Anyone watch "Carrier" on PBS last night?

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Brown Eyed Girl]
I, too, am wondering why it seemed so easy for that idiot bigot to get out and why he didn’t take a more severe punishment for his behavior which seems really destructive to morale and team-building. What a jerk. How bad is it getting an other than honorable discharge?
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I really think they just wanted to be done with the idiot. As to the other than honorable discharge it can really hurt with many jobs. Corporations tend not to hire such people for office jobs. If the person interviewing is a vet, it will often be a big drawback. Of course the other side of the coin is if two candidates for a job are nearly equal, a vet will usually choose a vet.

[QUOTE=TJVM]

  1. The section on the gay sailors surprised me. Not that I’m surprised there are gay people in the Navy, but I thought that the “dont ask, don’t tell” policy would require them to be very discreet. The show gave me the impression that there were a significant number of people aboard who were pretty open about being gay, stopping just short of saying, “I’m gay.” Is that impression correct? If so, how likely is it that they’ll eventually get into trouble when they (perhaps inevitably) run into someone who really has it in for homosexuals?

  2. It looked like everyone wore civilian clothes when they left the ship on leave. I’ve always had mental images of sailors walking around in uniform while on leave; is that just a misconception from the movies? Or, has something changed recently? I wondered if it was an effort to blend in and avoid being targeted.

  3. I was surprised when that pilot lost his flight status, and had his career put in jeopardy, over the incident where he ran out of fuel and had to make an emergency landing in Baghdad. I expected him to take some flak over it, but I didn’t think it would be that severe. Obviously, running dangerously low on fuel is a bad thing, but was it really that big a blunder? Or is it more likely that he had a history of problems, and this was the “last straw”?
    [/QUOTE]

  1. The don’t ask, don’t tell came in after my time. The Navy was extremely homophobic and chauvinistic when I was in.

When two guys were found together on the ship, it went very badly and they got seriously hurt. They were taken down to the bilges and covered in oil and beat along the way. After sickbay they were quickly removed from the boat. I heard they were given a dishonorable discharge, but that is here-say. I know none of those involved in the torture got into any real trouble. I knew one of the guys that were involved in the incident on thug side. He was proud of it.

In all honesty, at the time I was homophobic*, but less so than many or at least less boastful about it. I had nothing to do with the beating, but I also did not condemn it.

I am surprised that sailors could now be fairly open about it. I didn’t catch that section of the first show I guess. I thought I saw it all.

  1. Even when I was in, we usually only had to wear our dress uniforms the first day in a port. So it was possible to see several thousand sailors all hit the shore at the same time when a carrier hit a port. A sea of Dixie Caps would be seen.

Most of the time though we just went off in our civilian clothes. I don’t know how different it is today, but Hollywood does overplay this. I noticed they just like to use sailors and nuns in crowd scenes for some reason. I have no clue why. I would WAG that they are simple and help highlight that scenes are taking place in certain cities.

  1. We had a marine pilot that could not land on the carrier. He tried 20 times, holding up flight ops and finally came in on fumes. He did something wrong on the now emergency landing and damaged his jet and another on the flight deck.

He got no second chances and he lost his wings immediately. I was told that this would pretty much be the end of his career. He would have no chance of every being promoted. So it sounds like the pilot would fall into the same category. The jets and the pilots are very valuable. You don’t get a second chance to run dangerously low on fuel if it is your fault.

Jim

  • It took many years for me to get over being homophobic, sorry about that. It helped that by BIL was gay, but even then it took a few more years to really shake the way I grew up.
262

[QUOTE=Liberal]
His name is Chris Altice, and if you’re interested in catching up, he has a video blog:

http://www.truveo.com/tag/altice
[/QUOTE]

After watching his videos it strikes me that Chris is a very classy guy. He got shit on pretty much and yet he makes an effort to say that he doesn’t want people to think poorly on Tonya or the scumbag that was fucking the mother of his child while he was away serving his country.*

Jeff

*Yeah, Chris may be classy, doesn’t mean I have to be.

263

[QUOTE=ChiefScott]
I believe it was called the First National Bank. It had the gamut of country stuff – mechanical bull, spitoons, sawdust on the floor. And they played both kinds of music – country and western.

I think it’s long gone…
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I’ve never heard of it, so it might be.

[QUOTE=Billdo]
OK, I’m catching up on this series on my DVR. I’m watching the “Squared Away” episode, and I have a couple of questions.

First, there was the guy who went to Captain’s Mast and got 30 days restriction after racist comments and getting drunk and into a fight on liberty in Guam. My question is what is the effect of restriction if you’re on the ship anyway (other than port calls)? Also, now that the episode is going further along, how did he manage to get himself kicked out? I thought you couldn’t get kicked out without a court martial.
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Two incidences of Captain’s Mast (Article 15 in Army-speak) shows a “pattern of misconduct” which will get you administratively separated.

[QUOTE=TJVM]
I’ve gotten through the first five episodes, and I’m really enjoying it. I do have a few questions, and was hoping some of the Navy vets here might be willing to enlighten me:

  1. The section on the gay sailors surprised me. Not that I’m surprised there are gay people in the Navy, but I thought that the “dont ask, don’t tell” policy would require them to be very discreet. The show gave me the impression that there were a significant number of people aboard who were pretty open about being gay, stopping just short of saying, “I’m gay.” Is that impression correct? If so, how likely is it that they’ll eventually get into trouble when they (perhaps inevitably) run into someone who really has it in for homosexuals?
    [/quote]

It’s correct only within whatever group of people those guys hang out with. “Every command is different” is the standard answer to almost anything. If I had to paint a broad brush, I’d say that like most of the military the “brainiac” kind of jobs are probably going to be generally more friendly than if you were a deck ape.

That used to be the way. But the world has a somewhat different opinion of American military now, to say the least. Now you’re practically told not to do this. Civilian clothes, blend in, you don’t have to look just like the locals but don’t be obviously military, don’t be That Jackass, and so on. Most ships even give a little bit of cultural sensitivity training before port calls to help keep things smooth.

264

I just got through the episode with the crossing the line and the rough weather landings. Holy crap, I was nearly pissing my pants watching those landings sitting on my couch at home. Landing on a pitching deck at night sure seems like an E-ticket ride. I was amazed at how may people boltered in a row.

A couple of more questions:

  1. What is the actual job of the Command Master Chief? I know he’s the senior enlisted sailor on the ship, and responsible for representing the enlisted point of view to the command. But on the show it seems like 75% of his job is walking around busting guys chops on how to swab the deck, but I suspect that this isn’t the main responsibility of an E-9. So, what does he really do?

  2. I’ve read some of the crossing the line ceremony stories here and elsewhere, as well as saw the show. Does the Navy/Marine Corps keep track of who is a shellback and who is a pollywog, or is it self-reported? I know that there are people who decline to participate (and what happens to them?), but are they people who try to fake being a shellback?

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[QUOTE=Billdo]

  1. What is the actual job of the Command Master Chief? I know he’s the senior enlisted sailor on the ship, and responsible for representing the enlisted point of view to the command. But on the show it seems like 75% of his job is walking around busting guys chops on how to swab the deck, but I suspect that this isn’t the main responsibility of an E-9. So, what does he really do?

  2. I’ve read some of the crossing the line ceremony stories here and elsewhere, as well as saw the show. Does the Navy/Marine Corps keep track of who is a shellback and who is a pollywog, or is it self-reported? I know that there are people who decline to participate (and what happens to them?), but are they people who try to fake being a shellback?
    [/QUOTE]

  3. Not just an E-9 but the Command Master Chief. He is the senior E-9 on board. There can be many E-9s on a Carrier.

That said, I don’t recall what their specific duties are outside of advising the Captain and XO.
2) The Navy actually does keep track. Some do try to fake it and I am sure many succeed. I already explained how I declined to participate and had no fallout over it other than an 8 hour watch in my switchboard with a meal and air conditioning.

**mlees ** who participated in the very one I passed on mentioned that the others were placed in the ship’s library. He mentioned his associate said they had shut off the air conditioning in the library during the ceremony, and fed them stale box lunches.

I had a friend that chose what I consider the worst method. He just hid, he spent part of the time hiding in my switchboard. While I did not wish to participate in the sophomoric event, I thought hiding from it was far sillier.

266

[QUOTE=Billdo]

  1. What is the actual job of the Command Master Chief? I know he’s the senior enlisted sailor on the ship, and responsible for representing the enlisted point of view to the command. But on the show it seems like 75% of his job is walking around busting guys chops on how to swab the deck, but I suspect that this isn’t the main responsibility of an E-9. So, what does he really do?
    [/QUOTE]

It really is supposed to be more than busting chops. In theory, he’s not supposed to be giving ass chewings --that’s the responsibility of the Chiefs supervising the swabbies. You pretty have it right tho; he’s the key link between the enlisted and the CO. They deal with morale & welfare, job satisfaction, some discipline, giving the CO a heads up on things.

He’ll probably work a lot with the FAP/SAVI (Family Advocate Person/Sexual Assault Victims Intervention point of contact), DAPA (Drug & Alcohol Program Advisor), CMEO (Command Managed Equal Opportunity point of contact)… and other alphabet soup guys. The Navy has big bowl of alphabet soup. The Chaplain and command’s Ombudsman (usually somebody’s wife) are also in there.

There’s a lot of ceremonial stuff he does too, like be at damn near every retirement/reenlistment/frocking ceremony or be involved in recreational things, Sailor of the Month boards, and things that don’t necessarily seem important yet are. He works with the XO in promoting command policy and keeping the chain of command strong.

A big part of his job is walking around the ship looking at stuff, asking questions, getting nosy, or jaw-jacking and bullshitting; that sort of thing. It’s like what you describe, but if all he does is ream guys on not mopping well enough then he’s not really doing his job right.

A good CMC is someone who even an E-0 can talk with comfortably. Got a question or a quality of life issue? Wheels get put in motion. It’s harder to do on a floating city vice a tin can but in my experience the CMCs I’ve known really are there for all the enlisted men.