This is my favorite story of all, these guys were my bosses while i was on the deck force. I will start with Henser i suspect he was polish by accent, did not know how to cuss like most people. He had little respect for anybody that he out ranked. I teased these three guys unmercifully and they could not stand the sight of me. As would pass by you on deck he often would greet you by saying Hi little shit baby snot. His voice as I can best explain sounded like someone who was talking while yawning. Try talking while yawning by saying Hi little baby snot shit boy and i promise you you have a perfect mimic of his voice. He was only a second class petty officer, but to his credit he was a hard working guy. The favorite memory i have of him is when i was going on leave for thirty days he yelled out as i was walking down the gangplank hey rasey going home to see your mommy you little snot nose brat. I rember yelling back,im going to see your sister. The next guy was woosley he was the most peculiar guy always so serious, i don’t think i ever heard him laugh except he gleam a smile when he thought he had done something to make you mad or hurt your feelings, he had an ability to make you hate him. He could not look you in the eye he was a sinister guy. I remember this guy across from my bunk, i don’t recall his name but he had just bought a new pair of shoes and in the morning when we got up someone had peed in his new shoes of course i was always clowning around so he thought it was me. I told him i did not pee in your shoes but he was convinced i did,im sorry i didn’t think of it or i might of. So he told woosley i had peed in his new shoes. So as woosley took roll call as he called names when he got to my name, he said rasey did you pee in his shoes,never looking at me, no i answered but of course he did not believe that for one minute. I never did find out who the phantom pee guy was. After roll call woosley would assign you the work you would have for the day. Being on the deck force you knew what was coming either painting or scrapping off the old paint. He would get much pleasure by giving you a lousy task. There were three different types of paint, there was haze gray,dark deck,and red lead. And
a scrapper and a wire brush. If you were on his list or he just didn’t like you it was for sure that you would either get red lead or a scraper and a wire brush it was wierd the pleasure he received from something so petty. He would call off each man giving them there assignment, if you got haze gray or dark deck you were lucky as he gave out the jobs he was expressionless but if you got red lead or a scraper his face would light up like a pin ball machine and a smile of pure bliss would spread over his weird little face. He really enjoyed it more if you complained. We often would pretend that we didn’t see him when he tried to catch you loafing, we would act as if we didn’t see him and start saying complementery things about him, we say something like wow woosley has a lot of responsibilities i think he is really a nice guy, i would love to be his friend. Of course he knew we were just toying with him. Now we come to forrestall he so easily infuriated, an me the instagater when ever possible. When he got mad his face would get bright red and he would drool. I picked on him far to much, but God i was only eighteen years old, and it was so much fun. One time he was so mad at me, i don’t remember why but i rember he wanted to fight me and he jumped on my back and i pretended i didn’t know he was even on me. I think back now and am feeling lucky that i wasn’t killed while i slept.