Long, long ago it was, in the land that was, shortly after the final dinosaur had heaved his last breath, and while the earth was still a-cooling, like. The Gipper was in charge of the federal, and your correspondent was a junior officer among that cohort of the few, the happy, few, the band of Hornet bubbas who strode the earth like jolly green giants, in flight suits.
High desert warriors we were, establishing our digs in the hamlet of Lemoore (population 14,000, very nearly – as the WikiPedia page notes, the new Motel 6 is very popular among visitors) or maybe the teeming metropolis of Hanford just down the road a bit (population 40,000, or so – did you know that Slim Pickens grew up in Hanford? I didn’t, until just now). But mostly we were engaged in the Art and Science of breaking up other people’s gear, just for the job satisfaction that was in it, while flicking aside any such as would try to get in our way. We flew from our lodgings at the Naval Air Station over into scenic venues east of the Sierra range such as Death Valley, and the Panamint, and the Walker River dry lake bed. Sure, they weren’t much for looks, but no one much cared what you did over there and the environment suited us just fine.
Not least of us in those ancient times was a man y-clept Seamon. A right good stick he was, and personable too and probably he deserved better, having joined the sea service, than to think that with a last name like his it would all work out for the best. Now I have previously regaled you, gentle reader, on the inherent, inveterate, malicious cruelty of callsign assignment. Even given that, I ask you to put aside, for the instant, the confusion that attends to an officer whose last name is homonymic for the lowest ranking member of the sea service. It might sound all nautical and such in isolation, but putting “lieutenant” together with “seaman” was a recipe for the kind of low japery that gave Joseph Heller a head start in this cruel world.
But it was worse than that, since naval aviators – as a class – are addicted to the kind of infantilism-cum-humor that would extend the metaphor further, indeed: Well past the pale of civil propriety. Thus it was that Lieutenant Seamon’s designated delta tau chi nickname was “Sp*rm.” (Out of a certain sense of delicacy – not to mention the perverse Google hits that are in it – I choose to modify his call sign for this venue.)
A good sport he was, and he bore up under the strain of being called “Sp*rm” by his best friends as well as anyone might have done, although I cannot think that he ever enjoyed it. One day it came to pass that he was the wingman on a 2vX hop against four FA-18′s from his sister squadron, themselves simulating the rough nags that used to be exported by the Evil Empire unto them such as who could afford to pay good hard currency sufficient to die foolishly in air combat. This simulation our fellas accomplished by restricting their radar modes at range, their close-combat modes in close and modulating their afterburner usage at the merge so as to present the under-performing simalcrums of those who’d dare to test their mettle against the US Navy’s finest in second class gear.
By way of introduction you should know that in fighter aviation, we’re very big on communications brevity. Quick’s the word, and smart’s the action, and never use two words where one would suffice. So when a wingman says to his lead, “Tally 2, visual, engaged,” what he’s really said is, “I see two of them bad fellers, I see you as well, and I’m maneuvering with an offensive advantage.” On the other hand, he might say, “Blind, no joy,” which communicates that he sees neither his wingman, nor any of his foes. Further down the totem pole on the scale of inutility would be the wingman who called, “Tumbleweeds,” which marvelous terse form of expression means “I don’t see them, I don’t see you, I don’t have a radar contact, and – as far as I know – I am not targeted: I got nothin’.”
There’s no comm brevity reply for that, but if there were it might sound something like, “Thanks for coming.”
Anyway, the good guys made it to the merge with their adversaries, and right good swirl they had of it, too. It’s no mean feat once you’re engaged with a gaggle of adversaries in similar airframes to know exactly which of them is the good guy and who deserves a good shooting after a turn or two. You can get all mixed up and turned around, like. Sometimes you have to resort to the radios in order to make sure you don’t shoot the wrong person, which is considered very bad form.
Which is what happened when one of the four bandits lost SA to his own wingman, but had a good tally on our hero, just out of missile range right in front of him and trying to extend out of the fight. The bandit lead, having momentarily lost track of his wingie, asked him for his “status,” essentially demanding, “Yo. What’s up?” to which the bandit wingman inauspiciously replied, “I’m blind, I’ve got Sp*rm on my nose.”
Now, for joy of verbal sally and quick repartee the FA-18 community – motto: “No slack in light attack,” yields the stage to no one, but this particularly graphic formulation, coming as it did in the midst of a vast aerial brawl, left all the whole world shocked into momentary speechlessness. This uncharacteristic silence was followed of course, by the kind of violent wheezing which is the very limit of human capability when uproarious laughter is constrained by a well-fit oxygen mask.
For a while there, it was borderline unsafe.
Someone sagely called a “knock-it-off” before the distraction of reply became too much to bear. The whole gaggle headed back to the home drome, with some of ‘em heading back there faster than others. At any rate, in short time this exchange was memorialized for eternity in the squadron hit log. Shortly thereafter, cooler heads prevailed, and nugget or no, the decision was made that “Sp*rm” really was an untenable call sign for a naval aviator. Thus remonstrated, the JOPA scratched their collective noggins and lit upon a brilliant inspiration: “Let’s call him ‘Sp*rt’, instead.”
And that “*” does not stand for, “a, e, i, or o.” No. Alas.
Or at least it didn’t, at least until our man got orders to fly for the Blue Angles. Once there, the publicity conscious leadership decided that “Sport” would do right well, all things considered.
They do a lot of traveling of the world, the Blue Angles do – it’s bad form to scare the straights.
I’m at the USO (it’s slow right now, but there are two people here, one of whom I’ve been talking to).
So, that means I’m sitting here laughing and blushing… and wondering how the hell I could ever explain it the Marine Sergeant I’ve been talking to without mortally embarrassing myself if he requested an explanation…
Note to self:
No more drinking water and visiting this blog at the same time.
That was funny, now I’m going to the Blue Angels website to find who that is.
Done and done…
http://www.blueangels.org/Years/1990/Year1990.html
Shipmates,
Well, those sorts of monikers are also extended into the VP world. Seeings how we operate with 10-12 goof fellows on each crew, it’s hard to actually moniker each and everyone and still maintain some semblance of ICS dicipline.
Still, and all, one deployment my good crew seemed constantly tasked for night missions. It wasn’t that we minded, per se, madtrapping at Oh-Dark thirty in the straights. It’s just that the late briefs and take-off times were putting a cramp in our social life.
But I digress…
Comes the time that our PPC wanted a crew name, something to be known for… we got together, we few, we enlisted types, and Voila! we came up with the perfect name and motto: Combat Aircrew 7 “The Roaches”… our motto? “We Only Come Out At Night…”
The patch design was a red numeral 7 with a black cockroach superimposed. We had, of course, sub-names. Mine was Difar-Roach. My sensor-2 was Lofar-Roach, the Sensor-3 became Radar-Roach, etc.
Things went swimmingly until the Navy’s Substance Abuse Officer came visiting on his lecture circuit and saw the patches…..
Fortunately our skipper was a worldly man with a good sense of humour and explained things to the good SA Officer and sent him on his way. I still have a photo of the original artwork that our In-floght Tech designed. It was a white disk with a red border, and a red 7 centered, with a dead coackroach pinned to it.
Life was grand in those ancient days….
Respects,
Good one! On callsigns and PC evolution – I was an instructor with a guy whose last name happens to be Breast. Now legend has it his dad was an Admiral back in the day and his callsign was “Felter”. A generation later, with the political climate as it was, Junior got tagged with “Hooter”. Today even that wouldn’t be appropriate.
Steve,
You are talking about RADM Jerry “Felter” Breast. I was in VX-5 with him at China Lake. He was a toot. He got that monicker at Univ of Tenn. You should have heard the one for his wife, Van.
You’re a “Hoot” Lex. BTW, I noticed on the other site a pic of Lex and GW side by side. Lex and GW may have shared a common callsign too if’n young George had gone Navy Air like Pops…..nuyk-nyuk! (yep-laughin at my own joke SE)
Steve- He’s still called Hooter methinks because I happened to notice on a golf course a few weeks back that he responded to it like my dog does to the word “food” at dinnertime! Although it wasn’t mentioned at the CoC.
Smart little feller.
b2
Well at least his call sign was better than what my kids and wife call me at the dinner table. Tim the Toolman Taylor gets more respect. Even when I’m doing the cooking and bottlewashing.
Subsunk
Way back when, say 1994-ish, I was a department head on the INDY and I had to go see a buddy of mine who was the XO of VF-21. Sitting in the ready room waiting for Wahoo to finish up the message board, I noticed that they were having an AOM that night to come up with a moniker for a just-reported RIO by the name of ENS Smear.
When he finished, I asked him why they were even bothering with an AOM since the answer was so-o-o obvious.
I was then informed that all callsigns had to be approved by COMFITWINGSPAC and there was no way in hell that they could get THAT approved. And they would probably get in trouble for even trying.
Sigh…
He’s got sp*rm on his nose…
…and I’ve got coffee on my monitor!
Thanks, Lex! I needed that!
The word Jizz was created to solve this dilemna…….More than a couple of Naval Aviators have gone through life with that moniker.
Hey Skippy – remember how Peeps got his moniker?
- SJS
Army callsigns get chucklesome, too. In RVN, codes for the ground pounders were generated by slapping a random adjective before an equally random noun — which led to the B Team at Moc Hoa getting tagged with “Frosty Sinus.”
They got real huffy whenever we announced we were “…five mikes out from Frozen Sn*t’s House”…
SJS,
Yes I do. Somehow I think that was probably a call sign that did not survive the great post tailhook purge.
Skippy:
Alas, probably not, but it was well and truly earned.
- SJS
Lex, All snarking aside… but it’s my understanding that any Naval Aviator( Lt Matt Seamon included) who flys with the Bule Angels is, by definition, a top seed in the Naval Aviation community… is this correct ? Best
SE, sure almost at the very top of the profession.
Just below TOPGUN instructors, but with tighter pants
Yes, Yes, Moses did bring down the Topgun program from Mount Zion……it was on the third and fourth tablets……..NOT!
SE and Skippy-san, you guys are the snarkiest!
I love it!
(not to encourage this sort of behavior, or anything…)
I thought Topgun was brac’d by Patsy Schroeder when Miramar was turned over to da Jars back in mid 90′s.
You mean it still exists?
b2
And B-2 just piles on…
Skipp-san, Moses was many wonderful things. But he was no TOPGUN instructor.
Might have worked at CAEWS for a while though…
b2 – yes, it still exists. And now they teach Strike, too. Someone has to do it
Being a rather mature Shoe, I did a lot of sailing, as a JO, with single gender ships. The first time we sailed with a tender in our battle group was the first time I sailed with women. Upon join up, our OS1 called the tender regarding the status of her Link 14. The most sultry female voice you ever heard replied, “My beaver is sweet.” We were cleaning coffee off of consoles for the rest of the watch!
Hey, Lex.
Came uponFound this fine gentlemen after following one of the Google ads on TFD. Was wondering… would he be one and the same?Or could there be another such unfortunate fighter pilot soul?
Egads. I thought I knew how to link. Now I can’t make it work at all.
Oh well, there’s always the old fashioned way.
http://www.aircombatusa.com/pilot_bios_detail.php?recordID=15
Different guy, but you may recognize this fellah in one of my old tales: Ecce Bones
I was one of “Sport’s” flight instructors as he got a bunch of ratings (Commercial, Instrument, Mult-engine, flight instructor) while in college prior to joining the Navy and setting a record for highest scores in Navy flight training and then being the first Ensign ever assigned to the F/A-18 (the first Navy F/A-18 squadrons were just being formed).
I was always curious as to how he got the “Sp*rt” callsign – we’d called him Slushface in the flying club after a very funny run in with a milkshake. During initial Navy training, he was called Jet Stream.
When I visited him in Lemoore and P-cola the welcome mat that his wife had had custom made simply said “The Spurts”.
I always thought it was funny that in the three years he was in the Blues (narrator, opposing solo, lead solo), we’d often meet for breakfast on Saturdays during the show season and I’d ask if the were ever going to print his callsign in the program or paint it on his jet. To my knowledge they never did.
One of the best and smartest sticks I ever flew with; superb judgment. One of the two best flight students I ever had – utterly brilliant. He got the ratings in a college flying club and was so much more capable than the undergraduates his age he was always hanging out with the grad students in the club. He’s now an airline captain with some pretty cool model airplanes around the house.
Privileged to meet the “Sp*rt” man while I was on the Board of Directors of the Navy League/Orange County. A class act and funnier than any of the stories written about his call sign. The Mrs. looks to also have a sense of humor as well, but I remember a story he told a few of the league members about his grandfather having the sense of humor…he named his son Richard, nickname Dick (fill in the last name).
Thanks for a good read.