A Foreign Language?

One thing we quickly discovered in our RV research is that there are a multitude of new terms you have to learn.  I always thought a toad was something that hopped around my yard eating crickets, but in RV vernacular it means something else.  It’s like learning a whole new language.  I never took a secondary language in school, and it’s just not one of the things my brain picks up on.  I’m pretty good at some things, especially solving problems, but speaking a foreign language is not one of those things.  I have learned a smattering of words in different languages since I have visited numerous ports in numerous countries surrounding the Mediterranean Sea (The Med), but nothing I could use to have a conversation.  It’s pretty limited to “Hello”, “Goodbye”, and “Beer” in many different languages.

It’s a good thing I have the traveling bug since I want to live in an RV.  It possibly stems from my travels in the Navy, but even before that I loved to travel.  Someday maybe I’ll tell you the epic story of our Grand Canyon adventure when I was 11 years old (that story involves 1 Dad, 3 kids, and a dog traveling for 2 weeks in a Ford Pinto).  As I have told my family and friends, it’s a tie as to which is my favorite country to visit.  My two favorite places to visit in the Med are Spain and Greece, especially Benidorm, Spain and Rhodes, Greece. 

What Did You Say?

I do speak a language that anyone listening to me might think is a foreign language.  I can speak acronym-ese well, but I speak Navy-ese fluently.  Below is an example.  If you speak the language then you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.  Each branch of the military has its own “accent” you might say; this is Navy accented and I’m keeping it mild (if this were a foreign language I would be speaking sloowwwly so you could get the gist of it).

I was an AX working on Vikings.  One thing I carried was the mode IV and KY codes every day and punched the IFF before each cat stroke.  I worked on all avionics systems including the FLIR and ICS, but was initially trained on the ADP, MAD, and MPD’s.  I loved working on the deck as a troubleshooter and became a final checker.  Each morning the Boss would muster us up on the 5MC and we did a FOD walk down from bow to fantail. It was often hot, so it’s a good thing there was a scuttlebutt in the island, you just had to dog the hatch each time due to the noise.  In between cycles we would hang out near the bomb farm until our birds trapped.  Usually the birds got spun back aft between the wires and round down. 

Vikings sometimes suffered UHF and ICS issues and I could not fix those because they always parked us TOW.  I had to wait until the yellow shirt taxied us TOD, then I could reset the SLU which fixed the issue 90% of the time. We rarely had to use the huffer to start, unlike the Corsairs and Phantoms.  When we went to the cats you had to be careful around the finger and the JBD’s.  Cat shots on the waist were more difficult than the bow cats because the scupper forces you to operate from the catwalk to final check . 

Have I lost you yet?

NEVER cross the foul line during recovery.  If you do you are assured of an ass chewing (That is universal military-ese for getting in trouble). Rollers and sliders were the only thing we had time for between cycles so we’d hit the forward mess as fast as we could.  We could not do this during GQ because Zebra was set and every hatch was dogged.  I also became a CDI, then QAR, before becoming the squadron FDC. While on the beach I often time had to go TAD on a Det.  Rosey Roads was pretty fun, but only after the BEQ was updated.  Screaming me-me’s were always a problem. And one last thing, channel fever is real!  I got it every time!

LOL…Chris got pretty good at understanding the lingo, if not able to speak it fluently.  She could speak it, but not like a “native”.  However, even after 20+ years of hearing the lingo spoken, she got completely lost when me and my son starting talking a different variant of Navy-ese.  I think I mentioned that he is a Navy Pilot and flies the F-18E Super Hornet.  When we are talking we speak Naval Aviation-ese, and it quickly becomes unintelligible to her.  We say things like IFR, CAVU, VFR, KIAS, Angels, MK-76 (Blue bomb of death), MK-83, GBU, AIM-9, and such and all she hears is blah, blah, blah, blah.  I am NOT fluent in Air Force-ese, but even me and my Air Force Drill Sargent daughter can converse somewhat.  We sometimes slip into speaking electronics-ese and Chris gets lost there too.  Even so, she is a real trooper and a gem of a person.  She’s stuck by my side for all these years!

Life is good…all the time.  And all the time…life is good!