Oh man I love telling this story lol (Naval jargon slightly altered for civilian understanding)
Basically the guy (who we’ll call SN Smith) was an idiot but like....not a full shit bag. He liked to pull a lot of stupid shit to entertain himself and was busted down and made E-3 a few times. Like drawing elaborate well done X-rated murals across everyone’s bunks (the epilogue to this is he’s now a tattoo artist). Anyway, while in port painting the sides Smith went on and on about his plan to be a “legend of the deckplates” by jumping off the boat and swimming back when it was going slow or dead in the water. So for those unaware of aircraft carrier layout, the stern of the ship has this door near the waterline with all this scaffolding to tie up boats and barges. Which we would do if we anchored in a port instead of going alongside a pier. His plan was to swim back and haul his ass up to the door. We all, obviously, thought he was joking. Because....you know....sides crew....boredom. In hindsite considering the number of schemes brainstormed there that Smith actually put into play (like planning to print out fliers and convincing gullible people Metallica was going to fly onboard for a USO tour in the Gulf). Well yeah....
Anyway, 4 months later in the Arabian gulf, 400 miles from goddamn land going maybe 2 knots. Smith is one of the two stern lookout watch positions. He looks across the fantail and just goes “i’m doing it.” takes off the headset. Takes off his boots. And jumps. Immediately notices a few flaws in his plan:
(1) The ship looks like its going slow, but swimming 2.2 miles per hour is actually FAST to swim.
(2) There’s also a 2 knot wake going the other dirrection so its more like 4.4 miles an hour. In clothing.
(3) By the time he dropped down to the water (fantail is like...30 feet above the water) and came to the surface the ship is already 50 yards away and he’s not swimming that distance.
(4) I think he thought he could get the other watch to run down and open up that stern door and somehow not say anything. But that stern door, for obvious reasons, is sealed, locked, chained, locked again with all the keys in the department head office.
(5) he didn’t tell the other lookouts jack shit. So obviously they immediately called away the man overboard.
Yeah....so the helo goes and picks Smith up. He’s walking soaking wet across the flight deck from the helo the the island superstructure of the carrier looks up at his buddy on the other lookout position high in the superstructure and gives a big wide armed grin and wave while laughing. Yeah....the CO, XO, CMC, Admiral, Strike Group CMC, EVERYONE was on the bridge and admiral bridge and saw Smith do this.
Smith was court martialed immediately. By some grace of God when determining his punishment he apparently had enough leadership go “he’s a fucking idiot but hes suprisingly a good worker” and took that into account with him being 4 months from his EAOS. Oh yeah, I forgot, Smith was 16 weeks from finishing his enlistment. So all he had to do was 30 days in the brig (carriers actually have a real brig btw). That’s it. Don’t fuck up and he could finish his enlistment.
Only caveat to that was he was obviously restricted and on thin ice. Next port we pull into, Dubai, he’s actually allowed to go on liberty. But on a phased liberty where he can’t drink. People in that phase come back and the MA’s have them breath into a breathalyzer. Smith blows a 0.07, not even drunk lol. Immediately gets flown home with a bad conduct discharge.
Epilogue to this is he left a lot of hentai porn and self made shivs (like out of paint scrappers and toothbrushes) when we opened up his old rack. Guys were still friends with him when we got back. He did a few of their tattoos for free when he was apprenticing.