School is where you are at I think - I was on a troop ship going to viet Nam via Okinawa (The Rock to us Marines and the friendly Ryukus to the natives). Well that old ship was made for WW II and the racks in the hold stood ten tall. If the guy on the bottom farted the guy on top bumped his nose as the shock proceeded up the chain.

Anyway - I digress

This old tub, the General Hugh J. Gaffey (not a clue who the hell he was), had no room for any type of activity. With the notable exception of card playing. We had the gangways all full of little card games. At night it was really fun because they would run in blackout (only red lights lit) I think they thought the Viet Cong had submarines or something.

Anyway - geez get to the freakin point - the Navy decided we were being a pain in the ass as at battle drill the sailors would fall all over us in the gangways (hallways for the uninitiated) where we were beating the pants off them at poker. So they decided to have us do their laundry.

Now anyone who knows the Marines knows they have a penchant for the Navy. The laundry was about midships and hotter than hell. Sweat was running all over in there. So a couple of us found out where the valves were to let the seawater in and then again how to flush the system. It only took the lookouts a few minutes to spot the white trail of Navy uniforms heading aft in the bright blue Pacific Ocean - but many precious minutes, and uniforms, were lost while they hunted for the valve we had opened.

Of course we had already departed and they never did find out who actually turned the valve. Sweet revenge for having to spend the time in that tub.

And to tell you how bad this tub was - the crappers were iron sheets with holes cut in them. There was about a 16 inch pipe cut in half that ran under them with a constant flow of seawater to keep the thing cleaned out. Must have been 10-12 seats over each trough. We took a huge roll of toilet paper, soaked it in lighter fluid, lit it on fire and sent it down the pipe. It was hilarious at the time!! Still is matter of fact.

I saw the Gen. Gaffey for the last time in 1981 at Bremerton Naval Station, Washington. They were cutting him up for scrap. I was part of a training cadre at Ft. Lewis (joined the army for a bit cause I was broke) and a buddy of mine who flew Hueys told me about it. We took off and flew up to check it out. I can truley say I got the last shot on that pile of rusty old iron - Urinated on the good General from a few thousand feet up. Gave a new sense of what "prop wash" is all about!!!!!!!!