Dingleberry

I was reading something the other day and ran into this word which I had not heard since my retirement from the Navy. It reminded me of…….

I joined the Navy right out of high school in 1962 and was sent to Recruit Training (Boot Camp) at the Naval Recruit Training Center, San Diego, California.

Other than gaining the experience of my first flight on an airplane I was also about to be exposed to a completely new vocabulary. Of course there were all the normally ones you learn when you go from being a landlubber to a sailor like head, bulkhead, port and starboard, but the first one that really threw me was dingleberry.

I first hear this word as we were lined up at the swimming pool for one of the various classes we had in water safety. We were instructed to disrobe, shower well with soap, dry ourselves but not put our swimsuits on until we presented ourselves to some unlucky slob where we were to bend over, spread our cheeks and be checked for dingleberries. What the f……

Was there really a problem with people having dried feces entwined with their anus hair. Hell, I was just 17 and barely had pubic hair so what did I know.

I also learned another new word that day “humility” or lack there of, I’m not sure.

Further along in my Navy career, I often used the word dingleberry to refer to sailors who were dumber than rocks and a waste of human skin of which there were a few. Not many, but a few.