by FlyNavy

Many years ago before I was flying attack helos, I was in ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) flying SH60B SeaHawks. Right after I had become the lead pilot in my helo, my unit was deployed to the Mediterranean to assist in the Kosovo operation.

As I am sure you know, we weren't really worried about the Serbian or Croatian submarines. This is mainly because they didn't have any. So as you may imagine, flying an aircraft designed to hunt and destroy submarines was not the most stressful of jobs at that moment in history. Why were we there, you ask? Please direct these questions to the Clinton White House.

On one particular day, we actually did find a sub. It was a nuke and its signature was quite clearly that of a French submarine. Now, I am going to let you in on a strange personal quirk of mine: I hate the French.

Clarification: I ABSOLUTELY HATE the French.

I'm not sure why this is. Yes I do. It's because I hate cowards.

Anyway, on this particular day I decided that I was going to mess with these shameless surrender monkeys, so I started dropping sonar buoys all around them, and in some cases "accidentally" getting some right on them (the sub was snorkeling very close to the surface). Sonar buoys let out very loud "pings" that all ships with sonar in the area can hear, and the way those pings move through the water, it lets everyone know where the submarine is. So in essence, I just blew the shit out of their cover. Had we been in a battle situation, they would have been sunk. Many times.

It was all fun and games until I got back to the ship. Upon landing and debriefing I was warned not to harass the French submarine crew by my XO. He was not pleased, and the conversation was quite one-sided, with him yelling and me trying not to laugh. Then the CO of the ship called him off and took me aside for what I thought was going to be an even bigger ass chewing.

"Great job son. I hate those fucking Frogs."

The following day we are out flying and what do we find? A threat to the US? An old Russian sub that was sold to the Serbians?

No, of corse not. We found that same French bastard sub. In virtually the same place.

Now I was warned not to fuck with them, but who am I to not uphold the centuries old multi-national military tradition of fucking with these worthless stink-cowards?

I did a repeat performance of the previous day, dropping at least $50k in buoys on this fucker. The sound relentlessly bounced off this sub for an hour, announcing the presence of that sub to every vessel within 500 miles. In the midst of this fun I was called to return to the ship. I didn't know what I was in for, but I was willing to deal with it, because hey--I got my moneys worth.

When I landed, the Commodore of our battle group was on my ship, waiting for me. I had barely shut down and set my feet on the ground when he started yelling at me about harassing the French. The only person higher on the food chain who could have reamed my ass would have been an admiral at the Pentagon. All of my crew were white with fear. This man could literally take our lives from us.

After a good 15 minute old-school Naval ass-chewing where he publicly speculated on everything from my bastard lineage to the size of my genitals, he asked me what I had to say for myself. I had the career of my crew and myself in my hands, but I calmly responded:

"Sir, if they were better submariners, I never would have found them. They got what they deserved and if they are smart they learned a very important lesson today. Now maybe they will at least be able to hide from Greek fisherman."

I was grounded for the following 10 days.

I think it was worth it.