OK, we have a lot of Navy guys in here, I see. How many of you are shellbacks or bluenoses? I'm neither, got transferred off my ship before I'd have been able to get shellback status. Also, what was your favorite cruise? I liked WestPac, but my favorite was cruising from Pearl Harbor up the west coast to Vancouver, BC, with stops at San Diego, Long Beach and San Francisco, testing the SATCOM system, if I recall correctly.
My last tour on a 180 in Guam got my Golden Dragon right off. Second underway trip we went to Howland & Baker and we did the whole enchelada, Golden Dragon /Shellback initiation. My last U/W trip we crossed the equator just south of Kapingamaringi and I got to lead the party that took over the bridge and threw the CO in the brig. This was justa few months after my Chief's initiation and he was the lead procecuter at my trial so I got my payback!
ARRRRG ! ! !
The last RefTra in Hawaii was more than 4 years since the ship ahd been in "US" waters so we got to fly the coming home pennant and I got a piece of it when I retired. and we made a clean sweep in RefTra so we ran a broom up the rigging for the trip back home.
That was a good tour!
Shellback 1980, USS Okinawa
WESPAC was kewel, but I liked the Northern Europe floats, too, the ports were a lot cleaner and closer to ethnic relations.
Shellback, 1968, USS McMorris (DE-1036). Missed "Golden" by only about a hundred miles, but we were on a mission from God and couldn't divert...