Ours was kind of interesting to the point that there were around 1070 Pollywogs on board and only about 50 Shellbacks, so really we could do just about anything we wanted on OUR day, which was the day before King Neptune's Party. We caught the Exec. twice and hosed him down. That one I remembered.
Now this was in 1956.
Party #1- This is where we started, lining up.
Party #2- This is where we are running the gauntlet. We had to get down on all fours and crawl through a canvas chute, while the shellbacks and the ones who had already gone through the initiation, beat us on our back through the chute. That wasn't to bad, if you got low enough, but they also had garbage in the chute.
Party #3- This is as we were coming out of the chute and you did get swatted a few times here.
Party #4- This where King Neptune was seated with his family and court. His baby was the Chief of the mess hall. Big heavy set man with a big belly. You had to pay homage to the baby by kissing his belly and if he felt whiskers, you had to go back and do it all over again. Even after shaving several times that morning, he still had a sore tummy afterwards and I heard he had to go to sickbay and have lotion rubbed in.
I didn't get a chance to go on around to other things they had for us to do, like asking if we thought we were a shellback yet. I think no matter what you told them, you got dumped over backyards into a big vat of garbage. Then on to the Operating Room or the Dentist. I was sent to the Dentist. They tell you that you need some teeth pulled and bring out this, I mean really great big needle and squirt red cake coloring into your mouth. I guess to make you thing it is blood.
Then the last place was the Barbershop. The first one that went though got it the worse. Took a pair of clippers and started the back of your neck and went up. They were asked to hold on that since were do to head back to the States shortly. I just got a lock cut off.
After that you were a Shellback
We crossed on Jan. 11, 1956 at Latitude 00-00 Longitude 105-02 E.
Just thought I would give everyone an update on whats going on in Iraq from this combat engineers point of view. We have been in country for about 5 months now. Things seem to be setting into a pattern at this point. I am in the city of Mosul, the third largest in Iraq. We have not done a lot of traditional engineer tasks so to speak. About the limits of doing our normal job include; demolitions, wire and other obstacles. We have been used primarly in an infantry role. Our missions include; escorts, security, patrols (mounted and dismounted), ied sweeps, ied clearance, cache missions (find and destroy), raids, coridon and searches and so on. One bit of excitment for me is that i was just added to Task Force Hawk, which is an air assault mission. We will be inserted by helicopters(blackhawks) to islands and remote spots to look for weapons caches. Some back ground on me. I am a staff sergeant. I am approaching 14 years in the army. I am a squad leader with 8 men under me. One has been sent home because he was shot on one of our missions, but he is recovering fine. Things here go in streaks, a few days and it is quiet and then it gets rough, lots of fighting with the AIF, VBIED's, and IED's. I would like to thank everyone who has sent letters or email and for the prayers for myself, my family and the rest of the troops.
Though he isn't at war, my nephew is on a carrier here in the states and he just sent this to my brother-in-law a few days ago. This is what Andy had to say about the photo he sent:
Hey this is the bird my detachment built from the ground up throughout last
year. This is a pic of it landing on the Ike Eisenhower... love you, Andrew
Just thought I would give everyone an update on whats going on in Iraq from this combat engineers point of view. We have been in country for about 5 months now. Things seem to be setting into a pattern at this point. I am in the city of Mosul, the third largest in Iraq. We have not done a lot of traditional engineer tasks so to speak. About the limits of doing our normal job include; demolitions, wire and other obstacles. We have been used primarly in an infantry role. Our missions include; escorts, security, patrols (mounted and dismounted), ied sweeps, ied clearance, cache missions (find and destroy), raids, coridon and searches and so on. One bit of excitment for me is that i was just added to Task Force Hawk, which is an air assault mission. We will be inserted by helicopters(blackhawks) to islands and remote spots to look for weapons caches. Some back ground on me. I am a staff sergeant. I am approaching 14 years in the army. I am a squad leader with 8 men under me. One has been sent home because he was shot on one of our missions, but he is recovering fine. Things here go in streaks, a few days and it is quiet and then it gets rough, lots of fighting with the AIF, VBIED's, and IED's. I would like to thank everyone who has sent letters or email and for the prayers for myself, my family and the rest of the troops.
