Ensigns.
Or whale turds. Your choice.
Pussies. 
There was an E-6 wog in my work center. He didn’t wish to participate in the “juvenille” ceremony. He was placed in the ship’s library with the other non-conformists and conscientious objecters. He told me that they had shut off the air conditioning in the library during the ceremony, and fed them stale box lunches.
Wow, I got off easy I guess. I was friends with a second class that just hid instead.
I guess I did the right thing by volunteering for an extended watch instead of just saying I would not do it. I think we were the only two EMs to pass on the ceremony.
The nice part about the watch is I had my own AC unit, plus #7 switchboard was also my station at the time, so I had a large locker in there with my stereo, books, and snacks. I was actually pretty comfortable, though I had to piss like a racehorse when I was finally relieved 8 hours later.
I crossed the equator in 87 approx 600 miles west of Singapore, in the amphibious navy. As I mentioned in an earlier thread, the Marines’ behavior had an overt homoerotic component, to say the least.
I was my ship’s PT intructor for the enlisted, working with a railroad-track LT who’d played college football in Florida and was instructor for the officers. (in the Royal Navy this is its own MOS, but for us it was an unofficial collateral duty)
I led PT for a bunch of chubby chiefs and E-6’s who were looking at fat-boy discharges. But I didn’t see it as my chance for"revenge" and they didn’t pull rank on me - they were just a bunch of married guys who wanted to hang on to their jobs so they could take care of their families. I loved this job because it was the only areas where everybody got some dignity instead of the usual military chicken shit (plus I was being paid to have a body like screaming Adonis)
I was one who struggled with bodyfat the whole time I was in the Navy. To set the stage, I’d had to work hard to lose weight to get into the Navy in the first place, and was never below about 18% bodyfat. What Robby doesn’t mention is that between 22 and 25% bodyfat (IIRC) the service member would not be eligible for promotion, while still being (barely) within standards for remaining in the service. In addition to the straight 25+% discharges there was, while I was in, a discharge for being over 22% for more than three PRT cycles within a two year period. For me, keeping below that 22% line was a constant struggle and one that I only barely managed.
Eventually, between the (in retrospect) way my depression was taking me over, and the disgust I had for the Chain of Command, my motivation to keep fit was gone, and I ended up being separated about four months early. I would have been an early separation, anyways - my ship was being decommed, and if I’d stayed through my original obligation I would have been transferred from my ship with something like 90 days left to serve. No one thought this was a good idea, so I’d already run a special request chit to be separated upon decommissioning of the ship.
ChiefScott mentioned ship flexing in heavy seas. Here is a video of some of that, taken on a cargo ship:
http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=164323
(Be patient, there is a couple shots of an internal passageway.)
Back to last night’s episodes, if’n I may.
The Nimitz steaming through heavy seas is nothing new to her. I deployed in her when she changed homeports from Norfolk to Bremerton, Washington back in the mid (to late) 80s. After completing a standard (for that time) Med cruise, we outchopped from 6th Fleet and headed south. After a port call to Rio de Janeiro (a completely seperate thread!), we steamed around Cape Horn (Nimitz-class carriers are too large for the Panama Canal).
We hit a very large storm. We were actually shipping water onto the flight deck! As the bow of the ship would crash down from atop a swell, the bow would throw the water forward. The ship’s momentum drove it beneath the tons of airborne seawater and it would fall across the forward flight deck. We lost part the rubber gasket for cat 2 and it suffered some minor water damage. The catwalks too suffered a bit.
As many birds as possible had been spotted in the hangar bays and those that remained topside were tied down aft.
On the 03 deck forward of frame 75 and aft of 200, it was like a continuous ride on a hiccupping elevator. Up 30 feet, down 30 feet, up 30 feet, down 30 feet. Two days of that shit. My workcenter was located just forward of the dirty shirt wardroom (03-30-2-Q). Your legs just ached by the end of the day.
So yes, she was pitching heavily on last night’s episode. But she’s been through far worse.
Not me, but I’ll pile on.
Actually, Nimitz-class carriers are designed to flex as little as possible. From the flat-bottomed keel to the flightdeck, stiffening is designed into the ship. The 03 level (sandwiched below the flightdeck and above the hangars) is honeycombed to stiffen the flight deck.
Do you remember a couple of nights ago when they were showing the Sailors at cleaning stations? There were a few guys using emory cloths to clean the base of what appeared to to be oval openings in a wall?
Those are called knee-knockers. Every fifth frame is solid and these cutouts allow passage. It is part of the stiffening system the class employs.
Just as a point of comparison, the Yosemite (a Dixie-class destroyer tender) had two expansion joints which rose from the main deck through the superstructure. They were spanned on the decks with flaps of metal welded to just one side. This allowed that class of ship to flex without causing metal fatigue or other damage.
Whoops! Sorry OtakuLoki!
No worries!
For interesting stories of flexing in birdfarms, read some of the accounts of sailors on board the old Jeep (CVE) carriers. These were the ships built by Kaiser’s shipyards, pioneering pre-fab ship construction, IIRC. And as the ship’s hull flex with sea states the flight deck would “oil can.” That is, it would act like a giant drum as it was compressed then released, and BOOM. The sound disturbed a number of sailors on those ships. The older sailors more than the younger ones - the older ones knew that it was not normal, and so found it much more disturbing than the younger ones who lacked the experience of what a normal ship was supposed to be like.
Hey! That was the Spruance-class destroyer with us in '93. Were you on her for that?
You have to hunt around for pics ( NavSource Online: Escort Carrier Photo Archive ), because they are not sorted by category, only ship name. But your right. Barf machines.
Underway replenishment… covered by TV show yet?
Here ( http://www.navsource.org/archives/05/05015715.jpg ) we have a shot of the Mitscher. Being a carrier sailor, i got to stand high and dry in seas that soaked those poor dudes.
Bits and pieces of unreps. A smattering of GQs too. I’d like to see more of both before all is said and done tonight.
Nope. I was TAD to COMSOLANT staff - I wasn’t ship’s company. I did the UNITAS cruise and then went back to my command.
There’s a story behind that as well. I picked up orders out of OS “A” school to go to the TSC (formerly ASWOC) in Sigonella, Sicily. I spent two years there working with the P3 community doing a little ASW work, a lot of embargo ops (the whole Yugoslavian operation was in full swing then) and getting to know the Sicilian countryside and its wonderful inhabitants.
Some more than others.
In the meantime, I made rate twice, so when I reported to my next assignment, the USS Monterey, I was an OS2 with no sea time at all. That made me as welcome as a fart in church among most of the division.
The Monterey was coming off of a cruise and heading into an eight-month yard period. Around this time, a message came through looking for OSs and ETs to man up communications assist teams for a UNITAS cruise. It was pretty easy to convince my chain of command that I needed the sea time more than they needed me in the yards, so off I went on an extended tour of South American drinking establishments.
I agree with ChiefScott. Rio is a fun time. But to be honest, I had more fun in Salvador, Brazil.
I had fun way off the charts in Lima, Peru. But that’s really another thread.
When were you at NASSIG, Mr. Moto?
January '94 to February '96. Then off to Tomahawk school, and then the Monterey. I got to enjoy a couple of weeks of Mayport before the Monterey changed homeports to NOB.
:mad:
I was back on the Monterey by around Thanksgiving of '96, just in time to commence intensive Tomahawk testing that took up pretty much the rest of my time in the Navy.
I got engaged in March of '97, and unengaged in June of '97. It was a busy time all the way around.
Our tenures at Sig then apparently overlapped slightly. You may remember me. I was the guy on TV who said, “Good evening and welcome to the Sigonella Evening News” each evening at 1800.
Hmmm. Admittedly, my career was short, but I don’t recall watching any of the base TV channels while stationed at any shore commands.
Onboard ship, however, there was that, and the plat camera.
Edit: Ignore me. I was never stationed overseas, where there was few English language TV diversions available. :smack: