RATS ON THE PIER

Subvet, believe it or not, has Seastories. After 22 years in the Navy, he probably has hundreds of them. I've heard most, if not all, of them. He very kindly agreed to type up this one for me. It's 1 of my 2 absolute favorites. In the 9 years I've been with Subvet he's told this story in my hearing about a zillion times and I still die laughing! So enjoy, and remember, it's TRUE!

Thanks sweetie!

RATS ON THE PIER

"Larry" was a Chief Petty Officer who came onboard the Daniel Webster back in 88. He could have walked off a recruiting poster, always had a sharp and squared-away uniform, mirror-bright shoes, trim, physically fit and about 6'2" with a no-nonsense "don't mess with me" look about him. He was black with the deep skin tone of someone who probably didn't have too many white boys in the ancestral woodpile. All in all he cut an imposing figure.

Everyone has a skeleton in their closet though. His came out in a few months.

Seems he grew up in the slums of Brooklyn, NY and was no stranger to rats. He had an almost phobic hate of them.

So, Larry got assigned to his first sub and went to Naples, Italy. When you pull into the pier area of Naples you'll always wonder what died. Turns out that’s the normal smell, Naples is a pit. Nice looking city, very scenic, but still a pit. Lots of vermin.

While standing duty as one of two sentries on the topside of the sub one night Larry noticed that the garbage from the nearby dumpster had spewed over to the vicinity of the brow (portable gangplank looking structure used for access on and off the sub). The rats in the dumpster were making their way through the garbage, after a while they began walking on the brow. Soon they began crawling over the brow toward the two sentries. The other sentry was armed with a .12 gauge shotgun, Larry was carrying a holstered .45 caliber pistol.

Seeking to deter the rats, the other sentry took the butt of the gun and tried to sweep the rats back. The rats of Naples are aggressive, they immediately attacked with one of them landing on the chest of the sailor. Showtime!

He ripped the rat off his chest, reversed the shotgun and began blasting the vermin. Crouching beside him, Larry began laying down a field of fire with his .45, ejecting one clip and loading the other in as fast as possible. The dead and dying littered the brow. After running out of cartridges, Larry ran to the microphone for the ship's comm box on the portable stand by the brow. Keying the mike to the below decks announcing system he cried, "Rats on the pier! Send up more ammo!" as his compadre continued blazing away.

After they'd stopped firing (no ammo) and the sailors below decks judged it was safe the duty officer came up and surveyed the carnage. Our intrepid heroes were immediately relieved of their firearms and taken off duty. Something about starting an undeclared war on the local wildlife and needlessly expending ammunition. At that time the loss of any cartridges/shotgun shells required a full, detailed report on how and why. Bet THAT one made for an interesting reading!

For some reason this story followed Larry to every boat he was on thereafter.