sub sailor in deep kimchee

i am crossposting this from geezer's corner. some guys just don't have enough brains to be dangerous, and then there are guys like this, who are so dangerous because they have brains. anyway, on to the post:

you may have heard of the sailor in guam who was shot in the shoulder a while back. the navy is now pressing charges against him. seems he shot himself with a 25 caliber pistol, then tossed it into the drink at the end of the pier. you can read about the charges at The Stars and Stripes.

now i just have a couple of questions.

• WTF was he doing with a pistol on the boat? have they changed the rules that much? i don't think so. imagine being out to sea with someone as unstable as this dude. unstable enough to shoot himself. and he HAD A PISTOL with him while underway. holy shit batman.
• he tossed the pistol into the water, 30 feet deep according to the above article. i can remember when the topside watch dropped a full magazine of ammo for the topside .45, and the divers were down there and up in no time, magazine in hand. perhaps this young sailor dude hasn't spent much time alongside the pier. if he had, he'd know they can find ANYTHING tossed over the side. especially in guam, where the water isn't as grungy, and the bottom is sand, not bay mud.
• it brings to mind the countless things that "accidently" found their way over the side, into the mare island channel. some of the things i specifically remember:
  • welding rods. these were cool, because if you threw them hard enough, they'd slice through the water like a laser, leaving a fine trail of bubbles behind. get the right angle on the toss, and they would zip 20 or 30 feet, just below the surface. maybe you had to be there
  • about a hundred million white navy coffee cups with the blue stripes. hell, i can remember the topside watches would just blast the cup against the off hull collection tank barge, just so they didn't have to carry the empties back down to crews mess at the end of the watch
  • a CO2 fire extinguisher, with the handle taped down, on the 4th of July one year. having duty on a holiday sucks. but it really sucks when directly across the river from the pier is 10000 people gathered to bbq, drink beer, have fun, and watch the fireworks. having the fireworks pop directly overhead was cool, but no beer made it no fun. so what's a bunch of bored sailors to do? make their own fireworks. you should see the way the water bubbles as the CO2 charge blasts out
• and finally, did this dude think the navy wouldn't go apeshit that one of their sailors was SHOT, on the PIER, on the BASE? did he think they'd take his word for it, and just let the matter drop after sending him home? i am not sure what universe this kid is living in, but it has very few intersections with the real world.

posted by bothenook @ 12:16 PM