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1982 - USS Midway (CV-41) ... on the cruise where they temporarily blinded about 30 people for a day and five or six for three or four days spraying aircraft cleaning chemicals. Not the smartest thing ever done aboard ship.
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WESTPAC 95 USS Abraham Lincoln
It was pretty tame as there were women on board, the XO was initiated right along with us |
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yep 24APR93 USS Nashville in transit to USS El Paso off coast of Mogadishu.
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USS Duluth LPD 6 1987 south of Singapore. Trusty Shellback here! I was on that same ship 10 years later. What a piece of shit it is. |
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I 've crossed it twice. I wasn't even in the navy!
First time 2000- USS Bonhomme Richard ( what a old piece of junk that ship is) Second time 2001- USS Essex |
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Real Navy there. No got that, but got these:
Blue Nose, North Pole Icelandic Domain Golden Dragon x 14 Order of the Rock Plank Owner x 3 Decommissioning x 2 |
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I 've crossed it twice. I wasn't even in the navy! First time 2000- USS Bonhomme Richard ( what a old piece of junk that ship is) Second time 2001- USS Essex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6) Are you talking about this 2 year old ship? |
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What are you??!!! I said, What are you??!!! A shellback!!! Very well, you may leave the flightdeck to wash your ass.
World cruise 2005 USS Carl Vinson |
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Shellback. CVN 65/USS Enterprise. 82' or 83', can't remember for sure.
Reckon I missed out on the Suez Canal deal. Was on LPH 12/Inchon in the Suez, must of been in 73' or so. USMC 72'-80'. USN 81'-83'. |
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I 've crossed it twice. I wasn't even in the navy! First time 2000- USS Bonhomme Richard ( what a old piece of junk that ship is) Second time 2001- USS Essex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6) Are you talking about this 2 year old ship? I was wondering the same thing –– an old friend of mine (who went through A and C school with me) precommissioned that ship. |
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Not me but I have the certificate my Uncle got when he crossed in June of 1945
He was Second Radioman on a Martin Pbm-5 (Navy flying boat) Kind of a cheesy piece of paper but I need to get it in a decent frame to preserve it |
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1st LAR, Alpha Co., 1st PLT.
When did you get to 1st LAR? I was in the S-3 from '89 - '91, C Co from '91 - '92. In '92, I went to LAV Company at SOI as the basic crewmen's course chief instructor. |
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Hey Frogwater - I have the distinction of being not only an Honorable Shellback but also a shipmate of yours! USS Worden CG-18.
And I too met with a belly like that at the end. |
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Somewhere south of Singapore, April 11 '87. That's me in the middle with Crisco and food coloring all over my face, immediately after eating a maricino cherry from that fat guy's belly. Good times. Frogwater, I worked on the case filed after the sinking of the USS Stoddert. She was being towed from Pearl Harbor by a ocean going tug and sank on the way back about halfway to Brownsville, Texas where she was to be broken up for scrap. The crew of the tug took pics of the sinking while circling the ship as she was going down. The pics are pretty spooky. She went down stern first, totally vertical with the bulbous bow sticking up very high. The pictures were actually published in the original Newsweek article in 2001.Article text Anyway, I saw your card and that you served on her and thought you might like to hear a bit about her sinking (if you didn't already know). |
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Shellback and Golden Shellback, USMC USS Duluth on the last WESTPAC 2005.
No ceremony though, the ships CO was Mormon, and wouldn't allow it. |
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Plank owner on cvn 76
Shellback 04 around the horn on cvn 76 Golden shellback westpac 06 Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile |
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It's a ceremony in the RN also. There are movies of HRH the Prince of Wales being initiated on one of his father's battleships back in the 1920s.
I understand the Aussies do it too. But they start out dirty and end up clean. |
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uss tarawa lha-1 Ours was delayed due to going to Lebanon in 83, sat out. Tarawa was a cool ship.Working for the Navy as a Marine was kinda weird though. Became a Shellback in 84 on the New Orleans LPH 11 |
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1976 aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise (CVN-65), bound for Hobart, Tasmania. The NON nuclear ships in the Battle Group got to go to Sydney, The Big E and the other Nuke ships got to go to Hobart, thanks to the "No Nuke" government in power in Australia at the time. First time I think a carrier had been across the Equator since the end of the Viet Nam war; I'd say 80-90% of the ship was Pollywogs!
On my next cruise (U.S.S. Constellation (CV-64)), the opposite was true; VAST majority of the crew was Shellbacks - sucked to be a wog on that cruise LOL. |
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Yes, also, The Emerald Shellback or Royal Diamond Shellback for sailors who cross at 0 degrees off the coast of West Africa, The Safari to Suez for sailors who have passed through the Suez Canal, The Order of the Blue Nose for sailors who have crossed the Arctic Circle, The Order of the Red Nose for sailors who have crossed the Antarctic Circle, The Order of the Rock for sailors who have transited the Strait of Gibraltar. And I wasn't even a squid, just hitching rides with them here and there.
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I 've crossed it twice. I wasn't even in the navy! First time 2000- USS Bonhomme Richard ( what a old piece of junk that ship is) Second time 2001- USS Essex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Bonhomme_Richard_(LHD-6) Are you talking about this 2 year old ship? says commisioned in 2000? The Captain always called it the " Big Dog" on the loud speaker. I could be wrong through. I think It might have been the USS Belleau Wood. I remember seeing it was commisioned in 1979 or something like that when I was on it. EDIt: Ok yall were right, it was the Belleau Wood LH-3...my bad |
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I missed the Shellback ceremony on th way down to Somalia because we flew ahead of the MEU...you know, when there was only a handful of shellbacks on board. I took the boat back when everyone was a shellback....
I got my certificate and card somewhere...should dig it out. |
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Order of the Blue Nose and Suez Safari (X 2) but no Shellback. Same stats here GR8TWYT no Shellback, but order of Bluenose and Suez safari X2 |
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Somewhere south of Singapore, April 11 '87. That's me in the middle with Crisco and food coloring all over my face, immediately after eating a maricino cherry from that fat guy's belly. Good times. Frogwater, I worked on the case filed after the sinking of the USS Stoddert. She was being towed from Pearl Harbor by a ocean going tug and sank on the way back about halfway to Brownsville, Texas where she was to be broken up for scrap. The crew of the tug took pics of the sinking while circling the ship as she was going down. The pics are pretty spooky. She went down stern first, totally vertical with the bulbous bow sticking up very high. The pictures were actually published in the original Newsweek article in 2001.Article text Anyway, I saw your card and that you served on her and thought you might like to hear a bit about her sinking (if you didn't already know). Hey, thanks for posting that. I actually tried to get in touch with the tow company when it happened to get better hi-res images. No luck though. However. I did scan the Newsweek article. Ironically, Stoddert ("The Sweat"), because she sank, is one of only three completely in-tact Adams class DDGs. The other two are Adams herself, which is on museum hold status, and the German Mölders, which is now also a museum. |
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1995 - USS Essex - USMC - 13th MEU I was there for that too! Wpns Co, 3/1 Semper |
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Quoted: Here here...USS Samuel Gompers, 1995 The Gompers was berthed one pier over from us (CVN-70) in '89/'90 and was in our Battle Group. I've been on it a couple times with friends. |
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