Hello all,
If anyone out there in cyberspace is still following this blog, then I guess you know by now I'm back home. I came across some of my old writings when I fired up my PowerBook for the first time in a few years. I wrote the below (and the next few that will follow) I think in 2008 when I was taking part in UNITAS, an exercise that takes part between the US and 11 other partnering South American navies. I don't think I have ever share this..except maybe via email to my family. If you ever wondered what the experience is like on a US Navy vessel, keep reading:
So, it’s my 4th day at sea and I only worked 15
hours today; it’s Sunday and that means “holiday routine.” On Sundays, the “holiday routine” fairy
brings us an extra hour of sleep.
Reveille is at 7am.
I would like to explain shipboard life to my non-seafaring
friends and it’s only befitting that I start with the concept of reveille. I have it on good authority that
“reveille” is Latin for “wake your ass up and get to work.” Onboard ship, there’s an entire
procedure to calling reveille. It
begins with sailors sleeping soundly in their racks, white sandy beaches,
frosty mugs of beer and images of their lads or lasses back home dancing in their
heads. Those dreams come to a
screeching halt at the sound of whistles through the ship’s loudspeaker system
(1MC). Imagine what a dog’s
whistle must sound like to a dog.
Now change the pitch just enough until it actually comes into the human
range of hearing; that’s a boatswain’s pipe early in the morning. If that didn’t wake you up, the watch
captain tells you that it’s time to get up and get your ass to work; except
he’s a bit more professional about it that I’m being. Then comes the boatswain’s pipe again. By this time, you are ready to tie
yourself to a heavy object and heave yourself overboard just to get some peace,
but on the USS Mesa Verde (the Mighty Mesa) they want to ensure you don’t fall back into
dreamland. Here, they go the extra
mile and play a song for you at top volume. I can’t remember a single song they have played so far; I
was too busy curling tightly in the fetal position crying for my mother to
notice the catchy tune.
Once you get over the shock of the cold, cruel world and
wipe the crust from your eyes, it’s time for a shower. Now, I have to take a moment to
acknowledge my good fortune and tell you all that I really did get lucky on
this deployment. The Mesa Verde is
a new ship, she was commissioned in 2007 and the senior enlisted here have
state rooms instead of general berthing.
The junior enlisted are in general berthing and live in a space with way
too many of their closest friends.
Even on most other ships, the Chiefs would be in Chiefs’ berthing and
share a space with the other Chiefs on board. As it is here, I am in a stateroom and share my space with
only one other person. I have the
bottom bunk and she has the top; it’s just like summer camp, but not. The staterooms on this ship each have a
private bath. The bathroom
walls are completely metal; I
imagine myself a sardine in the little roll up can. Half of the room is a shower and the other half is the
toilet. There’s a door that
separates the toilet half from the shower half. I guess this is just in case I
want to pee 5 inches from my roommate while she’s in the shower. Maybe that’s a fetish I don’t yet know
about. At any rate, the toilet half
of the room is small; I mean smaller than you are currently imagining. A port-a-potty is spacious compared to
this thing, and it uses the latest in motion sensor and vacuum
technology. If I sneeze, the
motion sensor notices the flinch in my butt muscles and the vacuum opens in an
attempt to suck me into sewage hell.
I half expect to see video on “World’s Funniest Bloopers” one day of
unsuspecting sailors trying to escape the wrath of the mechanized toilet. Now to the shower; it’s not any roomier
than the toilet but it doesn’t try eat me, so it’s cool. The shower spigot is about the size of
a dime and the water either drips out or comes through at pressure washer
speed. On the ship, water is a
valuable commodity. I don’t quite understand the whole process, but they don’t
just take the water from the ocean and dump it on us. This is a good thing, but it does mean there isn’t always a
limitless supply and the idea is to get in the shower, get clean and get out of
the shower. That’s not really a
problem for me since I don’t enjoy having my skin blasted with water at a
pressure high enough to clean my garage floor. So, I’m up and out and ready for my day in a quick minute. That’s where I end this lesson.
Stay tuned for future installments where I discuss the
ship’s strict dietary and exercise plans, exciting décor and other reasons for
you appreciate the guys out here who do this for a living.
