Basically a slave to the cooks. All new enlisted personnel arriving to the boat who are not qualified in submarines are eligible to be assigned to what is offically call mess cook duty. Most boats only force nuclear qulified personnel to do this if there are no remaing front ender non-quals left.

I will say, when I was cranking that second time, I had all the people I needed to sign off for me cornered. They could not hide, could not say that they did not have the time. I was the night crank and they came out to watch the movies... and I had them. It was like moths to a flame. And if they didn't want to talk to me then "No popcorn for them!"

About 2 weeks into it I had all my sigs and they would not give me a board. I cornered an LT and asked when he would hold my qual board. He decided to give me a board, on the mess desk, during movie time right NOW. In fact, he turned OFF the movie and announced that he was holding a sub qual board right then and there and he needed some people for the board.

That was a rough board as just about EVERYONE who was off watch took turns tormenting me. They were not amused by the interruption of the movie. It was a bloodbath.

The board lasted THROUGH the midwatch till breakfast.

I am proud to say that my qual sheet has almost EVERYONE who was sub qual'ed sign off on it. They ALL sat my board. It was a 'beat up a nuke night'. From the XO on down, someone had a question. Heck, half the time it was get this, show me that, the whole board roved the boat looking for things to beat me up on.

I still have that qual signoff sheet. 19 years after the fact. When I wonder if I can accomplish something I pull it out and look at it. It is still one of the proudest moments of my life. I can close my eyes and 'walk' the boat in my mind, remembering all the strangest details.

Sometimes I wonder why I got out....

AWESOME story... I don't know too many people who wouldn't have failed that board! How many lookups did you have?

TG

Big mistake. You must have known your S**T when they were done. I liked the other approach. I used to take coffee to the late night watches, check to make sure peoples relief were up, and assist people doing PMs and such. Anything for some enlightenment and a sig.:yep:

I hear what you say about stuff you can't forget. If anyone every asks me where the main steam shutoff valves are, or the power panel that supplies juice to the O2 generator, or how the CO2 scrubbers work, or ask me to properly put on an OBA I'm covered. I think to this day you could put me next to the shaft seals with an EAB with the faceplate blocked and I could still make it to the torpedo room. Probably not as fast as I once did, but I'd make it.:rock:


Just thought of another (somewhat embarrassing) story you guys will enjoy.

Sometime around 83 or 84 I was standing topside watch around 2 AM at the pier in Norfolk. I remember it was cold as I was wearing an exposure suit. We had just returned from some type of cert deployment becasue I remember I was dog tired, had worked the radar forever on manuevering watch coming in, got stuck with duty first day in.

The evening watch before me had left a ****load of cups he said he would take down with him. I went to take draft readings came back, and they were still there. I got on watch around 2300 and had been trying to get the belowdecks watch to bring me up a coffe. He was busy and hadn't made it. SO anyway here comes the duty officer to make a tour. The navigator, who was my dept head was on duty. Great! He is obviosly tired and not in good spirits. Looks about checks, my log, then begins eating my ass about getting rid of the coffee cups. I am by the forward escape trunk and he walks forward past the sail. I though to go below decks.

SO here I am tired and pretty aggravated myself. I mean WTF does he expect me to do with them? Eat them? I mean I been trying to get the BD watch to come up since I got on watch. So in a moment of disgust and irrational thought I picked up the stack and chucked it right over the side. Of course at that very moment the duty officer was rounding the sail on the way back. He turned 3 shades of purple and yelled at me for a good 10 minutes. I ended up with a reprimand but lucked I didn't get Captains Mast.:oops:

They actually have to have the divers dive the piers in Norfolk every year just to pick up cups. SO I guess I wasn't the only lazy piece of crap standing topside watch.

You didn't amuse yourself by bouncing them off the hull tiles? :lol:

TG

That was a great story about the cups as it brought back memories for me.

It was the first time I'd ever seen the northwest early March and was beautiful for at least 2 weeks. We started to take off the non-skid topside, plastic everywhere doubletaped on the edge to make sure that one flake of this material didn't fall into the drink. Oh, the joys of deck division. Our COB came up to inspect the job we were doing and turned to look at me...now, Renken....make sure you don't get one *******king flake of that sh*t overboard or the environmental freaks will have a hay day and fine the Captain. A few days later, when we were applying the first coat and it started to rain. Now I realized why we hated the northwest as we tried everything to dry our paint job. The rain finally stopped and we rushed to finish the job just to go on deployment within our timeframe.

let me pull it out.... four lookups on it.

1) CKT EH (signal circuit to close the snorkel induction mast isolation valve when it gets wet if I remember correctly)

2) modes of a MK-48 torpedo (pertaining to the active & passive modes, presets etc).

3) Power supply to to the radar (doh... )

4) emergency shutdown conditions and recovery operations of the LP blower.

I got a written note of 'impressive!' on it... I forgot who wrote it. I remember being told I should have been qual's sooner, I knew too dang much.

The radar panel is P-15 IIRC.;)

That sounds familiar... but you guys seem to have retained much more than i did. Wouldn't take me long to re-qual, though, I bet :ping:

When you got your butt reamed over it... you tended to remember it.

Okiedokie then. Here's a question a of opinion to the RLBHs:

Which person had the "easiest" job on the boat... meaning who has the least things to juggle up in the air at the same time? Was there any position that was obviously the easiest? I'm thinking that the cook probably has one of the hardest working, but also simplest jobs to keep 100+ fed. Also, the radar operators would probably have one of the simplest jobs since (from what I read and understand) seems like once a ship leaves port it will probably not use its radar but very very rarely until it gets back.

Am I right?

ps) pardon the necro.

Well the radar operator is one of the forward ETs and would stand either navigation watch or ESM watch when not on the surface. I would suggest the ESM watch could be considered one of the easiest, especially if like it was for me many patrols it is one guy who is on call. Basically while in transit we would just go to PD two or three times a day. Of course if at any point we had to stay at PD for extended periods that could backfire on you. Typically if we were on a mission where we would be at PD a lot then we would have at least 2 ESM operators on the watchbill. But on a 688 huge amounts of PD time are the exception not the rule.

As far as perception the sonar and radioroom(including ESM) watchstanders usually get the flack for being the biggest "NO LOADS":cool:

Those are fighting words!:arrgh!::arrgh!:

The sad part is most of the accidents that happen start in sonar.

:doh::doh:

Ahh.. Sonar. They work so hard in that cold air conditioned space. Those on my boat had a habit/history or taking a shower before and AFTER their watches. These guys were regular water buffalos.

Favourite line to call a new guy when they are behind on quals....

'Rack stealing, food eating, air breathing, san filling, load on my air conditioning system...'

Ahh the abuse you could deliver...