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A Radioman's Dream
By: Anonymous
Submitted by: M.H. Prokity
You awake with a start to the 3rd Class's shake,
Feet hit the deck before you're awake.
Out of your rack and into your dungs,
Then crawl up the ladder, rung by rung.
Onto the mess deck with lights too bright,
Grab a horsecock sandwich to last through the
night.
Sip a cup of Joe, drag on a butt or two,
Then off to the shack, your duty to do.
You climb to the Oh one deck through salty
spray,
While dark clouds sweep past in their ugly
dress grey.
White water amidships, bow goes under green
Water swirls aft, washing weather decks clean.
You enter the hatch, fresh coffee
you smill,
Along with the slosh in the new man's pail
Transmitters emit a hot bees wax odor,
Aging capacitor growl like outboard motors.
Two outgoings are pending, NHY
is not there.
We lost him on twelve, faded into thin air.
Eight was tried without success,
Four's no better, atmospherics a mess.
Five hundred is alive and noisy with code.
Dyess tried to relay but lost her M.O.
The Chief will be up at quarter to six
To copy press and publish the Daily Mix.
With the watch relieved and gone below,
I adjust my key, sending real slow.
Searching for a station to get rid of the
traffic,
Hearing nothing out there but that damned
static.
Fired up the TBL and started transmission,
Braced myself, wedged in the position.
Ship rolls to port, then lurches ahead,
Banging into a wave, she seems to stop dead.
Shuddering up, shaking her bow,
Ridding herself of the water somehow.
Through all of this with coffee
cup balanced.
I've spilled not a drop to foul the Chief's palace.
On the eight get a call, the
signals come throug,
I tap out the SITREP, and another message or two.
The silent period over, you type
in the log,
Quite proud of yourself, you're a lucky dog.
Your watch draws to an end, how
long has it been?
You think of the wife, and start to grin.
For it's day twenty on station for
you,
You'll head for port, when it's over and through.
Underway watches leave little to
be done,
When homeward bound from the Med, "Ol' Son"
But suddenly you wake, to find
you've been dreamin'
Of Ocean Station days, your youth's past is streamin'.
No more station in the middle of a
grid square,
Nor a Radioman to be found, not one anywhere.
A key of brass, an Underwood mill,
Are all in the past, all over the hill.
The mission's still there, waiting
to be done,
The challenge has been accepted by the newer ones.
But, Radioman are gone, the code,
too, you see.
Tradition's been buried by computers, remotes and I.T.'s
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