44 years ago today, I passed from
Larry Fry
[subject]
Friday, August 24, 2018, 19:40 (2936 days ago)
the world of slimy polliwogs to the exulted status of Honorable Shellback in the realm of King Neptune..... All you Navy folks ought to know what that means, a full day of torture to remove the slime and have holiday routine at the same time. Fun in Uncle Sam's canoe club.
Not Navy (Army 69-78) but my
Grover Sr
[subject]
Friday, August 24, 2018, 19:50 (2936 days ago) @ Larry Fry
Cousin was USN and had some extremely entertaining pictures of his Shellback day of "torture" that he was extremely proud of. Congrats and thanks for your service!
My cruise book for that cruise has a
Larry Fry
[subject]
Friday, August 24, 2018, 22:29 (2935 days ago) @ Grover Sr
whole section devoted to the crossing of the equator and the mystic ceremonies that were incurred in crossing. LOL It was a lot of fun and I still have my certificate from King Neptune certifying that I am a Shellback. Found it while cleaning up a section of my garage to try and find some of my GNR cartridge reloading equipment that I had to put up for a while. It brought back a lot of memories good and bad.
My son did that in 93. Pretty special.
SPB
[subject]
Saturday, August 25, 2018, 05:57 (2935 days ago) @ Larry Fry
- No text -
USS Lang (FF-1060) March 1981!
Larryh
[subject]
Saturday, August 25, 2018, 04:16 (2935 days ago) @ Larry Fry
Remember it very well! Our XO was a wog and wimped out! What a day that started out just after midnight and ended late in the day! Those days are gone now, no more like we had to go through Larry! My last WestPac was in 1996 and the “Shellback initiation” was a mere handshake! The 1200 Marines onboard were not allowed to participate nor watch! CPO INITIATION IN 1987 Was even worse! That’s a closely guarded secret held only by those initiated CPO’S. That is all gone now too! I miss it!!!
USS TATTNALL DDG19 Aug 24th
Larry Fry
[subject]
Saturday, August 25, 2018, 10:23 (2935 days ago) @ Larryh
1974, Our XO and Skipper were WOGS and both went through the ceremony....LOL CPO Initiation was interesting, string tied to a brick, blindfold and the string tied to a strategic part of your anatomy. Blindfolded and told you must withstand the pain without screaming like a boot!!! Cut the string and drop the brick.... Gold Brick at that LOL not to tell any tales of the Goat Locker. Back then we did not worry about all the PC crap that the senior leadership has imposed on the Navy. I suspect the next conflict will straighten out a lot of that BS. When the bullets are flying, missiles launched and torpedoes in the water (like in the Med in 1975) butts are puckered and somehow all the BS doesn't seem to matter. We were told our life expectancy was 12 minutes from the initiation of hostilities.