USS von Steuben SSBN-632

Things We Remember ... and Some We'd Rather NOT!

Submitted cryptically and anonymously...to protect the innocent, the married, and those few of us who have since become housebroken.

Memories from Various Eras:

  • Getting "blown out of the head"
  • Listening to the screw of a surface ship coming out of the water in a severe storm
  • The Vanguard
  • Sea Lady
  • Haggy Baggies
  • "Cat" Futch ... ok, so it wasn't our boat ... it's a legend worth remembering
  • Ten-cent Heineken and 15-peseta wine
  • Nicotine-brown water during field days
  • Cherries soaked in "gilley"
  • Magazine photos (and parts thereof) turning up in the most amazing places
  • NFL Football Highlights
  • Q: "Sonarman, what noise does a vessel under tow make?" A: "A big f***ing CRUNCH when you come up under it, sir!"
  • Steaks with mushrooms and onions
  • Backing up to the electronic precipitator on the middle level passageway outside the mess decks and listening to it make that crackling sound
  • To the tune of Guantanamera -- "One ton a minute...trim pump pumps one ton a minute...."
  • The monotonous artificial floor and surface grids while on planes watch
  • Being extended...and extended...and extended....
  • Screw counts
  • Sonarmen telling the watch in the forward torpedo room to tie his shoelaces
  • "Boomer Sooners"
  • The Overpass
  • Ship's colors: Red, Yellow, Blue, White, Gray (Rub Your B**** With Grease)

Blue Crew, late 1960s:

  • The concept of doing a barrel roll in the boat
  • An EPM that wouldn't retract ... hmmm!??
  • "There's no such thing as peanut butter ice cream! If there was, there'd be a Navy recipe card for peanut butter ice cream!"
  • Full rising moon in the periscope wake on a glassy Med
  • A Christmas tree borrowed from the Spanish Admiral's yard
  • A door removed from Officer's Country
  • Two junior officers who "borrowed" a couple other boats' plaques from O Club in Rota
  • Omar--Omar--Omar....YYEEESSSSS!!!
  • A Californian jumping phone pole barricades with his jeep in the sound pier parking lot (truly a man ahead of his time!)
  • "Who wrote the Three-Penny Opera?"
  • Dropped rod
  • Weighing on the scales outside the head in the aft missile compartment on your way in and on your way out...and logging it
  • Bad Day at Black Rock
  • The amorous whale that followed us for days
Any others?

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