The Vietnam Era

Hippy Chippy · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:06 am

And having met him in Canberra at the Inaugural RAN Skilled Hands CANBERRA Smokey, I'd have to say an all round (yup, MOSTLY round,) lovely guy, who just happened to be hiding behind the door when they issued volume controls...!!! :director:

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2004 11:46 am

Come now boys and girls. Dimples was like me a stoker of the 60's. It was tough to not wear ear muffs. Well, I stopped wearing them when I heard Dimples used one as an athletic support.
:vom:

Story was that the Sick Bay had run out of small-medium sizes, and Dimples being a resourceful fellow found a way of protecting his less than average assests. :-#

So now we all know why his volume control is RS.

Alas it tell tales out of court. [-X

Now I've stab a friend in the back. I'll get back to the orginal forum.

I guess the big thing for me in the 60's was enlisting. After my first three months I saw an Memo regarding RANATE. so I applied.
On my interveiw with my DO, whose remarks in my case was "our math results show you would not be suitable."

I vowed then I would get into NIRIMBA anyway I could. The SAILSTRUC system allowed that chance. I was on the 2nd MTH Phase 2 course and the 1st Phase 3 course. And I must admit my first DO was right I struggled with the math.

:drinkers:

credit++++ pass.

Remember one film that gave me a bit of a shake up. "Sand Pebbles" Stev Mcqueen as Jake Holman. Top dit, top filming. :supz:

I had been posted to DIAMANTINA and my first job onboard was clean up under the main engine bearings. Never to be afraid to jump into the bilge in I went. Happily playing in the stinking oil and water. Until the main engine crankshaft began to move. All that oil allowed me to slip out of there and onto the plates.

No way was I going out like that chinese sucker in the movie.

Some Dockyard worker had decided to engage the screwed turning gear so he could get at a bearing.

Yep, an Atlas Rocket couldn't have beaten me that day. Only me and the laundry hand knows how close I came dying that day. Nothing like a pair of ones overalls being sucked up your rectum by fear.

The next time I had that feeling is when my Road King failed off road dirt tracking and decide to take time out, without me.

:butthead:

Chippy Ned · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2004 7:12 pm

Good post Lou,

The closest I came to snuffing it was before I joined the navy. I reckon it would have been late 50's or very early 60's. :-k

I was swimming up at Port Stephens as I lived at Raymond Terrace in those days and I was a fair way from the shore. As my arm did a stroke under the water it brushed something BIG with rough skin, naturally the first thing that came to mind was a shark.

About 10 metres away from me was a mooring pole so I swam to it in about a second and shinnied up it so I was out of the water. :finga:

This gave me time to think about the small problem of still being a couple of hundred metres from shore with the biggest shark in history circling below just waiting to eat me. :tear:

To this day I still can't believe I mustered up enough courage to let go that pole and swim / walk / run across the water to safety, expecting to be eaten any second. :walk:

Anyway I can proudly say I swam faster than a shark that day. :supz:

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2004 8:03 pm

I have just read "Shark Net", the story of the newspaper reporter who followed the Eric Cook murders in Perth in the late 50's and early 60's brought back many memories of the Perth area.

The family moved back to Perth in 1960 and at that time Cook was being very busy.

Perth in the early 60's was like being sent to the ends of the earth.
In fact we didn't watch the TV, except for the news for nearly 18 months. We had seen all the programs whilst living in Melbourne and Sydney.

It was the beaches we loved, again except for the 1/2 hr drive to and from Port Beach back to Cloverdale.

I recall seeing my first 707 flying into Perth Airport. We had the best view as Mom's house is the end of one of the runways. There was a Lancaster bomber flown in from the UK one year I couldn't believe my eyes. That and Jimmy Woods Mosquito stood in what is now the carpark.

My brother and I would lie in bed at night and try to pick the aircraft by the noises.

:-k

tafmo · **Posted:** Mon Oct 18, 2004 10:38 pm

Seejay wrote:

He's an Old, gay, overweight, alcoholic, gatling gummed, grumpy biker.

That about wrap it up?

Not quite CJ; you forgot depraved. :butthead:

When I was running the entertainment on Brisbane I had arguably the best movie and porn collection in the Fleet and was constantly followed around the ship by the stokers wanting me to put something 'special' on the evening show (followed closely by the Wardroom :finga:

). Whenever Dimples was in the same port he'd come over for a trade of 'normal' movies and smut (generally weighted his way in quality of goods).

He got some videos from me in Sydney after a trip with the US 7th Fleet where we'd got some good new releases, and decided to take them home. Now of course you never waste video tape, so on the tail end of some of these movies I'd appended a bit of more exciting stuff. Dimples found out after the in-laws had fainted #-o

. I think he previewed the movies after that. :toothy7:

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:30 am

I must admit the Old Grumpy Dimples is good value. Somewhere in a Naval College in this world the Senior Instructors have a photo of Ronald Harold Sheargold posted on a wall somewhere the Cadets cannot miss it.

The sign above well read: -

"You to could look like this if you abuse the system long enough"

:supz:

Right On Dimps. :drinkers:

PS Did anyone know Dimples actually enlisted to become a Padre!

:twisted:

That proves God is a Stoker. :twisted:

tafmo · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2004 4:21 am

Lou,

I thought it was just Spud who had difficulty with the spelling - it's supposed to be 'Stroker'. :twisted:

Lou Butcher · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2004 11:36 am

Tafmo

No Spud and I don't hhave the spelling wrong. Although if you build a stronger engine you do STROKE it.

He is a lot better now his on those pills that control that urge to be near small lads.

:butthead:

Wayne · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2004 3:01 pm

Bob
One of those films you got from 7th Fleet wasn't Barn Yard Follies in Black and White was it?????????

tafmo · **Posted:** Tue Oct 19, 2004 10:03 pm

No Wayne, that sounds a little depraved for our genteel tastes. [-X

The Vietnam Era

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