One of my collateral duties was assistant command PAO (shows you how small we were) and I got tapped once to help the AFN folks do a story about one of our sailors who was a single mom - real puff human interest piece.
They of course took an average sailor abandoned by her dirtbag boyfriend and turned her into a heroic life lesson for us all.
Anyway, in the course of my duties I had to work with you guys at the base paper and the TV station a little bit. So we might have crossed paths.
Thinkin’ about it, the Angels were there in ‘92. A bit before your time. But I videotaped ADM Boorda during his visit. I got great footage of him losing his cool on the E-3 jerkwad who was fuckin’ around while he addressed all hands…
Ignore my earlier false alarm. My local PBS station is indeed airing the last two episodes tonight.
Mr. Moto, could you give us more details on that bread-and-water case you mentioned?
Nice to see the USS Moosbrugger mentioned here. One of my best friends from church is the admiral’s grandson, and has the license plate “DD 980,” the destroyer’s designation.
The Monterey was heading back from that deployment I mentioned before, and in preparation for heading into Mayport in a couple of weeks passed customs forms out to the crew to ensure they were all filled out in time. One guy in OI division, an OS3, noticed that bringing porn back to the country was illegal, per the form. This made him sad, since he had a big stash of stuff he bought in Spain that would curl your hair and toes and everything else. He also knew they would be doing inspections of bags for contraband.
So he took a laundry bag, stuffed his porn into it, and jammed it into an air vent near his bunk. Fine plan, but he shoved it too close to a fan coil unit and the porn caught on fire.
When the hose team pulled open the vent and pulled out a smoldering bag filled with really nasty stuff and stenciled with said guilty sailor’s name - well, let’s just say the investigation by the XO was really short. Mast was held within about eight hours.
They took a paygrade and some pay - but they decided that it was a case of a decent enough sailor being a real dumbass, so when he asked for bread and water, they said sure.
I went to an all-hands briefing given by ADM Boorda sometime in '94 or '95. A junior officer (LTJG) asked him what was the status of the leadership fad at the time, Total Quality Leadership (TQL). (After hearing about it constantly from the powers that be, the emphasis on it was starting to tail off.)
The admiral calmly asked the LTJG if he practiced TQL on a day-to-day basis with his division. “No,” the LTJG started to reply before the Admiral cut him off with, “THEN YOU’RE PART OF THE PROBLEM!!!” at the top of his lungs. :eek:
The number of folks in the audience with questions diminished markedly after that.
After that experience, I decided that the admiral had a few screws loose. Little did I know how right I was.
That’s why I asked for the “traditional” line ceremonies. With the exception for the funky clothes and dyed-green seawater, what I saw on TV last night wasn’t any worse than 1.5 day circa 1989.
Regarding weight, as noted above the standards ease as you age. When I was in the people who had the absolute worst time staying within body fat standards were the tall, skinny guys with a bit of a pot belly - if you were 6’ 2" and weighed 120 pounds but had the misfortune to have a stomach with a larger circumference than your hips you’d fail or nearly fail that bit. It’s also why a lot of people you’d otherwise think would be overweight would be within standards. How’d that work? Something like waist minus neck? Has anyone bothered to change that?
There was an old “Broadside” cartoon that showed two sailors. The one on the left had a little pot belly and a pencil neck, and looked pissed off. The one on the right was a big, beefy guy with no neck, just a head that blended into his shoulders, with a stupid grin on his face. The caption read, “One of these sailors never has to worry about the body fat measurement.”
When I got out (6 years ago now), it was still waist measurement minus neck measurement, along with weight, that determined your body fat.
Holy SHIT! I believe I actually remember seeing that in the Navy Times. One of the two was carrying a coffee cup. My brain hasn’t blocked out as many Navy memories as it thought it had. I believe it’s disappointed and demanding more gin…
I suppose that at some point I should mention that I got out as a CTM2 in 1994 without serving any time whatsover over steel but more than enough time inside concrete boxes surrounded by Wullenweber antennas. I could tell you more but the gin is calling. Also, I’d have to shoot you.
Wow.
A very powerful ending to a very well put together series. For the first time ever, I belive someone caught true emotion on film when the Nimitz pulled back into Alameda. Sure, I’ve seen photos and video of the hugs and kisses at a ship’s homecoming, but after we got to meet these Sailors and Marines over the past week and got to know their thoughts and hopes, THESE hugs and kisses were in context. The absolute best representation of a Sailor’s homecoming emotions ever!
On to the young airman whose pregnant girlfriend jerked him around for an entire cruise. You would not believe how many times this happens. Damn, it happened to a young me once!
What is with young “significant others” that carefully guard their own emotions at the expense of devistating another’s? It was easier for her to lie, lead him along and not admit the truth because she would have then been forced to recognize a very despicable part of herself. Then she met him at the airport…
You could see it in the Airman’s eyes – “If she didn’t want to be together, or she was in love with someone else, WHY would she be here? So everything must be OK.”
Breakups are terrible. Breakups on deployment or immediately afterwards are monumentally devistating! Living for six months with that nagging doubt soon begins to monopolize a Sailor’s every waking thought. How many times and to how many shipmates did this Airman express his doubts and seek consolation on deployment? Unfortunatly, no one could assuage his feelings as it is IMPOSSIBLE!
The helplessness that the female CATCC ensign expressed when her soon-to-be-ex-husband tried to withhold her kids is buried down in the psyche of every Sailor who loves someone. When that helplessness and doubt prairie dogs up out of its cubicle in your mind, the torrent of emotions it releases is almost always incapable of being dealt with by the young men and women of the Navy.
She is a fucking bitch.
So, yeah. A very powerful ending to the most accurate portrayal of Navy life I’ve ever seen.
Actually, I misspoke here. It was waist measurement minus neck measurement, along with height, that determined your body fat.
There was a height/weight screening, too. It was a maximum allowable weight for your height. If you exceeded the weight, they went to the tape using the procedure described in the previous paragraph. The height/weight screening was a quick check–if you passed it, your were good. If not, they used the tape measure. They used the the tape for more heavily built people who might actually be within body fat standards (like weight lifters, for instance).
The big problem with the tape is that passing can be dependent on tape placement, how tight the tester pulls the tape, etc. There are supposed to be objective standards on how to make the measurement, but it was still somewhat dependent on who was making the measurement.
Agreed. I saw this coming several episodes ago. As I said back in Post #139:
I’m guessing you mean the pregnant girlfriend, not the ensign.
Agreed. I’m going to get the whole thing on DVD. I want my son to watch it if he ever considers going into the Navy, so he knows a bit more what to expect.
Man when that red haired mom/air traffic controller was waiting and waiting for her kids, after she had to get a court to order her divorced husband to send them, it was really tearing me. Then they called and she’s at the wrong place. phew!
