From another group.  I was in the Navy when the Seabag was king,
however my ship had bunks.  It was still a gigantic pain in the arse.

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How many of you remember the Seabag?  I do!THE SEABAG......  ..  In
1963 when I joined the Navy everything I owned had to fit in my sea
bag.  Remember those nasty rascals?  Fullypacked, one of the suckers
weighed more than the poor devil hauling it.The damn things weighed a
ton and some idiot with an off-center sense of humor sewed a carry
handle on it to help you haul it.  Hell, you could bolt manhandle on a
Greyhound bus but it wouldn't make the damn thing portable.The Army,
Marines and Air Force got footlockers and we got a big ole' canvas
bag.After you warped your spine jackassing the goofy thing through a
bus or train station, sat on it waiting for connecting transportation
and made folks mad because it was too damn big to fit in any overhead
rack on any bus, train and airplane ever made, the contents looked
like hell.  All your gear appeared to have come from bums who slept on
park benches.

Traveling with a sea bag was something left over from the "Yo-ho-ho
and a bottle of rum" sailing ship days.  Sailors used to sleep in
hammocks.  So you stowed your issue in a big canvas bag and lashed
your hammock to it , hoisted it on your shoulder and in effect moved
your entire home and complete inventory of earthly possessions from
ship to ship.  I wouldn't say you traveled light because with one
strap it was a one-shoulder load that could torque your skeletal frame
and bust your ankles.  It was like hauling a dead linebacker.

They wasted a lot of time in boot camp telling you how to pack one of
the suckers.  There was an officially sanctioned method of
organization that you forgot after ten minutes on the other side of
the gate at Great Lakes or San Diego.  You got rid of a lot of issue
gear when you went to the SHIP..  Did you ever know a tin-can sailor
who had a raincoat?  A flat hat?  One of those nut hugger knit
swimsuits?  How bout those roll your own neckerchiefs.  ..  The ones
the girls in a good Naval tailor shop would cut down and sew into a
'greasy snake' for two bucks?

Within six months, every fleet sailor was down to one set of dress
blues, port and starboard undress blues and whites, a couple of white
hats, boots, shoes, assorted skivvies, a peacoat and three sets of
bleached out dungarees.  The rest of your original issue was either in
the pea coat locker, lucky bag or had been reduced to wipe down rags
in the engine room.
Underway ships were not ships that allowed vast accumulation of
private gear.  Hobos who lived in discarded refrigerator crates could
amass greater loads of pack rat crap than fleet sailors.  The confines
of a canvas back rack, side locker and a couple of bunk bags did not
allow one to live a Donald Trump existence.  Space and the going pay
scale combined to make us envy the lifestyle of a mud hut Ethiopian.
We were the global equivalents of nomadic Monguls without ponies to
haul our stuff.

And after the rigid routine of boot camp we learned the skill of
random compressed packing...  Known by mother's world-wide as
'cramming'.  It is amazing what you can jam into a space no bigger
than a breadbox if you pull a watch cap over a boot and push it in
with your foot.  Of course it looks kinda weird when you pull it out
but they never hold fashion shows at sea and wrinkles added character
to a salty appearance.  There was a four-hundred mile gap between the
images on recruiting posters and the actual appearance of sailors at
sea.  It was not without justifiable reason that we were called the
tin-can Navy.

We operated on the premise that if 'Cleanliness was next to
Godliness', we must be next to the other end of that spectrum...  We
looked like our clothing had been pressed with a waffle iron and
packed by a bulldozer.

But what in the hell did they expect from a bunch of jerks that lived
in the crews hole of a 2250 Gearing/Fletcher can.  After a while you
got used to it...  You got used to everything you owned picking up and
retraining that distinctive aroma...  You got used to old ladies on
busses taking a couple of wrinkled nose sniffs of your peacoat then
getting up and finding another seat...

Do they still issue sea bags?  Can you still make five bucks sitting
up half the night drawing a ships picture on the side of one of the
damn things with black and white marking pens that drive old
master-at-arms into a 'rig for heart attack' frenzy?  Make their faces
red...  The veins on their neck bulge out...  And yell," What in god's
name is that all over your seabag?"
"Artwork, Chief...  It's like the work of Michelangelo.  ..  My
ship...  Great huh?" "Looks like some damn comic book..."

Here was a man with cobras tattooed on his arms...  A skull with a
dagger through one eye and a ribbon reading 'DEATH BEFORE SHORE DUTY'
on his shoulder...  Crossed anchors with 'Subic Bay 1945' on the other
shoulder...
An eagle on his chest and a full blown Chinese dragon peeking out
between the cheeks of his butt.  If anyone was an authority on stuff
that looked like a comic book, it had to be this Chief.

Sometimes I look at all the crap stacked in my garage, close my eyes
and smile, remembering a time when everything I owned could be crammed
into a canvas bag.