Navy Vets, did you "Cross the Line"?

[EKing]

I first crossed the equator in 2000 on the USS Blue Ridge, aka Blue Pig, Loveboat, etc.
What a time. The whole thing started weeks in advance with the trash talking. All of the Shellbacks were letting us Wogs know where we stood.
Two days prior to the crossing, we had to turn in a white t-shirt for preparation. These shirts would be our uniform of the day. The reason for turning them in two days prior was so they could be "decorated".
Yeah, you could say they were decorated. And soaked in raw egg, soda, milk, tuna, whatever they could get.

On the morning of, we woke up stupid early and it was like boot camp all over. Lots of yelling, pushups, the whole thing. They gave us our shirts and man did they stink. The words of "encouragement" written on them were awesome. We had to keep them on for the rest of the ceremony.

Next up was Wog breakfast. The served green eggs and ham! The fun part was that we couldn't use our hands. They shoved a paper plate in our mouths and tried to hold it steady while food was carelessly slopped onto them. So now we are walking with our hands behind our backs, leaning back and looking at the overhead with a plate full of food trying not to spill it. Again, we could not use our hands so we just had to dig in.

After breakfast, we went to the forecastle (pronounced folk-sul) and continued with the yelling and pushups and jumping jacks. That part kind of sucked because we were in there for a couple hours waiting for our group to go up to the weather decks. Once on the weather decks, the real fun began. Fire hoses, singing, chanting and row, row, row your boat. Also Flipper watch. We had to call for him. He never showed. Don't forget about the fat guy. You have to go through the fat guy to be declared cleansed and worthy of the Shellback title.

A truly awesome experience. Who else here has been cleansed or am I surrounded by filthy, scumy Wogs?

 

[Seadog]

I first crossed the equator in 2000 on the USS Blue Ridge, aka Blue Pig, Loveboat, etc.
What a time. The whole thing started weeks in advance with the trash talking. All of the Shellbacks were letting us Wogs know where we stood.
Two days prior to the crossing, we had to turn in a white t-shirt for preparation. These shirts would be our uniform of the day. The reason for turning them in two days prior was so they could be "decorated".
Yeah, you could say they were decorated. And soaked in raw egg, soda, milk, tuna, whatever they could get.

On the morning of, we woke up stupid early and it was like boot camp all over. Lots of yelling, pushups, the whole thing. They gave us our shirts and man did they stink. The words of "encouragement" written on them were awesome. We had to keep them on for the rest of the ceremony.

Next up was Wog breakfast. The served green eggs and ham! The fun part was that we couldn't use our hands. They shoved a paper plate in our mouths and tried to hold it steady while food was carelessly slopped onto them. So now we are walking with our hands behind our backs, leaning back and looking at the overhead with a plate full of food trying not to spill it. Again, we could not use our hands so we just had to dig in.

After breakfast, we went to the forecastle (pronounced folk-sul) and continued with the yelling and pushups and jumping jacks. That part kind of sucked because we were in there for a couple hours waiting for our group to go up to the weather decks. Once on the weather decks, the real fun began. Fire hoses, singing, chanting and row, row, row your boat. Also Flipper watch. We had to call for him. He never showed. Don't forget about the fat guy. You have to go through the fat guy to be declared cleansed and worthy of the Shellback title.

A truly awesome experience. Who else here has been cleansed or am I surrounded by filthy, scumy Wogs?

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It was 94 for me. USS CapeCod AD-43. Ours was similar. By the end of the day your Boondockers had holes in the toes. Your knees were sore. You stank to the heavens from saved fish juice. Breakfast was mostly thrown at you. The mess decks looked like something out of a movie. Maybe like the Animal House food fight scene? It was an unbelievable mess. Lots of guys had their legs shaved. Some heads also. People were walked on their hands and knees. With dog collars. Clothes were worn inside out and some people had them backwards. Oh yeah, firehose shillelaghs were out and on occasion used.

I was cranking on the crew mess deck when this all went down. I get wind of some of the carnage they had planned for us wogs. They had been saving the leftover food waste to ferment. They had plans of using it in a long tarp shoot out on the flight deck. For us, so that we could crawl through it. Needless to say I had access to the trash room and slashed all the bags spilling it out all over the floor so that they couldn’t use it. Due to my youthful junior sailor ignorance it never occurred to me that they had more. Back up in the chiefs and officers trash rooms. There was not as much as they were hoping for but they still were able to fill the shoot.

The hazing was a bit on the extreme side and having no desire for any of the BS I spent a good portion of the previous night and next day hiding in the captains 50ft whale Boat. After I thought that Shenanigans should surely be over and I went down to birthing. And to my dismay said hazing was still ensuing. Needless to say I got initiated. There wasn’t a choice in it.

This was back right before the PC BS started. The female mermaids on our Shellback certificates breasts weren’t covered. My next ship omewhere in 97 the skipper decided that he wanted to be a golden Shellback. So the rest of us became Golden Shelbacks. When I got my new Shellback cert there were no more naked mermaids. Not to mention the initiation on this second ship was Underwhelming. Didn’t get to forward any of the old school hazing.

 

[Chief Sapulpa]

While not an Honorable Shellback, I too am blessed by King Neptune having crossed the Arctic Circle and am an Honorable Bluenose.

 

[Aries]

I guess I'm a filthy, scumy Wog. I didn't even know. I just thought I was filthy and scumy.

 

[TerryMiller]

Now I know why sailors are called "swabbies." One has to clean up the mess afterwards, and perhaps forever-more because of the smell.

Army vet here. None of that nonsense for me. Although, a number of my uncles served in the Navy in WWII. Boy, did I get ribbed when I enlisted in the Army.

 

[tRidiot]

I'll pass.

 

[Snattlerake]

Not me. Never been on a ship. I have only been on boats and only one was saltwater. It was the little 40 footer that takes everyone to the USS Arizona. Dad on the other hand was on 8 troop transports from San Francisco to the Japanese TOW and back. He only went to the Philippines, Saipan , Guam and Okinawa. Do they "cleanse" Army types if they are aboard the vessel when it crosses?

Is there a ceremony for crossing the date line?
'

 

[Aries]

I was never in the military, but my buddy who was in the navy used to work this joke in every chance to my other buddy who was in the Coast Guard....

Do you know why the Coast Guard has a minimum height requirement?

So if their boat sinks, they can walk to shore without drowning.

 

[ConstitutionCowboy]

While not an Honorable Shellback, I too am blessed by King Neptune having crossed the Arctic Circle and am an Honorable Bluenose.

I, too, never made it across the equator, but spent some time above the arctic circle. I do believe it was aboard the Wasp. That was the time we ran into some heavy seas and I got to see green water come over the flight deck. Every time the bow took a deep dive, columns of water would come gushing in around the anchor chain portals. I was birthed in the forecastle right below the flight deck - and the catapults. (There was no sleep to be had during ops!) Anyway, the forward bulkhead between the forecastle birthing compartment and the compartment where the anchor chain comes up from its storage compartment and out the portals, cracked. I guess the bulkhead oil-canned a few too many times over the lifetime of the carrier during heavy seas.

Interesting factoid: While the Wasp was bobbing up and down in the huge waves, coming to the magic frequency where the bow would take its deepest dive into the oncoming wave, the tin cans would simply ride up and over the waves with little trouble. In some of the not-so-heavy seas, the carriers float along smooth as class while the tin cans rock fore and aft like a twig going down the Colorado River rapids. First the bow is out of the water then the next moment the screw(propeller) is spinning in the open air! Quite a sight to see from the calm decks of a carrier.

Woody, USN '66 - '70.

 

[druryj]

I'm a Marine, but went through the Shellback Ceremony way back in 1979 aboard the USS Ft. Snelling. My favorite part was crawling through the tunnel filled with garbage, scraps from the mess deck, and only the Good Lord knows what else. A cool Naval tradition, and one I hope doesn't get taken over or away by the politically correct crowd.