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That silly stuff just seems to go hand in hand with young, stupid, testosterone filled guys in the military. LOL, I was one of them.

When I served on the USS JFK back in the Seventies, there was a sailor on watch one night on the Port Quarter (Left side of the ship, all the way towards the back, for you lubbers out there...:)

It was about 0300, the sailor was sitting in a chair, peacoat on, soundpowered phones on, looking out at the ocean and...he fell asleep. A couple of his buddies came down to say hello, saw he was sleeping, and had a great idea for a prank.

They crawled over and tied the shoelaces on his boondockers together. They retreated back into the hatch and then called out in semi-hushed tones “Man Overboard! Man Overboard!”

Well, it had the desired effect. The sleeping sailor jumped to his feet and fell flat on his face.

Unfortunately, someone on a catwalk above heard them, and raised the alarm. The entire battlegroup came alive, 6000 men on the carrier, and thousands on the destroyers, cruisers and support ships were rousted from their beds and ran to their battle stations to report in as the ships maneuvered in unison to come about.

Needless to say, the men were court martialed.

I have always been a little leery of pranks, because they can go sideways. We had a guy sleepily drowsing in our shop one boring day at sea, his elbow resting on a table the side of his head in the palm. While the rest of us watched silently, his buddy crept over, pulled out his cigarette lighter, and proceeded to put it a few inches under the guys armpit to give him the equivalent of a “hotfoot” in his armpit. He meant no harm, and we all thought it would be funny, so we all watched, stifling our laughter.

What the guy didn’t know was his buddy had a small hole worn through in the armpit of his flight deck jersey, and the flame went right up through the hole and lit his armpit hair on fire.

The guy awoke with a bloodcurdling scream as the rancid smell of burning hair filled the air...the guy wasn’t seriously hurt, but...it definitely made me think long and hard about doing pranks.

We had hazing in Engineering a one time ordeal involving graphite grease. Guys took care to make sure no one got hurt. We had a few well known pranks like tricing bottom racks at 0200, a cup of R-12 tossed in a rack etc. I pranked my MM2 real good. He called the shop from a pumproom and jokingly told me to kiss his butt in a more crude manner. After he hung up I got him good. Central Control had priority lines meaning they could bust in on phone calls in progress and no one the wiser.

I called back to the pumproom and when he answered I used my DCA voice a guy many feared and said you don't talk that way over a US Navy phone. Now report to Central on the double. The pumproom was far aft and I had plenty of time to get from the shop below the fwd mess decks to the passageway he would be using. I saw him running up the passageway and ducked back and yelled his name in DCA's voice again. He turned around and I asked what's wrong did you abuse a phone? He was too relieved to kill me LOL.

Mess cooking I drove the Filipino cooks crazy. Garbage would be piled up and I'd do a fake 1MC "Now Sponson Six is now open for dumping of trash and garbage." They'd tell us take the garbage out Sponson 6. As soon as they were walking away I'd announce "Now Sponson Six is closed hold all trash and garbage on station". They never caught on LOL.

Gun fights with flares though? We weren't suicidal or stupid. IIRC one major carrier fire was started by someone lighting a flare then tossing in in a locker on the FD.