The Subsim Veterans/Active Duty Thread

[ET2SN]

El W; I'll try to keep this as basic as I can for now, if you want to talk submarines- we can do that. But not now.

Figure out what you want to do and what you want to be. Keep your mind open, you don't even have to join the military at this point.

Next, figure out your goals. Where do you want to wind up when it gets close to your retirement? Keep a little wiggle room in your plans but definitely start to think about long-term goals. You want to be a what? Why do you want that? What other options are out there?

If you are sold on that military career, do you want to be an officer or enlisted? Both have their plusses and minuses. Both are separated by a "glass wall", you can't really be both (there's the concept of a Warrant Officer, but this career path tends to be very tricky to navigate) but both can be rewarding in their own way.

Also, keep in mind that at its core, a job in the military is a Federal job. Some of this can be a headache, they tell you exactly what is expected and what isn't tolerated and there's very little room to innovate or experiment.

[vienna]

Not quite sure about that abscessed-tooth-as-a-liability theory; whenever I've had toothaches, I've been in moods to take out the pain anyone around me and, if given a bayonet, God help the guy on the other end when my tooth is aching...



<O>

[Aktungbby]

Originally Posted by vienna

Not quite sure about that abscessed-tooth-as-a-liability theory; whenever I've had toothaches, I've been in moods to take out the pain anyone around me and, if given a bayonet, God help the guy on the other end when my tooth is aching...



<O>

Rewind 100 years and the Battle of the Somme would have just drawn to a close, on November 18, 1916. For 141 days, soldiers had suffered the worst that modern warfare could deliver: bombardment, chemical weapons, failed advances and a level of casualties no one could have anticipated. In this centenary year, multiple articles have been published on the terrible conditions, the tactics, the tear gas. But what about the teeth?

Dentistry, granted, is not a topic that often comes up when discussing World War I. But the poor state of working-class mouths – no dental care for most of them – and the difficulties that the very basic army food presented made the all-consuming pain of acute toothache all too common. So what were the soldiers eating? Military leaders have long noted that armies “march on their stomachs”, so the 1914 British army command was well aware of the significance of rations to its men.

Difficulties in the Crimean War, where more soldiers had been admitted to the hospital at Scutari suffering from scurvy than from battle wounds, had prompted a series of army dietary reforms over the second half of the 19th century. Improvements in nutritional science had also helped to shape the provisioning of the army – although the emphasis on energy values to the exclusion of other considerations resulted in a diet that, while high in calories, was often lacking in variety, difficult to consume and somewhat indigestible. Trench rations
In the summer of 1914, the army provided the same level of feeding for all, but soon found this unsustainable and a series of adjustments followed, reserving the best rations for those in the front line. Those in reserve and in the training camps at home received considerably less.

The fighting man’s calorie quota was on a par with that of the modern British Army, although contemporary ration packs offer a level of variety unimagined by those serving a century earlier. In terms of national comparison, the British fared pretty well, the Americans had the most calories – and the French a widely envied daily wine ration. If actual rations met the official description, and the cooks were of a decent standard, all went relatively well. A relatively static war meant that the delivery of rations was usually reliable – at times of advance or retreat the long supply chains could be interrupted, but most of the time the complex set of movements from Base Supply Depots to the front was sustained.

Unfortunately, the cooks’ efforts often fell short, although they were hindered by the army’s own recipe books where, for example, the list of ingredients for “Fish Paste” contained four tins of sardines – and eight of bully (corned) beef. but the army sought to deliver the greatest number of calories in the easiest manner – and that often meant tinned (both meat and biscuit) rather than fresh food. A tin of Maconochie’s meat and vegetable stew, especially when heated up, was the acceptable face of canned food. Cold corned beef wasn’t – and biscuit was even less popular. The British working classes had grown up on a diet dominated by bread, so while a hard-baked carbohydrate substitute may have scored highly in logistical terms it was regarded by most men as an abomination. Scores of cartoonists and writers have made jokes about biscuit’s similarity to kindling, but it was no laughing matter. Many of the working and lower-middle-class soldiers had very poor teeth – the result of too much sugar and too little dentistry. The army was reluctant to pay for dentists and when the British Expeditionary Force travelled to France in 1914 not one dentist accompanied them. It was only when General Douglas Haig developed excruciating toothache at height of the Battle of Aisne in October of that year that the cost of their absence was realised. No one was able to treat Haig and he was forced to await a French dental surgeon from Paris. Haig subsequently contacted the War Office to request the recruitment of army dentists for the BEF – 12 dentists arrived in November and a further eight by the end of 1914. 18 dentist for how
many Tommies??!!Jokes about the state of the nation’s teeth also reached the pages of Punch. In August 1914 it published a cartoon of a disgruntled man at a recruiting office protesting to the MO who’d turned him away because of his rotten teeth: “Man, ye’re making a gran’ mistake. I’m no wanting to bite the Germans, I’m wanting to shoot ‘em.”

Defective teeth were a major cause in rejecting volunteers and so patriotic dentists stepped forward. CJ McCarthy of Grimsby advertised in the local paper promising free treatment to the first 25 volunteers rejected because of their teeth that reported to his surgery.

Dentistry mattered: in the theatre of war, losing a set of false teeth effectively rendered the soldier useless because the conditions at the front didn’t allow for a soft diet for toothless men. Canon JO Coop wrote home to his wife that one man had a self-inflicted wound and “to make more certain [his escape from the front line] he had thrown away his false teeth because he knew that men who lost their teeth were sent to base”.

The army’s efforts weren’t always met with enthusiasm, but innovative Tommies knew how to make the best of what was available, often grinding the biscuits to a powder, mixing in a tin of milk and one of jam – preferably not the eternal plum and apple – and heating. Making the rations palatable was a key skill learned alongside the more distressing aspects of warfare.

I rest my case! The BEF travelled on its stomach and no teeth meant no frontline trench duty...Moreover having munched hardtack biscuits in my Civil War re-enacting daze; I can easily relate to this WW I misery: further reading; it was an important matter. > https://languagesandthefirstworldwar.../trench-teeth/

[Torpex77]

Originally Posted by El Whacko

Awesome, didn't know you were in a battle!
To be honest, I am surprised that no one else had thought of this idea before. I think that it is best for everyone to be remembered and their story told to keep the flame going. Also, about the cadet training, we had a Marine Staff-Sergeant come to do PT with us on Saturday last week. He was a recruiter that the CO's daughter had met while looking at the Marines. He did some tours in Iraq, I think he said.
That PT though was hard but I felt relaxed and happy for the rest of the day. I was reading the POD (Plan of the Day) earlier before I left for the drill and it said:
"1130, secure chow and change into PT gear for our motivational speech with Staff Sergeant (insert name here)"
Normally you don't change into PT gear for a motivational speech..
We did some running and ab workouts to "warm-up", and some people were already exhausted by then. Next thing we had to do was some more intense workouts in a series of 6 workouts. I will explain it here.

There were 6 cones out in the field behind the drill site, the 6th cone was probably a good 60-80 yards. We were told that our first workout for the first cone would be "low crawling (Army Crawling) and then sprint back to the start" The second workout for the second cone would be high crawling and then we would sprint back from the second cone to the start. The third workout for the third cone would be bear crawling and then sprinting back to the start. The fourth workout for the fourth cone was an inchworm up to about maybe 40 or so yards and then sprint back to the start.
By that point many people were about ready to collapse on the ground (including me, but I still came in second behind the Leading Petty Officer)

The fifth workout for the fifth cone was lunges and then sprint back to the start.

The sixth and final workout was squat jumps, which is basically you doing squats while jumping, it looks like this:


We had to do that for 80 yards and then sprint back to the beginning and wait for other people to finish. I was practically dying by that time, and yet I pushed myself further and further.
If you have ever done a squat before, like multiple of them, then you know how your legs and abs hurt like hell, but imagine doing all of the workouts I did previously and then doing this final workout. The end result was basically me trying not to puke in front of everyone.

And then we had a competition where I got buddy-dragged like this:
for 10 yards or so. That wasn't bad at all. Yet I was still really fatigued and about to fall over.

Finally, I won a Marine lanyard by sprinting the 80 yards and back. I narrowly beat the other guy I was racing, in fact I had to dive to beat him. And the Staff Sergent gave me the lanyard.
After that I did puke.

Later the LPO singled me out saying I was "probably the most physically fit person in here besides the Chief Petty Officer, him, and a few other POs. Yet you still need to work out to improve yourself."

Also a few days ago, I registered for Recruit Training (RT, which is basically like boot camp for cadets) in Florida. And the COTC later approved me, as did my CO, for attending. And so I leave in June for Florida for RT.



Good luck! What made you choose to be a dental assistant? I am curious as I haven't met a person who chose a job like that. There are some kids in my unit who are qualified as Corpsmen at like 16. There is some training that I can attend where the subject is "Tac Med" which, from what I have heard, is REALLY demanding physically, mentally, and academically.



Reactor Operator? That must be a cool job operating the heart of the submarine, though it must be nerve-wracking knowing that those things can kill you if something goes wrong.
I plan on being a Weapons Officer on a submarine since I LOVE weapons and I shoot shotguns on courses with my grandparents regularly. Plus I think that it would be the job that fits my interests best.



Aircraft electrician? What do you do as an Aircraft Electrician? You probably operate an Aircrafts Electric systems but what else do you do?



Since you were the first one to post, you get a free reservation!



Let me guess, submariner?

>>>>> LOL Somehow you got me mixed up with someone else..lol No Harm
Im NOT a former Reactor Operator...lol I was a Torpedoman
1985-2005
USS BOSTON SSN 703
USS SUNFISH SSN 649
USS PASADENA SSN 752

Diving Officer Qualified on all 3
Contact Coordinator on 649 & 752

Punched holes in Every major ocean. As a Torpedoman We were a test platform on Boston, launching over 700 torpedos.

Hard life, damn well worth it. ❤️

[Texas Red]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

El W; I'll try to keep this as basic as I can for now, if you want to talk submarines- we can do that. But not now.

Figure out what you want to do and what you want to be. Keep your mind open, you don't even have to join the military at this point.

Next, figure out your goals. Where do you want to wind up when it gets close to your retirement? Keep a little wiggle room in your plans but definitely start to think about long-term goals. You want to be a what? Why do you want that? What other options are out there?

If you are sold on that military career, do you want to be an officer or enlisted? Both have their plusses and minuses. Both are separated by a "glass wall", you can't really be both (there's the concept of a Warrant Officer, but this career path tends to be very tricky to navigate) but both can be rewarding in their own way.

Also, keep in mind that at its core, a job in the military is a Federal job. Some of this can be a headache, they tell you exactly what is expected and what isn't tolerated and there's very little room to innovate or experiment.

Thanks, man, I have told my CO my goals and he said he would help me accomplish them to the fullest. I plan on being an officer on a submarine, and I hope to go to the Naval Academy later in life. Our chief had signed up like maybe two weeks ago for the academy and on Saturday he told us that he had just received an Army ROTC scholarship at Purdue, another kid in the unit before me had also made chief and signed up to the academy but he ended up going to West Point instead, lol.

Am I seeing a recurring theme here?

[Jeff-Groves]

Follow your dreams. I did.
I became a ParaTrooper in the 82nd AirbBorne.
Kind of strange for a high level modder of subsims right?

[3catcircus]

I highly advise going the officer route via the quickest parh, given the chance.

If you are going as strictly a WEPS, I'm thinking nowadays you'll have to do it by enlisting into a source rate, make chief (well, board-eligible E-6) and get the nod to be commissioned as a 626x Ordnance (Submarine) LDO on an SSBN. This'll take probably 7+ years to even get your foot in the door.

If you intend to serve on a fast attack, unless you want to be a 'chop, I think now it has to generally be as an unrestricted line officer - and every submarine ULO goes to nuclear power school.

Are ya good at calculus and physics? Can you draw a single line diagram of piping or circuitry and identify the functions of all the components? Are ya good at cramming info into your head at a rapid pace? Can you handle 20-25 hrs of study outside of 8 hrs of class Monday-Friday?

Get through power school and prototype and then its off to SOBC. Only then do you get your first assignment as a DivO. You'll then spend your first assignment qualifying all your watchstations culminating in OOD and getting your gold fish. The most important part of this education is learning from the chief or LPO who is the guy who is really running your division while protecting you from yourself...

After your first sea duty, you'll alternate sea and shore duty - going to advanced schools, serving as a Dept Head, the obligatory joint and staff assignments until you get assigned as a PCO. Pass, and you'll get your own boat.

A college buddy of mine was an enlisted nuke electrician's mate. Went to captain's mast and reduced from E-4 to E-3 while still in the training pipeline. Got through training and assigned to various boats, eventually making chief before being picked up for Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program. He's now the CO of a west coast SSN. His second sea duty assignment after commissioning (and going through nuke school all over again as an officer) was as the WEPS on an SSN.

If you *really* want to serve as a submarine officer, just go to college first - USNA, ROTC, OCS - doesn't matter. It's *far* easier to go that route than competing for a much smaller number of officer program slots as an enlisted.

In fact, the NUPOC program will *pay you* as an E-6 or E-7 while you are going to college. They only downside is if you don't make it through and commission, they send you to boot camp for assignment as a non-designated E-3...

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by El Whacko

Thanks, man, I have told my CO my goals and he said he would help me accomplish them to the fullest. I plan on being an officer on a submarine, and I hope to go to the Naval Academy later in life. Our chief had signed up like maybe two weeks ago for the academy and on Saturday he told us that he had just received an Army ROTC scholarship at Purdue, another kid in the unit before me had also made chief and signed up to the academy but he ended up going to West Point instead, lol.

Am I seeing a recurring theme here?

OK, I think you may have some mis-conceptions.
If your unit has "career days", be a pain and try to get a submarine officer to attend.
Buy them lunch, do what you have to in order to get a one-to-one sit-down meeting. I'm not 100% certain (I left the Navy in 1993), but being an officer on a US sub means that you graduated from "Nuc School" (aka Prototype). Getting to Nuc school as an officer can be tricky. Off the top of my head, you'll want to have good grades and at least a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a heavy concentration in Physics and Thermodynamics. This is the tricky part, the Navy prefers to train their Nucs their own way. You don't have to have a BS/ME but you DO need an outstanding GPA. Understand that I'm not talking about "party on Thursday-to-Sunday" college. This is a very narrow pathway that looks a lot like a wire over a canyon.

Aside from being the Permanent Supply Officer, this is the only path I know of to getting gold Dolphins. Most of the junior (NUC trained) officers I knew didn't even want a shot at being the Captain, they wanted to be the ENG more than anything. There's some twisted logic behind this and it takes a long time to understand it.

Just a quick disclaimer. I enlisted about six months after I earned a BS/EE and AS/EET degrees. I enlisted mostly because the civilian industry went into a severe downturn and I needed to get the experience for when things got better.
I had asked about OCS when I enlisted and my recruiter said it was better (in his view) if I went enlisted first and let a CO nominate me for OCS. This turned out to be really good advice, by the time the skipper of my first boat asked me if I wanted to go, I already knew that I didn't and I was lucky there was another guy in the crew who wanted it more. It still took a lot of diplomacy to turn down "the old man" without having him go ballistic.

Service Academy vs ROTC/NROTC- The Service Academies don't train future lieutenants, they train future Admirals and Generals. This will make more sense later. If your goal is WEPS on a fast attack, there are easier ways of getting there than going through Annapolis. If your goal is getting your own personal flag and staff car, then you want "the big ring".
You should also understand the difference between Line Officer and Staff Officer. To you, it could make a lot of difference. To the Navy, it makes NO difference and they will assign you where they need you to be. This is known as "needs of the government" and its a double-edged blade. You can use it to your benefit but it can just as easily knock your legs out from under you.

Just to cut it short for now, there are other folks on this forum who have old uniforms and poopie suits hanging in their closet. You want their opinions as well. Just understand that a LOT of this comes down to being prepared plus being in the right place at the right time.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by El Whacko

Thanks, man, I have told my CO my goals and he said he would help me accomplish them to the fullest.

BTW, this is a little early in the conversation but let me give you a little advice.

If your CO asks you, "Where would like to go in the military?". Think about this first but say "It doesn't matter. They could send me to Korea and I hate Mongolian Beef, Kimchi, and Garlic. Where ever I'm needed is what's important."


There's always going to be an element of sacrifice to military service. A lot of things can happen that are outside your influence. That was why I suggested that you keep an open mind for a while.

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

BTW, this is a little early in the conversation but let me give you a little advice.

If your CO asks you, "Where would like to go in the military?". Think about this first but say "It doesn't matter. They could send me to Korea and I hate Mongolian Beef, Kimchi, and Garlic. Where ever I'm needed is what's important."


There's always going to be an element of sacrifice to military service. A lot of things can happen that are outside your influence. That was why I suggested that you keep an open mind for a while.

You forgot Rule #1...

Never put down your first duty choice as your first choice or it'll be guaranteed you won't get it 😂

[ET2SN]

I thought Rule#1 was "Don't be a ****".

I grew up in northern Maine and I knew a guy in High School who joined the Air Force and put down "Loring AFB" as his first choice, which was where he wound up.
Talk about "seeing the world".

His folks could drive up for a visit every Friday afternoon and make it back home in time for dinner.

[Texas Red]

Originally Posted by 3catcircus

I highly advise going the officer route via the quickest parh, given the chance.

If you are going as strictly a WEPS, I'm thinking nowadays you'll have to do it by enlisting into a source rate, make chief (well, board-eligible E-6) and get the nod to be commissioned as a 626x Ordnance (Submarine) LDO on an SSBN. This'll take probably 7+ years to even get your foot in the door.

If you intend to serve on a fast attack, unless you want to be a 'chop, I think now it has to generally be as an unrestricted line officer - and every submarine ULO goes to nuclear power school.

Are ya good at calculus and physics? Can you draw a single line diagram of piping or circuitry and identify the functions of all the components? Are ya good at cramming info into your head at a rapid pace? Can you handle 20-25 hrs of study outside of 8 hrs of class Monday-Friday?

Get through power school and prototype and then its off to SOBC. Only then do you get your first assignment as a DivO. You'll then spend your first assignment qualifying all your watchstations culminating in OOD and getting your gold fish. The most important part of this education is learning from the chief or LPO who is the guy who is really running your division while protecting you from yourself...

After your first sea duty, you'll alternate sea and shore duty - going to advanced schools, serving as a Dept Head, the obligatory joint and staff assignments until you get assigned as a PCO. Pass, and you'll get your own boat.

A college buddy of mine was an enlisted nuke electrician's mate. Went to captain's mast and reduced from E-4 to E-3 while still in the training pipeline. Got through training and assigned to various boats, eventually making chief before being picked up for Nuclear Enlisted Commissioning Program. He's now the CO of a west coast SSN. His second sea duty assignment after commissioning (and going through nuke school all over again as an officer) was as the WEPS on an SSN.

If you *really* want to serve as a submarine officer, just go to college first - USNA, ROTC, OCS - doesn't matter. It's *far* easier to go that route than competing for a much smaller number of officer program slots as an enlisted.

In fact, the NUPOC program will *pay you* as an E-6 or E-7 while you are going to college. They only downside is if you don't make it through and commission, they send you to boot camp for assignment as a non-designated E-3...

First off, a little too much for me at the moment. I am still pretty young and not even close to finishing high school or even learning calculus and physics. What I do want to do is go to USNA or any other officer program you mentioned beforehand. I would definitely want to become an officer rather quickly since then I don't have to toil in pay that is barely above the minimum wage for four years in the lowest enlisted rates.

Thanks for explaining it though. I guess it isn't all that simple as I thought it to be, lol.

Originally Posted by ET2SN

OK, I think you may have some mis-conceptions.
If your unit has "career days", be a pain and try to get a submarine officer to attend.
Buy them lunch, do what you have to in order to get a one-to-one sit-down meeting. I'm not 100% certain (I left the Navy in 1993), but being an officer on a US sub means that you graduated from "Nuc School" (aka Prototype). Getting to Nuc school as an officer can be tricky. Off the top of my head, you'll want to have good grades and at least a BS in Mechanical Engineering with a heavy concentration in Physics and Thermodynamics. This is the tricky part, the Navy prefers to train their Nucs their own way. You don't have to have a BS/ME but you DO need an outstanding GPA. Understand that I'm not talking about "party on Thursday-to-Sunday" college. This is a very narrow pathway that looks a lot like a wire over a canyon.

Aside from being the Permanent Supply Officer, this is the only path I know of to getting gold Dolphins. Most of the junior (NUC trained) officers I knew didn't even want a shot at being the Captain, they wanted to be the ENG more than anything. There's some twisted logic behind this and it takes a long time to understand it.

Just a quick disclaimer. I enlisted about six months after I earned a BS/EE and AS/EET degrees. I enlisted mostly because the civilian industry went into a severe downturn and I needed to get the experience for when things got better.
I had asked about OCS when I enlisted and my recruiter said it was better (in his view) if I went enlisted first and let a CO nominate me for OCS. This turned out to be really good advice, by the time the skipper of my first boat asked me if I wanted to go, I already knew that I didn't and I was lucky there was another guy in the crew who wanted it more. It still took a lot of diplomacy to turn down "the old man" without having him go ballistic.

Service Academy vs ROTC/NROTC- The Service Academies don't train future lieutenants, they train future Admirals and Generals. This will make more sense later. If your goal is WEPS on a fast attack, there are easier ways of getting there than going through Annapolis. If your goal is getting your own personal flag and staff car, then you want "the big ring".
You should also understand the difference between Line Officer and Staff Officer. To you, it could make a lot of difference. To the Navy, it makes NO difference and they will assign you where they need you to be. This is known as "needs of the government" and its a double-edged blade. You can use it to your benefit but it can just as easily knock your legs out from under you.

Just to cut it short for now, there are other folks on this forum who have old uniforms and poopie suits hanging in their closet. You want their opinions as well. Just understand that a LOT of this comes down to being prepared plus being in the right place at the right time.

Originally Posted by ET2SN

BTW, this is a little early in the conversation but let me give you a little advice.

If your CO asks you, "Where would like to go in the military?". Think about this first but say "It doesn't matter. They could send me to Korea and I hate Mongolian Beef, Kimchi, and Garlic. Where ever I'm needed is what's important."


There's always going to be an element of sacrifice to military service. A lot of things can happen that are outside your influence. That was why I suggested that you keep an open mind for a while.

Great, thanks for explaining it to me. I definitely got a good idea of what lies ahead. And its screaming "WORK HARDER WHILE YOU CAN!!" lol.
I will keep my mind open for a while, there is probably something else that I will find some new interest in later.

[ET2SN]

Well, that's the other side of the coin. Don't sign up for a twenty year career that you're going to hate.

I don't know if its still available, but there was the "Two Years Minimums" enlistment. Two years from bootcamp to transition back to the civilian world.

For some folks it made a lot of sense. They did the minimum time to get the post-service bennies. Or some basic job experience. Or some really basic training for free (plus the crappy pay check).

If you're really serious, let me repeat this- Knock off the "I, I, I,..." stuff. Think instead of serving your country. You'll still meet people who understand that and will look out for you. Try to make that feeling genuine.

If you want to join just to impress someone in the family or to have something to talk about during Thanksgiving, please reconsider. Those people you want to impress won't be there at 2AM on a crappy duty day when the ship is due to pull out at 9 AM but the generators keep tripping off line. They won't be there when you're stuck on the surface in state 6 seas for the next 12 hours. They won't be there when the galley runs out of everything but canned ravioli, coffee, and stale ice cream cones and you're two weeks away from a dock.

If you do it, do it for YOU and do it for your country.

[3catcircus]

Originally Posted by ET2SN

Well, that's the other side of the coin. Don't sign up for a twenty year career that you're going to hate.

I don't know if its still available, but there was the "Two Years Minimums" enlistment. Two years from bootcamp to transition back to the civilian world.

For some folks it made a lot of sense. They did the minimum time to get the post-service bennies. Or some basic job experience. Or some really basic training for free (plus the crappy pay check).

If you're really serious, let me repeat this- Knock off the "I, I, I,..." stuff. Think instead of serving your country. You'll still meet people who understand that and will look out for you. Try to make that feeling genuine.

If you want to join just to impress someone in the family or to have something to talk about during Thanksgiving, please reconsider. Those people you want to impress won't be there at 2AM on a crappy duty day when the ship is due to pull out at 9 AM but the generators keep tripping off line. They won't be there when you're stuck on the surface in state 6 seas for the next 12 hours. They won't be there when the galley runs out of everything but canned ravioli, coffee, and stale ice cream cones and you're two weeks away from a dock.

If you do it, do it for YOU and do it for your country.

This.

BTW, I think I'd be fine with the raviolis (midrats for the win) since it was hard to screw them up. Try butterscotch pudding for a week - for every meal. And boiling seawater for the salt. And we f'ing ran out of coffee! 2 and 3 brews on the same grounds... How the heck do you run out of coffee and then give the MS's (I think they're now called CS's) awards for maintaining crew morale?!?!

Nothing like being somewhere you can't talk about and getting extended on station over and over again...

Those 2am midwatches... Lots of heavy topics of discussion when you're bored out of your mind.

Or those 4/4/4/8/8 vulcan deathwatch ORSE workups.

Or the 3am reactor startup for an 8am underway.

Or steaming at anchor in Samoa with enough chop that the oncoming section ( who are hungover from their 18 hrs ashore) are going to be puking into trash bags for the next 6 hrs.

[ET2SN]

Originally Posted by 3catcircus

BTW, I think I'd be fine with the raviolis (midrats for the win) since it was hard to screw them up. Try butterscotch pudding for a week - for every meal. And boiling seawater for the salt. And we f'ing ran out of coffee! 2 and 3 brews on the same grounds... How the heck do you run out of coffee and then give the MS's (I think they're now called CS's) awards for maintaining crew morale?!?!

Or those 4/4/4/8/8 vulcan deathwatch ORSE workups.

Or steaming at anchor in Samoa with enough chop that the oncoming section ( who are hungover from their 18 hrs ashore) are going to be puking into trash bags for the next 6 hrs.

OK, I liked ravioli for mids, hot or cold, but try hot ravioli for breakfast, cold ravioli for lunch, hot ravioli and an ice cream cone (just the cone) for dinner, and cold ravioli for mids. For like 12 consecutive days. That #### got old REALLY fast. I always got along great with the cooks and I was talking to one of them one fine day and said,"Hey, what if you chucked a can of ravoili in the soup pot and added a lot of water? You know, call it "Italian Soup" or something.." "Yeah, we gotta start figuring this thing out..". "Dude, NO. I was kidding! Don't tell your Chief that or he'll do it!!!"

ORSE was one of those things that builds character. My best Navy bud was on a 594 out of San Diego and they dropped their ORSE something like 10 minutes after the team stepped off the brow. It might have been the trim pump hanging from a block and tackle or else it was wet pea green paint that got all over the khakis of the CDR who was inspecting it, but that marked the official start of FOUR WEEKS IN HELL for the crew. No kidding, the Navy didn't take that lightly. The barracks got locked and everyone got confined aboard to get ready for their make-up ORSE. The Navy even added the exclamation point of installing those yellow I beams between the hull and the pier, as if to say, "No, YOU folks are going NOWHERE!!!".

I thought ORSE was pretty cool. We nailled ours on the Bremerton after she got paroled out of the shipyard. By that time I was a referee on the DC crew and I wound up in my full fireman's suit and OBA yakking with some of the ORSE Chiefs about practical training stuff and one them asks me to light off my candle and demonstrate how to wear an OBA. "Seriously? Really light it? Are you sure..." "Yep. Do it NOW". So I go thru the drill and light off the candle, check the seals, and set the timer before calling off the light-off time to crew's mess. "Outstanding". "OK, so what do I do with it, now? Its lit and it'll keep pumping out O2 for the next half hour..". I was hoping he'd let me hang out in the bridge until the damned thing cooled off but instead we send one of the nubs to grab a plastic bucket and fill it with fresh water. I drop the hot canister into the bucket and... Those canisters go off like 8 million Alka Seltzers in water.

And, yeah, pre-underway hangovers. That was always a good time to test the O2 generator and its green pipe and shower head of goodness.