REWahoo! said:
Hmmmm. Meanwhile, the SACumcised steely-eyed killers sitting in on Alert waiting for the horn to go off signaling the start of WWIII were watching "Dr. Strangelove" and "Young Frankenstein"....
Ah, the black humor of mutual assured destruction. "No fighting in the War Room!" was our unofficial command motto.
I don't know what it was like in the silos, but whenever an Emergency Action Message arrived on USS JAMES MONROE (even if it was clearly just a comms check) the OOD had to announce "Alert ONE, alert ONE" on the shipwide PA system. Upon hearing that announcement, we pissed off highly-trained & responsive officers had to drop whatever we were holding at the moment and rush up to the top-secret spaces to validate the supremely critical news of KNEECAP's weekend plans strategic importance to the nation's security. For extra bonus points this was usually accomplished between 2 AM and 4 AM. Regardless of my perception of the system's utility, CO's careers were made or broken by their response time & accuracy. Let's just say that the officers were under considerable pressure from the executive suite to make them* look good.
Unbeknownst to the wardroom a couple of more "experienced" pranksters crewmen had told a young sailor that when he heard the "Alert ONE" announcement it meant we were goin' to war & ripple-launching 16 big ones, followed by the "Miller Time" jingle. Others had suggested that he should be skeptical of these assurances (especially the ones uttered by engineering nukes) so he didn't really believe that.
He didn't believe it, that is, until he heard the announcement and saw the crowd of panicked officers burst out of the wardroom shouting "Gangway!!", scampering pell-mell into Radio, and slamming the door shut. Activity on the ship seemed to screech to a halt while the Missile Division raced to their spaces to get ready for launch parameters. From the looks on the wardroom's faces he knew his worst fears had materialized.
We almost had to MEDEVAC the guy before we sorted things out.
From then on all cryptic PA system announcements were thoroughly explained to the new crewmembers
before we got underway.
*The executive suite, not the officers.
bssc said:
The Police had a song I can believe in, "Born in the 50s"
I wonder what all "The Who"'s grandkids think when they hear the lyric "Hope I die before I get old!"
