Mea Culpa

So on top of trying to help plan a wedding, I was also trying to check out of my current command and plan for a series of inspections that are annual requirements. As I was on a drive around today I realized that I have failed in making the place that I am leaving a better place. So here are my Mea Cuplas for failing.

Since about March of this year I have had in my hot little hands, written orders detailing me from the Happy Zappies and over to another EA-6B outfit up here at the Rock. This outfit is a Western Pacific deploying outfit and they just returned from a deployment this past June. One of the processes to check out is to start handing over programs to another person. One of my programs is a Secret Squirrel program. That is all I can describe and some of you who have been in Naval Aviation or military Aviation know what sort of Secret Squirrel program I am talking about. Anyhow, it isn't anywhere near where I am happy with it being, but I have a little less then three days left at my current command to try and fix it. The guy I am passing this on to
has a decent grip on this program and with only a little less elbow grease then what I have put in can make this work and at least getting it working to the condition that the Big Navy out there while only smack their hands for these little gray areas.
I should of had it a whole lot closer then what it is and will probably spend the rest of this weekend working on massaging my guilt on this part to make this happen. So I failed here
As I mentioned early in this piece we have a series of required annual inspections coming at us. Ones from the Naval Safety Center, then from our type commander, and the final one (which I will be gone for ) is from the Big Navy (CNAF themselves). All of these inspections deal with maintenance related programs. Such things as tool control, Foreign Object Damage Control, Support Equipment Licensing, Training, Technical Directives, and a whole slew of other ones. The overall guidance is from an instruction referred to as the CNAFINST 4790.2A NAMP. In the king's English this is Commander Naval Air Forces Instruction series 4790.2A, titled Naval Aviation Maintenance Program. It is a large binder of about 16 chapters on the basics of how to fix airplanes and what everyone's roles are.
We were inspected by our type commander and found to be so seriously snafu'd that we are going to quit flying just to get the squadron back online and on track. I had always heard of other squadrons and even ships that this has happened to, but never one that I was in. This is the biggest place that I have failed at. Being at that leadership position I should of never let my own work center get to that place. This is the toughest Mea Culpa to swallow and accept. Right now the command that I am at moral is at an all time low. There are a series of folks who are tired of the Navy life and are leaving. Which is their complete right, however they are also bad mouthing the Navy and the command in general. In turn feeding ideas to some of the more impressionable juniors and basically started a death spiral. This is something that I should of put a stop to months, maybe even years ago. Yet, I didn't. Why? I am not completely sure. Part of me feels that what they are speaking is the truth, part of me didn't want to get involved because I was leaving the command myself, and I think the final reason was that I just didn't want to feed their fire of self-consuming hate with leadership.
On top of that some of these people only seem to put in the minimum effort on their own aircraft related maintenance programs. This effort just seem to be enough to keep ahead of the Khaki Mafia and their hit squads. Again I should of stepped up and said something, done something, instead I contributed to it. So out of forty different programs we only had eight of them running according to the book. Nineteen of them were in serious need of review, and the other thirteen were off track. This again is unacceptable. The command is probably going to begin to sacrifice weekends and long hours to pull themselves up. The other thing is that those of us in the first class mess are going to have to start knocking heads with those who can't seem to say anything nice at all about the Navy or the command. Again I have failed and should of helped to push to those who don't want to be part of the solution out.

I have failed as a leader and as a supervisor. The most that I can do is grab a hot shower and collect my thoughts. Attempt to wash these damn spots off my hands and go back in swinging to improve things.

Every happen to you?

Have you ever been working hard and then had some one on the outside come in review a project of yours and say basically it is all wrong you need to fix it. Turn to the boss for some help and he tells you, "sorry I am going on vacation". That is what has happened to me this past week.

So this past week I had a courtesy inspection on a program that is pretty important in running my work center. One of those things that Secret Squirrel and my LPO should be doing to make sure runs correctly. This is also one of the programs that if done incorrectly people go to jail, commanders are fired, and in general just isn't a good thing to let fall apart.
The inspector spends about 4 hours going through my program and what happens? Well the program is so far off track it might as well be in Timbuktu for all that it really matters. The biggest thing was that all the paperwork was filed wrong, portions of paperwork was missing, and the inspector was playing around some of the grey area of the instructions on how some of the paperwork was supposed to be worded. In other words, I got stomped on and it hurt a lot.
After the inspection was over I sit down with my LPO just prior to end of the day and explain to him what happened.
Exact words from him were as follows: "That is a shame. Well I am going on leave, you can fix this have a nice day." I was ready to vent on him, but that would of been pretty poor on my part. So it was go home for the day, sit there drank some beer (actually a lot of beer) and wonder how in the world I got myself in this mess. I was not even involved with the program. It use to be one of my multitude of collateral duties prior to a shuffle of collateral duties following some promotions. At the time the program was on track and in decent condition. I was actually the alternate since my LPO was the primary, but I did most of the work on this program since he was swamped with other things.
I have been working very hard at trying to get this back on track, yet the guy who is the alternate right now, wants nothing to do with the program. I don't want to do this to him, but I might just take it back and run with it before I leave the command. Maybe even have it as a billet on my eval for when I transfer.

The harder thing though is a number of the instructions that I need to up date and replace are just daunting. It is one of the thing that I hate with a passion is doing technical writing. The biggest reason being (and I am sure any English teacher can tell by reading these blog posts), my English is pretty poor. So sitting down, trying to craft new instructions from old one, sentence structure, formatting, and other things are killing me! It has felt like I spent all day in front of a computer with electronic copies of the old instructions or re-entering old instructions into the computer to be edited. Sitting there pouring through the big Navy's instructions on how to run this program of mine, then trying to compact 50 pages of information into three paragraphs. I am pulling my hair out. I have come home every not and just felt like I went twelve rounds with heavy weight boxer. I really, really, really hate doing this type of writing. The other hard part is making sure that there are no grey areas and everything is spelled out in Navy legalize. So that an absolute idiot could read this and understand what is supposed to be done with this program.

I almost have this program beaten into submission or at least back to a point where my LPO could take this and put his polish on it. It is just driving me nuts to achieve that level.

Prowler P0rN

Just thought I would share some videos of the might Grumman war pig, the EA-6B Prowler.

Remember how I said there are folks up there making life or death decisions about whether an airplane is up or down for the launch. Well here is a little video about some of those people. VAQ-138 The Yellowjackets Shooter and Line shack. During the Round the World with the Chucky V


From the Forward Deployed Bubbas over at NAF Atsugi. VAQ-136, The Gauntlets, and a mid-cruise vid from thier 2005 summer deployment.


VAQ-139 during a CQ det on Stennis in 2004.

Think about this

Watch this interesting video from a combat journalists in Afghanistan



Average age of a plane captain for a US Navy squadron is approximately 19yrs old.
Average salary of someone on the flight deck is approximately $22,000 dollars a year before taxes.
Average work day under way is 12 hours on.
Average education completed is about one year of college
They are trusted to make go or no go decisions on multimillion dollar aircraft with men and women that flying put their complete trust in the PC to make this decision.
Now think that more then likely they were not trusted with their parent's car which only cost $30,000 dollars only three years earlier when these same people were 16.

Just your deep thought for the day

Scenes from the Flight Deck

Previously on "Scenes from the Flight Deck".



...He skipped that one and looked through the 15 or 20 messages that had been stacking up since he forwarded he email the Friday when he got off from work before the flights out. When he finally found the two with the name he was looking for. The romantic interest had written him twice. Once asking how the flight some general life subjects, the other email was some questions about himself. They had just barely known each other for a few days before he had to ship out. So it was perfectly natural to sit back and start to answer these questions.



He read those emails and then turned around and deleted half of those emails which didn't out right apply to him. Such fun emails as "NMCI will go down...", "NAS MasterJet Liberty Program has tickets to..", "Gate J35 will be closed because of maintenance on...". After he deleted those he in turn gave up the computer to the guys from the night check. They checked their mail while the night check supervisor was off at his own maintenance meeting. Same thing that was put out during day check was put out to night. They all started to mill around, he finally realized that he was tired. So grabbed his stuff from out of the drawer for personal gear and staggered back to the rack.
"Hey, Southern you going to chow?" AT1 asked
"Hmm," he said as he looked at his watch, "Nah, it is past 1900 and I don't feel like trying to scarf another water burger and fries again. So I am heading back to the berthing for a hot shower and some sleep."
"Okay see you back there."
With that he staggered on back to his wrack and watch as the night check guys were milling around getting use to the 12 on/12 off schedule. Walking past some of the staterooms where the TAD guys were cleaning in prep for the air crews flying on or taking laundry down of those ground officers that had already been on board for a few days. The air department guys who were doing the last minute testing and maintenance on either the cat gear or the recovery gear. Listening as the handlers began to reposition the SE. Also listening to all the conversations that went on as people walked around the passageways.
"...and so I told him to go to Toys 'R Us and buy the home game of "Go f--k yourself. Who does he think he is..."
"... Bulldog told me that Lex and Steeljaw were trying to get a CAG only spades tourney going up in..."
"....she stuck some letters in my bag while I was packing and I didn't even know it, now my bag and clothes smell of her perfume.."
"Hey, can I bum a cig..."
"Chief Sackdonuts wants these maintenance actions cleared before mid-rats...."
"...why are they showing 'X-men' again on SITE TV..."
"Pardon, me young man how do I get to the wardroom." someone said to him as he felt a pull on his sleeve. He looked around and saw this older gentleman in some civilian clothes and a USS Newboat ball cap that said VIP on the back. It pulled him out of his tripped down memory lane of being back out to sea after two years away.
"Huh? Excuse me, sir" he said with a slightly startled tone and confused look on his face
"I said how do I find my way to the wardroom," his gentleman said again, "I am looking for wardroom 2. I need to find a pilot with the nickname of Willy."
"Oh, here I will show you." He looked around and realized that he had only gone about 40 frames from where the shop was. So back tracking back up the way he came he pointed this gentleman to the wardroom. Realized that this guy had gotten separated from some sort of tour group. Thinking about the tour groups and VIPs took him back to being on board USS Oldboat. A slight smile crossed his lips as he thought of some adventures that occurred there. Then his mind cross of the romantic interest and an even bigger smile crossed his mind. He had that smile even as he laid down to get some sleep at the end of the day. His thoughts took him back to that last night with her and some of the best dreams started.

Leaving on a jet plane

So one of the joys of living on one coast and deploying from another is having to fly to get there. So I get a chance to pile myself along with a hundred to two hundred other people into either a DC-9 or a 737 (as per typical government contracts these are small bodied early versions) and fly at what seems like hours from the West Coast to marry up with my aircraft carrier on the East Coast. Before I fly out the day before or hours before I have to support launching my aircraft over to the east coast. Before even that about a week ago, I boxed everything up that my work center owns and then stuff it all into an 18 wheeler which should arrive, hopefully, by the weekend. Which means I will be spending the weekend working to get all my gear loaded on the ship and stowed in the spaces on the ship. Why do I share all of this with you all, because instead of hanging out with friends, the romantic interest, and my family for the 4th of July; I get to spend it haze grey and underway for the last minute practice also known as a COMPTUEX/JTFEX or COMPosite Training Unit Exercise and Joint Task Force Exercise. Both of these are where the carrier strike group (of which I belong to via my squadron) and the Expeditionary Strike Group (what use to be known as a Amphibious Ready Group) work together as a team. The ESG carries the land strike element of the United States big stick. That is also known as Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, Jarheads, Leathernecks, or just Marines.
We all work together to work completely together as an air,land,sea team. Fun stuff this is the last wicket that needs to be hit before going on the big 6 (or more) month deployment.

Finally, since I will be working hard trying to keep my jets in the air and am not cool enough like some other mil-bloggers to have constant Internet access while they are on a ship or deployed someplace. After the 4th this little road side attraction will be on hiatus for a while at least till I get back in to town.

Why does life throw curveballs?

So life is going strong for me. I am in a great relationship with a beautiful woman, have just gotten a promotion, and am settled well in an apartment that I am renting. Then it happened, life in its finite wisdom threw me a curve ball.

I am expected to rotated from my current assignment in 12 months. "So what?", you say.


Big things.

The biggest question is where do I want to go to for my next assignment? Just looking at what is available is not good if I needed to rotate from here in the next 90days. It is all USS Neverdock scattered either here, San Dog, or Norfolk. On top of that if I want to stay in the community the only place to head off to is Japan and forward deployed. I am due to head to shore duty because I have done two sea duty tours with a short 9 month school in between them. Just looking at shore duty all I see locally is Always In Meetings Department. Which I am not really motivated to head to either. Been there, done that one, and got rid of the nervous tick.

What do I want to do? I want to head to either the school house and teach or head to the training squadron. If I do the school house then it is Monday thru Friday and a chance to get home by 1700. If I do the training squadron, I will still go to sea. Yet that will only be for two weeks then I am home. There are disadvantages to these choices.

My other choice is if I need to head back out to sea I would love to do a pacific deploying squadron and see some of the sights, sounds, tastes on that side of the world.

The other question is will the romantic interest react to me being forced to move if I can't stay in the area? I mean I am getting all back into the dating thing and really enjoy being with her. Yet, if it falls apart because I move away, then what? Do I become a hermit again and retreat to my job again or do I man up and try to date at my new duty assignment? Or will she stick by me and we just try to do the long distance thing?

I really liked Japan last summer I was there, but do I want to spend the next 3-4 years there?

I am so full of deep thought philosophical questions that unfortunantly only I can answer. I can try and talk to people about this, but still it is my decision. I am totally confused and unsure of what I should do.

Cruise reading

Cruising on an Aircraft Carrier for 6+ months can get pretty boring at times. One of the ways that I find to bide my time is either bring a portable electronic gamebox, get in on a card game, or read a good book.


I am a person that a times has 3 or 4 books sitting on their bed side table for night time reading. It can get interesting when I am doing that with some fiction books. You lose track of who is who. When I was in middle school or high school I use to keep a spiral bound notebook by my bedside and create a scorecard of what was going on in each book. I have gotten past that now. Most of the time I have them stacked up on by bed side table for future reading. When I deploy though I am only able to carry a few things here and there. On top of that limited space and it becomes and issue of what books to bring. I have learned to bring thick, heavy, paperback books. I usually bring about 3-4 books that run in the thousand page plus, mainly because I read so fast and I usually try to read every place that I am at. After work sitting in my little sleeping cube with some music in my ears, waiting for a plane to land in the shop, going to lunch or dinner if I am going to eat alone, waiting for shift change, it really doesn't matter sometimes.


It also doesn't matter what I read either just something help me try and escape the ship for a while. I have read, "The Lord of the Rings", "The Fleet the Gods Forgot", "Red Storm Rising", "Introduction to Writings of Machiavelli", "Introduction to Airborne Radar Systems", "Short Stories of O.Henry", etc. I have read classics (or what most people consider classics), deep thought books, fun fiction, history, and job related educational books. Sometimes I get what I am reading, other times I don't understand some of what the author is trying to say. When that happens I put that book down and pick up another from my collection. The books that I don't understand I usually pick back up and try again. I don't ever try to admit that a book is above my intelligence. What I will usually turn around and do is again pick up a spiral bound notebook from my local supply clerk; and then create a mini-book club between me, myself, and I. At times the meetings can get very interesting because myself and I want to read fun things and me forces them to sit through the boring parts and really understand the chapter or pages that I have just read. Other times there are outright arguments when me falls asleep and then myself and I jumps ahead to an exciting portion in the book.


Anyhow, I am slowly gathering the books for this upcoming cruise I will be going on to keep myself entertained. So far my selections are as follows:

• Democracy in America-Alexis De Tocqueville, This is the classic book by a Frenchman on how democracy was working the then new United States of America in the 1830's. Tocqueville traveled all through out the new republic and talked to people living in big cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, New York City. He also traveled to some of the little towns up and down the major roads at the time and talked to the common man to understand their beliefs of democracy and American government at time. This will be an interesting read for me, because this book is always talked about by politicos and history professors of how democracy was allowed to flourish in Europe and elsewhere.



• The Federalist Papers-Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, This is the collection of basically letters to the editor by some of the framers (Hamilton, Jay, Madison) of the US Constitution on how the Constitution was supposed to work. These men were basically the lobbyist for ratification of the Constitution. They were also retorts to my other book choice. Most historians and political professors are able to guess who wrote which letters. At the time Hamilton, Jay, and Madison didn't want to be recognize so they used name Publius for signing off on all of the letters.


• The Anti-Federalist Papers and Constitutional Convention Debates-Cato and Brutus. These were a series of letters to the editor that asked what sort of individual rights would of been granted under the New US Constitution when compared to the then Articles of Confederation. The people that wrote these letters maintained their anonymity as well, so well in fact that few modern historian actually know who wrote which letters. However, this book and its companion above give wonderful insight on how the constitutional debates and ratification process went. From what I have read in other places, the ratification debates make some of our current political debates (such as the war in Iraq, abortion, religion and government) pale in fire and passion.


• Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy - Ian W. Toll, this is the short history of the building of the United States Navy. From nothing but a naval militia in the places like New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts; to have 6 fast and powerful frigates that gave the dominate navy at the time (the Royal Navy) a run for their money, did some oversea adventuring and helped to replace a government in the Mid-east with a more US-friendly one, challenged the French Navy (Quasi-Naval War), and basically held the line to protect Yankee merchant vessels until Congress would get around to authorizing a real navy later on in the century. A book about men that are now part of the mythos of the USN. Petty Officer Reuben James, Captain Thomas Truxtun, Captain Edward Preble, Captain William Bainbridge, Lt Stephen Decatur, Captain Issac Hull, etc.


• Raymond Chandler:Collected Stories- Raymond Chandler, Raymond Chandler created the hard-boiled detective story with a detective name Philip Marlowe. He did it along with Dashiell Hammiett and in turn created a whole new genre of mystery. The one that shows the slightly decaying underside of a big city. The one where the detective isn't a Mrs. Marple or a Sherlock Holmes, but rather a jaded human being that feels the same way as nearly all of us. They aren't always able to spot the obvious and solve the puzzle in a few steps, rather it takes them down a few blind alleys and trying to figure all the angles. The one where the pretty damsel in may not be the in distress and may actually be looking for a patsy. I didn't think I would of enjoy this type of book, but after reading The Big Sleep I really got a kick out the book and the writing. This is a collection of the short stories he wrote for detective magazines in the 1930's and '40's. It interesting to see him develop his writing styling.


• Black Shoe Carrier Admiral:Frank Jack Fletcher at Coral Sea, Midway & Guadalcanal - John B. Lundstrom, This was passed on to me by my father. John Lundstrom is a historian of some note inside Naval History. Most of his books that I have read are real well written and have plenty of fresh and new source material to prove his point. This one talks about Admiral Frank Jack Fletcher, a man trained in how to run battleship fleets who was in command of carrier task forces at all the major battles and engagements of when the US Navy was up against the ropes. It was this black shoe who lead replenishment convoy in company of Adm. Brown and Lexington to Wake Island following Pearl Harbor only to be turned back by CINCPAC HQ. It was this black shoe was was in charge of Yorktown battle group and was there for Coral Sea. He was there with the Yorktown during Midway. He was there when the 1st Marine Division landed at the 'Canal. In turn because of choices he made in the heat of battle people have considered him an ineffective leader. Instead Lundstrom shows that he did the best that he could have and made the right decisions at the time when the massive fleet following 1943 wouldn't of begin to shown up. This looks interesting.

There are a few others, but these are going in the box of books I am going to mail my self just before heading to the ship on cruise. That way I don't have to lug them any place on my back or try and maneuver a big bulky box through the passage ways of the ship to where I sleep.

Scenes from the Flight Deck

Returning after being restructured is the famous show "Scenes from the Flight Deck" to the Southern Air Pirate channel. Previous Episodes are now available here:
Pilot episode
Second episode
______________________
Scenes from the second episode
"That may have been what it was like in the old Navy senior, but I am part of the new Navy. You have to be ready to jump quickly and quick to draw. That being said, we are caught up for right now and since we just cross the Chesapeake Bridge-tunnel complex, Burger doodle is too far away now. The AT shop is heading to lunch and grabbing a bite to eat before the mess decks close."
"Okay, just remember that the man-over board is at 1300."
"Right-O"

So he and AT1 stumbled down the passageway remembering to try and pick up their feet over the knee knockers and carry on a conversation behind his back with the Uno.
"So where do you want to eat?"
"What do they have?"
"Dunno, usually they have sliders and fries up forward and back aft is the full meal. I would bet that since we just pulled out there might now be a line at either. So, we could..."
"Sliders sounds like a plan."
"Okay follow me."
They start to jink around the passageways up on the third deck above the hangar bay. For some reason only known to some one older them him, the hangar deck on a carrier is referred to as the main deck and everything above it is in the "oh" deck levels. They were on the oh-three (03) deck which is right below the flight deck (the 04 level) and where 99% of the staterooms and ready rooms were. Finally after moving through a couple of knee-knockers and turning through a couple of non-tight doors they came upon the ladder well that would take them right down to the line for the burgers and fries.
"We call them water burgers since they are nearly always sitting in a pan of liquid grease and look constantly wet. Sometimes we get lucky and they have fry season packets sitting out for us.", he said describing the menu to the uno.
"Gotcha."
Just as he was getting ready to say something else, the click of the general announcing system came on and three quick whistles
"THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A DRILL. MAN OVER BOARD PORT SIDE, MAN OVERBOARD PORT SIDE. ALL HANDS TO YOUR MUSTERING STATIONS. THIS WILL BE A BOAT RECOVERY."
"MUSTERING ROUTES ARE AS FOLLOWS, UP AND FORWARD ON THE STARBOARD SIDE. DOWN AND AFT ON THE PORT SIDE."
"THIS IS A DRILL, THIS IS A DRILL. MAN OVER BOARD PORT SIDE, MAN OVERBOARD PORT SIDE. ALL HANDS TO YOUR MUSTERING STATIONS. THIS WILL BE A BOAT RECOVERY."
"MUSTERING ROUTES ARE AS FOLLOWS, UP AND FORWARD ON THE STARBOARD SIDE. DOWN AND AFT ON THE PORT SIDE."
"Son of a..." they both said in unison as the turned and jumped up the ladder to head back to the shop.
At that instant some one was trying to come down the ladder. He thought about it for 5 seconds before realizing they were on the starboard side.
"Out of the way asshole you are going the wrong fucking way." As he shoved this person in coveralls which were neatly pressed with military creases and realized after a cursory examination was an non-petty officer with dual warfare pins.
"Obviously an admin punk who had nothing better to do then blow off real workers. While he got his pins gun-decked. "
They made it back to the shop in about 6 minutes and nearly everyone else was there. The night checkers were very unhappy and chief looked like he just woke up himself from a combat nap in the mess. AT1 took out his shift list and looked over.
"Anyone seen Airman Sanso?"
"Yea he is on his way, stupid bastard sleeps nude. That wasn't cool to roll out to." one of the night checkers that lived near him said.
"Okay."
30 seconds later in came the one missing man for the shop.
"South you want to dial maintenance and report AT's have everyone."
"TIME PLUS 10, MAN BEARS 075. MAKE MUSTER REPORTS TO DECK HOUSE ONE."
"Yea, Senior. AT's are here. All are accounted for. I know a few personnel issues need to still be resolved. Okay."
"Can we go now?" some one in the group pleaded.
"Nope not till they secure from Man Overboard." Chief said
"TIME PLUS 15, MAN BEARS 075. THE FOLLOWING DIVISIONS EXPEDITE MAKING MUSTER REPORTS TO DECK HOUSE ONE: X-1, V-1, OS, MEDICAL, VFA-99, CVW-19, DESRON100."
For the next five minutes it went like that until at the 20 minute mark the constant screech of the 1mc changed yet again.
"TIME PLUS 21, MAN BEARS 075. THE FOLLOWING PERSONNEL REPORT TO DECK HOUSE ONE WITH THIER ID CARDS: AN SMITH, V-1 DIVISION; AN BEGANI, V-1 DIVISION; HN CHOCKER, MEDICAL; LT JOHNSON CVW-19; MR. ROBERT BONES CVW-19."
"Well at least Cobra's made it. We are usually lucky like that." he said to no one in general.
At 28 minutes later everyone was accounted for, the last one to be found was the AN Smith. After which the XO of the ship came on and went on for another 5 minutes about the need to do better and team Neverdocd.
"Okay night check can roll back to their racks." AT1 said
Grumbling and groaning they all staggered out.
"Well that was interesting. Do they always take that long?" AT1 asked
"Not really, but the boat chucks are pretty new." ,he said while looking at his watch, "Goddamit, we missed lunch and now the only thing worthwhile to eat is the taco bar."
"I don't feel like tacos."
"Good cause they aren't very good. Dried out meat or over spiced chicken and usually broken shells or ripped up soft shells."
"Hang on, I will get you two some burgers from the mess" Chief said for the first time after the start of the man overboard.
"Alright, lets go get the skids and the rest of the crap."
"Okay just follow me."
So for the next hour they went all over the hangar bay getting the gear together just in case they had to drop pods.
When they came back up to the shop there was one of the ITs and a pair of civilians standing outside the shop door.
"We are here to hook up your computers to the LAN and give you email and NALCOMIS access." the IT said
"Okay"
For the next 10 minutes of screwing around with the IT, a boat IT, and the civilians find out that of the three drops in the shop all but 1 didn't work and the one that did work was in a bad position to get to because it was behind the workbench. Yet, after it all it they finally got the two NMCI computers they brought out hooked up and email running.
They both separated and started to check their email on the separate computers.
After logging in he immediately clicked the icon for MS Outlook and waited for that to load.
The first thing message was from the AZ2 in charge of NALCOMIS, basically a link to the server while out to sea.
He skipped that one and looked through the 15 or 20 messages that had been stacking up since he forwarded he email the Friday when he got off from work before the flights out. When he finally found the two with the name he was looking for.
The romantic interest had written him twice. Once asking how the flight some general life subjects, the other email was some questions about himself. They had just barely known each other for a few days before he had to ship out. So it was perfectly natural to sit back and start to answer these questions.

Long days, longer nights, and magical drinks

So it has come to be that I am in the wonderful state of Nevada with my squadron and air wing doing our part to fully integrate ourselves into a successful team that nearly every carrier air wing becomes. Flying hard against nimble little F-5E's or F-16N's. Dropping live ordnance in near real world conditions against real targets. Practicing pumping electrons into the air to screw over the bad guys abilities. Dropping in SEAL teams to practice rescue of down aviators, then slipping back in to pick them up before the bad guys know what happened. What we are doing is very similar to the summer training camp of pro-football (or American football for my readers who live overseas). Everyone is pretty good at their part of the play book. Now it is time to bring together the offensive tackles, running backs, wide receivers, and quarterbacks and operate as a team. The only downside with what we are doing right now is the aircrew are flying hard and at least to a few of my people seem as though they are actively trying to break the jets. So after the last flight secures for the night it is work hard to get the downing discrepancies up again and get the jet ready for the next day. I am part of that team, working hard at night to get my jet the might EA-6B ready to fly again. So every day I show up at 1630 (or 4:30pm for you military types), get the debrief from the day checkers about what is going on and then either start to work or launch the night strikes. Why night strikes? Cause we own the night!
Anyhow, 10-12 hours later we secure. Head back to our BEQ rooms for either a shower, food and sleep. At least that is what I had planned one night after we were lucky to get out early (like midnight early, instead of the usual 0330-0400) on night checks weekend which is a Thursday night.
One of the wonderful things about being in Nevada is how nearly every town has a casino. Well right in Navy town, Nevada there are a few casinos but the tables close early. If you want the all day and all night experience you either need to head to Sin City or head to Casino Town. Sin City is about 18hrs away from Navy Town, so that is out. Casino Town on the flip side is only about an hour and half away (or less depending on how fast you drive on US 50).
So this one Thursday, things wrap up pretty early and most of us are amazed about what is going on and as part of the talk on the way back to our rooms. Some one gets the bright idea that since pay day is that Saturday, we don't need to be back until Sunday night, and there are a couple of vans ready for use a road trip is called for. The minute I heard that I just rolled my eyes and told myself that it isn't worth the effort, let alone trying to keep a few of these guys wrangled together. So as we walk down the hall way in the BEQ the plan becomes firmer and firmer, I walk into my room and don't pay attention to the rest of the talk. Bad move on Southern's part. Why? Well the plan hung up on this one fact, who could duty drive back to Navy Town from Casino Town. The first name to pop into most of their heads all with in about 30 nanoseconds of each other was Southern's. Meanwhile I am changing and getting ready for a hot shower and bed, when a knock at the door beckons. Who is that my mind wonders? None other then the ring leader of the Bachelor Pad. The Bachelor Pad is the name we have assigned a huge house in a nice neighborhood back home where the a number of guys are all splitting rent and crashing at. I have been invited over a couple of times and the most that I can say is this, the fridge is stock full of either Bud light or Coors and the only food to be found is Top Raman. Other then that, it is our version of Animal House.
"What do you want?" I asked in a semi-annoyed tone
"Will you drive us over the hill?"
"How many...No forget it. I am going to try and get some sleep early on tonight."
"Oh come on, we are only going to be there for a few hours, just long enough to get our gambling on and our drink on."
"No!"
"Southern, come on most of us have pre-flighted already and none of us can agree on who should drive and we will behave ourselves. You won't have to baby-sit."
I should of shut the door, but my devil got the better of me. So I agreed but only after I had a chance to get a quick shower. Which worked out since most of this crew were doing the same thing.
About 30minutes later I am sitting out in the lounge waiting for the crew, when they all come up. I am tossed the keys and we pile outside into a mini-van.
The only rule that I stipulated was that when 3/4's of us were ready to bounce, we were going. If you don't make it to the van on time, well it looks like you are walking back. Agreed on by all parties.
Negotiate the gate obstacles and we are out in the desert listening to some one's Ipod and cruising down the road. Through Navy Town to US 50 and to the west we go. It amazed how once we got up on highway 50 most of the people past out or kept to themselves as they tried to pick out various objects to look at. The only thing that caused a serious topic of discussion was when we past the Ranch just outside Casino Town. Some of the guys wanted to stop in and say hi to the girls there.. I put a quick stop to that one, we already had a plan and I didn't feel like deviating from it. Besides I told most of them, if they were really into it if they started to win big at the tables plenty of girls would hang on to them and they might be able to get it on for free.
Tempers calmed we came over the last hill crest and saw the big lights of Casino Town. Lights announcing that the Nugget has a players program and one could get a free lobster dinner if you joined, Harrahs had a new Keno room, so on and so forth. I quickly asked which casino was the choice and most everyone agreed to Harrahs. Simply because a couple of the guys belonged to the one from back home and we could get a discounted late night meal. So off of 50 and into down town Casino. Up a couple of streets and into the parking lot of the Harrahs. As the doors opened up, I held everyone up and asked for an agreed upon muster time. After yet another discussion/argument the group think came up with noon. I rolled my eyes and agreed to that one.
Walking into the casino, the first thing that I went to look for was the buffet room and see if I could grab a bite to eat. I was lucky in that I got in there just as they closed the doors to the last customers. So I was able to pay ten dollars for the left overs, some over done prime rib (which was still good) some decent steam veggies and a soda.
After enjoying a warm meal, I walked out and decided to try my hand at some gambling.
Now, I have been to casinos before and have found that I enjoy playing the table games such as black jack, poker, baccarat, and every so often craps more then I do the slots. So there it was that I walked up to a black jack table and cashed in a hundred dollars.
One of my tricks to not get caught up in gambling fever is to take out how much I am willing to risk and then put my ATM card in either my room or the car. That way if I need cash I have to walk out and calm down on the way to restock my funds.
So there I was sitting down with a hundred dollars worth of chips in front of me and started to play. It was about that time the magical drinks started. I had a waitress come by and ask me what I wanted. I told her that I was the D.D. and only wanted a soda. A couple of plays later, I am up by about 75 dollars and a small glass appears in front of me with a soda in it. I drink that down while in the process of losing 45 dollars. I polish off my drink and get up to plus hundred dollars. It was then that some how my drink changed from just soda to a liquor and soda. I remember just ordering soda. That is when my night started to go down hill. I don't remember after the first few whether my drink ever emptied. It seemed as though the glass was always topped off. I also don't remember paying for any of it. The only thing I do remember is realizing that I had a buzz on and it was something close to 0600. I remember sitting down at 0200 at the table and just having a soda. The only good thing was that I was up by 425 dollars when I walked away. Basically I had in my pocket 525 dollars scattered between bills and fifty cent pieces in my pocket.
Bathroom time and then my stomach told me that it was also food time. I walk out the casino and down the street. Find an all night diner, so I turned walked in. Sat down and then seem to fit the bill all the way around for me. Because they sold newspapers behind the counter and had a wonderful western omelette special for something like six dollars. While I am sitting there reading the paper and waiting on my meal, my mind all of a sudden comes free of the booze haze. It tells me that I am an old dog and can't hang like I use to with the young pups. Because it is also craving a warm, soft, bed to lay down in; along with the food that is supposed to be coming up. Scarf down the omelette and hash browns with a large glass of OJ. Decided that my best course of action is to hang out in the van and crash there. Walk back to the parking lot, get in lock the doors and turn my cellphone to vibrate and loud next to my neck.
Some how I am not disturbed for the next eight hours, because it wasn't noon rather about 1300 (or 1pm for you military types) that I get a phone call asking me where I am.
"In the van waiting."
"Right we are on the way."
Everyone piles in and most of them look just as bad as I do, except they are drunk and haven't slept a wink. The drive back was peaceful because the minute we hit the highway everyone passed out. I rocked out to the oldies station the whole way back and crossed the gate by 3pm and was crawling back into my bed when the romantic interest called my room, she was asking how the day went. "Uhhhh!" is all I was up to saying. What we talked about is for another story for another time dear readers.

I just relearned a lesson that I already knew, but forgot. What was that?
Trying to hang with the pro-am drinkers isn't good for me
Long work weeks means longer weekends to recover
Don't drink the casino drinks because they never seem to empty out.
Stick with water or soda at the table, helps you think clearly
Finally just say no to road trips with the know party animals.

Scenes from the Flight Deck

On the last episode the following scenes occurred:
"Where is the coffee?" He growled looking worse for wear then the other two in the space.
"So chief went out with the rest of the mess and tied one on. I wonder how bad he is hung over or was yesterday a special occasion because we are away from home and chief operates on a separate set of rules versus home?"

Before anyone else had a chance to say something the phone rang, startling everyone in the little space not much bigger then the walk-in closet that her home had. As that though cross his mind, a smirk crossed his lips as his hand grabbed the receiver.
"Cobra Avionics, AT2 Southern, how may I help you sir/ma'am?"
"South, Maintenance meeting has been moved back to 0715." A female voice called to him over the phone.
"0715 meeting, rog."
He hung up the receiver.
"That was AZ2, as you heard maintenance meeting has been pushed back to 0715. Josh why don't you go and grab some breakfast up forward. I think they were still serving as I came up. Or at least you can grab some cereal. Chief, this isn't like back at the beach. We haven't drawn our coffee issue yet. Technically the pot" ,and as he said that his arm pointed out to the percolators pot that was sitting on top of the large gray safe in the space, "is illegal since there are a number of hoops you need to jump through while on board, USS Neverdocd to run a coffee mess."
"Oh right I forgot. Looks like I will have to stumble back down the mess and get coffee from one of their pots. See you guys in a few."
"S, I will take you up on your offer. Go ahead and take the meeting. I am going to try and grab some food."
"Hey, where is maintenance? I know it moved."
"03-60-1. Just down the way from the HS bubbas."
"Ahh, I know where you are talking about now. Thanks.
Both of them walked out and he was left to his thoughts for a few moments. He looked around and realized he was an old hand at this now. After doing a six and half month cruise in this space it hadn't changed much from two years previously. The only thing missing was the scrawny little 13in TV that was on the workbench. at the one end of the space.
"Hmm, that is interesting. I guess no more Roger Ball show for a while. Got to remember to ask about that at maintenance. Which reminds me where is the pass down log"
He looked around for a couple of minutes and found the pea green book which was the size of the standard spiral notebooks he use to have in school. Picking it up and flipping till he found an blank page and started to put down the standard lines for notes and info. He then went and wrote down the fact that a TV was missing from the space. Looking at the few meager toolboxes they brought out. Nearly all of which still had the tape from when they were packed up back at home. The ring of the bells across the announcing system and a quick check of his watch told him that it was 0700 and time to find the maintenance desk and a good place to sit.
Down the passageway and around the corner to find the maintenance desk. This was a bigger maintenance control then they had during cruise, but it was in a worst space. Just up the way was the starboard side entrance to the 03 wardroom. Nearly all the air wing and to an extent the ship's airdale officers would stomp their way past the desk on the way to get some food from there. Opening the bottom of the dutch door he walked into maintenance.
"Morning Domitila. Do we have a workloads?"
"Yea, about that. Robyn just unpacked the server and we are awaiting the IT's to come by and set the sucker up."
"Right, welcome to the boat. Oh joy." he said a little sarcastically
"Yea, welcome to the boat." she answered and a smile crossed her face.
"You seen the controllers or the brain?" he asked wondering why the none of the maintenance chiefs were in nor was the Maintenance Master chief was in. It was a real surprise to not see the MMCPO in since back at the rock he was an early riser and usually in before everyone screening his own copy of the full squadron workload.
"Last time I saw any of them was last night when I came staggering on board from grabbing dinner and some drinks. They were pretty wild, crazy, and very drunk."
"I know my new chief just came in and looked like some form of death warmed over."
Just as he said that the door opened again and a tall, blond hair man with some small glasses on his mousy looking face walked in. He looked pretty rested and wide awake, standing there in front of both him and AZ2 in his khakis.
"A few of your guys stay out too late at Green's last night Southern?"
"No, Senior. I was just asking about a few of the other people that we know about."
"Okay. AZ2 where is my FBI and why aren't the workloads in the baskets ready to be passed out."
Southern looked back at the AZ2 while this was being said and watched her mouth something, roll her eyes, and then say the same thing to the Senior Chief that Southern heard just seconds before.
The rest of the maintenance supervisors checked in and a slight rise in things as people started to trade stories on what they did in town.
"Okay people, lets get this thing started." Senior started to say and with that things quieted down.
"All of them but 502 are up and on the beach. 502 has a slow to indicate gripe. 120, we have the contact info for the beach det. Lets get ahold of them before the brow goes up and find out what they need. "
"Right Senior"
"Other then that a few gripes from the cross country that the beach det was able to settle. We are expecting to start CQing tomorrow. Get the shops squared away today and get what SE you all need now. CAG has also stated that the man overboard should be going down around 1300. The rule for us is muster the shop and call Maintenance. Also get a list together of things wrong or missing in the shops and spaces owned by us. Final thing is shift lists folks! We don't all have inputs as to who is playing on first. So get an updated list to maintenance admin."
Everyone started to file out. AT2 staggered out with the rest of them and walked back to his shop.
As he punched the combo into the lock to enter, the 1MC spoke again with bells announcing it was 0800.
"That didn't seem like a 30min meeting, but we probably didn't have much so I just zoned the rest of it out. Oh well."
He walked in thinking that. Looking around he noticed just AT1 in the shop.
"Where is Chief?"
"Went down to the mess to see if he couldn't wrangle breakfast and coffee."
"Okay. Big things from maintenance is get ready for underway. CQ starts tomorrow, knock out the SE draw today. Possible MOB at 1300, typical for the squadron is face to face in the shop and then a phone call or runner to maintenance to announce full muster. 502 is down with a gear issue. No workloads yet, nowcommunist is being a pain to set up through the ships network. Oh yea! As per the norm, maintenance admin has lost the shift lists that we submitted before coming out on this pleasure cruise. So before shift change today, we need to give them a new one. Email it or drop it off in person, doesn't matter."
"Right, so what else do we need to get?"
"Skids, Hoists, SHOLS, Pulleys; that is about it"
"Gotcha"
"So what first?"
"We can get the Hoists down in GSE and the SHOLS and Pulleys from AIMD. Both of those shops are right next to each other."
"Okay show me where these are and lets get ready to catch jets."
For the next two hours it was up and down ladders as he lead his new boss around the ship showing him the important spots on the ship.
Showing back up in the shop, his stomach started to growl. Taking a peek at his watch he realized that it was 30 minutes past noon. The ship had shift colors and gotten underway, or at least as underway as a modern super carrier could have about an hour earlier.
"Hey Josh, Do you want to go and grab some lunch." he stated to the AT1.
"Why what time is it."
"Noon-thirty or 1230 for you non-military types."
"Damn is it that late?"
"Yep and if we don't hurry we will be forced to grab a bite in the taco line. Considering that it is a Monday and the Neverdocd always has tacos and fake-Mexican food for eats on Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays. I would say lets head down to the forward galley for a water-burger."
"Sounds like a plan."
So they both walked out of the shop and on the way past maintenance, he stuck his head in real quick.
"Hey Senior, AT shop is unmanned. We are grabbing a bite to eat."
"Did you...."
"Yea we got skids, pulleys, shols, and all the rest of the stuff. Everything is tied down for heavy seas. 210 is ready to head back to the boat and back out to sea. Any other dumb questions?"
The senior chief got a quick smile across his face
"AT2 in my days long ago.."
"What when you were the first mate on the Ark?"
"Don't question my age son! Didn't your folks teach you proper respect for your elders? As I was saying in my days long ago as a blue shirt, I would wait until the chief, senior chief, or master chief had finished his statement before answering questions."
"That may have been what it was like in the old Navy senior, but I am part of the new Navy. You have to be ready to jump quickly and quick to draw. That being said, we are caught up for right now and since we just cross the Chesapeake Bridge-tunnel complex, Burger doodle is too far away now. The AT shop is heading to lunch and grabbing a bite to eat before the mess decks close."
"Okay, just remember that the man-over board is at 1300."
"Right-O"

Scenes from the Flight Deck

He saw her face. That beautiful brunette with that cute smile, little twinkle in her eyes as she laughed, and those beautiful lips that were great to kiss. Her lips where moving and he could hear her voice say, "I love you and write you as you are gone. Give me one last kiss before you go."
He was confused and tried to say that he was right here and wasn't going any place. Yet just as he opened his mouth to say something instead a constant buzzing started to go off behind him. As he turned around to find the buzz it just go louder and louder. He tried to turn back to tell her to hold on, but she had disappeared from in front of him. Instead the world got very black and started to grope for light switch when a sharp pain came to his legs and a voice called out to him....

"Owww, god damn it."
His eyes popped open to the voice and to the feeling of a foot on his lower leg.
"Huh, Whaaa, where the hell am I?"
Sit up the little voice at the back of his mind called out.
"Okay" Another part of his mind said in return.
He sat up right when a sharp pain came to his forehead which caused him to slam his head back to the pillow. He then realized where the hell he was. Once more back on the boat and because the plane he was on was late he was on the bottom rack on one side of a six man cube. More thoughts started to come to his head and his mind started to spin up to speed. It was then that he realized the pain came from guy on the rack above him who was big footed and couldn't just swing out and fall out of the middle rack. His hand found the rack light and turned it on, that was when bright light startled him part of his mind said to turn it back off. The buzzing came back to his ears and he looked around. That was when he noticed his alarm clock up near the pillow on a little shelf that some one decided this rack was lucky enough to have. As more people stirred around him he felt for the little flip-flops that he wore to the shower and threw those out. He then pulled the little curtains that gave him some measure of privacy.
After pulling back the curtains he looked out and realized that no one else was stirring in his cube, so he picked up his clock and pushed the little button to shine light on the time.
"0500, What time did chief say we had to be in?"
"0630" came from some other part of his brain.
"Good if I can move fast enough there might be time to get breakfast in."
He rolled out of his rack and put his feet into the flip-flops. Stood up and stretch the stiffness out of his arms and legs. "Gosh those racks are never long enough to stretch out completely."
He then bent back down and took a chain off his neck. This chain held his dog tags and the key to his locker. Popping the lock off his rack and pop-up the cover which he was just sleeping on just minutes ago. Digging around he found the leather kit bag, his father had given him after checking into his first sea command. After closing the locker and lock, then pulling on the lock to make sure it actually locked he stumbled out of the compartment past others coming back from showering or just getting dressed.
The area was bathed in a red glow from the red lights in the passageway. The didn't hurt his eyes as much the white light that was his rack light. Into the head and finding the first empty sink. Put the kit bag down opening it up and pulling out the toothbrush and tooth paste.
About 10 minutes later after brushing his teeth and get a shave in he was back in front of his open rack this time feeling for a white t-shirt, pair of skivies, black socks, and the coveralls that were standard wear for in port. Stripping out of the t-shirt and Bahama shorts he wore to bed last night, then down to nothing as he pulled off the skivies he had worn since yesterday morning getting on the big C-40A that took him from the west coast to the east coast. 10 minutes later he was finishing up adjusting his boot laces when he picked up his clock and saw that the total morning ritual took about 40minutes. "15 minutes longer then normal. Can't let that happen too often." On out of the berthing compartment and down to the mess decks. Walking about 40 or 50 feet till he arrived at the outboard passageway he remembered from cruise two years ago and went out and down the ladder well that took him from the 03 level down to the second deck and the mess decks. All the way to the bottom he noticed there wasn't a line at all.
"What luck, I might actually be able to get some eggs and bacon in me before work instead of cereal."
Grabbing a tray and plate he walked down the line and scooped some scrambled eggs and bacon and healthy scoop of grits on to the plate. Walking past the grill with a cook that had a bored expression on his face, then past all the donuts and other breakfast pastries that the bake shop had made the night before. He arrived in another space which had various juice and soda machines set up. Grabbing a couple of plastic cups from the dispenser at the start of this line he walked past the fresh fruit.
"Oh joy they have oranges and they look pretty fresh and ripe. I think I will have two right now and save one for later in the day."
Grabbing 3 oranges off the pile that sat in the refrigerated tray, he went further down to one of the juice machines. Pushing the button for the fruit punch into both cups he went past everything else and went into the seating area. Finding a seat he sat down and started to shovel the breakfast down and was left to his own thoughts for a few moments. Those thoughts keep returning to her.
It was a few moments later and the ring of a bell and the ship's announcing system that told him the time.
"Reveille, Reveille, All hands heave up and trice too."
"0600, oh joy." He said to no one.
Going around to another part of the seating area he got in line to turn in his dishes. Dumping the scraps into the trash and handing off the pieces of his dishes to the various windows in the scullery. He got out of the line and started to walk further to find the ladderwell that would take him right up near his shop. But first he had to put the extra orange into his pocket, because technically taking food off the mess decks is bad juju.
"I might need it for later if I miss lunch, cause I don't know when the main ships store will open and it is healthier then the candy bars in the vending machines down here."
Getting up to the shop he realized that the door was shut and he didn't know the code to the cypher lock. Knocking on the door lead it to be opened by the new first class that had checked in a couple of months ago.
"Whats going on? How was the flight? Did you guys get any liberty time?" where the first few questions out of the PO1's mouth as both of them walked back into the shop and got settled.
"Not much, the usual, no we got in about midnight way past liberty expiration for all hands. I see the shop is set up. Beach det and early det do that?"
"Yea, Maintenance meeting is at 0645."PO1 said and guessing what the next question was. "What is that in your pocket?"
"Oh it is an orange I took off the mess decks for later. Do you want it?"
"Yeah, I didn't make it down to breakfast."
"You taking it or me? Or do you want to rock paper scissors for it and lose like you always do?" He asked. Basically wondering who was going to the maintenance meeting
The door swung open again startling both of them. The new shop chief that had checked in only 24hours prior to coming out on this adventure walked in.
"Where is the coffee?" He growled looking worse for wear then the other two in the space.
"So chief went out with the rest of the mess and tied one on. I wonder how bad he is hung over or was yesterday a special occasion because we are away from home and chief operates on a separate set of rules versus home?"
_______________________________________________
Well that is it for right now. More will be written over the next few days. Just trying something different if you don't like this please feel free to comment in the comments box or via the email. Thanks for sticking around here folks.

Returned from underway

So yet another underway period on the ship has ended for me this past Friday. Yet, it is only the start of the process of many 30-45 day underway period prior to starting a 6-month cruise. Some new stories to talk about and share. Just some observations to share real quickly that I will elaborate on this week.

New aircraft in our air wing and new problems. We use to have an F-14 Tomcat squadron and a USMC F-18A+ Hornet squadron. Both of those squadrons were replaced with two F-18F Super Hornet squadrons. The F-18F is the dual seat version of the F-18E Super Hornet. The other big problem is that the engines in the F-18F's are more powerful then what I have experience before beyond the J52 engines in my plane. We had a couple of guys injured pretty badly up on the flight deck due to inexperience of both the ground crew and the aviators while taxiing around.

Boat chucks will always be boat chucks.

Being out of the limelight for the maintenance desk is a good thing.

The food is still iffy, the racks are still too small, and there is still no space for anything but work.

Stay tuned I am going to try and share some of these observations via a new method.

A day out sea.

Recently I have gotten a few emails from people asking what it is really like to live and work on board a modern US Aircraft carrier as an Enlisted man. It is interesting and not anything like what is shown by Hollywood on shows like "JAG" or in movies like "Top Gun". So here it is a typical day for myself out to sea while I was on a 6 month cruise.
To begin with the only thing that you could really claim as your own space is where you sleep, but even that it at a premium. This shot here shows some elementary kids in a berthing compartment on board the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63). As one can see, all you have is the bed and if you are lucky and have a locker underneath the bed. Like what the Asian girl on the right side of the picture is looking out of. Then someplace else in this compartment, which can range in about 200-500 square feet in space, is another pair of lockers not much bigger then the ones most people have at their local gyms. That really isn't that much place to store things. So most of us only pack our uniforms, about 2-3 days worth of civilian clothes. Entertainment wise, a few people will stick a CD player and a small CD case in their locker or a portable game system. A few more people will bring their laptops with themselves. Just to keep yourself entertained. Myself, I usually brought a Game boy and a few large books to read while on cruise. Now I am 5ft 9in (or about 1.75 meters for you readers that use metric measurements) tall and I have to sleep sort of crunched up to fit myself in one of these beds or racks as we call them. There is just a pair of blue curtains to block yourself off from the rest of the world and a small reading light to use. At the foot of this little rack attached to the bulkhead someplace is a compartment for a rescue breathing device so if there is a fire you can escape from the space and either get to the flight deck or to the hangar bay. This is where I will begin my day. I am a heavy sleep so I have two alarm clocks to wake me up. One is an old fashioned windup the other is a battery powered electric one.
One I wake up, it is usually a fight to either get out without stepping on someone else or with out being stepped on. Then trying to get dressed. Most people on a carrier will work a typical 12-hour day, either 0700 in the morning or 1900 at night will be the start of their shift. If you are lucky then you will be the only one in your little cubical getting up. If not then either you are fighting with 5 other people or at the most one other person.

Some people will stagger off to what we call a head or the bathroom and do the three "S's". The three S's are shower, shave, and sh*t. The hope is that by doing this you will have given a few other people a chance to have gotten dress and out of your way. After getting dressed then it is a decision based on what the time is. Do I forgo breakfast and head to work or stand in line forever and try to put something in my stomach. The really hard part about making this decision is how close you actually are to needing to be at work. Most supervisors like everyone to show up between 45-30 minutes prior to the shift starting. If you want to grab breakfast then it is stumble either forward or aft from where you live and down (or up ) a few decks to the end of the line for the mess decks.

When you get down to the start of the Mess decks, you are served cafeteria style. That is pick up a tray and go down the line picking what you want for food. In the morning if there are fresh eggs on board then you can get eggs made to order, if not then you have a choice of omelettes or scrambled eggs. The omelette really isn't that complex when they make it up; either a cheese, ham, or a Denver style. From there you have the choice of either pancakes or waffles, sausage or bacon, grits or home fried potatoes, topped off with either white bread or a donut.

Once you have gotten all of your food then you need to look for a place to sit. Some carriers that I have been on have fixed tables in selected spots and then you have long tables with small attached stools that can be fold up out of the way to go and eat on. Eat real fast and then head off to work.

Once at work it is 12 hours of fun either working on the flight deck or down below in a shop. All spaces usually have a TV. Most of us in a squadron will have the great TV show called "Roger Ball. ". "Roger Ball" is the PLAT broadcast being played on one of the screens, this is especially important to us maintainers because we can know which catapults are operating, when our aircraft are coming in, heck a smart salty sailor can even use it to figure out the weather on the flight deck. Some of the administration spaces will have one of the movie channels running or one of the other channels from satellite TV.

Sometime in the middle of the day is lunch when one can repeat the experience from breakfast, except this time will be some sort of meat, veggies, starch product. Again shovel the food into you in 30mins. Head back to work and keep working until shift change comes around. Oh and repeat again heading to the mess deck either before shift change or after shift change.

From there it is head back to your rack and either change out to some gym clothes and head to one of the gyms to exercise. Or head off to one of the stores on the ship and do some basic restocking of your shower kit. Other people will stay up and play cards or watch cruise movies on the TV in one of the crews lounges spread through out the ship. From there then go grab a shower and head off to bed. Repeat again for 190 days.

The only variations in this schedule will either be a drill day, when the powers to be decided to have a GQ drill or man over board drill. Then there is the need to extend your day because you have to head off to medical or dental for a check up or head some admin space and fill out paperwork for something or other. Laundry return day is another fun variation when everyone will pass out the clothes in your berthing compartment or you can need to head down to self service laundry to clean your civilian clothes. Self-Service is another fun line to stand in forever. There have been times that I have gotten done with work at 1900, skipped dinner and headed back to grab my laundry bag went down with a my CD player and a book, waited in line for ever, got a washer, compete for a dryer, and then back up top after it is all said and done only to look at my watch and realize that it is 0100 in the morning.

The whole thing really turns into groundhog day until the end of cruise. It seems the only days when things are brightened up is when you get regular postal mail from family. It is amazing how you come in to work one day and find out that mail call went down that day. Then here is a letter or care package from someone that cares about you.

That it my opinions about a typical day out to sea. The good thing about being out to sea is knowing that your day is going to be similar day in and day out. It really isn't that stressful, because you don't need try and get off early that day to go grocery store or pick up the dry-cleaning. If you do it right as well and set up your bills for autopay, then that is even less stress. All you need to do is worry about whether the food on the mess decks is worth eating, if you mailed off the latest letter to your family and whether the shower is going to be Arctic Ocean cold or hot springs scalding hot.

To go succeed you will be tested

To advance as an enlisted man in the US Navy there are two hoops you have to go through. The first is a performance evaluation by your supervisors. The next step and the favorite of everyone in the Navy is the a 200 question multiple guess test. At all levels from those trying to advance to E-4 (3rd Class Petty Officer) all the way up to the Chief Petty Officer Level (E-7), a test is taken.
What usually happens on test day is similar to taking the SAT's when one was in High school. The test starts promptly at 0700 in the morning and you are given 3 hours to complete the test. When you show up the only thing allowed for use is either a calculator. Then set up on the test table is usually two #2 pencils, two sheets of scratch paper, and usually the advancement worksheet. The advancement worksheet has all of your personal and professional information on it. Such information as how many awards you have, the average score of your performance evals, and time in pay grade and time in active service. Nothing else is allowed on the table or in the testing room.
From there at 0700 you begin the test and for the next three hours you rack your brain and try to data dump everything you should have study or had study the previous 5 months from when the bibliography of books that the test will be based on was published. The really interesting thing about the test is how they will use unusually complex words and sentences to ask a simple thing. For example the test writers might think of a simple question such as "Who tall is a tree in the forest?". So to ask a question like that they will write it similar to this, "While standing next to a tree in a forest and you see the sun is going near its highest peak and your shadow is cast to your starboard side for a total distance of 8ft. What is the total height of the tree?"
There are 200 different questions about about half of them will be written like those above. At the end of it all following the data dump from ones mind you feel incredibly stupid. There have been a few times that I have finished and had to look at my uniform to remember what my name was.
After the test is turned in, you have 3 months to wait for the results and there is the typical results following the grading of a test. Either plenty of teeth gnashing because one passed the test but didn't do it well enough to advance or the jumping for joy happiness because one passes the test and gets the promotion with the more money and more responsibilities.
If you don't make it then you in turn start to go begin studying again and hope that the dice roll right for you.