Making Chief Twice
The basic enlisted military ranking structure is nine levels of E1–E9. I attained the rank of E-6 twice, made Chief Petty Officer twice (E-7), Command Senior Chief (E-8) at SEAL Team Three USNR once and eventually retired as a Chief. My promotion / demotion path in the service was not typical by any means. Making chief in the Navy is a big deal and doing it twice is rare. My reduction in rank was a voluntary administrative reduction in rank in order to go back to the regular US Navy.
They would strap you in, arms, and legs then toss a few gallons of ice water on you and ask you, “What is your name”? Well, I admit, I didn’t catch on right away and I told them, “You can call me mister”. Oh my, this was literally jolting and unbelievable. Well after a few jolts while looking at the three judges sitting at the table next to the chair they started placing an egg in my mouth and say “don’t break this egg”. Well that was impossible and after a few more eggs and jolts and I started aiming or trying to aim the squirting egg at the judges. Actually, I realized that if I stayed tensed up (arms, legs, belly, neck and shoulders it wasn’t as bad and the seizures and flinching weren’t as bad, but all the eggs would break anyways.
One of the classes I took while stationed there was Marine Mammal Veterinary Technician School. Three weeks of training and working with dolphins drawing blood, weighing them before and after deployment, doing ultrasound testing, analyzing the blood, inspecting the fish house, and testing the ice machine were some of the duties.
While in disco in Klaipeda, Lithuania a pretty Lithuanian gal was standing next to me with a tall fella. As I set my beer down, she was falling toward me, and I caught her head and neck; the guy she was with just scooped her up and without hesitation and carried her behind the bar. The bar tender was opening an office door, and they both went in and closed the door. The next thing you know the bartender comes back out, grabs her purse and takes it back into the room. He then comes out, takes her mug beer, and wipes the bar down like it was a choreographed routine. They gave her some rohypnal and took her away.
Dolphins are cool and fun to be around. They think of food and sex in that order. We had six inch Hawser ropes, which we called a rub ropes, draped diagonally over the pens. The dolphins would rub on the rope and masturbate as part of their penned up life they thoroughly enjoyed. Everyone wants to visit, and some get to swim with them. They live much longer in captivity and are treated very well. One trick we played on the guys and gals who wanted to swim with them was to have them use a two-piece wet suit where the top has a beaver tail and is put on over the pants and snapped in the front. Once in the water with them, the dolphins would eventually push the swimmer into a corner and start humping on them. It was hilarious.
