User:Aofive

AOfive

AO. Aviation Ordnance. Five is a bit more complicated. In the United States Navy, and all services for that matter, you start out as an enlisted person, an E1. That is, if you actually work for your paycheck. As you move up through the ranks you get a bigger number next to that E. When I was living in the VF-124 barracks on NAS Miramar circa 1984 I had advanced to being an Aviation Ordnanceman Second Class Petty Officer. That means that I was, in the ranks of the military, an E5. Enlisted man, five steps up from the bottom. My good friend and shipmate Barry Bennett, already an Aviation Ordnancemen Second Class and living in the room right next to me was drunk off his ass one night and was trying to get my attention. In doing so, he was pounding on my barracks room door yelling, "AO2 Hall!, AO2 Hall!." This somehow morphed into him screaming "E5 Hall". Somewhere along the line of his drunken rant he acquired some kind of sharp implement and scratched on my barracks room door AO5. From that night forward, I was known as aofive. The name stuck with all of my friends in the Navy and to this day the ones that I keep in touch with know me as aofive.