The funniest thing I remember involves OT3 Denny Harrington and a bottle of White-Out.

I was a very new OTSA standing the Mid-Watch on Midway Island, February, 1976, with OT1 Rick Matthews, OT2 Jack Rose, Ensign Eileen Bruner, RM3 Bea Dwonch, RM2 Carole Frye and a few others.

As the "newbie" I got stuck with mulch monster duty. When I came out of the little room I saw Denny bent over a table and the watch gathered around him laughing like maniacs.

We had a personnel inspect at the end of the watch, Denny had bought a new pair of dungarees but forgot to stencil his name on the back of his new pants. Bea was trying to write H-A-R-R-I-N-G-T-O-N above his back pocket with White-Out! By the second R the White-Out was getting clumpy, the letters were getting bigger and we were all in tears with our sides splitting.

The first day of class was an eye opener. We started out with a brief introduction about what the course would consist of, followed by a warning that we would have a test every Friday morning of the 5 week course. Anyone who scored less than a 70 (passing grade) would be removed from the school and sent to “one of those long lean grey things out of Newport”. Great, now I could end up on a destroyer, but not as a sonarman, but as a non-designated striker….in other words, as the lowest of the low.

Classes ran from 8 AM to 4 PM with a lunch break. There were NO books to use. Instead we were given a notebook, and had to take notes from lectures delivered by a variety of instructors. If you’ve ever tried to take notes while listening to a fast paced presentation, you can imagine how doing it for 8 hours a day left us feeling.

There was also evening study. This was mandatory for anyone who had scored less than an 90 on the previous week’s test. It was “highly encouraged” for all others.

The weekly test was given in the morning, and was graded during our lunch break. The results were then reviewed in the afternoon, with lots of lively discussion. The discussion usually went along the lines of “The answer to number six is True. But pertty officer Johnson, you said on Wednesday in your lecture that we would never see that! No I didn’t, the answer is true!”

Now, I don’t want to cast doubt on the quality of the instructors during my time at the school, but all lessons were given from written lesson plans. It is human nature to apply your own experiences to the material, and so, the lesson plan might say it’s highly unlikely you will ever see this, but the instructor who had 12 years experience, might say I’ve NEVER seen this.

I can also remember one Chief who delivered lectures in a dull boring monotone. It was especially noticeable after lunch, when as every one knows, you are already a bit sleepy from the full stomach, and the heat.

To counteract the tendency of sailors to fall asleep during his lecture, this Chief used to occasionally select a student at random and bellow out a question to him. This was always startling, especially if you were dozing. On one occasion he bellowed out “JONES, where will you find the ships service turbo generator on a US NUC”? Jonesy was nearly asleep when he did this, and in the fog of a full stomach, mumbled “Amidships”?

There was dead silence for about 30 seconds as we all wondered if Jones was going to be dragged out and killed. The Chief’s face went white, then red, then purple. He slammed down his pointer, threw his hat at Jones and stormed out of the room.

20 students sat there for over half an hour wondering what we should do, but none of us had the guts to go and ask. Finally, a Second class instructor came in and told us to go have a break……The Chief didn’t come back to give another lecture for several days.

Your post brings me back to May of 1970, two things left out were how the room temps were lowered to keep
the class awake and how to properly use a chipping hammer to remove paint! I love the detail of your comments can't argue with the accuracy.

How to motivate: I walked out of the instructors lounge one day and heard CPO Dan Solberg giving a very fine motivational speach to one of his students. There were several instructors at the door listening.
Filled with "if you study harder, you will do better", "help is available at night school". You know the drill. At the very end Dan told the young man "and if you don't pass the test tomorrow, I'm going to drag you back in here and drive you through the floor like a nail".
We all split in every direction trying not to laugh. The young man passed his next test.