Any discussion on life aboard a submarine could go a hundred different directions. I could explain the different kinds of subs, military, research or tourism. I could discuss the capabilities of these subs, how deep they can go, how much power they pack. But to be honest even though I find this information interesting, I didn't want to do the research. So instead of a bunch of facts about subs let me relate a few tails of submarine life.

Submarine life, particularly on a boomer, was a strange combination of tension and boredom. Tension, because we were always on alert waiting to launch nuclear weapons, and boredom, because we never got to launch them (probably a good thing). The officers worked hard to keep us from getting bored by filling the day with meaningless and repetitive cleaning tasks, but most of use knew how to skate through the cleaning with enough time left over to create our own entertainment.

There were many forms of entertainment on a submarine. You could watch movies, read books, or even work out. But our chief entertainment was to torture each other with practical jokes with the goal being to see how much we could get away with without being found out and disciplined. So here goes, a couple of stories about Seaman Smith (the name has been changed to protect the innocent, and no it wasn’t me).

Seaman “Smith” reported onboard and he proved quickly to be the most naïve sailor ever known. Only a week into patrol he was told to report to the engineering spaces to retrieve a primary loop. Now if you don’t know a primary loop is the radioactive loop in a reactor. It contains the water, under pressure, that is used to heat up the secondary loop and turn it to steam. That steam is used to generate the power we need to run the boat. While Seaman Smith was on his way back to the engineering spaces his supervisor made a call making the engineers aware that he would be coming and what the joke was. As quickly as they could they found some clear plastic tube, filled the tube with the contents of a chemical glow stick, making sure that it had a good glow going. Put the ends together making a loop out of it and then taped the ends of the loop together with duct tape. When Seaman Smith arrived they had him dress in a canary suit, a suit that was used for hazardous materials cleanup, and handed him the tube. Unfortunately the engineers didn’t get the tubing stuck together very well and one end pooped out of the duct tape causing the glowing solution to splash all over the floor and onto Seaman Smith. The chief engineer quickly grabbed the microphone, pretended to depress the key and announced "Radioactive spill in the engineering spaces." Wide eyed and terrified, Seaman Smith lit out like a cheetah on caffeine. They found him in the upper level machinery room shaking. Everyone had a great laugh about it except perhaps Seaman Smith.

The brunt of these practical jokes fell on the new crewmembers primarily because submariners are fast learners and as they gained experience they became savvier in detecting a practical joke. In this light I relate the next story.

Seaman Smith was told to report to supply to pick up an order of fallopian tube. We were in the middle of field day (where we mindlessly clean up the boat for hours on end). That Seaman, knowing he was being setup found out what fallopian tube was, and then disappeared for a couple of hours, getting out of field day. During that time he managed to create a convincing looking package with some sort of rubber tubing. The package was marked in very official looking terms "Tube, fallopian, 10 each" and even had a bogus naval supply code on it. That package hung on the missile control center firing panel for an entire patrol in honor of the seaman’s ingenuity.

The officers were not exempt from the crew’s ornery side. In fact, because many officers are a little, shall we say, haughty they were often targets of pranks. One such officer made the crew particularly angry with is unreasonable demands and his quick temper. So in order to teach him a lesson, while he was sleeping, several members taped up the opening of his bunk with a generous quantity of duct tape. Fortunately he was a heavy sleeper. The plan was that he would wake up and find himself stuck and that would be the end of it, lesson learned. However, not long after the bunk had been taped up general quarters sounded and when he went to leap out of his bunk he found a sticky grey wall between him and his duty station. In fact the crew members that were involved did such a good job taping him in that he couldn't get out. The cursing finally became so voluminous and thunderous that he could be heard in the control room. After he was cut out of his bunk an inquiry was launched into who might have done this but no one was ever caught. As a benefit to the crew the officer moderated his tone finally realizing who was in charge.