In The Navy (On the Boat), Part 15

Getting back to Qualifying, I worked on this as much as I could during this run, but we soon had no spare time for such things. I will acknowledge that I was able to get help from every Division and will be eternally grateful for that assistance. I got a lot of signatures, but didn’t finish my “Quals” until another run. I can go over the tail end of the process though.

Once you get all of your signatures for a group of systems, there is a review that is done and signed off on by a Chief or Senior Petty Officer. Once you have completed all of the signatures, you typically get a pre-test Board. It can be a few different people or just one Qualified person, usually more though. This identified any weaknesses and gives you time to re-study if needed. Once you are ready, you go before a Qual Board. It will have an Officer, at least one Chief and sometimes a Senior Petty Officer. Mine had all three.

We sat down at the table in the Chief’s quarters (one of the rare times I had entered here) I had question after question hurled at me. There was paper for me to make diagrams if asked. There were a lot of ventilation and air systems questions, which were tough. I had to diagram the reactor system, which was easy. I liked learning all the Nuke stuff.

In short, I passed and was awarded my Dolphins!
https://www.mysticarmynavy.com/images/DecalSubDolphin.jpg

The Silver are Enlisted and the Gold are for Officers. This was great and everyone was really happy for me, or just happy that they now get one chance to clock me.

The tradition of getting your Dolphins is; once you have them pinned on by the COB, any other Qualified person on board gets to “Tag” them. That means punching you directly on the chest where the Dolphins are attached to your shirt. Some guys took this sadistic tradition to heart and even if they liked you, hammered you. Other pranksters would pretend like they were going to sink the Dolphins into your ribcage, but actually only tapped them. Depending on how many people had already hit you, a tap can be as bad as a full punch, because you would be sore anyway.

Ya know those little American Flag pins that have the sharp shaft with a metal fastener at the back? That is what these have two of. It is certain that you will be bruised badly. It is probable that you will be bleeding. It is possible, you will need stitches. I just had a little bleeding, but it hurt for days. A few days or weeks could go by before someone from back aft noticed you had your dolphins and tag you completely out of the blue. It eventually stopped.


One of the new messengers in the Control Room was this guy, Eckman. He was blonde, had glasses and was the kind of kid you figured would excel in Chemistry, but suck at wood shop. I never got to know him well enough to find out what his deal was, but I will say he was naïve. Seemed like a nice enough guy too.

One day as I came up to take over the watch, JT was sweeping up (a must at the end of every watch) and Eckman came over to our side of the room, for some reason. John, looked at him and looked around the left side of his head and said “Your ear’s Blue.” Then John went back to sweeping.

Eckman was baffled, he got John’s attention and asked him what he was talking about. He just said back “Your ear’s Blue.” And pointed at the left side of Eckman’s head.

The messenger was baffled now and I was trying not to laugh. His ear was not Blue and he had just come on watch, so he couldn’t run to a head to look in the mirror. Some background on this; It is a common prank in the Navy. A substance called Prussian Blue is normally used to die metal so you can scribe it before you cut or mill it. The prank is putting some on the periscope eyepiece or on a headset. Whoever uses it, gets a blue shiner or blue ear…for days.

So Eckman looks at me very seriously and asks “Is it Blue?”

“Yes, it is.” I replied.

Now the kid is flustered and he goes back to the Dive station and askes the Chief of the watch too. It’s darker over there, so he looked for a long time before saying “Your ear’s Blue”.

Eckman was visibly upset now and asked everyone around, the Quartermasters, the Nav ETs and everyone said yes.

The Captain came in to look at our location on the Nav charts, we were heading North to our target “patrol zone”. Eckman walked up to the Captain as he was heading forward to leave and asked mousily “Captain, sir. Is my ear Blue?” craning his head to the right.

“Yes, your ear is Blue” the Captain replied, even looking around at Eckman’s left ear. Then he walked out. I almost peed my pants trying to hold back the laughter, we all were. I have to give the kid credit, I had never had not yet had chance to address the Captain one on one like that. Once Eckman was relived of watch or had to go wake someone up, he ran out of the Control Room, probably to the Head (the bathroom) to see for himself in a mirror.

He came back into the Control Room after a few minutes and quietly told each of us that we were liars. I told him it was a joke and to not be mad. We were stuck in this tube for a long time and have to do something to break the monotony. It took him a while, but be understood this eventually. He was a good guy.