There was a time when everything you owned had to fit in your sea bag.
Remember those nasty rascals? Fully
packed, one of the sonuvabitches weighed more than the poor devil hauling it.
The damn things weighed a ton and some idiot with an off-center sense of humor
sewed a carry handle on it to help you haul it. Hell, you could bolt a handle on
a Greyhound bus but it wouldn't make the damn thing portable.
The Army, Marines and Air Force got footlockers and we got a big ole' canvas
bag. After you warped your spine jack assing the goofy thing through a bus
or train station, sat on it waiting for connecting transportation and made folks
mad because it was too big to fit in any overhead rack on any bus, train and
airplane ever made, the contents looked like hell. All your gear appeared to
have come from bums who slept on park benches.
Traveling with a seabag was something left over from the "Yo-ho-ho and a bottle
of rum" sailing ship days. Sailors used to sleep in hammocks. So you stowed your
issue in a big canvas bag and lashed your hammock to it, hoisted it on your
shoulder and in effect moved your entire home and complete inventory of earthly
possessions from ship to ship.
I wouldn't say you traveled light because
with one strap it was a one-shoulder load that could torque your skeletal frame
and bust your ankles. It was like hauling a dead linebacker.
They wasted a lot of time in boot camp telling you how to pack one of the
things.. There was an officially sanctioned method of organization that you
forgot after ten minutes on the other side of the gate at Great Lakes. You got
rid of a lot of issue gear when you went to the boats.
Did you ever know a smoke boat sailor who
had a raincoat? A flat hat? One of those nut hugger knit swimsuits? How bout
those roll your own neckerchiefs... The ones the girls in a good Naval tailor
shop would cut down and sew into a 'greasy snake' for two bucks?
Within six months, every boat sailor was down to one set of dress blues, port
and starboard undress blues and whites, a couple of rag hats, boots, shoes,
assorted skivvies, a pea coat and three sets of leper colony-looking dungarees.
The rest of your original issue was either in the tender lucky bag or had been
reduced to wipe down rags in the engine room. Submarines were not ships that
allowed vast accumulation of private gear.
Hobos who lived in discarded refrigerator crates could amass greater loads of
pack rat crap than boat sailors. The confines of a diesel boat side locker and a
couple of bunk bags did not allow one to live a Donald Trump existence.
Space and the going pay scale at the anchor end of the submersible social order
combined to make us envy the lifestyle of a mud hut Ethiopian. We were the
global equivalents of nomadic Mongols without ponies to haul our
stuff.
And after the rigid routine of boot camp we learned the skill of random
compression packing... Known by mother's world-wide as 'cramming'. It is amazing
what you can jam into a space no bigger than a breadbox if you pull a watch cap
over a boot and push it in with your foot. Of course it looks kinda weird when
you pull it out but they never hold fashion shows
at sea and wrinkles added character underwater appearance.
There was a four-hundred mile gap between the images on recruiting posters and
the actual appearance of submarine sailors at sea. It was not without
justifiable reason that we were called the 'sewer pipe' Navy.
We operated on the premise that if 'Cleanliness was next to Godliness', we must
be next to the other end of that spectrum... We looked like our clothing had
been pressed with a waffle iron and packed by a bulldozer. But what in the hell
did they expect from a bunch of jerks hot-sacking in a 'Hogan's Alley Hell Hole'
on a contraption that leaked like a screen door and smelled like a skunk
jamboree?
After a while you got used to it... You got used to everything you owned picking
up and retraining that distinctive pig boat aroma... You got used to old ladies
on busses taking a couple of wrinkled nose sniffs of your pea coat then getting
up and finding another seat... It came with Dolphins.
Do they still issue sea bags? Can you still make five bucks sitting up half the
night drawing a diesel boat and Dolphins on the side of one of the damn things
with black and white marking pens that drive old master-at-arms into a 'rig for
heart attack' frenzy? Make their faces red... The veins on their neck bulge
out... And yell, "Jeezus H. Christ! What in god's name is that all over your sea
bag?"
"Artwork, Chief... It's like the work of Michelangelo... Dolphins...My boat...
Great huh?"
"Looks like some gahdam comic book..."
Here was a man with cobras tattooed on his arms... A skull with a dagger through
one eye and a ribbon reading 'DEATH BEFORE SHORE DUTY' on his shoulder...
Crossed anchors with 'Subic Bay 1945' on the other shoulder... An eagle on his
chest and a full blown Chinese dragon peeking out between the cheeks of his
butt. If anyone was an authority on comic
books, it was this guy.
Sometimes I look at all the crap stacked in my garage, close my eyes and smile,
remembering a time when everything I owned could be crammed into a canvas bag.
Maturity is hell!