The CHIEF doesn't sleep with a night light. The CHIEF isn't afraid of the dark. The dark is afraid of the CHIEF.• The CHIEF’s tears can cure cancer. • The CHIEF once visited The Virgin Islands. They are now simply called The Islands.• The CHIEF has counted to infinity . . . twice!• The CHIEF frequently donates blood to the Red Cross, just never his own.• Superman owns a pair of CHIEF pajamas.• The CHIEF has never paid taxes. He just sends in a blank form and includes a picture of himself.• If the CHIEF is late, then time had damn well better slow down.• The CHIEF actually died four years ago, but the Grim Reaper can't get up the courage to tell him.• The CHIEF refers to himself in the fourth person.• The CHIEF can divide by zero.• If the CHIEF ever calls your house, be in!• The CHIEF doesn't leave messages; he leaves warnings.• The CHIEF can slam a revolving door.• The CHIEF was sending an email one day, when he realized that it would be faster to run.• When the Incredible Hulk gets angry, he transforms into the CHIEF.• When the CHIEF exercises, the machine gets stronger.• Bullets dodge the CHIEF.• The CHIEF once took an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink. . . once.• The first lunar eclipse took place after the CHIEF challenged the sun to a staring contest. The sun blinked first.• The REAL CHIEF never used a question mark in his entire life. He believes that the interrogative tense is a sign of weakness, except the phrase,"What is your major MALFUNCTION?".• REAL CHIEFS think Ensigns should be seen and not heard, and never, ever be allowed to read books on leadership.• REAL CHIEFS do not have any civilian clothes.• REAL CHIEFS have CPO Association Cards from their last 5 commands.• REAL CHIEFS do not remember any time they weren't Chief's.• REAL CHIEFS favorite national holiday is CPO Initiation.• REAL CHIEFS keep four sets of dress khaki uniforms in the closet in hopes they will come back.• REAL CHIEFS favorite food is shipboard SOS for breakfast.• REAL CHIEFS don't know how to tell civilian time.• REAL CHIEFS call each other 'Chief.'• REAL CHIEFS greatest fear is signing for property book items.• REAL CHIEFS dream in Navy blue and gold, white, haze Gray and occasionally khaki.• REAL CHIEFS have served on ships that are now war memorials or tourist attractions.• REAL CHIEFS get tears in their eyes when the Chief' dies in the movie 'Operation Pacific.'• REAL CHIEFS Don't like Certified Navy Twill. Wash Khaki is the only thing to make a uniform out of.• REAL CHIEFS can find their way to the CPO Club blindfolded, on 15 different Navy Bases.• REAL CHIEFS have pictures of ships in their wallets.• REAL CHIEFS do not own any pens that do not have 'Property of U.S. Government' on them.• REAL CHIEFS do not get the mandatory flu shots.• REAL CHIEFS do not order supplies, they swap for them.• REAL CHIEFS favorite quote is from the movie Ben Hur, 'We keep you alive to serve this ship.'• REAL CHIEFS think excessive modesty is their only fault.• REAL CHIEFS hate to write evaluations, except for their own.• REAL CHIEFS turn in a 4 page brag sheet for their evaluation.• REAL CHIEFS last ship was always better.• REAL CHIEFS know that the black tar in their coffee cup makes the coffee taste better.• REAL CHIEFS idea of heaven: Three good PO1's and a Division Officer who does what he is told.• REAL CHIEFS think John Wayne would have made a good Chief, if he had not gone soft and made Marine movies.• REAL CHIEFS use the term 'Good Training' to describe any unpleasant task such as scraping the sides of the ship or having to sleep on your seabag in the parking lot.
Stolen from "Military spot.com" submitted by SFC "Coachman", US Army.
I have commented many times on the fact of having been enlisted before becoming an officer is what made me a good officer. Knowing the strengths of and remembering what the NCO’s had taught gave me the insight to make good decisions, and also, what to and what not to see or hear.
In reading the commentary below, these things were strongly brought back to me. Then I look at today’s military, and not to sell these men and women short, but for the most part it isn’t the same military I was in.
As an example, the story a friend related about his neighbor’s son home from boot camp. He was telling his Dad about some of “the kids” who couldn’t make it. He seemed so proud of himself, as if he had done something of major consequence when he stated that he had made it all the way through boot camp without having to use his “timeout” card once.
“Please pardon me, but can we stop the war for a time out. I just can’t handle this right now. I’ll let you know when I feel like continuing.”
But on to the recollections, and thank you, Abel.
Never forget this, a Chief can become an Officer, but an Officer can never become a Chief. We have our standards!
"One thing we weren't aware of at the time, but became evident as life wore on, was that we learned true leadership from the finest examples any lad was ever given, Chief Petty Officers. They were crusty old bastards who had done it all and had been forged into men who had been time tested over more years than a lot of us had time on the planet. The ones I remember wore hydraulic-oil-stained hats with scratched and dinged-up insignia, faded shirts, some with a Bull Durham tag dangling out of their right-hand pocket or a pipe and tobacco reloads in a worn leather pouch in their hip pockets, and a Zippo that had been everywhere. Some of them came with tattoos on their forearms that would force them to keep their cuffs buttoned at a Methodist picnic.
Most of them were as tough as a boarding house steak. A quality required to survive the life they lived. They were, and always will be, a breed apart from all other residents of Mother Earth. They took eighteen year old idiots and hammered the stupid bastards into sailors.
You knew instinctively it had to be hell on earth to have been born a Chief's kid. God should have given all sons born to Chiefs a return option.
A Chief didn't have to command respect. He got it because there was nothing else you could give them. They were God's designated hitters on earth.
We had Chiefs with fully loaded Submarine Combat Patrol Pins, and combat air crew wings in my day...hard-core bastards who remembered lost mates, and still cursed the cause of their loss...and they were expert at choosing descriptive adjectives and nouns, none of which their mothers would have endorsed.
At the rare times you saw a Chief topside in dress canvas, you saw rows of hard-earned, worn, and faded ribbons over his pocket. "Hey Chief, what's that one and that one?" "Oh hell, kid, I can't remember. There was a war on. They gave them to us to keep track of the campaigns." "We didn't get a lot of news out where we were. To be honest, we just took their word for it. Hell son, you couldn't pronounce most of the names of the places we went. They're all depth charge survival geedunk." "Listen kid, ribbons don't make you a Sailor." We knew who the heroes were, and in the final analysis that's all that matters.
Many nights, we sat in the after mess deck wrapping ourselves around cups of coffee and listening to their stories. They were light-hearted stories about warm beer shared with their running mates in corrugated metal sheds at resupply depots where the only furniture was a few packing crates and a couple of Coleman lamps. Standing in line at a Honolulu cathouse or spending three hours soaking in a tub in Freemantle, smoking cigars, and getting loaded. It was our history. And we dreamed of being just like them because they were our heroes. When they accepted you as their shipmate, it was the highest honor you would ever receive in your life. At least it was clearly that for me. They were not men given to the prerogatives of their position.
You would find them with their sleeves rolled up, shoulder-to-shoulder with you in a stores loading party. "Hey Chief, no need for you to be out here tossin' crates in the rain, we can get all this crap aboard."
"Son, the term 'All hands' means all hands."
"Yeah Chief, but you're no damn kid anymore, you old coot."
"Horsefly, when I'm eighty-five parked in the stove up old bastards' home, I'll still be able to kick your worthless butt from here to fifty feet past the screw guards along with six of your closest friends." And he probably wasn't bullshitting.
They trained us. Not only us, but hundreds more just like us. If it wasn't for Chief Petty Officers, there wouldn't be any U.S. Navy. There wasn't any fairy godmother who lived in a hollow tree in the enchanted forest who could wave her magic wand and create a Chief Petty Officer.
They were born as hot-sacking seamen, and matured like good whiskey in steel hulls over many years. Nothing a nineteen year-old jay-bird could cook up was original to these old saltwater owls. They had seen E-3 jerks come and go for so many years, they could read you like a book. "Son, I know what you are thinking. Just one word of advice. DON'T. It won't be worth it."
"Aye, Chief."
Chiefs aren't the kind of guys you thank. Monkeys at the zoo don't spend a lot of time thanking the guy who makes them do tricks for peanuts.
Appreciation of what they did, and who they were, comes with long distance retrospect. No young lad takes time to recognize the worth of his leadership. That comes later when you have experienced poor leadership or let's say, when you have the maturity to recognize what leaders should be, you find that Chiefs are the standard by which you measure all others.
They had no Academy rings to get scratched up. They butchered the King's English. They had become educated at the other end of an anchor chain from Copenhagen to Singapore . They had given their entire lives to the U.S. Navy. In the progression of the nobility of employment, Chief Petty Officer heads the list. So, when we ultimately get our final duty station assignments and we get to wherever the big Chief of Naval Operations in the sky assigns us, if we are lucky, Marines will be guarding the streets. I don't know about that Marine propaganda bullshit, but there will be an old Chief in an oil-stained hat and a cigar stub clenched in his teeth standing at the brow to assign us our bunks and tell us where to stow our gear... and we will all be young again, and the damn coffee will float a rock.
Life fixes it so that by the time a stupid kid grows old enough and smart enough to recognize who he should have thanked along the way, he no longer can. If I could, I would thank my old Chiefs. If you only knew what you succeeded in pounding in this thick skull, you would be amazed. So, thanks you old casehardened, unsalvageable sons-of-bitches. Save me a rack in the berthing compartment."
Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning to dance in the rain.
---Abel Sands