After a coast change and traumatic flight to Korea to meet my new boat, I was more than ready to begin submerging (pun) myself in submarine humor and to meet some new shipmates.

As the Torpedo Room was a berthing area at the time, it was agreed that no shenanigans would go on there as our shipmates needed to get proper sleep to defend our country and all that. That was until we saw that only NONQUALS were berthed there, and none of them so far had shown any promise of being hotrunners or overly aggressive.

On this particular watch we decided that SN Sam was going to be a ripe target. He was also the only person still in the rack at the time. Sam being quiet and a little confused at the time this made him ripe for picking. So, after sending the off watch TMOW to get 2 sets of ANTI-Cs and some flash lights and EABs, we were ready to go. We dressed out, EABs and all, secured the lights in the Torpedo Room and went to town.

We were shining the flashlights at him, the eerie sounds of the EABs hissing, and yelled "WE FOUND ONE... HES STILL ALIVE!!!!"

Needless to say Sam came flying out of the rack like a shot, spinning like a top, trying to get the EAB on that we had handed him (and had forgotten to plug in). He got it half way on before we stopped him and laughingly told him it was a joke he settled down and enjoyed the joke with us and stated it would be hard for him to get back to sleep after that scare.

As if on cue the Messenger came down looked at Sam with the classic bored to tears look of all messengers and said, "Oh, you're up" and checked his name off with a grease pencil and walked out. That got an even bigger laugh. That was a Great WESTPAC.

TM2(SS) at the time Brett Jarboe