WesWorld

Quoted

Now this ain't no shit. Back in 2003 or 04 I'm about to cross the equator on the USS Higgins. I was an honorable shellback. The XO, and indeed much of the crew? All honorable shellbacks. The commanding officer? A slimy, slimy polliwog. You can't cross the equator with your ship captained by a slimy polliwog. It's bad luck. Sailors are superstitious. Also the Old Man couldn't become an honorable shellback if he didn't participate in the ancient ceremonies associated with the event.

So here you have a difficulty, because the CO has ultimate authority and responsibility on the ship. Makes it difficult to haze him. The hazing these days is more humorous and affectionate than in days past, and less prone to damage slimy polliwogs, but still. Hazing.

So the night before festivities commence we all get called to a meeting on the mess decks. Standard briefing: play kinda nice, no killing. But then the XO steps forward. He has a piece of paper. We shift restlessly - this is new. He lays out the polliwog CO problem. And then. Then he reads us the letter. The senior officers went over the CO's head and as of this moment he is relieved of command for 24hrs.

There is no longer a polliwog CO problem. The CO is, for 24 hours, a passenger on the XO's - pardon me, the new CO's - ship.

Dude hears this and *bolts*. Like you would not believe how fast a middle aged Naval officer can run under these circumstances. The new CO yells "get him!" and a pack of sailors bolts after him, baying and whooping and howling. But the old CO makes it to the bridge. In fact he locks himself on the bridge with a bunch of people who weren't at the meeting.

The new CO hasn't had the presence of mine to read the letter over the 1MC so the bridge team thinks this dude is still in charge. And also incidentally that the people pounding on the door to get in have gone nuts in a very bad way. Which is when the old CO orders the officer of the deck to set general quarters. And for one of very very few times in the modern navy it gets called away like this:

GENERAL QUARTERS GENERAL QUARTERS ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS SET CONDITION ZEBRA THROUGHOUT THE SHIP. TRAVEL FORWARD AND UP TO STARBOARD, DOWN AND AFT TO PORT. REASON FOR GENERAL QUARTERS: MUTINY

And then the new CO gets on the 1MC: "Belay that. The man claiming to be your captain is an imposter." and finally reads the letter on 1MC.

The whole ship wants in a breathless hush. Then we hear the sounds of scuffling over the 1MC and the old CO wails "I AM TOO IN CHARGE."

To which the new CO responds, ON THE 1MC, "No you're not."

It took 5 minutes for anyone to end the resulting exchange because sailors are easily amused. But everything went off nicely the next day.