Short Round goes AWOL

[jimlongley]

Shortly before Short Round acquired his nickname, he decided he was unhappy with his lot in the Navy. Shorty had been an Artillery man in the Army, as a draftee, and had risen to E-5, served in 'Nam, and been decorated and Honorably discharged. He wanted to transfer from the deck division, where he had been gainfully employed swabbing decks, chipping paint and polishing brass, to the gun gang, where we would subsequently put him to work swabbing decks, chipping paint, and polishing brass until we acquired someone junior to him, he had been made E-3 in honor of his prior service.

Shorty decided that since the transfer was not happening at the pace he determined that it should, he would instead take a little vacation from the Navy - after all, he already had medals and an Honorable, he had volunteered for the Navy and he could volunteer out too, at least that was his logic. I will not accuse Shorty of being the brightest bulb in the box.

So Shorty goes AWOL and stays away just over three weeks, he didn't want to take a chance on being declared a deserter by staying away too long.

Imagine his surprise when he wandered aboard the ship after his little vacation and was not arrested, was even greeted cordially by the quarterdeck watch as if he had never even been gone.

And as far as the ship was concerned he hadn't.

In one of those slips that could only happen to someone you know, never to you, Shorty had been transferred, on paper, from First Division to Second Division on exactly the day he chose to take off. The First Division muster counted him as being in Second Division, and Second counted him as still being in First, and nobody missed him at all. A couple of us kind of wondered where he was, because he spent a lot of his spare time hanging with the gun gang, but we thought he was on leave or special duty or something and didn't allow his absence to concern us, at least except for the junior guy in the gun gang who was tired of swabbing decks, chipping paint, and polishing brass.

He was never charged and laughed about it even 30 years later.