The Cigar Box

By the time I get into the meat of this story, I will have changed at least one of the names...to protect the idiots...

It was somewhere out on the rolling waves of The Gulf of Tonkin, due east of Viet Nam...1968.
Bradonson, Brandt and I, and another guy...oh, yeah...Danny...never forget Danny boy; we were all crammed into the Radar Tech room, a hot hot little box of Deck grey walls and hot wires...with nothing to do but shoot shit and fidget.


we had run out of ideas to entertain ourselves...but little did I know, Danny was busy fixing that. It had been just days ago, when we geniuses figured a sure fired  way to get into deep shit, with the local constabulary, that was the Master At Arms, the on board Fire Brigade, and, any number of officers who may have been wandering the vicinity.

A few days earlier, all of us guys had pooled some hard earned 'script' to purchase a hot cake griddle, figuring, as geniuses do, that this would exempt us from having to stand in the chow line for breakfast.  Yum yum! We mixed up the ingredients, plugged 'er in, plunked down the batter in dollar shape sizes...bingo!..breakfast served.

We were just about to congratulate ourselves, when...What The Hell! Someone was banging the door down.  We had it locked tight and a cabinet pulled in front of it...after all, we were, somewhat, suspect in a criminal enterprise, what with cooking illegal dollar cakes.  We heard our division officers voice...cursing...vehemently. I had never heard him curse before.

"Open up in there...you guys open the hell up!" We knew we were toast. We pulled the cabinet away from the door, releasing the latch, and the door flew open. All I could see was blue haze..."What the hell are you guys up to...3 decks are shrouded in blue smoke, and it smells just like BREAKFAST!" We all fessed up...what could we do...we had to give up our lovely hot cake griddle.

We felt chagrin, not so much for doing wrong, but for pissing off an officer and true gentleman, who never ever treated us in any way other than a comrade in arms and a real friend...rare between swabby's and officers. But you get over things...he didn't press charges...he just said "mum's the word, boys." and left.

But the South China Sea, in those latitudes, work their ways...to charm the innocent and prick the naive. And what beats all is, it involved more blue smoke. I forget what Danny's excuse was for the celebration, but there we were, all sitting in a circle, and he passes out cigars...everybody was talking;I hadn't been handed one yet.

The head tech, Bradonson, already had lit up...blue smoke filled the room...everybody's got 'goofy' grins on their faces...but we hadn't been smoking any of that...Danny say's "Grab one Buddy!" There was the cigar box resting on his lap, I opens the lid, reaches inside...grabs...Dick! He had stuffed himself through a hole in the side of the box.

They were all falling down laughing...it was a funny moment...in a tragic war, and comic relief was desperately needed...some times we relieved it.  I will never forget those guys...my bud's, compadres, pals and fellow crewmen in that year of 1968. We did our part...we did it fairly well...we didn't lose the ship, and we never ever lost our sense of humor.


Written by Bruce James Clyde 2015

Photo: Vintage Sailors, by Credit Unknown