Navy Life - Not For Me

Sometimes I think I would have like to have stayed in the Navy. Then I realize that my mouth would not have let me do twenty years - unless it was in Leavenworth…A Gated Community.

Sometimes I see some videos like these below and I have to ask myself, ‘Did I really do that?’ Youth has no fear…but now, if I had to go through a typhone like the Kitty Hawk below, you wouldn’t be able to drive a straight pin up my ass with a sledge hammer.

At sea, very few days were smooth sailing. The ocean is a moving, tossing bitch and no one really understands the power of water until they have steamed for weeks at a time in all kinds of weather.

This is one that is just a little more sevier than a regular day at sea. But it was not uncommon either. Just up and down, left and right, 24/7.

USS Duncan (DDR 874)


My first thought on watching this video of the USS Kitty Hawk is, the ship I was on was a little over a football field in length. You could put three of my ships, nose to butt, down the flight deck. So if the water is coming over the flight deck of a carrier, then the destroyers are riding up and down like a roller coaster.

Kitty Hawk (CV 63)


It was fun, kinda, but after a storm, you are pretty worn out from all the swaying and holding on to things. And try eating with the room rocking and rolling. Fun I tell ya.

But then I think that I should have sayed in and...well...this will give you an idea of why I didn’t - besides my over active, questioning and arguing mouth.

1. Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.
2. Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the walls.

3. Pump 10 inches of nasty, crappy water into your basement, then pump it out, clean up, and paint the basement "deck gray."

4. Every couple of weeks, dress up in your best clothes and go the scummiest part of town, find the most run down, trashy bar you can, pay $10 per beer until you're hammered, then walk home in the freezing cold.

5. Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.

6. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesday and Thursday turn it down to 10 degrees. On Saturdays, and Sundays declare to your entire family that they used too much water during the week, so all showering is secured.

7. Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling.

8. Have your next door neighbor come over each day at 5am, and blow a whistle so loud that Helen Keller could hear it and shout "Reveille, Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up".

9. Have your mother-in-law write down everything she's going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in the back yard at 6am and read it to you.

10. Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for three days straight, then lock yourself out of the bathroom for 12 hours, and hang a sign on the door that reads "Secured-contact OA division at X-3053."

11. Submit a request form to your father-in-law, asking if it's ok for you to leave your house before 3pm.

12. Invite 200 of your not-so-closest friends to come over, then board up all the windows and doors to your house for 6 months. After the 6 months is up, take down the boards, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home...you can't leave until the next day you have duty.

13. Shower with above-mentioned friends.

14. Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home (i.e. Dishwasher operator, blender technician, etc.).

15. Walk around your car for 4 hours checking the tire pressure every 15 minutes.

16. Sit in your car and let it run for 4 hours before going anywhere. This is to ensure your engine is properly "lighted off."

17. Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not. (Now sweepers, start your brooms, clean sweep down fore and aft, empty all trashcans over the fantail)

18. Repaint your entire house once a month.

19. Cook all of your food blindfolded, groping for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on.

20.Use eighteen scoops of budget coffee grounds per pot, and allow each pot to sit 5 hours before drinking.

21. Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item.

22. Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch BET and ESPN.

23. Avoid watching TV with the exception of movies which are played in the middle of the night. Have the family vote on which movie to watch and then show a different one.

24. Have your 5-year-old cousin give you a haircut with goat shears.

25. Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.

26. Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe, and call it "world travel."

27. Attempt to spend 5 years working at McDonalds, and NOT get promoted.

28. Ensure that any promotions you do get are from stepping on the dead bodies of your co-workers.

29. Needle gun the aluminum siding on your house after your neighbors have gone to bed.

30. When your children are in bed, run into their room with a megaphone, and shout at the top of your lungs that your home is under attack, and order them to man their battle stations. ("General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations")

31. Make your family menu a week ahead of time and do so without checking the pantry and refrigerator.

32. Post a menu on the refrigerator door informing your family that you are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for at least an hour, when they finally get to the kitchen, tell them that you are out of steak, but you have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they don't pay attention to the menu any more so they just ask for hot dogs.

33.When baking a cake, prop up one side of the pan while it is in the oven. Spread icing on real thick to level it off.

34. In the middle of January, place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have you family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4-hour intervals.

35. Lock yourself and your family in your house for 6 weeks. Then tell them that at the end of the 6th week you're going to take them to Disneyland for "weekend liberty." When the end of the 6th week rolls around, inform them that Disneyland has been canceled due to the fact that they need to get ready for Engineering-certification, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house.

36. In your grim, gray dumpster (refer to #1), with 200 of your not-so-closest friend (cite para. 12) regardless of gender, suffer through PMS!

37. Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have you wife whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep. She should then shine a flashlight in your eyes and mumble "Sorry, wrong rack."

38. Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of your bathtub, move the shower head to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you shut off the water while you soap down.

39. When there is a thunderstorm in your area, find a wobbly rocking chair and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. have a supply of stale crackers in your shirt pocket.

40. Put lube oil in your humidifier and set it on high.

41. For ex-engineering types: leave the lawn mower running in your living room eight hours a day.

42. Have the paperboy give you a haircut.

43.Once a week, blow compressed air up your chimney, making sure the wind carries the soot onto your neighbors house. Ignore his complaints.

44. Every other month buy green or red marine primer and put it in a paint sprayer. Spray it over the roof of your house onto your neighbors car. Ignore his complaints.

45. Lock wire the lug nuts on your car.

46. Buy a trash compactor, but use it only once a week. Store the garbage on the other side of your bathtub.

47. Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread.

48. Set your alarm clock to go off at random during the night, jump up and get dressed as fast as you can making sure you button up the top button on your shirt, stuff you pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose.

49. Once a month, take every major appliance apart and put them back together again.

50. Install a fluorescent lamp under the coffee table and then get under it and read books.

51. Raise the thresholds and lower the top sills of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head every time you pass through one of them.

52. Every so often, throw the cat in the pool and shout "Man overboard, starboard side" Then run into the house and sweep all the pots and dishes off the counter. Yell at the wife and kids for not having the kitchen "stowed for sea."

53. Put on the headphones from your stereo set, but don't plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck with string. Go stand in front of your stove. Say ... to no one in particular "Stove manned and ready" Stand there for three or four hours. And say again to no one in particular "stove secured." Roll up your headphones and paper cup and place them in a box.

54. For airdales, install a steel roof, hire a neighbor to stop by at random times to throw 2 x 4's and steel chains on it.

Get the picture?
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Taliban Rx

Gotta Love That Navy Humor

Armed Forces Day - Go Navy and Coast Guard

Today is Armed Forces Day. It is a day to remember all those who have gone before us and those who are serving our nation today - with some being in harms way. But in all the writings and videos and television coverage, the focus is on the Army, Marines and Air Force who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But there are two other branches that do not get much coverage (unless it is to show jets being launched or recovered on a carrier) and they are the sea going US Navy and US Coast Guard.

One owns the oceans of the world, the other owns the coast lines of the US. And let it be know that some of the bravest men and women in the world are those sailors of the US Coast Guard. When the weather is foul and small vessels are called into port, the USCG is heading out to make sure they get in safe. They patrol our coast searching for drug runners, for boats and ships in distress, for illegal aliens trying to sneak into the country. And the sky’s are full of choppers pulling people out of rough seas, sinking ships and off stranded boats. Rock on Dudes.

The other is the US Navy. We didn’t get shot at like the Army, Air Force and Marines, but the duty at sea is just as dangerous. And interesting. It is a way different life style than the dirt pounding, sand scraping, dust eating, bullet dodging dudes we revere who are in harms way. In ’06 I posted the below and though I would bring it back today in honor of the dudes and dudettes on the sea and serving at Naval Stations across the globe. And to give you a little look at my fellow shipmates who ride the waves of the world.

Life At Sea
I was watching an old movie about the US Navy and life at sea. It is amazing how they depict life on a Navy ship. And for you landlubbers (except for a submarine) large surface vessels are called SHIPS. A boat goes on a ship or taxies sailors from a ship to sore. A submarine, though, is called a boat from tradition. Anyway, I watch the movie and noticed that everyone walked normal. No one swayed, staggered or held on to objects as they move around the ship. Coffee cups sat on the tables and desks without support. Curtains (on a Navy ship?!?) did not swing to and fro. The only time I ever saw conditions like that was when we were in dry docks.

There are two things that are constant on a ship; movement and noise. Even on a calm day, which is rare, the ship is still moving up and down and left to right. With three foot swells you are walking up hill leaning to the right then down hill leaning to the left. During a storm or typhoon (especially a typhoon) a wise seaman will go from uncomfortable to petrified in a matter of seconds. The ship I was on (USS Frank E. Evans DD754 seen above) could take a 45 degree roll and still recover, but if a wave hit her again while at this angle, she could role on over. Many have. So, as a cocky 18 year old, sitting on a radar scope having fun like I was at Six Flags on a roller coaster and I see a man with many years of sea experience turn white and swallow hard, it is pretty obvious that I should rethink my situation and be concerned. But those were the extremes. Mostly it is just movement.

On normal sea duty you eat, sleep, work and relax with constant noise and movement. You learn to eat with one hand while holding the food tray with the other, trying to keep it level. You stand with your legs spread wide and knees slightly bent to absorb the jolts and swings. If for some reason you wake up and it is totally quiet, you don’t ask what’s going on. You get you ass topside and on the main deck as soon as you can. If everything is okay, you can go back for your clothes later. If not, then you have a better chance of survival than being trapped blow deck (like 74 sailors, one my friend, when the Evans was cut in half in 69’ and the front half went down in under three minuets.)

Despite the danger and all, it was still a pretty good life. There’s danger in everything we do, so you don’t dwell on that aspect. You just stay aware of what is around you at all times. So the next time you watch a movie about the Navy, remember it’s just a movie. If you want to know what it is really like, talk to a sailor (and thank him/her for serving while we slept safe and comfortable.)

As the saying goes, "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can read this in English, thank a vet."

Thanks, guys and gals, for being there and making our country a better and safer place to live (regardless of how much Obama is trying to screw it up) and for giving of yourself of much less pay than you could make in civilian life. You are truly my heroes..
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