I am so thoroughly confused by Wardroom practices, based on my quote from @robby .
Some intro questions to get the ball rolling . . .
Are Wardrooms really that formal that you have stewards bring you meals, or is that a function of “When the Captain [or senior officer] sits down, you’re glued to the chair?”
I understand that in off-meal times, it’s quiet ‘Officers only’ space for them to get caught up on paperwork, etc. Chiefs are allowed in off-meal time by invitation only. You also hold Captain’s Mast there.
If you’re late, do you just get locked out of the room?
I get the no "politics, religion, or ‘other gender’ prohibition’ on conversational topics, but what was the tone? Does ‘shop talk’ go over well while passin’ round mashed potatoes?
So many questions . . . But this Is coming from a former Air Force EOD guy who did an ATO tour with a couple of overlapping USN EODMUs.
Tripler
They won’t let me into Army Officers’ Messes after what happened last time.
When I was a PO2/PO1 (E5/E6), I was in the weirdroom wardroom often, getting papers signed. If there wasn’t a meal or other meeting, I just rapped on the door (usually as I walked through it), got the signature(s) I needed, and walked back out.
It’s like the mess decks in that it’s where the officers eat, study, hold training, and lounge about watching movies/playing cribbage/&c.
I’m sure the wardroom on a skimmer is nowhere near as informal.
On my first ship, a destroyer, this was indeed how it worked. Not specifically because of any rank-induced adhesive properties (whether the CO was present or not, one always had to ask permission to join or be excused—unless you were senior, in which it was the practice to still ask permission to join, not of anyone in particularly, but of the group as a whole out of politeness, and likewise on leaving to merely say “Excuse me…” to the group and go without so much as a “by your leave”), but rather because the wardroom was physically remote (a couple decks above and several frames forward) of the main serving line and the wardroom itself was not setup/equipped to have all the food set out in a cafeteria-style line. So you had to order it (usually by selecting from a pre-printed mini-menu on slips of paper: circle what you want).
On my second and fifth ship (the same ship, an aircraft carrier), the Captain was not actually a member of the wardroom mess, he had his own steward and eating/serving accommodations, which is actually closer to how the old-school Navy used to be (traditionally, as on a CVN, the XO was president of the wardroom, but destroyers and smaller ships tend not to have the space to accommodate separate dining arrangements for the CO).
On my third and fourth ships (minesweepers, may they rest in pieces), the wardroom was right next to the mess decks and the main serving line, so we all just took our food from the serving line same as the rest of the crew, but then sat down in the wardroom rather than take a seat in the ness decks.
I understand that in off-meal times, it’s quiet ‘Officers only’ space for them to get caught up on paperwork, etc. Chiefs are allowed in off-meal time by invitation only. You also hold Captain’s Mast there.
Without exception, on every one of my ships, the wardroom was used to hold meetings that didn’t need the entire mess decks. How many and how often, though, would depend on the size of the ship. On the minesweepers and destroyer, it was pretty much every meeting that involved people from more than one department (although on the minesweeper, for major shipwide events that needed a relatively large portion of the crew present, we’d hold them on the mess decks). By contrast, no one but the chiefs ever held meetings in the chief’s mess, except in a couple cases on my minesweepers where the culture was just… different (in a good way) and the Chiefs would actually host meetings in the mess from time to time. On the DDG, I was only ever invited into the chief’s mess once, and on the CVN, never. So, really, the chief’s mess tends to be far more restrictive and guarded in my experience.
The big deal about the wardroom, particularly on my destroyer, was the number of assholes we had who would insist the most junior officers (myself included) were not permitted to be present at all outside of meals and meetings unless we were studying for our qualifications. It was an incredibly toxic environment and set the conditions for me to develop full-blown PTSD when, later in that tour, I was nearly killed in a stupid fucking accident that was the fault of one of the biggest assholes on the ship (and in the wardroom).
If you’re late, do you just get locked out of the room?
Never in my experience. Especially since, you know, one watch team has to come in first thing and leave early to relieve the watch, and then the off-going watch has to come in towards the end to eat.
I get the no "politics, religion, or ‘other gender’ prohibition’ on conversational topics, but what was the tone? Does ‘shop talk’ go over well while passin’ round mashed potatoes?
Actually, it’s no politics, no religion, and no business in the wardroom (which is ironic since so much business is conducted there by virtue of its use as a meeting space and, on the smaller ships, study area for the junior officers who might not have anywhere else to go for studying).
How extensively “no business” was enforced varied by how big of a dick the senior person present happened to be. I only had one (extreme) dick ever actually seek to enforce the prohibition.
Another difference is that enlisted received their meals free. Officers received extra pay each month, and were charged for every meal they ate on board.
I’m pretty sure the Chiefs Mess was a hybrid. On the Carriers at least, they had their own mess and paid extra to have better food then the regular enlisted on the mess decks.
But I don’t remember the details any more.
My only experience with the Ward room was preventive maintenance and changing the fluorescent tubes a few times.
I’ve never actually been in a wardroom on any of my ships (E5/E6) but my understanding is that the customs of the wardroom vary not only by ship type, but by the desires of the current members/senior member. Only one of my deployments included an officer (O-3) on our team, and according to him the wardroom on SSN-708 was very informal.
Not sure about skimmers, but on subs there’s only one galley, so everybody eats the same thing(s). The wardroom gets fancier service, in a slightly fancier setting, is all.
On every ship I was on, it was the same food. I believe the relevant terms are closed mess vs. open mess. If memory serves, a closed mess is what you call it when the wardroom has its own food source/supply. An open mess is what you call it when the wardroom just eats regular ship food.
I would be surprised to find out if a single shipboard wardroom in the Navy is a closed mess. It just seems archaic and like a logistical nightmare.
I might also add that although naval officers are paid a subsisten allowance even at sea, the cost of meals is more than the subsistence allowance. And worst of all, officers are required to pay for very meal while underway, regardless of whether they actually eat it. It’s highway robbery.
Yeah, my carrier (Lexington) was the same way. The Chief’s mess is where I served my galley tour. They paid extra, but the money was spent on sodas, snacks, candy, and sundries. The food was regular ship’s food, but cooked separately (and often to order - somebody who could run the cooktop was always on call ). The usual underway practice was to have a “meal” on offer, but burgers, fries, sandwiches, and such could always be had if requested. As a mess worker, we ate what they ate (and had access to the sodas, snacks, etc. as long as we kept it reasonable. I used to grab a few snacks, sodas, and such to go hang out in the DC break room which was right aft of the Chief’s Mess. Got a great education and certified in basic DC waaay before my peers. Also got really good at Spades which paid dividends when I was back in my Division (V2).
During ~1/3rd of my USAF career I was attached to a US Army infantry unit.
When we were out in the field eating Army MREs or leftover Vietnam era C-rats the pay system confiscated our BAS food allowance for those days. Which over my ~ 3 years w the Army amounted to about a year of “heavily armed camping.”
So I was paying USAF O club surf n turf prices for 30yo canned c-rats. Eaten cold in the rain. Such fun.
As I said in the other thread, lunch and dinner were formal. Breakfast and midrats (midnight rations) were not. For the latter two meals, you just showed up during the meal hour and told the wardroom steward what you wanted from a pretty limited menu. People came and went as they pleased. I knew several officers who favored these meals because they were much faster and more informal. Getting food yourself (not from the wardroom steward) was not an option in any wardroom I’ve ever seen (on two submarines and one cruiser). And if you wanted lunch and dinner, you had to sit through the formal meal. If you were a bit late, you requested permission to join the mess, and you’d better have a good excuse. If you were very late, you skipped the meal unless you could talk the steward into giving you leftovers after the meal was over.
In the mornings on weekdays, we had meetings and training in there. In the afternoon and early evening and the middle of the night, you could do whatever. One wardroom had a Nintendo system. After dinner, a movie was usually put on.
And on submarines, due to lack of space, the wardroom could be used for emergency surgeries by the Independent Duty Corpsman (IDC).
That was pretty much the case on my sub as well, essentially for watching movies.
Right, there was some leeway for watchstanders. That falls into the category of a “good excuse.”
Just wait until you find out how much money people “deployed” to Bahrain (living in fully furnished private villas) received in per diem (no dining facility, so the poor bastards had to eat Sunday brunch at a 5-star hotel) when compared to people deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan during the height of the GWOT.
No. On the Lex most groups had a common berthing area (V2 had one for Gear aft, a separate one for the Cats forward, the Grapes had their own, etc.) and there was usually a “break room” attached. It’s where you hung out when off watch and usually had some tables, a tv, maybe a few couches, etc. The DC guys berthed right behind the Chief’s Mess and that’s where I would hang out.
No offence, but this whole rule of officers paying for their own food feels like a weird leftover from the class system. As in, enlisted men are basically property and have to be foddered like the horses, but gentlemen pay for their own meals. It’s absurd. Officers and enlisted are just different roles people play in the military, not different species.
As a fan of O’Brien et al., I am fairly familiar with how the Royal Navy organised things in the 18th century, when the US Navy would have been developing its own rules and traditions.
In the RN, officers, even the most junior midshipman, who may not even have reached his teens, had to provide their own food. The captain normally ate alone, served by his personal steward, although he might invite other officers to join him. Lieutenants had their own wardroom, and mids ate in their meagre accommodation. The crew, who were mostly from the labouring classes, were fed three meals a day, which was probably a considerable improvement on how they lived on shore.
The strong distinction between officer, country and crew apparently remains. In all branches of the military, it is fairly uncommon for anyone to progress from recruit to officer, because those with the education and ambition to be officers are likely to apply directly.
At least when I was in, a surprising number of our officers were former enlisted. There were programs to get your degree while in, OCS, & some path to go enlisted to Warrant to Officer.
At one point E-Div had a Warrant Officer, a Lt JG former enlisted and our CHENG was a Commander former Warrant former Enlisted.
I don’t think I knew the percentages, but it seemed common in Engineering at least.
This would be over 40 years ago, but I spent a month aboard USS Arkansas (CGN-41) as a Midshipman 3rd class. As such, I spent almost all my time in dungarees, working and eating with the crew.
One time, as a “special treat”, we were allowed to dine in the officer’s mess. We had boiled hot dogs. Whatever the crew had was much better that day. It was later explained about officers paying for their own food and this wardroom, being a bunch of cheap batards, ate shit to save a few bucks.
On the other hand, I went out on three different subs (two briefly as a Mid and one for six patrols as a junior officer). As others say, it was the same food out of the same galley. Service was more formal, but not horribly so, on all three. On the boat I actually served on, it was not completely impossible for me to eat in crew’s mess, although there tended to be some mitigating circumstance and I was invited by the crew to do so.
