Humorous Payback

The USS Brewton FF-1086 was the last Frigate I served on.  I was the LPO which is the leading petty officer of 3rd division.  Made up of sonar techs, ASROC gunners mates and torpedo men.   We all had to eat.

So, really, you think.   Eating is what we all hope to do every day at least a few times.  Shipboard food is really very good.  The Mess Specialists cook up some good stuff according to a strict healthy varied menu.  There are only a few of mess cooks, though.  The mess decks and galley need cleaning.  Stores (food) has to be brought up from the lockers and freezers (refers) for the cooks to use and then the crew needs to be served as they file through the mess line.   The fellows that do all that are sent by their divisions as a mixture of ratings like, sonar techs, electronic techs, boiler men,  machinist mates, fire control techs and most the rest of the ship's crew.  These men are each division's lowest rated men.  Firemen and Seamen rated at E2 and E3.  They will serve their tour of mess duty for one to six months before getting back to their own division and working at what they were trained to do.   A Petty Officer is a rating that begins at E4.  They are typically never assigned to collateral duties like mess decks. 

The Ensign pops into Sonar Control one evening underway and tells me that we have to send another man to the mess decks.  I said we already had two seamen there and had no more.  He said then send a third class which is an E4.   We had no less than ten of them, so I shrugged and said okay. 

The most senior third class petty officer we had was PO3 Bolds.  He had less than a year left on board having been there already over 3 years.  I reasoned that if this trend continued that the others would be around long enough to get their turn, so I assigned Bolds for a three-month stint in the mess decks.

He was not happy and let me know it in terms that I shan't repeat here, but went anyway.    A week or so later the galley was serving for noon meal breaded cod which is always good.  I was in line with my divided steel tray when I came to the fish.  PO3 Bolds was serving.  He looked at me and said, "Only two pieces.  If you want more, you have to come back."  Okay, I thought I knew that.  He then pushed around the fish in the pan till he found two pieces about an inch long each and dropped them on my plate and told me to move on.  After loading up on veggies, I sat down and ate my bite of fish.  Noticing the line had eased up I went back and got more fish; Bolds had moved on to something else at that point, so I got some good sized portions. 

I still chuckle to this day when I recall this episode.  He certainly got his payback.