Cold Turkey

Day 296

We were six weeks out, on an eight week patrol, round trip, with no ports of call. Our mission, search and destroy. It was the height of the Cold War. A Russian submarine had been reported off the east Florida coast. We had been searching with only a slight sniff of a signal now and then to show for our vigilance.

After that much time at sea in a submarine, new crew members start to get edgy. The corpsman had two straight jacket restraints on-board just in case of insanity. Crew members had been known to try to open a hatch to the outside while a ship was submerged. Precautions were in place to prevent this from happening but damage could still be done.

 This is the time when the veterans keep an eye out for odd behavior among the new crew members. Things like irritability and lack of personal hygiene were textbook signs of mental instability. But these things tend to happen anyway on a long deployment. Guys get edgy after being away from family members for extended periods of time and it's not uncommon to run out of personal items; toothpaste, shower soap and deodorant.

The laundry facility consisted of one washer and one dryer for the entire crew. There was a schedule of days and times when each division was allowed to use them. Even though the ship supplied laundry detergent, guys would go for a couple of weeks or longer, without washing their clothes due to schedule conflict or laziness. Their uniform would get nasty, even by submarine standards.

At sea uniform for all crew members was a dark blue coverall called a "poopy suit", a one and a half inch wide web belt with gold buckle for officers and a silver buckle for enlisted. Also appropriate insignia's. Shoes, however, were flexible. We could wear any shoes we wanted, military or civilian, as long as they were appropriate.

Civilian athletic shoes were the most popular as they were so comfortable ad allowed us to show individuality while at sea. One of the guys in my division, special ordered a pair of Converse All Stars high tops, in pink. He was a bit of a joker.

When I heard we were going on an eight week patrol, I had an idea. I wanted to quit smoking, so I would only take along enough cigarettes to get halfway through. When I ran out, I would be forced to quit, cold turkey. Genius. Or so I thought.

By week six I had been without cigarettes for about five days. I had changed my mind about quitting smoking and had rationed my last carton to last longer. I had thought I could buy more cigarettes from the ships store, but the new corpsman, had taken over the store and wouldn't stock cigarettes. I begged the few that I could from other smokers, but that gets old fast. I started to check the butt cans for half smoked cigs. Anything I could get a few drags out of, to curb the craving.

If you have ever been around someone who is trying to quit smoking, you know they can be...unpleasant. Now couple that with six weeks in a restricted space with a hundred other guys. You could say I was downright irritable.

While this was happening, the liner had come out of the bottom of my shoes. No real surprise, they were several years old, and I wore them often when I was on liberty in my civilian clothes. I had run out of clean socks and it wasn't my divisions turn for the laundry. I wore my shoes with no socks.

I'm not sure exactly what happened with my shoes. I can only guess that the sweat from my feet soaked into the rubber soles and there must have been a chemical reaction because after a few days my shoes reeked. The idea that something had crawled into my shoes and died was popular on the ship for some time.

I was walking out of the berthing area to take a shower when several bunk curtains were yanked back and I heard a voice ask, "What the hell? Did somebody take a crap in here?"

I quietly sneaked off to the shower, getting strange looks the whole way. I had to lather up twice to get the stink off. The next time I had to lather three times just to deaden the odor. At this point the smell was noticeable even when I was wearing the shoes.

The new corpsman had noticed my behavior and coupled with my apparent lack of hygiene, I was beginning to look like a text book case of claustrophobia waiting to happen.  As I said before, he was new to the ship and had never seen guys at sea for any length of time. Actually, I don't think he had ever been to sea in his twelve year naval career. Anyway, he was in charge of the straight jacket and kept giving me the stink eye.

About this time the ships "A" division had gone through the berthing area looking for a chemical leak or whatever could be causing the intermittent odor, that had become noticeable through the whole forward end of the ship. I was on watch when they did the inspection.

The guys in the berthing area had had enough. When I got undressed to go to bed and had taken off my shoes, the lights snapped on and several of my fellow seamen were standing there with a scrub brush and some of the course laundry soap. They made me shower twice and immediately flushed my shoes out with the trash. I was allowed to do my laundry even though it wasn't my turn.

The corpsman kept an eye on me the rest of the time we were out as I had developed a slight twitch whenever he was around. I just couldn't help it. I didn't like the guy.

I bought some new shoes when we made port. They lasted me the rest of my enlistment. I didn't quit smoking until nine months after I was discharged from the Navy.

Until tomorrow,

Ken