Today is “Pork Chops” for lunch and Sea Stories. Oh, post your trackbacks here. Not at Yankee Sailor…You guys are overloading his blog.

So, there are “pork chops” and plain ol’ “chops” and sometime just “lamb chops.”I spent 9 months in Newport getting my “PME” (Professional Military Education), courtesy of the Goldwater-Nichols Act, passed in 1986. One of my fellow students was a Supply Officer named Diane. She was pretty bright and we both were headed to Charleston after our school. I promised I’d give her a tour of the frigate, as she was going to the USS SIERRA (AD-18), which was, despite it’s important mission, not very “warlike.”

My two “chops,” LT Wayne Aiken and the “lamb chop,” LTJG Reich, were both excellent officers and the type of chops who knew their only reason for being was to keep us in parts and groceries. They were good at it and also good to the Supply Corps Manuals, so they kept us straight. They lacked one thing to “round them out,” that being the newly approved warfare “pin” for their staff corps community, the Surface Warfare Supply Corps Officer (“SWSCO” – called “swiss-co”).

I regularly asked the two men how far along they were in their completion of their qualifications. The “regularly” given answer was “XO, we’re too busy for that!”

Then, when I had been aboard for the better part of a year, Diane finally called to take me up on my offer of the tour of the ship. I obliged, seeing the opportunity. The day she was to come over and have lunch and then get her tour was when the Captain was on leave. That day at lunch, I sat at the head of the table, with my guest, the LCDR Supply Officer from the destroyer tender, sitting next to me, while the two supply officers sat at the other end of the all too short table for this day, as Diane had completed her qualifications, and was wearing her SWSCO pin on her working uniform. I certainly made a point of complimenting her on her accomplishment and noted how I believed it would be a big plus for her career, while Wayne and Jim sat quietly eating. They did, however, renew their interest in making progress towards getting their SWSCO done after that day.

Well, maybe you had to be there, back in the day of male dominated combatant wardrooms, to fully appreciate the foil I was using that day.

Tracked back @: Yankee Sailor