HAPPY BIRTHDAY....80th BARBARA ANN HASTINGS

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ALL HANDS, NOW, HEAR THIS....

EXCUSE THE LANGUAGE, AFTER ALL,THEY ARE SAILORS!!  "THE FIVE MOST DANGEROUS THINGS IN THE US NAVY" A Seaman saying "I learned this in Boot Camp..." A Petty Officer saying "Trust me, sir..." An Ensign saying "Based on my experience..." A Lieutenant saying "I was just thinking..." A Chief chuckling, "Watch this *!#%..." NOW THEY TELL ME During a commercial airline flight a Navy Chief was seated next to a young mother with a baby in arms. When her baby began crying during the descent for landing, the mother began nursing her infant as discreetly as possible. The Chief pretended not to notice and, upon debarking, he gallantly offered his assistance to help with the various baby-related articles. When the young mother expressed her gratitude, he responded, "Gosh, that's a good looking baby...and he sure was hungry!" Somewhat embarrassed, the mother explained that her pediatrician said breast feeding would help alleviate the pressure in the baby's ears. The Chief sadly shook his head, and in true US Navy fashion exclaimed........ And all these years I've been chewing gum. NAVAL OFFICERS and NAVY CHIEFS A group of Chiefs and a group of Naval Officers take a train to a conference. Each Naval Officer holds a ticket. But the entire group of Chiefs has bought only one ticket for a single passenger. The Naval Officers are just shaking their heads and are secretly pleased that the arrogant Chiefs will finally get what they deserve. Suddenly one of the Chiefs calls out: "The conductor is coming!". At once, all the Chiefs jump up and squeeze into one of the toilets. The conductor checks the tickets of the Naval Officers. When he notices that the toilet is occupied he knocks on the door and says: "Ticket, please!" One of the Chiefs slides the single ticket under the doors and the conductor continues merrily on his round. For the return trip the Naval Officers decide to use the same trick. They buy only one ticket for the entire group but they are baffled as they realize that the Chiefs didn't buy any tickets at all. After a while one of the Chiefs announces again: "The conductor is coming!" Immediately all the Naval Officers race to a toilet and lock themselves in. All the Chiefs leisurely walk to the other toilet. Before the last Chief enters the toilet, he knocks on the toilet occupied by the Naval Officers and says: "Ticket, please!" Moral of the story? -- Officers like to use the methods of the Chiefs, but they don't really understand them. MASTER CHIEF AND 3 LIEUTENANTS One day, a Master Chief went to the Officer's Club with his Captain to eat lunch. When they entered the main dining room, they found the place was crowded. They did notice three Lieutenants sitting at a table with two empty chairs, so the Captain asked them if they could join them. They promptly invited them to join them. They ordered lunch and joined them in conversation as they ate. At one point, the Master Chief mentioned he had observed characteristics about many officers from which he could determine the sources of their commissioning. The Lieutenants were eager to hear about this and asked if he could tell how each of them had been commissioned. The Master Chief turned to the Lieutenant on his left and said he went through ROTC. The Lieutenant confirmed that was correct and asked how he had noted this. The Master Chief replied that the Lieutenant, through his conversation, seemed to have a strong academic background but limited military experience. The Master Chief then told the Lt on his right that he had gone through OCS with previous enlisted service. The Lieutenant confirmed this was correct and also asked how he had determined this. The Master Chief said, again through his conversation, that the Lieutenant seemed to have a firm military background and a lot of common sense. The Lieutenant across the table from the Master Chief asked if he had determined his source of commission. The Master Chief replied that the Lieutenant had graduated from the United States Naval Academy . The Lieutenant stated that was correct and asked if he had noticed his high level of intelligence, precise military bearing, or other superior qualities acquired at the United States Naval Academy . The Master Chief replied that it was none of these that led to his determination. He had simply observed the Lieutenant's class ring while he was picking his nose. ROUTE TO BECOMING AN ADMIRAL Three men are sitting stiffly side by side on a long commercial flight. After they're airborne and the plane has leveled off, the man in the window seat abruptly says, distinctly and confidently, in a low voice, " Admiral , United States Navy, retired. Married, two sons, both surgeons." After a few minutes the man in the aisle seat states through a tightlipped smile, "Admiral , United States Navy, retired. Married, two sons, both judges." After some thought, the fellow in the center seat decides to introduce himself. With a twinkle in his eye he proclaims: "Master Chief Petty Officer , United States Navy, retired. Never married, two sons, both Admirals." SEAMANSHIP TEST One time during the underway watch the OOD decided to test a Chief Petty Officer's seamanship. "Chief, what would you do if the forward watch fell off the side of the ship?" "Easy, sir, I'd call 'Man Overboard' and follow the Man Overboard procedures." "What would you do if an officer fell overboard?" "Hmmm," The Chief said, "Which one, sir?" A WISE OLD MASTER CHIEF ONCE SAID A young Ensign approaches the crusty old Master Chief and asked about the origin of the commissioned officer insignia. "Well," replied the Master Chief, " the insignia for the Navy are steeped in history and tradition. First, we give you a gold bar representing that you are very valuable but also malleable. The silver bar also represents significant value, but is less malleable. Now, when you make Lieutenant, your value doubles, hence the two silver bars. As a Captain, you soar over the military masses, hence the eagle. As an Admiral, you are, obviously, a star. Does that answer your question?" "Yes Master Chief" replied the young Ensign. "But what about Lieutenant Commander and Commander?" "That, sir, goes waaaay back in history - back to the Garden of Eden. You see we've always covered our pricks with leaves." THE CHIEF AND THE GUNNY An old Chief and an old Gunny were sitting at the VFW arguing about who'd had the tougher career. "I did 30 years in the Corps," the Gunny declared proudly, "and fought in three of my country's wars. Fresh out of boot camp I hit the beach at Okinawa , clawed my way up the blood soaked sand, and eventually took out an entire enemy machine gun nest with a single grenade. "As a sergeant, I fought in Korea alongside General Mac Arthur. We pushed back the enemy inch by bloody inch all the way up to the Chinese border, always under a barrage of artillery and small arms fire. "Finally, as a gunny sergeant, I did three consecutive combat tours in Vietnam . We humped through the mud and razor grass for 14 hours a day, plagued by rain and mosquitoes, ducking under sniper fire all day and mortar fire all night. In a fire fight, we'd fire until our arms ached and our guns were empty, then we'd charge the enemy with bayonets!" "Ah," said the Chief with a dismissive wave of his hand, "all shore duty, huh?"

CHIEF PETTY OFFICER STANDARDS

Dedicated to the Chief Petty Officers who took me under their guiding wings, taught me how to be a good Division Officer, and put my ass to the fire when I needed to learn the lesson well…God bless our Chiefs:

AKC  (CWO3) Charles FULLER, USN, Proudly Retired

AKC  Sam ASHCRAFT, USN, Proudly Retired and Deceased

SKCM  Robert BROADBENT, USN, Proudly Retired

AKC  Gene HOLLAND, USN, Proudly Retired

AKC  Merle HYDE, USN, Proudly Retired

SKCM  John MACFARLANE, USN, Proudly Retired
SKCM Dave SELBIG, USN, Proudly Retired
and the last one is the best....My Son
GMCM  (SEAL) George A.  PARKHILL, USN, Proudly Retired 

Never forget this, a Chief can become an Officer, but an Officer can never become a Chief…

 We have our standards!

 

 LT ROBERT “BEAR” HASTINGS, SC, LDO, USN

Proudly Retired, 30 year career on 1 April 1983

Recollections of a WHITE HAT – Who by the Grace of Chiefs became an OFFICER

"One thing we weren't aware of at the time, but became evident as life wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. They were crusty old bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic oil stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic.

Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were, and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into sailors.

You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief's kid. God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option.

A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters on earth.

We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins, and combat air crew wings in my day...hard-core bastards who remembered lost mates, and still cursed the cause of their loss...and they were expert at choosing descriptive adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed.

At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of hard-earned, worn and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that one and that one?" "Oh hell kid, I can't remember. There was a war on. They gave them to us to keep track of the campaigns." "We didn't get a lot of news out where we were. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you couldn't pronounce most of the names of the places we went. They're all depth charge survival geedunk.  "Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor." We knew who the heroes were, and in the final analysis that's all that matters.

Many nights, we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups of coffee and listening to their stories. They were light-hearted stories about warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal sheds at resupply depots where the only furniture was a few packing crates and a couple of Coleman lamps. Standing in line at a Honolulu cathouse or spending three hours soaking in a tub in Freemantle, smoking cigars, and getting loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because they were our heroes. When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were not men given to the prerogatives of their position.

You would find them with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to- shoulder with you in a stores loading party. "Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we can get all this crap aboard."   "Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands."

"Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old coot."

"Horsefly, when I'm eighty-five parked in the stove up old bastards' home, I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't bullshitting.

They trained us.. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Navy. There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer.

They were born as hot-sacking seamen, and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jay-bird could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 jerks come and go for so many years; they could read you like a book. "Son, I know what you are thinking and Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't be worth it."

"Aye, Chief."

Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks for peanuts.

Appreciation of what they did, and who they were, comes with long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership or let's say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others.

They had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen to Singapore . They had given their entire lives to the U.S. Navy. In the progression of the nobility of employment, Chief Petty Officer heads the list. So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to wherever the big Chief of Naval Operations in the sky assigns us, if we are lucky, Marines will be guarding the streets. I don't know about that Marine propaganda bullshit, but there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth standing at the brow to assign us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... and we will all be young again, and the damn coffee will float a rock.

Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no longer can.  If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So, thanks you old casehardened unsalvageable sons-of-bitches. Save me a rack in the berthing compartment.  God Bless Our Navy Chiefs….backbone of the United States Navy.

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.

NAVY DAYS - BEST LIBERTY BARS

Med or Westpac sailor bars (Names never mattered as they changed about every other cruise, except the UN bar in Cannes! lol)  Enjoy the memories! Our favorite liberty bars were unlike no other watering holes or dens of iniquity inhabited by lesser men. They had to meet strict standards to be in compliance with the acceptable requirement for a sailor beer-swilling dump. The first and foremost requirement was a crusty old gal serving suds. She had to be able to wrestle King Kong to parade rest, be able to balance a tray with one hand, knock sailors out of the way with the other hand and skillfully navigate through a roomful of milling around drunks. On slow nights, she had to be the kind of gal who would give you a back scratch or put her foot on the table so you could admire her new ankle bracelet some "mook" brought her back from a Hong Kong liberty. A good barmaid had to be able to whisper sweet nothings in your young sailor ear like, "I love you no shit sairor, you buy me Honda?" "She could buy a pack of Clorets and chew up the whole thing before she got within heaving range of any guy she ever wanted to see again." And, from the crusty old gal behind the bar, "Hey animals, I know we have a crowd tonight, but if any of you guys find the head facilities fully occupied and start pissing down the floor drain, you're gonna find yourself scrubbing the deck with your white hats!" The barmaids had to be able to admire great tattoos, look at pictures of ugly bucktooth kids and smile. They had to be able to help haul drunks to cabs and comfort 19 year-olds, who had lost someone who he thought loved him. They could look at your ship's identification shoulder tab and tell you the names of the Skippers back to the time you were a Cub Scout. If you came in after a late night maintenance problem and fell asleep with a half eaten Slim-Jim in your hand, they tucked your pea-coat around you, put out the cigarette you left burning in the ashtray and replaced the warm draft you left sitting on the table with a cold one when you woke up. Why? Simply because they were one of the few people on the face of the earth who knew what you did, and appreciated what you were doing. And if you treated them like a decent human being and didn't drive 'em nuts by playing songs they hated on the juke box, they would lean over the back of the booth and park their soft, warm tits on your neck when they sat two San Miguels in front of you. The imported table wipe down guy and glass washer, trash dumper, deck swabber and paper towel replacer was always the same. The guy had to have baggy tweed pants and a gold tooth, a grin like a 1950 Buick, and a name like "Ramon", "Juan", "Pedro" or "Tico". He had to smoke unfiltered Luckies, Camels or Raleighs. He wiped the tables down with a sour wash rag that smelled like a billy goat’s crotch and always said, "How choo navee mans tonight? He was the indispensable man. The guy with credentials that allowed him to borrow Slim-Jims, Beer Nuts and pickled hard boiled eggs from neighboring beer joints when they ran out where he worked. The establishment itself: The place had to have walls covered with ship and squadron plaques. The walls were adorned with enlarged unit patches and the dates of previous deployments. A dozen or more old, yellowed photographs of fellows named "Buster", "Chicago", "P-Boat Barney", "Flaming Hooker Harry", "Malone", "Honshu Harry", "Jackson", "Douche Bag Doug", and "Capt Slade Cutter" decorated any unused space. It had to have the obligatory Michelob, Pabst Blue Ribbon and "Beer Nuts sold here" neon signs. An eight-ball mystery beer tap handle and signs reading, "Your mother does not work here, so clean away your frickin trash." "Keep your hands off the barmaid." "Don't throw butts in urinal." "Barmaid's word is final in settling bets." "Take your fights out in the alley behind the bar!" "Owner reserves the right to waltz your worthless sorry ass outside." "Shipmates are responsible for riding herd on their ship/squadron drunks." This was typical signage found in any good liberty bar. The juke box was built along the lines of a Sherman tank loaded with Hank Williams, Mother Maybelle Carter, Johnny Horton, Johnny Cash and twenty other crooning goobers nobody ever heard of. The damn thing had to have "La Bamba", Herb Alpert's "Lonely Bull", and Johnny Cash's "Don't take your guns to town". The nicer place might have a 3 or 4 piece "band" with a singer crooning, "I Reft my Hear in San Pram-cisco" by Tony Bennett. The furniture in a real good liberty bar had to be made from coal mine shoring lumber and was not fully acceptable until it had 600 cigarette burns and your ship's numbers or "F**k the Navy" carved into it. The bar had to have a brass foot rail and at least six Slim-Jim containers, an oversized glass cookie jar full of Beer-Nuts, a jar of pickled hard boiled eggs that could produce gas emissions that could shut down a sorority party, and big glass containers full of something called Pickled Pigs Feet and Polish Sausage. Only drunk Chiefs and starving Ethiopians ate pickled pig's feet and unless the last three feet of your colon had been manufactured by Midas, you didn't want to get anywhere near the Polish Napalm Dogs. Decorations: No liberty bar was complete without a couple of hundred faded ship or airplane pictures and a "Shut the hell up!" sign taped on the mirror behind the bar along with several rather tasteless naked lady pictures. The pool table felt had to have at least three strategic rips as a result of drunken competitors and balls that looked as if a gorilla baby had teethed on the sonuvabitches. Liberty bars were home and it didn't matter what country, state, or city you were in. When you walked into a good liberty bar, you felt at home. These were also establishments where 19 year-old kids received an education available nowhere else on earth. You learned how to "tell" and "listen" to sea stories. You learned about sex at $10.00 a pop – from professional ladies who taught you things your high school biology teacher didn't know were anatomically possible. You learned how to make a two cushion bank shot and how to toss down a beer and shot of Sun Tory known as a "depth charge." We were young, and a helluva long way from home. The mind set was, "If I get caught, what are they going to do to me; put me on a 27-Charlie and send me to the South China Sea?" We were pulling down crappy wages for twenty-four hours a day, seven days a-week availability and loving the life we lived. We didn't know it at the time, but our association with the men we served with forged us into the men we became. A lot of that association took place in bars where we shared the stories accumulated in our, up to then, short lives. We learned about women and that life could be tough on a gal. While many of our classmates were attending college, we were getting an education slicing through the green rolling seas in WestPac, experiencing the orgasmic rush of a night cat shot, the heart pounding drama of the return to the ship with the gut wrenching arrestment to a pitching deck. The hours of tedium, boring holes in the sky late at night, experiencing the periodic discomfort of turbulence, marveling at the creation of St. Elmo's Fire, and sometimes having our reverie interrupted with stark terror. But when we came ashore on liberty, we could rub shoulders with some of the finest men we would ever know, in bars our mothers would never have approved of, in saloons and cabarets that would live in our memories forever. Long live those liberties in West Pac and in the Med - They were the greatest! "Any man who may be asked in this century what he did to make his life worthwhile I think can respond with a good deal of pride and satisfaction, I SERVED IN THE UNITED STATES NAVY."

2012 - SUMMERTIME IN MAINE

Customize a thank you

"I AM A POOR LITTLE BEGGAR BOY"

Many years ago, when we were young children, my wonderful Mother, Peggy Margaret McCarron Hastings would gather us children around her, and sing this little ditty...it always brought tears to our eyes, and we have never failed to pass it onto our next generation.  Enjoy, and thank you so much, dear Mother and Dad for having us...GOD BLESS and KEEP YOU SAFE UNTIL WE ALL COME HOME AGAIN.
Your Kids, Bobby, Topsy, Jimmy, Tommy, and Patty...

"The Beggar Boy." by Jane Taylor (1783-1824) 

THE BEGGAR BOY.

I'M a poor little beggar, my mammy is dead;
My daddy is naughty, and gives me no bread:
O'er London's wide streets all the day long I roam,
And when night comes on, I've got never a home.

I would not be idle, like some wicked boys,
So I got me a basket with trinkets and toys;
Nobody was e'er more industrious than I,
Nobody more willing to sell if you'll buy.
I've Bonaparte's life, and adventures, and birth,
And histories of all the great men of the earth:
Enigmas, and riddles, and stories complete:
Come buy them, dear ladies, a penny a sheet.
Here's cottons, and bobbins, and laces so white,
And thimbles, and scissors, well polished and bright:
Fine pictures of Frenchmen, and Tartar, and Swede;
And Darton's gay books for good children to read.

I've all the debates, in the parliament made,
On sinecures, pensions, and taxes new laid:
Accounts of the battles by land and by sea,
That were fought in one thousand eight hundred and three.
In summer, gay flowers and nosegays I sell,
Sweet-cowslips, and roses, and jasmines to smell:
Watercresses for breakfast, fresh gathered and green,
From bad weeds and hemlock picked careful and clean.
But alas! 't is in vain that I mournfully cry,
And hold out my basket to all who pass by;
I fancy they 're thinking of other affairs;
For they seem not to notice or me or my wares.

I would get me a place that was decent and clean,
Though in a capacity ever so mean;
But nobody credits a word that I say,
For they call me a vagrant, and turn me away.

In the evening I wander, all hungry and cold,
And the bright Christmas fires thro' the windows behold:
Ah, while the gay circles such comforts enjoy,
They think not of me, a poor perishing boy!
Oh had I a coat, if 't were ever so old,
This poor trembling body to screen from the cold;
Or a hat from the weather to shelter my head;
Or an old pair of shoes, or a morsel of bread!
'T is almost a fortnight since I've tasted meat;

Pray give a poor creature a mouthful to eat;
And while you in plenty all comforts enjoy,
Oh think upon me, a poor perishing boy.

GOOD NIGHT, MOMMY and GOD LOVE AND KEEP YOU SAFE UNTIL WE ALL COME HOME....

OUR GRANDDAUGHTER ON EUROPE AN TOUR

Our granddaughter, Katie Parkhill with her Friend, Nick visited over 10 cities during their European tour in July 2012...here on only a few of the many photos....enjoy.