Tuesday, May 13, 2008
one more thing
I forgot to mention-- for those of you who may have been trying to get in touch with me for the last three weeks, I screwed up the mail forwarding/ out-of-office autoreply thing. So if you have tried to e-mail me at my normal email addresses, I have not gotten your emails. Write a comment on here with your address and I'll email you.
Monday, May 12, 2008
amphib life
Well, I've been living on the carrier for three weeks now, and despite all the improvements in quality of life over the DDG, since there are 5000 people and only so much bandwidth, the internet is too slow to even write a blog post. So here I am, and I will try to catch you up as much as possible.
I'll start with now, then go back in time. Perhaps even write a few more entries and pre-date them for easier reader comprehension, though I'm not even sure that's possible (to change the date). At least I finally figured out how to log into this site after trying ever link in arabic and still not getting to the login screen. You'd think having a satellite connection on a US Navy ship (that even has domestic US phone numbers everywhere in the world) the default sites would be in english, but even on google I have to add the "/en" to the address. And if anyone else is wondering how to access blogger on an arabic server, you can get a link to it in english from www.google.com/en.
So today marks 2 months of deployment, exactly. Well not completely exactly, probably minus half a day or so to account for the day lost when we crossed the dateline, but then the 10 hours or so we gained while transiting west. Anyway... I'm now on my third ship of the deployment (but we've still only had one port visit). After Singapore, I went to the USS Abraham Lincoln, the carrier in my strike group, as a "desron fellow". Basically, they take junior officers from the various ships in our DEStroyer squadRON, which includes 4 of the "surface combatants" or "smallboys"- though if you're a surface warrior you're not allowed to call them that- we deployed with. Anyway, they take JOs and send us to the DESRON staff embarked on the carrier for a few weeks to help augment their watches and give us the staff experience. In other words, I am on vacation. I work, but it's planning and coordination stuff.. staff work... with no division to manage, no bridge watch, essentially none of the things that routinely stress me out on the ship. In a way it's not as fulfilling, because I'll admit sometimes I do enjoy the stressful bridge watches where I actually get to run events for the whole ship, and the excitement of accomplishing something like a major ASW exercise with my division. But, in the end, I thoroughly enjoy standing the same 6-hour watch every day (sitting down, in combat, monitoring comms and maintaining our tactical display), working out, sleeping, and doing unfrenzied planning and writing messages, making powerpoints, etc. A lot of the work is similar... it just has the feel of a job versus being my entire life. It helps that you often don't even know the carrier is underway because it doesn't roll at all no matter the sea state (since I've been onboard at least)... it just feels like a big, floating office building. I still wear a uniform anytime I'm not asleep or working out... have to walk about 100 feet to the head, i mean bathroom, and wouldnt dare take a shower barefoot... still on call protecting your freedom 24/7.. etc etc. I can even laugh and have fun with the people i work with since they're mostly my peers (versus as a division officer where most the people I work with are my subordinates) and we can even use first names. In general I just feel like a human being again, and it is very nice.
Well part of our role as DESRON, at least for now, is running a task force of coalition vessels in the gulf all under the same mission. I can't go into great detail for obvious reasons, but basically, we are coordinating between ships from 5 or 6 different countries, telling them what to do, and reporting to our seniors. This is in addition to our duties within the strike group. Well anyway, our commodore (he is my ship's CO's boss, and runs our staff of about 15) is in charge of running a big multi-national exercise this week, and now I'm on a big-deck amphib with two others and the commodore, running the exercise from here for the week. It seems we could have done it from the ABE, but here we are, and it makes a little sense since the ship we're on is actually playing in the exercise. So here I am, on watch at 4am, finally writing in my long-lost blog since I have the connectivity to actually do it. The funniest part is that we're working out of the ship's Landing Force Operations Center or LFOC, where the marines normally plan their landings (duh) for amphibious ops... what amphibs are meant for. Yet this ship deployed without any marines, which is why the four of us get to work out of this huge space with about 12 computers, 8 comms circuits, 5 large screen displays (one which gets TV input as well, very nice).. and so on. And, get this: I am wearing desert cammies. Please feel free to laugh at this. I feel like it's halloween. But this is our fifth fleet (mideast AOR) off-ship uniform... so here we are. Not sure what I need to blend in with, or what I could possibly blend in with anyway, but here I am, at 4am on a ship in the middle of the ocean in desert BDUs. I'll post a photo on here if I ever get one so you can all revel in the humor as well.
In the meantime, if you're interested in what my own ship has been up to, check out this article about a recent maritime security/ humanitarian mission they did (also a big PR stint for the Navy): http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-news/uss-shoup-tows-disabled-dhow-to-safety.html
Hmmmm what else? I had meant to post an entry about Wog Day but by now that's old news so I'll write a couple sentences now and post a photo later when I get a chance. The basic story is that when you cross the equator at sea, tradition says that you have to prove to King Neptune (who comes aboard your ship) that you are ready and worthy to enter his territory and go from being a Wog (one who has not crossed the equator before) to a Shellback. There's a big ceremony-- it used to be a big hazing fest back in the day (for navy sailors, fishermen, everyone) but now it's sort of tame, at least in the modern US Navy that cannot condone hazing. The shellbacks on the ship run it, and can make the wogs do whatever they want short of hazing. We did a lot of silly, embarassing things like quack like ducks and waddle everywhere, eat breakfast lying on our stomachs with our hands behind our backs (I'll post a photo of this), and everyone's favorite, blow water out of padeyes (the indentions in the flight deck where you hook up the chocks to tie down aircraft) as it kept getting poured back in. So the last couple of hours were on the flight deck and we got soaked with green "slime" (dyed water), flour sprayed onto us while wet (took two days to wash it all out of my hair)... did some more padeye slime-blowing, PT... etc. You get the idea. Then in the end we all became Shellbacks. Funny story but I was actually already a shellback, but since it wasn't with the navy and didn't have my certified shellback card on hand, no one believed it counted (it was when I did a yuppy summer environmental program in high school where we sailed around the Galapagos). I do enjoy this sort of thing though so I was happy to do it again.
What else... at one point I thought it might be interesting to describe life on the carrier in all its details, but then I started watching the PBS show "Carrier" about the Nimitz (one of the nice things about the carrier over the DDG is that they have TV-- still only two channels of AFN or Armed Forces Network, but still.. it's nice to occasionally get to actually watch news, sports, etc). And honestly this show is serious reality TV, I don't know if there's as much drama on the ABE, and if there is I havent seen it, but the day to day stuff is really similar. And VERY different from the DDG. For example, there are about 6 different gyms to choose from, there's a rugby team (I went to one practice, in the hangar bay, but now practices conflict with my watch schedule).. not only do they serve fresh produce but they have mangos, avocados (regularly), bananas... Oh and once a week the wardroom hosts a movie night with pizza, wings, a movie on a big screen, and beer... fake stuff, but still. Not even o'douls but heinekin fake beer. Still sorta gross but it's a really nice gesture. What else... hmm OK well I think that's about it for now.
I've now taken two hours to write this post in between doing actual watch standing stuff, and it's now 0600 so i thought I'd note that I'm very glad I dont have to listen to the way they do reveille every day. For some reference, first I'll tell you how they do it on
A: Shoup: Play a song over the 1MC (ship PA system), OOD choice but has to be tasteful, no real requirement. Except every time I pick the song people call my music choice "gay" no matter if it's classic rock, oldies, r&b. The most popular genre seems to be country. Anyway, point is, we play a song (instead of saying "reveille, reveille, all hands heave up and out, reveille,") then say "breakfast for the crew".
B: Abe: Say reveille. They may also pipe it-- traditionally the bosun pipes different tones to mean different things... from reveille to chow to sweepers. Some ships pipe, some ships say the words (we voted at one point and I was one of the few on my ship who didnt find piping extremely annoying), and many ships do some of both, keeping in mind that piping for 20 seconds straight first thing in the morning ends up causing a lot of people to start their day pissed off.
OK, well the way they do it here is: pipe reveille. then say reveille (usually it's only one or the other). start playing a song for about 30 seconds, then stop, read the POD or Plan of the Day and give some weather updates, play another 30 seconds of the song (but so far they're 2 for 2 for not playing the entire song), then pipe breakfast. It's ridiculous. it's basically just 5 minutes of annoying noise.
Oh- I forgot to mention the best part of being on the carrier-- I actually enjoy my job, and I don't find myself bitching and complaining all day long. So that's good.
I'll start with now, then go back in time. Perhaps even write a few more entries and pre-date them for easier reader comprehension, though I'm not even sure that's possible (to change the date). At least I finally figured out how to log into this site after trying ever link in arabic and still not getting to the login screen. You'd think having a satellite connection on a US Navy ship (that even has domestic US phone numbers everywhere in the world) the default sites would be in english, but even on google I have to add the "/en" to the address. And if anyone else is wondering how to access blogger on an arabic server, you can get a link to it in english from www.google.com/en.
So today marks 2 months of deployment, exactly. Well not completely exactly, probably minus half a day or so to account for the day lost when we crossed the dateline, but then the 10 hours or so we gained while transiting west. Anyway... I'm now on my third ship of the deployment (but we've still only had one port visit). After Singapore, I went to the USS Abraham Lincoln, the carrier in my strike group, as a "desron fellow". Basically, they take junior officers from the various ships in our DEStroyer squadRON, which includes 4 of the "surface combatants" or "smallboys"- though if you're a surface warrior you're not allowed to call them that- we deployed with. Anyway, they take JOs and send us to the DESRON staff embarked on the carrier for a few weeks to help augment their watches and give us the staff experience. In other words, I am on vacation. I work, but it's planning and coordination stuff.. staff work... with no division to manage, no bridge watch, essentially none of the things that routinely stress me out on the ship. In a way it's not as fulfilling, because I'll admit sometimes I do enjoy the stressful bridge watches where I actually get to run events for the whole ship, and the excitement of accomplishing something like a major ASW exercise with my division. But, in the end, I thoroughly enjoy standing the same 6-hour watch every day (sitting down, in combat, monitoring comms and maintaining our tactical display), working out, sleeping, and doing unfrenzied planning and writing messages, making powerpoints, etc. A lot of the work is similar... it just has the feel of a job versus being my entire life. It helps that you often don't even know the carrier is underway because it doesn't roll at all no matter the sea state (since I've been onboard at least)... it just feels like a big, floating office building. I still wear a uniform anytime I'm not asleep or working out... have to walk about 100 feet to the head, i mean bathroom, and wouldnt dare take a shower barefoot... still on call protecting your freedom 24/7.. etc etc. I can even laugh and have fun with the people i work with since they're mostly my peers (versus as a division officer where most the people I work with are my subordinates) and we can even use first names. In general I just feel like a human being again, and it is very nice.
Well part of our role as DESRON, at least for now, is running a task force of coalition vessels in the gulf all under the same mission. I can't go into great detail for obvious reasons, but basically, we are coordinating between ships from 5 or 6 different countries, telling them what to do, and reporting to our seniors. This is in addition to our duties within the strike group. Well anyway, our commodore (he is my ship's CO's boss, and runs our staff of about 15) is in charge of running a big multi-national exercise this week, and now I'm on a big-deck amphib with two others and the commodore, running the exercise from here for the week. It seems we could have done it from the ABE, but here we are, and it makes a little sense since the ship we're on is actually playing in the exercise. So here I am, on watch at 4am, finally writing in my long-lost blog since I have the connectivity to actually do it. The funniest part is that we're working out of the ship's Landing Force Operations Center or LFOC, where the marines normally plan their landings (duh) for amphibious ops... what amphibs are meant for. Yet this ship deployed without any marines, which is why the four of us get to work out of this huge space with about 12 computers, 8 comms circuits, 5 large screen displays (one which gets TV input as well, very nice).. and so on. And, get this: I am wearing desert cammies. Please feel free to laugh at this. I feel like it's halloween. But this is our fifth fleet (mideast AOR) off-ship uniform... so here we are. Not sure what I need to blend in with, or what I could possibly blend in with anyway, but here I am, at 4am on a ship in the middle of the ocean in desert BDUs. I'll post a photo on here if I ever get one so you can all revel in the humor as well.
In the meantime, if you're interested in what my own ship has been up to, check out this article about a recent maritime security/ humanitarian mission they did (also a big PR stint for the Navy): http://www.military.com/news/article/navy-news/uss-shoup-tows-disabled-dhow-to-safety.html
Hmmmm what else? I had meant to post an entry about Wog Day but by now that's old news so I'll write a couple sentences now and post a photo later when I get a chance. The basic story is that when you cross the equator at sea, tradition says that you have to prove to King Neptune (who comes aboard your ship) that you are ready and worthy to enter his territory and go from being a Wog (one who has not crossed the equator before) to a Shellback. There's a big ceremony-- it used to be a big hazing fest back in the day (for navy sailors, fishermen, everyone) but now it's sort of tame, at least in the modern US Navy that cannot condone hazing. The shellbacks on the ship run it, and can make the wogs do whatever they want short of hazing. We did a lot of silly, embarassing things like quack like ducks and waddle everywhere, eat breakfast lying on our stomachs with our hands behind our backs (I'll post a photo of this), and everyone's favorite, blow water out of padeyes (the indentions in the flight deck where you hook up the chocks to tie down aircraft) as it kept getting poured back in. So the last couple of hours were on the flight deck and we got soaked with green "slime" (dyed water), flour sprayed onto us while wet (took two days to wash it all out of my hair)... did some more padeye slime-blowing, PT... etc. You get the idea. Then in the end we all became Shellbacks. Funny story but I was actually already a shellback, but since it wasn't with the navy and didn't have my certified shellback card on hand, no one believed it counted (it was when I did a yuppy summer environmental program in high school where we sailed around the Galapagos). I do enjoy this sort of thing though so I was happy to do it again.
What else... at one point I thought it might be interesting to describe life on the carrier in all its details, but then I started watching the PBS show "Carrier" about the Nimitz (one of the nice things about the carrier over the DDG is that they have TV-- still only two channels of AFN or Armed Forces Network, but still.. it's nice to occasionally get to actually watch news, sports, etc). And honestly this show is serious reality TV, I don't know if there's as much drama on the ABE, and if there is I havent seen it, but the day to day stuff is really similar. And VERY different from the DDG. For example, there are about 6 different gyms to choose from, there's a rugby team (I went to one practice, in the hangar bay, but now practices conflict with my watch schedule).. not only do they serve fresh produce but they have mangos, avocados (regularly), bananas... Oh and once a week the wardroom hosts a movie night with pizza, wings, a movie on a big screen, and beer... fake stuff, but still. Not even o'douls but heinekin fake beer. Still sorta gross but it's a really nice gesture. What else... hmm OK well I think that's about it for now.
I've now taken two hours to write this post in between doing actual watch standing stuff, and it's now 0600 so i thought I'd note that I'm very glad I dont have to listen to the way they do reveille every day. For some reference, first I'll tell you how they do it on
A: Shoup: Play a song over the 1MC (ship PA system), OOD choice but has to be tasteful, no real requirement. Except every time I pick the song people call my music choice "gay" no matter if it's classic rock, oldies, r&b. The most popular genre seems to be country. Anyway, point is, we play a song (instead of saying "reveille, reveille, all hands heave up and out, reveille,") then say "breakfast for the crew".
B: Abe: Say reveille. They may also pipe it-- traditionally the bosun pipes different tones to mean different things... from reveille to chow to sweepers. Some ships pipe, some ships say the words (we voted at one point and I was one of the few on my ship who didnt find piping extremely annoying), and many ships do some of both, keeping in mind that piping for 20 seconds straight first thing in the morning ends up causing a lot of people to start their day pissed off.
OK, well the way they do it here is: pipe reveille. then say reveille (usually it's only one or the other). start playing a song for about 30 seconds, then stop, read the POD or Plan of the Day and give some weather updates, play another 30 seconds of the song (but so far they're 2 for 2 for not playing the entire song), then pipe breakfast. It's ridiculous. it's basically just 5 minutes of annoying noise.
Oh- I forgot to mention the best part of being on the carrier-- I actually enjoy my job, and I don't find myself bitching and complaining all day long. So that's good.
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