I’m a Shellback!

One of the Navy’s most treasured tradition is the shellback ceremony. This a two day college fraturnity type hazing. It happen when your ship crosses the equator. You can be a Golden shellback if your ship crosses the equator and the internatinal date line at the same time.

When the ceremony start the ship is seperated into 3 classes of people; 1 the shellbacks, 2 the polywogs, and 3 the losers who don’t won’t to join.  It all starts the night before crossing the line, called “Wog day”. On this night the polywogs have the chance to torture the shellbacks by playing pranks, and hiding all the stuff that the shellback might use on them in the morning, but there’s a catch what ever they do will comeback on them 10 times worst.

The morning comes early, the polywogs are woke up at 4:30a.m. with the shellbacks yelling at them and throwing water or something like that. As a polywog you have to dress a special way, you put your pants on first,then your underwear over them and just a white tshirt. The shellbacks wear their outfits that looks  like a pirate, with their bandanas and the pattels. The pattels are made of old pieces of a firehose, cut about 2ft with ducktape for a handle which is used on the polywogs all day long.

After getting dress the polywogs are lead to the chow hall for breakfast on their hands and knees, on the way to breakfast the polywogs are harrassed by shellbacks with shaving cream and their pattels. When they reach the chow hall the cooks shoves green eggs in the wogs faces and pour oatmeal down their cracks. After breakfast the polywogs sre lead topside for a morning shower with a firehose, then it time for some major hazing with more whipping and alot of gross stuff. The polywogs would have just about everything poured on them, like raw eggs, peanut butter, cooking lard, oyster and clam juice. They would have to drink cold coffee with hotsauce and clams in it. After running the gauntlet of abuse you have to go in front of the Royal court, which are King Neptune, his queen, Davy Jones and the royal baby. When you go infront of the court, you see the royal baby who is the fattest shellback who tell you to eat a cherry that in his bellybutton and lard all over his belly in which he rubs your face in when you try to eat the cherry. Next you go to King Neptune and he ask you “what are you?”, you must say a shellback!, if you say anything else you get sent back to the begining or he could say i don’t believe you and send you back. So after going through all that I can say ” I’m a Shellback”.