Hazing, Submariner Style

Entry for MARCH 4, 2004: Got calibrated by Chuck and Cam in ACB

To get “calibrated” means you get the fuck hazed out of you. Chuck and Cam held me down in Aft Crew’s Berthing and took turns punching me in the meaty part of my legs and arms. They were my best friends in the division. They were kind of my de facto seadads because the one that was appointed to me by the division leadership was kind of a douche. My assigned seadad tried to hard to be my mentor first and friend second. Chuck and Cam were true friends first (even though they never missed a chance to give me a beating) and a guidance counselor second. I could always go to them with questions/problems.

I was laughing uncontrollably in between blood curdling screams. I would always egg them on by being a smart ass, just to antagonize them.  I knew that all I had to do to get a calibration session was mouth off to the senior guys in the division.  It didn’t bother me the slightest bit because I knew, having spent time in a fraternity in college, that the older guys would only pick on guys that they truly liked. It seems ass-backward — I know. But it’s the way it works.

Chiefs were walking by, sometimes they would have to step over the three-man pile of haze to get through. They either just laughed, or stopped to ask…

“What the fuck did you say to them!?”

That was how the command saw hazing in those days. Beating on a NUB or taping him to a railing was laughed at. All that would change eventually.

I won’t go into detail about the Chuck/Ponch/Dallas/Guido hazing story here. That will be chronicled later, and/or has been chronicled elsewhere. Chuck eventually wrote a statement to the command after getting masted for hazing.  Either way, that was a whole different debacle. Everything changed after that incident.

My buddies were gone.

I hated the Navy, the command and the boat more than ever.

It was one of those watershed moments that marked the never-ending downhill slide for me on the boat and in the Navy on the whole.