Playing Fair and Being Kind

BEST JOB I EVER HAD

Upon reporting aboard the USS Orion, I was assigned immediately to the X Division. New sailors always ended up there if you were just graduated from bootcamp or school right after bootcamp. X Division gave one a chance to get acquainted with the routine of shipboard duty and find out how to get from your berthing area to the mess hall and other sorts of orientation. Typically, X Division lasted around two weeks or more depending on the needs of the ship. X Division was the charge of the CMAA, or Chief Master at Arms. Basically, the CMAA was a cop and his underlings, who were all senior rated petty officers, were called MA’s, or Master at Arms. The MA’s were given specific areas of the ship to police and to supervise the conducting of general conditions. The MA I worked for is but a vague memory to me now but I remember that he was a big guy and fairly likable.

My first duty assignment, and my last if I recall, on board Orion was to be the sole worker in the ship’s mattress locker. The mattress locker was in the forward portion of the ship in the vicinity of all the berthing areas. It was down about 4 decks from the main deck. Many of the berthing areas were no further down than the second deck. Just storage spaces and some maintenance shops were below the second deck. The mattress locker was down 4 decks, which was a major convenience to me as I discovered soon after assignment. Every new sailor reporting aboard who had a bunk needed to come to the mattress locker and be issued a mattress and a pillow. I’ll tell you now that I never ever washed, cleaned, brushed, or otherwise did anything to sanitize the mattresses or the pillows that were put into my charge. All I was ordered to do was to give a mattress and a pillow to anyone who showed up at the window of the door at the cage I was in that was the mattress locker.

Here is how it worked. Once or twice a day I would hear someone coming down the ladder from the decks above. It was impossible to sneak up on me. Anyone coming down the ladders, four in all, had to make noise on the metal steps that were part of the steep metal stair cases that we, in the Navy, all called ladders. The ladders were attached with pins and clevis fasteners on both ends, upper and lower. There was no way a grown person could step on the ladders without that metal to metal clanging noise happening. The ladders had handrails made from three quarter inch piping that made the whole apparatus roll and rock causing more metal to metal noise. When people were moving quickly up or down on the ladders the noise was a constant, ear piercing rattle. More than one person at a time was cacophony. I could not be surprised by an unannounced visitor to my little kingdom.

To continue, the new sailor would arrive at the door to the mattress locker with a check-in sheet that included such important way-points as; the dental office, the medical office, the disbursing office, the yeoman’s office, the CMAA’s office, the Post Office, the Division officer, and of course the Mattress Locker where I would give the lucky recipient a pillow and a mattress and initial his check-in sheet. A similar sheet was used during the procedure for beng transferred from the ship. It was all in reverse, of course. The man would clatter and rattle down the four ladders from above and drag his mattress and pillow along with him. I would receive the two items and throw them up on the pile of same items and initial the check-out sheet. Tidy and quick. Between customers, about four hours apart perhaps, I would run about four steps and throw myself up on top of the mattresses and pillows and assume a position of horizontal relaxation. Life was never so good as that time I spent in the mattress locker. I would keep my ears open for the rattle and bang of the ladders above. My built-in alarm system. When the MA headed my way, I knew it as soon as his foot hit the second or third step on the ladder. I’d straighten my hat and tuck in my shirt and be running an inventory along with my log book by the time his feet came into sight on the ladder outside my office.

The days were not filled with much activity. The Orion, being a submarine tender and nearly a permanent fixture to the pier alongside, rarely got underway. Jokingly the ship was called Building 18, using its hull number designation “AS-18”. After a few weeks of the best job I ever had things were growing stale. One afternoon, after work hours were over, I had changed from my work uniform to the uniform of the day. Shipboard duty included a lot of regulations that are not easily understood by newcomers or civilians. The work day was from 0800 to 1600. At 1600 we had to be in the uniform of the day which is normally undress-blues. Undress-blues were the blue bell-bottom trousers and a blue jumper with no piping on the wrists and flap collar. These uniforms were to be worn regularly unless one was engaged in physical labor. (My mattress locker job was considered physical labor. No joke.) When 1600 rolled around I would tidy up my work space, lock the cage door and retire to my berthing area where I would retrieve a set of undress-blues out of my locker and change my clothes. I’d fold my dungarees and put them in the locker that was located next to my bunk.

From there I would go up on deck for a smoke on whichever side of the ship had the most to see. Generally, this became the side where more submarines were tied up. Watching the boat-sailors in action was my entertainment. Just staring at the submarines was intriguing as well. The fleet boats were cool as hell. I would perform this routine every day. I never got tired of looking at submarines. This particular day, about two weeks into my X Division duties, I was leaning on the rail on the after, port side of the main deck smoking a cigarette. When the ash got long, I would flip it into the ocean next to the ship. There was a butt kit hanging from a stanchion about twenty feet down the deck toward the bow. That is where I would go to mash out the butt and drop it into the butt kit when I was through. I took a drag and flipped the ash over the side into the water. A voice behind be spoke. “Hey, Sailor.” I turned. It was a MA. He was watching me closely. He continued. “You see that butt kit down there?” pointing to the item hanging from the stanchion twenty feet away. “Yeah”, I responded, most respectfully. “Well, that is where you flip your ashes”, said the MA. “That’s what the butt kit is for.” “Aye, aye”, said I. I walked toward the butt kit and when I got to it, I mashed out my cigarette and muttered insanely disrespectful words quietly to myself. It was at this point that I no longer wanted to be on this ship and my job ceased being the best one I ever had. What I didn’t know was that my really best job I ever had was just a few days ahead of me.

A truly sad sight for many of the men who served on Orion. Here she is being disassembled and scrapped in Baltimore. The place where I was smoking a cigarette is on the lower deck visible about four open spaces from the stern. Just above the horizontal fixture on the hull just under the main deck. I was standing there looking at the submarines alongside for upkeep. Farewell, old salt!

G. M. Goodwin
October 27, 2019