As a memory of those long days at sea...there was the pork revenge...this story proved that one should never mess with a cook...never. We has a first class who was leaving the boat.   Well, as submariners do, we gave him grief ceaselessly. We had not considered one fact, he had to plan and order the food for the next run.   Well this cook would get his revenge for the torment. Looking back, I should have noticed how he packed that cooler with so much care. I should have noticed that the chicken and beef boxes had all been set aside and were put in last...I should have noticed it only covered on table!!! (and not deeply at that) So...as we left for sea, there on the pier was a cook with a huge smile on his face he waved the Bergall off. None of us noted just how large...but it was big.

Well the first two weeks went smooth, chicken, sliders, roast beef, an occasional ham. Nothing to worry about. Slowly though the chicken and such began to disappear. We noticed a trend, bacon at breakfast (pork belly), pork chops at lunch, Hawaiian Ham for Supper, and Pork-o-rama for Midrats. The Cooks recognized quickly what had happened...but hoped no one would notice...but alas, it was unavoidable, the season of pork had begun. Pork got old quickly...real quickly. Like a Steven Sigal movie that had run its course sixteen times, it had gotten old. The chiefs moaned and groaned, the crew moaned, and the wardroom moaned. Yes the revenge had been served...maybe not cold...but served none the less. The funny thing was the fact that when I got back my wife had made pork chops for dinner...uhhhh!   I still can't eat pork and its been ten years.

Other runs got other treatments, but no matter what the rumor mill seemed to be the best case for patience. Now when the Seal were on board, rubber band wars were the order. And in 91 and 92 Picklesiemer and the A-gangers were into wrestling...so lower level made war on the rest of the crew. But when all is said and done...time was spent reading watching movies or just sleeping. Morale went low when the crew did the best.

In 92 we won a MUC, Navy Exp. and Battle E. Somewhere in those years we also won the NUC, but those aren't the things I remember, so much as standing watch with ppl.,  Deramus eating Dog biscuits, Hildenbrandt continuously scheming, and Chief Basset quoting the movie Joe versus the Volcano. The battles for flashlights, and of course the four hours of field day in the bow compartment.   What memories!

Robert McCammon