Navy to de-encript enlisted ratings
The Navy Times reports that soon, we’ll all understand Navy ranks and ratings;
The Navy deep-sixed all of its 91 enlisted ratings titles Thursday, marking the beginning of an overhaul of the rigid career structure that has existed since the Continental Navy in a radical shift sure to reverberate through the fleet and the veterans community beyond.
Sailors will no longer be identified by their job title, say, Fire Controlman 1st Class Joe Sailor, effective immediately. Instead, that would be Petty Officer 1st Class Joe Sailor.
I’m sure that swabbies will be upset by “this tectonic shift in Navy’s personnel system” as the Navy Times calls it, but the rest of us will be relieved that we can finally understand WTF their ranks are now. Next thing you know, they’ll have to have to say “left” and “right” instead of “port” and “starboard”. They’ll have to use toilets instead of heads and they can go “downstairs” instead of “below decks”.
Category: Navy
And a variety of commenters to this blog are going to have to change their handles. 😉
Right??
And in 3…..2…….1….” HELL NO BITCHES, I’M NOT DOING THAT!!!!”
You just wait, ChipNASA. You zoomies will find yourselves losing all those stripes and only be allowed to wear three of them.
Oh, and no more hash marks for longevity on your sleeve, either. You’ll get an employee longevity award, like a cheap watch you don’t need or want with a little gold-plated tag dangling from it, one for each 8 years of service. And campaign stripes? OH, no more of those, either. You’ll just make the people who didn’t ‘get’ to go get blown to bits jealous and hurt their feelings.
Not just ‘N-O, NO!’ but F-U-C-K, NO!
Was this another idea from the Good Idea Fairy Rayme Maybe??????
It actually makes sense. They’re bringing the Navy more in line with the other services. They’re also replacing “rating” with “NOS” or Navy Occupational Specialty.
This Hull Technician 3rd Class will always remain HT3…done and done! SNIPES don’t want to be confused with air dales & deck apes.
Yep!! Brown shoes vs Black shoes!!! They wont understand that one!!!
I get it Airdale. I was and always will be an HR/HA/HN/HM3/2/1 and HMC. But if you wanted to call me PO Jones or Chief Jones, that was OK. Using the ‘Hospitalman’ was frequently optional and was not disrespectful.
This is from the ‘Department of Let’s Change Stuff Because We Haven’t Changed Stuff Yet Today’.
Are the adults close to again being in charge? In the meantime, let’s remember not to hurt any feelings.
BTW, it was commonplace in the USN to refer/call someone Petty Officer Jones, Chief Jones, etc. Many referred to themselves the same way. It actually was a sign of respect.
It’s “let’s change stuff”, because we have been sitting on our dead asses and people are beginning to notice, we need to stir up something, even if its ph-cked up! Almost ashamed to say I was Navy!
Are they going eliminate Fireman, Airman, and Seamen next? Have they already done that?
You left out Constructionman (CN).
I was also wondering if this was an easy way to gender-neutralize ranks and position in the Navy.
You can still call me QM1.
How will this impact Bernasty’s imaginary rank?
It won’t… he’s still the chief taint tickler in chief of the DRG…
He’s an ex PO2, never was a CPO in any capacity.
What…the…FUCK????!!!!!!!!!!
As confused as this ol’ grunt is over the Navy rates and ranks, I wouldn’t want them to change.
Cuz then we couldn’t make fun of ’em. (ducks for cover). 😉
Does that mean my Mother’s headstone in the National Cemetery will have to change from AT3 to PO3?
“Officials say the controversial move will improve sailors’ lives and ease their transition into the civilian workforce.”
I never recall this being an issue in the first place, during OR after a sailor’s service…. in fact, their system seemed very simple to me.
Exactly. Bullshit excuses. I figure they found it was too hard to purge the system of the evil word “man”, so this is what they came up with.
You win the interwebs for the day
Actually, no joke, you are probably exactly right. Why else?
Definitely correct. First thing that came to my mind when I first heard this BS.
Exactly my thinking. Can’t go around calling folks Damage ControlMAN or Aviation OrdnanceMAN. Nope let’s just concoct some fucking bullshit story, do away with all of the ratings because….yeah. Wonder how they’ll address us CWO’s who are designated by specialty. Would I no longer be CWO (WEPS) aka Gunner? Oh that’s right, I’m retired, fuck these SJW’s.
Marines will always call for a Corpsman.
Ahem, I believe you mean “corpseman”
/Obumbles
Nurse! NURSE!!!
?
I’ll be staying AW1Ed, thankyouverymuch!
Does this mean that now they will all have to wear a Rating Specialty Badge (just like the Air Force) to know what they do at a glance?
My Able Seaman/Gunners Mate Father-In-Law is undoubtedly making about 40 knots of screw turns in his grave right now.
Or take them off?
FUCK THAT SHIT! Not changing my handle! Leave it to Mabus and his bitch boy e-10 (ret) Mike “COCKSUCKER” Stevens for this fucked up idea.
What a fucking mess the Navy has become… so sad to see it go down the shitter because of some shithead’s “idea”.
Agree, Senior. I think it will take YEARS for this to take place, if ever.
Does this mean they will also take the rate emblem off the crow?
So proud I am covered by my DD-214
HM2 and damn proud of it!
As a retired Airman, I am well aware of the fact that the Air Force is constantly tossing its traditions from its short history. Now it seems political correctness is doing the same to the more senior services. Personally, I think it’s stupid. But hey, I was only a lowly enlisted swine!
The most confusing thing was trying to understand Navy ranks. I still never got it till this day!
Back in the day 0-7 rear admirals wore two stars. You could probably imagine the blood pressure boiling over by senior brigadiers in the Army/Marines/Air Force during joint assignments taking instruction from some newly minted baby admiral.
Sorry, accidentally clicked on report.
Anyway, was that back when Commodore was an actual rank? Never understood how that worked. IIRC, they were like super O-6s but also kinda like admirals or something like that, but it could just be my failing memory.
The Navy tried re-instituting the Commodore rank in the 80’s, but it didn’t catch on and was renamed “Rear Admiral Lower Half” after less than a year.
I will always be OS2.
Despite retiring as an Air Force Master Sergeant, I will always be a QM2 at heart from the earlier part of me career.
Can’t wait until the MCPO from NYC checks in on this one.
Well, batten down your hatches, because the storm is probably brewing now.
If you get to chance to watch the announcement video from the CNO, MCPON, and SECNAV you’ll hear their explanation, not that it’s very good. The idea is fairly simple, other services use a MOS so why not the Navy? So instead of Machinist’s Mate (MM) you’ll have something like a 10B or something.
That sounds great, until you realize that we already have alphanumeric indicators for everyone’s job (take a look at any Navy eval). The Navy also has no obligation to make our ratings system make sense to the public, that’s part of our heritage to have a Boatswain’s mate, not simply a PO2, pipe someone over the side during a retirement ceremony or change of command.
Now, will the jobs change? No, or at least they shouldn’t but I can read between the lines of ‘opening up careers’. The real irritation is addressing others, at least this is what I’m sensing all morning from my co-workers. We routinely call each other by our ratings to lessen confusion in groups, i.e. ET1, MM2, MA3. Now we’d walk into the group and call out PO2 and 10 people would turn around. That’s akin to walking into a squad bay and saying ‘Private’ and having most of the people turn around. Is this a world shattering turn of events? No. Is this irritating and unnecessary? Yes.
And for those of you who might say this is simple, stupid, and just get over it I do have this to offer. There are times (operationally) and in certain conditions where names are not used, only ranks or ratings (both in logs and spoken). This removes that ability. Sure, we’ll figure out a way around this new social experiment, but if ain’t broke, why try and fix it?
The logical next question is: so Admirals will be Generals, and Commanders will be LTCOLs?
NEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will Lieutenants become Lieutenants? Will Colonels become Captains.
One thing is sure: Warrants will be Warrants with a coffee cup in their hands and a perfect record of never attending a PT session or work detail.
You wait, MC. That will be the next bit of damage to be done. That, or stationing soldiers on ships to ‘teach them the ropes’…. And there goes another traditional bit of shipboard slang down the sewer.
Oh,I get it now. It’s a part of the gigantic effort to screw the military three ways to Sunday. See, next, they’ll be issuing special badges so that people can tell what you specialty is.
Oh, wait, the Navy already has that in place. Had it for 242 years, in fact.
Raymie the Gigantic Maggot at work!!!
I will ALWAYS be PH2.
Ex-PO2 from now on. You are just a Petty Officer now, get with the program, be a team player, show some support.
Oh, yeah??? Fuck you! Fuck you very much, upside down and backwards!!!
(For anyone who is wondering: no, I am not addressing Dave Hardon because he never returns phone calls or answers love letters. And yes, his name is intentionally misspelled.)
That kinda sounds like an average Saturday night at the home of a certain IDC SARC
I can’t talk to you on the phone while that vibrator is buzzing. It makes me feel cheap and used.
Insofar as the love letters go…foreplay is not hours of begging. At least its not supposed to be.
Always thinking of you EX-PO2
EX-PO2???????????????????
Do you want to live through the night?
And get yourself a new set of batteries.
You two wanna get a room for the night? My glasses are getting steamed.
As an outsider, I have to ask: what’s the point? Is it really such a horrible thing that Sailors are identified by rank AND rate? Or is this just another example of the current administration pissing on tradition just because they can?
It’s a simple thing, TOW.
When someone like a Photographer’s Mate is addressed by the rate name PH, you know right away what he does and who is being addressed.
And this stuff was in place before the USA became the USA.
But let’s just throw a system that makes sense out the window because a MORON WITH BRAIN THE SIZE OF A PEA doesn’t understand the Navy and doesn’t like the military at all, so he/they are doing everything they can to destroy it.
Is that more or less what you wanted to know?
Grandpa was a Gunner’s Mate in WWII
Aunt was an Aviation Storekeeper in the mid ’60s
Uncle was a Sonarman on a sub in the early ’70s.
Cousin is currently a Sonarman (or is it Sonar Technician now?) on a destroyer.
Brother-in-law was a Hull Technician for three years, or in his own words, “a seagoing plumber.”
Okay, so naval ratings are different from the other branches’ enlisted ranks. So what? It’s a Navy tradition! Just like the Navy Jack, or saluting the flag, or any number of other things. Do you have to do it that way? No, it offers no immediately-tangible benefit. But it carries tremendous psychological value for those involved. That’s the whole point of tradition: when you carry on something that’s been done by numerous generations before you, you are a part of something FAR bigger than yourself.
/\THIS!!!/\
Shack.
They’re pissing on tradition just because they can.
They don’t understand the Navy’s traditions and culture, and they don’t WANT to understand the Navy’s traditions and culture, yet they feel entitled to sit there with their knobby little Ivy League-educated heads and point at the Navy and say “I don’t know what all of that is, but I know that I don’t like it, so make the Navy change because I say so”.
Once again, they’re fixing something that “ain’t broke”. They should’ve left this alone.
What he said.
WTF is the world coming to? Just when the Corps starts to issue tiaras and special snow flake cuff links to MARSOC “people”, the Navy does away with all their rate insignia.
Squids are not going to like this shit. PM’d one today just to let him know from now on he is just a Chief.
Whoa!!! Someone can “just” be a lot things, but you can’t be “just” a Chief!
Yeah, we pulled this crap in Canada. Give a half a generation. Round round we go!
So fucking glad my DD-214 protects me from this bullshit.
Ditto.
Speakin’ of which, I think I’ll hug and kiss my DD214 when I get home come Monday.
Nobody outside of the Navy could break the code so the Navy scrapped the code. Another of the fundamental transformations.
“They’ll have to use toilets instead of heads and they can go “downstairs” instead of “below decks”.” I was hoping you would get to bulkhead so I wouldn’t have to look it up–again.
Bulkhead = wall
Overhead = ceiling
Deck = floor
Raymie Maggot Maybe = Gigantic Flying Farting Asshole
Makes perfect sense to me!
So, what’s the friggin’ issue?!
Here’s some more:
Hatch = Door
Ladder = Stairs
Brightwork = Brass fittings aboard ship
Scuttlebutt = Rumor/gossip or a water fountain
Auto Dog = Ice Cream
Rope Yarn = An afternoon when no work is assigned
Midrats = Chow served at around midnight aboard ship for the night watches
If stairs are called a ladder, what’s a ladder called?
A ladder! What else? Sheesh!
A ladder is called a ladder.
Galley = kitchen
Yard = a place to park a ship, as in a shipyard; or a rope hanging from a yardarm (cross piece on a mast or a jib boom, which held the ropes and ladders (rigging) for sails)
three sheets to the wind = a falling-down drunk sailor on shore leave; or a loose rope (sheet). A sheet that is in the wind has come loose from its mooring and is flapping in the wind like a flag. A sail (normally jib sails) is said to be sheeted to the wind, when it is set to backfill (set to the opposite side of the ship from normal use).
liberty port = Subic Bay, Olongapo City, Hong Kong, Yokosuka, Manila, Naples.
We wont even get into frame numbers and the letter.
I’m offended by the term “mate” as it implies British or Austrailian lingo swagger at best, and at worst offensive sexual suggestions.
Please consider the term “Boatswain’s Deckhand” or “Boatswain’s Steward” instead. I’m probably going to be offended at something here as well but it buys you a few years until I think of it.
I AM waiting for someone somewhere to decide that Second Mate is a sexist term resulting in my renewed license arriving with the title changed to Second Officer.
Yuck..
How about Chieftress or Chieffette or Madam Cheifey.
You just a Chief but you will always be my Daisy.
SJW snowflakes caused this.
This is a way around the whole “yeoman/yeo-‘wo’man?” argument. Basically kowtowing for the PC crowd.
The word man is offensive!!! Especially to those of us XY types who don’t think we are male!!! [/sarc]
Cheers,
Face
And in rebuttal, anyone who knows anything about the history of WOMEN in the NAVY, the rate Yeomanette was used when recruiting WOMEN by the Navy during World War I.
However, having talked to a young woman who was a QM2 at Walmart a short while ago, she knew nothing about Yeomanettes and WAVES, because the HISTORY OF WOMEN IN THE SERVICE HAS GONE DOWN THE SHITTER!
WAVES: Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service
My aunt was a WAVE back when WAVES were still a thing. She’s damn proud of it, too.
It seems that the WAVES, WACs (Women’s Army Corps), WASPs (Woman Auxiliary Service Pilots), and every other “traditional” (for lack of a better word) role for women in the military in days gone by aren’t worth remembering to the modern PC crowd. Even the Girls Baseball League got that shitty estrogenfest movie with Madonna, the fat bitch, and drunk Tom Hanks. But service branches with proud traditions that performed vital roles apparently aren’t cool enough.
“My aunt was a WAVE back when WAVES were still a thing. She’s damn proud of it, too.”
My hat is off to women who served in a mostly-male environment. I extend that hat-off to Mrs. SP4/HMC/Russian, who enlisted right out of high school, 1970.
Not everyone can be a Fire Controlman. So many people are butt hurt because of this that the Navy had to do something. Regrettable. Everyone needs to just come to terms with not being that smart.
I want to see a deck ape take a needle gun to a 480 volt panel.
You know, some of those job transfers they keep talking about.
Things changed when I was in. When women or VIPs were around, you had to refer to it as a “inflatable mattress” instead of a “rubber bitch”.
You had to also refer to it as a “flexible gas can nozzle” instead of a “donkey dick”.
The transition was tough, but I made the adjustment.
I had a platoon that used the slightly less offensive term “mule apparatus”.
I got horrified looks from young female cadets on one ship when referring to small paint rollers as “doggy dicks.”
An old retired BMC on my first ship taught me that one.
I was in the Army for years before I learned the real name of the “donkey dick”.
Wait til someone decides it’s a good idea to put Gunners Mates and Boatswains Mates in with Army artillery squads.
Won’t that be funnier than watching a cat in a box full of pine cones?
Years ago, it might have worked out because of the similarities in guns & projectiles. Naval Gunnery is more automated since everything is built onto/into the ship. Field Artillery is pretty much the same as it has been since indirect fire became a thing. Most of the technological advances in FA have been in Fire Direction & Control. there has been technological advancements in the guns as far as materials used, modularity of the rounds etc…,but a tube is a tube whether made of iron or aluminum, horse drawn or self propelled.
I was a Boiler Technician put in with an Artillery Section. We are all pretty much the same animals.
WTF is ‘de-encript’.
Is it navy-speech so I miss the joke?
Or is it grunt for decrypt?
And then there are the monumental printing costs involved in making all the documents, manuals, charts, etc., changes, easily in the high tens of millions. This at at a time when a budget-constrained Navy is also spending hundreds of millions to correct an ill-advised uniform pattern change of but a few years ago.
And this leads to the question, will enlisted arm insignia have to be changed so that it no longer reflects one’s branch/specialty?
Why, there’s no cost at all, Poe. Nothing has to be printed any more, including cash money. Didn’t you know that?
Everything – every damned dying thing – is done electronically, period.
The Big They can put a couple of people to work to replace unwanted words in instruction guides and hey, presto!
It’s all done, no cost whatsoever!
They used to let us wear “Crackerjacks”.
“Crackerjills” is both racist and sexist.
Point is, no matter where you turn there’s an issue.
‘Crackerjacks’ is the reference to a WWI sailor’s uniform on the box of Crackerjacks, which is a popcorn and peanut snack.
WTF is next, Dress Pink Uniforms?
This. Is. The. Stupidest. Shit. Ever. We can’t keep the LCS at sea, and several are broke-dick welded to the pier, but we can make sweeping changes like this? Where are our PRIORITIES?
I think you just answered your own question. Priorities? You have ships that can’t float, never mind maneuver, so because some Good Idea Asswipe wants TO DO SOMETHING, let’s just change the Navy’s entire job structure.
Out with ‘personnelman’ and in with ‘personnelperson’.
No. PN will become file clerk. Wait and see.
If I think about it long and hard, “clerk” may even sound demeaning vs. empowering.
That’s why they got rid of stewardess and went with attendant.
I don’t know why it would be demeaning.
I worked for 15 years as an Accounts Receivable clerk. How is that demeaning?
Meanwhile, Jarheads will continue to refer to all non-Corpsmen as squids.
See, I simplified it for everybody.
You’re welcome
Thanks! And does “Marine” really stand for My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment?
(grin)
Or Marines is “Marines Are Riding In Navy Equipment Sightseeing”?
“Meanwhile, Jarheads will continue to refer to all non-Corpsmen as squids.”
They FINALLY got the memo! (Or learned how to read!)
😉
Naval Aircrewman went to a more generic Naval Aircrew without any angst, at least on my part; this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater!
Well, PH, DM, JO and LI all went into one rate MCS in one low blow, but that wasn’t such a big shift, AW1Ed. AI (Aerial Interpreter) was a WWII rate that was rolled into PH after WWII.
It’s the other stuff that is involved in revising something that doesn’t really need revision, and in addition, implying in print (see the article) that career options are going to be gone and having to spend time learning how to do the work that other people specialize in is going on the books.
The lack of common sense in this is disturbing.
I read the article. You need to pay attention to this part:
‘Officials say the controversial move will improve sailors’ lives and ease their transition into the civilian workforce by broadening their skills in this tectonic shift in Navy’s personnel system to redraw the traditional lines between enlisted job specialties — a massive shake-up that is only beginning.’
‘Transition into the civilian workforce’?
Is this a hint that career-minded people will be forced out when they reach a certain pay grade, regardless of stellar performance? Why would anyone put that in writing when it implies specifically that the military is NOT going to aim at retaining skilled workers in any way, and the Navy in particular?
What’s next? No hash marks on your sleeve to indicate length of service? No campaign stripes for the Army/Marines/Zoomies?
There is also the statement that cross-training will be included, so that ‘sailors’ can learn to do what other ‘sailors’ do. So you end up with a knows-a-lot do-nothing who can literally screw up a surgical field by opening sealed instruments incorrectly, or even better, a gunner who spends his time as a file clerk while the file clerk is out running the guns or prepping for surgery.
Yes, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
When are these morons leaving the DoD?
EVER?????
That concerned me as well. While I don’t think it’ll be that extreme, I did read between the lines, especially about the ‘cross-training’. I read it as a way they can conduct minimal training and say someone is now certified to be sent to a job not in their ratings to fill empty billets (think a RM, MM, or MA sent to work at PSD to something similar).
I’m worried that it will go too far and it’ll be presumed that just because someone is an E-6 they have the requisite leadership skills to be the LPO and therefore be sent somewhere to be an LPO in a rating they have no clue about.
I’m more concerned that someone who has years of training in combat medicine is going to be told he has to spend time doing PN work while PN goes into the field of combat with minimal first aid training. And yes, there are people stupid enough to make them do just that.
“I read it as a way they can conduct minimal training and say someone is now certified to be sent to a job not in their ratings to fill empty billets (think an RM, MM, or MA sent to work at PSD to something similar).”
And we all know how THAT will work out. I can hear it now:
“Hmmmm, we need to send someone to fill that clerk slot in PSD…Hey, Seaman SHITBIRD, get over here!”
Gunner’s Mate in the galley, making chocolate chip cookies….
B-O-O-O-M!!!!!
Or an Airedale going down to the nuke plant…
“Shimming out, sir!”
Somehow this might do away with the whole”choose your rate,choose your fate” thing. In the U.S. Army it is far easier to re-classify into another MOS, than it was to change rates in the U.S. Navy. When my rate was eliminated, I found my choices severely restricted. They were all woefully over-manned.
I joined the Navy just when they combined ET, IC, RM, and QM in the submarine community. I was called a technician but I was only trsined to be an operator. And you didn’t see submarines hit underwater mountains quite so often prior to that conversion.
‘And you didn’t see submarines hit underwater mountains quite so often prior to that conversion.’
Good point. There is an old saying: jack of all trades, master of none.
That seems to be the goal with this change.
You think that sucked, try being told a month before taking the CPO Exam that you need to do 1&C PARS for RM, QM, and NavET or you won’t be able to take it.
And you have a month to do them. Ih, and guess what your test is gonna be? No nuke stuff, nooooooo. All coner shit.
Separating us into rates gave us a whole extra layer to our sense of teamwork. It reached well outside the command, even beyond those on active duty. Now I guess everybody is ‘just sailor.’ This is sad news. I know I’m out so they can’t really take my sparks, but that’s kind of happened. Soon I’m going to stop running into new people who wore them.
This has nothing to do with sailors or the Navy, but everything to do with the digits in DOD. With the exception of a few Navy ‘O’ gangers and the chiefs, nobody understands the Navy rating system. so, it is easier to change the Navy system than try to educate the digits.
So, on board a carrier, the call goes out over intercom “Seaman Jones report to the aft flight deck”…and 32 Seamen Jones show up!!!! Yeah, that’l be real productive.
Lol Great point!
Seaman Lazy B. Jones, report to the aft flight deck!
Breaking news:
The Secretary of Defense has just announced that the US Air Force will be combined with the Army and will now be called the Army Air Corps.
Something about “all those stripes are confusing as hell” and “the Navy already has Chiefs, so why does the top rank in the Air Force call themselves Chief?”
Chief,
Lets not forget our comrades in Arms amongst Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children.
The top enlisted rank is either a Master Gunnery Sergeant or Sergeant Major.
Lets not forget the E-8s who are either First Sergeants or Master Sergeants.
As someone who grew up at various Marine Corps towns in the southeast US. I ran across folks who had retired as Master Sergeant E-7.
My father had been both a Master Sergeant E-7, before being promoted to Master Sergeant E-8 and he completed his career as a Master Gunnery Sergeant. He used to refer to the MOS of Sergeant Major as 9999 unskilled labor.
Perhaps next addressing each other as “comrade” or “commissar” is coming…really simplifies things then
As a Yeoman (YN) I worked at various commands as a Personnelman (PN) (now Personal Specialist, PS), Storekeeper (SK), Aviation Storekeeper (AK) and Disbursing Clerk (DK) and Postal Clerk(PC). These last 4 are now known as – hell now I’m loosing track.
In other words, if it was a butt in a chair, with a little bit of hands on training, I could do it. I, for one, could never figure why there were 2 records type of ratings.
As for doing away with all ratings -HELL NO. But consolidations could do the trick.
ET2/SS until I die!
The last eight years cannot end soon enough. BTs, MMs, ETs, GMs, SMs, YNs, FOREVER!
My mother’s older sister is in her mid 90’s. Before the Alzheimer’s/Dementia set in over a decade ago, she was very proud of the fact that she could append Yeoman Chief USNR Retired after her name.
Now when will we get rid of this ensign, Lieutenant JG and Lieutenant nonsense.
I always got a chuckle about the “senior” O-1 in a squadron was the Bull ensign who wore oversized bars on his collar points so folks would know. In the Air Farce rank amongst butterbars was like virtue amongst ladies of the evening.
The other one I found entertaining was that the senior O-3 in a squadron was the First Lieutenant. It always sounded like a demotion to me.