bedsheet and lowered her to street level from a second story window with cabfare home, as her friends had left without her.

(Is anybody learning something here?)

Then he stepped out of the bedroom, crossed his arms and told the room at large what he had done and, "What did they think they should do about it?"

Go ahead and make any kind of ape refferences you want but Petty Officer Whittington had calluses on his knuckles. One of the best pieces of advice your ol' Uncle Don can give you is tread lightly with men who have callused knuckles.

There was a lot of grumbling in the room and the guy who he came with told him in a pouty voice, "I don't think I'm going to give you a ride back to base!" to which Whittington replied, "I don't know you anymore! If you come up and talk to me like you know me, I will beat you to the ground!"

This later started a small war. The Ordies were masters of worming their way into wienieheads' confidence by pretending to be into whatever perversion the jerk of the day was into, and getting him to basically 'fess up. Then the butt whippings commence.

This had to be explained to me once when I overheard it happening. The guy I thought I knew was role playing to get this particular <words fail me, worse than the above lot> who REALLY liked to hurt women, to run his face. Not comfortable telling it here. Had to do with a coke buying waitress.

But the OTHER thing they did that I can kinda tell is when we went to Mombasa, Kenya.

I have to walk a fine line here. But here goes.

The Ordies had heard tale of, and followed up on, the rumor of a white prostitute. It's hard to explain when you haven't seen a female member of your own meme/race/tribe in the better part of a year how deep the longing can be.

The reality, as usual in such cases, was less than charming.

This is what they found.

A couple of IV drug users from Belgium. (Does that make them Belgish? Belginians?) He was 21, she was 16. He was hooking her for drugs. Held her passport so she couldn't leave.

This didn't float for *scat* with the Ordies.

So once again the Ordies feigned joviality, bought the knucklehead his drugs of choice, (they were making do with smoking opium IIRC) food, music, plus they bought a buttload of booze. They knew the plan was ready when the creep was so drunk he wet himself.

The Ordies went into his wallet, got the girl's passport, then 5 ordies hired a taxi and they took her to Nairobi International Airport and SAW to it that she was put on a one way flight to home. Some stuff you just can't allow to continue if it's within your power to stop.

Mr. Pimpdaddy didn't fare so well.

They robbed him blind. They only left him with a set of Ocean Pacific shorts, (urinated in). They took his cloths, his drugs, his gear, the shirt he was wearing, his flipflops, his passport, everything. Sold it all to a friendly criminal who gave them a hundred dollars American for the Belginian passport. He was even moved by their story and set them up with some nice relief pitchers and a small feast.

Mr. Pimpdaddy woke up severely hungover with NOTHING!

I always wanted to ask, could somebody familiar with Mombasa or Kenya in general in the early eighties, tell me realistically what this man's likely fate was?

I think that's all I have for now. It's 3:15 AM my time. I'm a sleepy baby.

BD.

__________________
"The beauty of that discussion of averages is that you don't have to be an expert in Apollo or in photography in order to see where this time study "analysis" breaks down. You just have to be, well...not an idiot." -JayUtah

It depends if you're planning to swim to shore or not.

Shark attacks (fatal ones, especially) are pretty rare, Don. Low-double-digits per year. Drownings are far, far higher. I'd rather be in fire-engine red and give the SAR guys a hand in spotting me.

It depends on how smart and lucky he was. If he was smart, he'd make a beeline for his country's embassy consulate (assuming his country had diplomatic relations with Kenya in the 80s.) Western countries often have some planning in place for helping nationals who get their travel documentation swiped while abroad.

I don't know enough (or anything) about Kenya to give you a realistic guess, but I can say that I'd give odds against survival if he did anything other than seek diplomatic assistance.

Heavy stories, Don.

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[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around

Yeah, I've said before... Sharks don't EAT people.
They just chew 'em up and spit 'em out at the rare times they mistook a human for something edible.

Yeah, I've heard that, to sharks, humans taste absolutely awful. We're so skinny, no blubber at all. It's just not worth the energy to hunt us.

Of course, that's scant comfort to the poor souls who were mistaken for something shark-edible. Once the shark leaves in disgust, the victim still has to survive the shock and blood-loss of a very nasty wound. A "nibble" for a big shark equals an entire human limb.

And BigDon, the adjective you're looking for is "Belgian".

It depends on the shark! Some seem to have developed at least a tolerance for human flesh. Tiger, bull, hammerhead, and great white to name a few. With large sharks, it doesn't really matter to you whether it eats you or just bites off half of you. Either way you're still dead!
Another thing to ponder is that the bull shark is not only large and quite aggressive, but is also tolerant of fresh water. They have been spotted as far up the Mississippi River as St. Louis!

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Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

As a young man of 19, in 1987, I had to serve a year in the Danish Army. I was sent to Bornholm, a small island close to the borders of communist Germany and Poland, and the eastern most part of Denmark.

My outfit was called the Marine Regiment, it was a motorized infantry unit and the only unit in Denmark trained in landing operations, a fact we were proud of, it gave us a special standing among other danish infantry units - And we got to call ourselves "Marines", not a bad thing, if you wanted to brag to your friends.

I think our training actually was harder than most other units recieved in Denmark at the time. And in any case most of us were a long way from home, by danish standards anyway. Friendships formed under such circumstances are something special, and two instances from back then has my good friend Nic in a leading role.

Nic was very good at getting stuff, he had his own special sources. One day, by the end of basic training, he had gotten hold of a gadget they used in tanks for simulating firing the cannon. It was a in fact a small amount of explosive that could be set of by pulling a string. It didn´t look like much, and being the curious person he was, he placed the thing behind a firestation in our barracks and rigged it, so that the next person opening the door to the barrack would set it of.

As luck would have it, this person turned out to be our captain, the highest ranking officer we met on a daily basis. The explosion was quite violent and loud, but somehow muffled by the water in the firestation. All the lamps in a radius of 20 meters from the explosion fell down from the ceiling (cheap plastic stuff). The firestation cracked, spilling 30 liters of water on the floor. A member of our unit sitting next to the door the captain just entered was in a state of shock, but kept his head cool as the captain screamed at him: "What the F... is going on in here" he answered "what do you mean, sir?". Shortly after armed guards arrived, and the search for the sinner started. At least 50 people saw Nic doing his thing, still, the officers never found out who did it. They all suspected Nic had done it, but no one ever confirmed their suspision.

At the end of that long year, on the very last traning session, I was in a ditch with my group, including Nic. He was itching to fire some last rounds of loose ammunition, but it didn´t seem like it was going to happen, in less than an hour the training would be called of and we would be dismissed a few days later.

Our platoon leader, a young Lt. came up to us and asked if we had spotted the enemy (the enemy in this case would be the scout-group, highly trained professional soldiers - We never spotted them, unless they wanted to be spotted). Nic said he was sure he had seen movement in the woods across the field we were overlooking. Total BS, of course, he hadn´t seen a thing. The Lt. was rather sceptical, but at the same time a colonel, evaluating the whole training session, showed up, curious to know what we talked about. The Lt. felt pressured into acting on Nics information. Forward fire positions were arranged together with some mortars. At a signal our whole platoon opened fire on the forrest a few hundred meters away, I remember just firing my gun into the air thinking I might as well hit the enemy that way.

Shortly after we could see movement in that forrest. After a few minutes the entire scout-group came driving out of the woods, beaten by our platoon. We received a very good evaluation from the colonel.

Shark attacks (fatal ones, especially) are pretty rare, Don. Low-double-digits per year. Drownings are far, far higher. I'd rather be in fire-engine red and give the SAR guys a hand in spotting me.

In case you're unfamiliar with the story, you might want to read up on what happened to the USS Indianapolis back in 1945. A lot of sailors were killed by sharks in that sinking.

This thread, where a serviceman was given a task he couldn't physically do and was mocked for it, was given what he regarded as a demeaning nickname, complained and was given another, and his officer washed his hands of one of the men under his care. Or if you prefer the teacher threw the geek back into the schoolyard where the bullies were waiting.

This thread where someone screwed up, arguably because of poor training or supervision, and the Petty Officer's response was a physical assault so severe "to prevent the dislocation of his hip he was forced to spin at the end of his own leg like a wad of cotton candy".

This thread which glories in tales of violence outwith the law as the first and only option for problem solving.

My point is that BigDon is describing with approval the breakdown of military discipline and it's replacement with bullying and intimidation. I then asked whether he could see a connection between the breakdown of military discipline in his unit and breakdowns elsewhere in the navy.

Neverfly, do you have any facts to back up your claim?

DigDon, I'm happy to talk; care to answer my question?

Yes I have served in the military, no I wasn't bullied at school.

This is the military we are talking about. Get tough- or wash out.
It is not Elementary School where someone can hold your hand when you cry.

I don't know if you are current or prior service- but I am.
I've been in combat.
I have shrapnel inside my bady.
I have two bullet holes in me.

And frankly, I am grateful for the bullies in a military setting.

Everyone does not have to 'understand it'.
But they can accept that it is not their way.

Fortunately, he had the wits to spin

I think you are suffering from a misconception there.
But regardless, this thread is discussing a very particular set of circumstances.
BigDon, I've enjoyed this thread greatly. Keep it comin'

Your percieved breakdown is not necessarily a breakdown.
Discipline is discipline and many commanding officers, who are experienced, are well aware of how effective discipline can be. They also manage it better than your perceptions gained from treading a thread on an astronomy forum might trick you into thinking.

I'll accept that challenge- allow me a couple days to do some searching.

You compared apples to oranges in a straw man argument to justify your perceptions.


Prior service then. Most of the folks who have participated in this thread have as well.

Yeah, I know.

But here's the thing: How many of those sailors were wounded and bleeding when they went into the water? (Likely some.) How many of those sailors had insufficient flotation such that they were actively treading water and mistakable for a wounded prey animal? (Again, likely some.) How many were wearing red and/or yellow? (On a WWII era battleship? Very few, if any. As I understand it, even the survival gear was white.)

I'd read up on shark attack research as a kid (I saw Jaws a bit too young, and I was already somewhat hydrophobic, the reading up was the hug I needed), and it suggested (grain of salt, it was national geo, I think, I can't claim first-source to anything peer-reviewed) that blood and splashing were what tended to trigger shark attacks, and based on what I've read over the years, the sinking of the USS Indianapolis could easily have caused the conditions for the frenzy those sailors experienced.

There's certainly room for me to be wrong on the color of the survival gear, but if I am, I'd like to see a cite for it.

__________________
[Dr. Horrible]___________________________[Penny]
Listen close to everybody's heart________And you believe there's good in everybody's heart
And hear that breaking sound_____________Keep it safe and sound
Hopes and dreams are shattering apart____With hope you can do your part
And crashing to the ground_______________To turn a life around