This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Navy Tales

If you wonder what is the worst that can happen....it will!

Watch where you walk!

For a year or so of my time in the Navy, I was stationed at Naval Air Station Cecil Field, which was located way out in the boonies from Jacksonville Florida. It was surrounded by woods, and swamps on three sides, populated by all sorts of wild life. There were actually tales of alligators on the runways, but I never saw any 'gators myself.

There was, however, one type of animal that I did see fairly often, mostly at night, that was out looking for food, and that was a cute, furry, black and white critter with a very effective defense sytem involving smell. O K how many guessed Skunk? You are correct!

Find out what's happening in Sunset Hills-Crestwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

To avoid an encounter with one of these, you had to always follow several rules...always watch where you were going, don't rush around the corner of a building, and never burst out the doors of the barracks without looking outside first. The barracks had doors on each side, at the end of the building near the parking lot. There were two doors with push bars that opened out, and had windows in the upper half. Outside there was kind of a cement porch, with two, or three steps down to the sidewalk.

The rule was to look out first, then open the door slowly and look all around. Then watch where you were going as you walked to the parking lot.

Find out what's happening in Sunset Hills-Crestwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Of course, some folks failed to follow these rules, and then several things happened...first there was a horrendous smell, then when they tried to run back into the barracks, they found the doors were being held shut, then they heard windows being slammed shut in that, and adjoining barracks (in the sixties, there was no airconditioning in the barracks, you opened all the windows for air.)

If you heard windows slamming shut in the adjoining building, you closed them in yours too, because you knew something bad was headed your way. The unfortunate rule breaker had to find an outside hose, or even go to the car wash on the base.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Sunset Hills-Crestwood