Dennis Muses on: McArmstrong's Navy

How Many Times Can a Man Jump Ship and Still Be Considered a Sailor?

Ministers on the USS Armstrong are not the smartest sailors in the Navy from what I can tell.  They probably need to just lighten up a bit and get their own comedy show.  Well actually they already have their own comedy shows but they seem to have a hard time trying to figure out what episode and what cast they want to be in.  It always confused me as a kid when I watched "The Three Stooges" because every once in awhile Curly would not be the original Curly.  There was some other guy that kinda looked like Curly but I knew it wasn't the original.  Then along comes Shemp and really confused me.  Who's Shemp?  Where did he come from and Why is he now one of the "Three Stooges."  As I got older I figured that the original Curly must have had some personal problems and the show had to go on when they manifested on the set, but I don't know.  Anyway...that's another show.

Captain Herbert W Tkachaflurryweinapackstrong

How many ships can a Church of God minister jump and still be considered a sailor?  I don't know.  I was only on two ships in my life.  One I did jump, ok I admit it.  As a kid, the USS Presbyterian did not seem to work for me as I studied how ships should be constructed and how to read the Ship Log and Training Manuals.   I jumped to a much better ship that proved to be the absolute wrong jump to make.  At least I can comfort myself in the fact that in a parallel universe, I jumped to the USS Penn State or USS Cornell and became Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson Diehl.  I guess I fell off the second one or got so sick on the ride I just realized I was no sailor.  It made me seasick and Captain Bligh concerned me at times.  There were three of them as well . Sailors were always getting hung from yardarms or made to walk planks. Some were severely beaten as a lesson to the other of us sailors.  While I did not have to deal with the Captains all that much, the times I did were not all that inspiring and often wondered how they got the job.  It was the Second Lieutenants that I marveled at at times and often.  It was quite a cruise.  Towards the end of the cruise, you had to take a head count of the crew every week to see who was still there and who had jumped ship.

...it's a bitter trip to  Dave's candy shop. Where obedience pays... on the gloomy shores of Gyrate Bay

One only jumps ship for one of two reasons.  Either one wants to get out of the Navy and off the ship and go home, or they like being a sailor, want to stay in the Navy but just not on that ship.  The pay and perks of sailing are pretty good.  Most of the time you are just doing rather mundane things to keep the ship afloat the purpose of that particular ship functional.  You can always get others to swab decks and the tax payers take care of most of the bills.  Every April, around the Spring Holy Days, they have to send it in.  They have to pull big triggers but the IRS has the right to say these things and the authority to do it.  Captain Dave Pack must have worked for them at one time before jumping many ships and then just building his own ship more to his liking.   I think it's called "The Good Ship Lollygag"  or something like that.  

Working on the USS Philadelphia is no fun.  It's just an experiment anyway and after finding missing sailors and others embedded in the deck like some time warp or something, not to mention it being mysteriously transported from California and then showing up in Oklahoma...well, it's mystery. It may also just be an urban legend or even a hoax.

Why on earth would I jump this ship?

Not many seem to jump the USS United.  It's kind of a cruise ship and just seems to wander around the nicer areas of the sea offering entertainment with the occasional bout of E-Coli when the food inspectors mess up.  It seems to happen more than it should but that's why they call it the USS United.  Lots of sailors seem to jump ship to get on the USS United.  It's just an easier ship to work on evidently and it has many Captains depending .  If you don't like this one, just wait a couple years. 

USS Restored and Captain Pack and Crew attack the USS COGdom

(Don't  jump ship...No one would pick you up)

The USS Restored is a ship of a different color....mostly green.  Or at least lots of green is always on order and there is never quite enough of it to finish restoring it.  It's a very small ship and reminds me of the concept of mice that roar.  This is the ship Captain Bligh ended up on after he was set adrift in a small lifeboat when abusing the crew of the USS Worldwide Bounty.  When younger, he was on the USS Global for a time as well as the USS Still Living but he didn't really jump them.  He was thrown off them.  The USS Restored is only about 25 feet long, has a very small crew of conscripted zombies from Haiti and a huge Captain's Quarters and observation deck or at least that is in the offing if space for one can be found.  Captain Bligh still believes he is spoken of in the Naval Training Manual specifically and after the sudden death of three well known Captains and ship sinkings, the surviving crews and lieutenants will climb on board the USS Restored.  The problem is there isn't much for them to do on it and the requirements and credentials as well as swearing on one's mother's grave they were on the wrong ships to begin with are quite high.  It would be a poop deck slug fest if all these crews, helps, painters, gunnery Sargent's and sails men and former Captains showed up at once.  Cardboard extensions have been added to make the USS Restored look bigger at sea but they don't hold up in the salt water and hot air.

"Go ye therefore into all the world and make 'em chuckle"

And no...you're not really the One True Ship

Some ships, like the USS Thiel are so small the don't even have crews.  Just a Captain over not much sailing around and acting bigger than it really is.  Definately a ship of a different color with Captain Thiel at its head for sure.   Captain Thiel keeps saying he is Captain of the one true ship but we all know there are many ships at sea and all do different things for different reasons.  One True Ship?  Meh.....and pffffffft.

"Permission to come on board sir!"

"Why?"

The USS Living takes in a few Ship Jumpers from time to time.  The jump is pretty easy.  No great distances to climb nor railings to get over.  It's not a fast ship and somewhat dead in the water with flooded engine and looks a bit like a toy but it's fun and a new Captain and Crew is waiting to come on board.  

There are a couple of unmaintained lifeboats and dingys hanging off parts of or washed up from the now sunken USS Armstrong but not worth mentioning.  

Crew leaving the USS BoundtoBeSunk

But back to the original question.  How many times can a sailor jump ship and still be considered a good and trustable seaman?   I'd personally find it difficult to believe the sailor when he was on board my ship telling me just how much he loves it and me and won't ever do it again...he promises.  I'm not sure I'd believe him when he called roll call and reminded me I served on the finest and only true ship in the ocean. 

Your view?