The gentleman you met was the ships personalman ... He worked with the Captain on correspondence, he worked with the COB for the plan of the day, he reviewed all of the records, he kept everything up to date for the some 130 officers and men of a fleet ballistic missile submarine. He still had to qualify and learn everything, but
personalman aren't required to stand regular watches like the rest of us, because they had a regular work scedule.
The supplyman and the corpsman were the other two that didn't have to stand watches, but sometimes the corspman would stand a sonar watch for fun. That was 35 years ago though and now subs have supply officers and medical officers, but they still have enlisted men for the office.
The USS Ethan Allen SSBN 608 had a first class personalman with a chest full of medals. So after change of command with all of us in our dress whites, we asked him, "Hey, where did you get all of those medals"?
He was a river rat on parol boats in Vietnam (a real hero even) and after his tour of duty they told him he could have any job he wanted. He volunteered for submarine duty, because just like the rest of us he fell in love with the idea from some old WWII movie.
