And he said, when the lines were singled: “You did everything I’d do, but 30 seconds later.”

It is a real statement made to me, after morring at Naval Weapons Station, Yorktown, VA for an offload of ordnance.

about 45 minutes earlier, Captain Maixner asked “Have you ever taken one (SPRUANCE Class DD) to the pier without tugs?”

What brought this stroy back from the memory banks is the current events…of how one can sit and listen to someone for 20+ years, then decide what is being said is depicable…

More later…work calls…but…it is a good story about life aboard a Navy vessel…

Open trackbacks…if you’d like

“Sea Stories?” Well, I’m deluged with two research issues, one for “us” later this month (which, is shaping up to have some real substance to it, thanks to the networking capability of the Web), and one for work , to get to know my product throughly.

However, there is a daily set of posts, giving real life to life at sea right now, where the XO of the USS RUSSELL (DDG-59) has a few crew members who are blogging the “stuff” of life at sea, as they head west across the vast reaches of the Pacific Ocean for a forward deployment. Jump over there and then make sure to “favorite” or bookmark the blog for Destroyermen. Become a “charter reader,” so you will be able to say one day that you have been reading “Destroyermen” since Noah was a deck seaman. Well, no, better yet, so you will see what our men and women at sea do on a daily basis in the defense of the Nation.

Last week, I began discussing the Ship’s Servicemen and my experiences.

At the present, work is busy (and good), so I have to catch up with the story of CDR Lightley and the laundry aboard USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2). I promise it will be of great entertainment value to those who have “been there” when things went haywire (or, in this case, whites came back as grays…). Return late tonight, or tomorrow ro find out who did what to who…

Post your trackbacks!

Last Wednesday, I “scribbled” some recollections, in a narrative format, or how life at sea is not always exciting, and sometimes, it’s mind-numbing, and tough to stay awake, let alone alert. The words were from a first person experience, as I stood Bridge and Combat Information Center watches most of my sea going career, with a 1/2 of a tour (the other half was spent in drydock for an overhaul), as an Engineering Officer of the Watch. Below decks, there is a world seldom considered in the detail that is intrinsic in keeping a vessel operational, in port, as well as at sea.

I didn’t ask to be an engineer, well, there was the third blank on the “preference card” that had to be filled in, as my chosen career field gave me but three choices: Combat Systems, Operations and…yep, Engineering. I put “it” last, having served my prior 5 years mostly in Combat Systems, with a beginning tour of two years in two of the Operations Department divisions. I wanted to be where things left the ship with purpose, at high speed, to damage and destroy those formed against us on land and sea. Someone in the detailers shop (I know understand they are “career managers,” but we had other, more colorful names for those who wandered the halls of the Navy Annex (then in Arlington, VA) treating us like so many cards in a playing deck, sending us to do the bidding of “The Navy.”

So, I went to a tour as Engineering Officer (which I have blogged about before) and found it engaging, rewarding, tough mentally to keep all things to all standards demanded by the many upper levels of the chain of command, but, when all was said and done, fun. Not without it’s degree of boredom, mind you, but only standing the EOOW watch, spared me from having to live what my men did: Those who kept the “plant” operational and safe, day and night, alongside the pier, at anchor, or while slicing through the tall waves of an angry sea. A new appreciation grew within me for the “snipes,” who made it happen.

Engineering watches varied from sitting in a space for several hours, which might also have been air conditioned for the electronics of the gyros (and later inertial navigation system), or hot, and humid areas, such as the “Main Spaces.” If you had a watch in a space, there were many tasks, firstly, to keep the systems within the space in the operational condition as required by the Ship’s current operations. Many times, that was a handful, especially during drills, be they for the engineering readiness, or for the “upper deck” guys. Other times, the turbines and compressors and pumps and generators would be doing the same thing all watch. Then, there was routine checks to be made. Just about every space had a clipboard with log sheets of various design that the watchstanders would record readings of various equipments. More often than not, it was on an hourly basis, unless you suspected something wasn’t running well, but it wasn’t out of spec yet. The men knew these things, when the unit wasn’t sounding “normal” to them. The logs would be reviewed by supervisors, who would circle reading outside of the accepted ranges in red. Those items would then attract the scrutiny required (or should) to determine if maybe services, like cooling water, or air, or fuel might be misaligned, or if there was a failure at hand. The Engineering Officer of the Watch was the interface, to be consulted, and then to determine if the Engineer Officer was to be called, or, in a more immediate case, the Officer of the Deck.

When there weren’t reading to be taken on a long watch, there was usually plenty of preventive maintenance to be taken care of on off line equipment. And, when those tasks ran short, professional manuals/correspondence courses could be read. That’s not to say a paperback or two of a few hundred haven’t been read under those circumstances, but being ready all the time sometimes left that opportunity.

Besides in the watches who spent their 4 hours in a single space, there was the rover, the “Sounding and Security” watchstander, who, armed with a clipboard of sheets, a flashlight, and a sounding tape, would patrol below the main deck, keeping an eye on equipment in unmanned spaces, and also checking that locked spaces were, good order and discipline was in effect, and that where we had fluids in the ship, they were at the levels we projected, neither increasing or decreasing in volume beyond what operational requirements imposed. He also was charged with monitoring everywhere he traveled for general fire safety.

These things happened 24/7, even when “Cold Iron” (the main plant being secured, most often when alongside a pier and receiving shore power and water), albeit with lesser manning and the EOOW responsibility shifted to the Engineering Duty Officer of the day’s duty section, himself a qualified EOOW, in the event the ship had to “light off” and put to sea.

All the while, these men (and now women) made sure the “twidgets” had 60hz power, as well as 400hz power, air conditioning, water, chilled water, and lights to make a mere ship into a warship.

For the crew at large, they made sure the berthing spaces had water, to include hot water for showers, working “facilities” and air conditioning, too. They did and do this 24/7/365. Most often, they are never thanked properly for their daily and nightly exertions, as it’s just expected they will make things go. Almost all of them are below decks when entering port, returning home from the long deployment, where they can’t wacth for the family and friends on the pier. When the whistle blows and the words “MOORED! SHIFT COLORS!” is announced, they have several hours of work head to “wrap up” the plant before changing into either a dress uniform of their civies to head home. Due to various FAA and other restrictions, just about everything used by the topside sailors has been secured for hours, such as air search radars, missile and gun systems. The engineering plant stays running until the CO is satisfied the ship if properly moored with six standard mooring lines, doubled fore and aft. At that point, shutting down the plant begins, and, now having large metal components being hot from being operational, specific , time tested procedures are in place to let equipment, such as the propeller shafts, to slowly rotate the gear until it is basically at ambient temperatures, lest you find a “warped” shaft next time you prepare to head to sea.

Beyond that, shore power cables have to be hauled aboard the ship, connected and then paralleled with the ship’s electrical power, before the generators may be secured. This is a physical task, which, requires precision for the power shift to avoid damaging major electronic components of the Combat System. Fresh water and sewage system connections also have to be made and checked for operation, at the same time the rest of the crew is busy streaming off the ship to be greeted by the crowd ashore.

That’s by a small glimpse of what happens to make the ship operate, out of the eyes of the public, and sometimes taken for granted by some of the crew, as well. My tour in Engineering allowed me to see the hard and tedious, yet vitally important work that makes warship out an otherwise “shore battery.”

Don’t forget to thank your local “snipe” for keeping your gear supported and the hot showers you enjoy.

Sea stories? You want sea stories? Later…and I plan to bore you with one about life at sea….no kidding. More when I get “re-attached” at lunch time.

OK, it’s later. Life at sea…it’s not a wonderful life. Yes, the stars assail the eyes with displays “landlubbers” seldom are witness to. The sea life far out in the ocean will give you pause and let your mind settle on the moment for some time, considering the very different environment they occupy, where you are but an interlopper for a brief time, passing through, as it were, on your way to another part of the solid ground that emerges above the wave tops. Large and small, and sizes in between, were something of wonder to myself and my shipmates, mostly in a visual sense, but the sonar technicians also experienced the audible dimension of the creatures.

While we sail in formation, in the company of the ships of our battle or amphibious groups, where you have come to recognize voices on the radio, particular speech patterns, and associated watch changing schedules, there are many times you are “in transit,” alone with the sea and those trapped aboard with you, sometimes for weeks, but maybe only days at a time.

You may be far from the sea lanes, where merchants ply the most cost efficient route from their departure to their destinations. There are times not even air travel crosses the sky above. It is a blessing and a curse. The radios, for the most part, remain silent. Even the usually cluttered VHF for international bridge-to-bridge communications speaks nothingness to the bridge watch team. You scan the horizon, straining for some glimpse, not a breaking wave some 7-8 miles away, but the hint of a tall mast, of some vessel “hull down” on the other side of the line that separates sea from sky, but none comes. The Quartermaster of the Watch brings you the weather observation message, coded in short, well established groups, to be released at under your signature, in the stead of the Commanding Officer, so the world may know the sea surface temperature, wind direction and speed and cloud cover in your locale, a time honored tradition, suspended only when your track is classified. It is the work of centuries of sailors, mundane in each instance, yet monumental in it’s reach, to pass along a greater understanding of the weather patterns of the planet.

The sweep of the radar beams only disclose “noise” in our eyes. Rough seas and periodic anomalies in the density of pockets of air are not items of great interest, but worthy of note. Grist for the mind’s mill, with possible indications of the future environment to be experienced. We still stare at the blackened background, and just behind the ghostly green or orange “sweep” indication, as it completes each revolution, and seamlessly starts over, without hesitation, to uncomplainingly do it once more, and many more times, too. You can suddenly realize, much like a long drive on a empty interstate, that you have been awake and almost sleep simultaneously, for having focused so intently on ensuring you would first see the track of a target appear.

The striking of the Ship’s Bell, to indicate the passage of the watch in unconsciously heard and recorded. The “Ship’s Routine,” from the pages of the Ship’s Organization and Regulation Manual (SORM), is passed, as modified by the Plan of the Day (POD), as it has been for days now. Those regular events, such as Muster for Instruction and Inspection, Officer’s Call, Messing and Berthing Inspection, early chow, the regular meals and the setting of the watches, once more, have become a part of your natural circadian rhythm, and you haven’t even realized it. Your body responds by going somewhere, or making certain log entries in a stage of awakening just below the surface. The words are even routine, to the newly assigned and those who have sailed the seas before you. They are placed there by those of the US Navy, and the British Navy before that, a part of custom and tradition and expectation, and, most importantly as a definition of normality, easily scanned by the eyes of the chain of command and others who may trouble themselves to peruse the records in the future, gathered from the Naval Archives, to help them tell a tale of events and lives at sea.

The sunset comes, lighting is altered, “darken ship” curtains are rigged in passageways leading to the weather decks. Despite the lack of any detected traffic, above, on or below the sea, only navigational lights will be displayed to any eyes, human or otherwise. Internal checks are performed by the damage control petty officers, to make sure spaces not in regular use for the night hours are secured, protected from flooding and fire. Others sweep assigned areas, and collect the trash, as the “20 to 24″ watch teams settle in.

The darkness adds another dimension to the day. The body tends to relax and despite the mandate for full alertness, the tiredness becomes observable. It may come as inattention to the task at hand, preferring to “shoot the bull” with shipmates on things of other topics, or in people showing physical signs of the inability to stay alert. It is not the domain of the enlisted or officer, but that of all aboard.

Despite the low level of local activity, the ship is never out of reach of routine reports required from “shore duty” sailors and civil servants, nor the umbilical of communications via radio, with the requests and “ADTAKES,” that can flow like a small stream, or a breaking dam. In addition, the exercise of regular maintenance and training continues, providing a full daylight working experience, that still leaves other tasks undone. All who have them steal time from sleep in order to catch up, then hope to bag some shut eye before they must rise, dress, brush their teeth, maybe eat, before saying “I relieve you” to a shipmate at midnight or at 3:45AM.

On the bridge, your mind prods you to continue to seek out something “non-routine” just to keep the synapses functional so as to shun the tiredness. You try to comply, but the outside world does not comply. You find a gap between the commercial radar set bracket and a mounted radio speaker and handset along the front of the Bridge, where you might substitute their support for that of your own skeleton. The goal:  Remain upright in a posture of alertness to the eyes of the other observers, yet accepting some respite from the hard decks under your feet.  You lean in and are both refreshed and relaxed for a moment. Then the conscience goes to work, silently speaking words like “duty,” “responsibility,” and related ones to you, all the while beckoning you to close your eyes and allow the rest you need to be fulfilled.

In the Combat Information Center, or Combat Direction Center, seated at your console in a large padded chair, complete with arm rests, the call is greater, the struggle to resist more intense. Here, most watch standing tasks do not allow you to be able to rise and move about, which at least, the bridge team has the luxury of doing.

The night goes on, the sunlight, possibly muted by cloud cover will come, soon, soon, you hope, before you are numbed completely.

And then it begins again, with the coming of the dawn.

Post your trackbacks in the meantime, or anytime.

A home for wayward links is now available here.

Sea Stories delayed due to work assignments…

I’ve got a short story today, one related to the current political buzzword: “Change.”

At one command, I worked for a driven man. He slept some during the day, but mostly spent his nights awake, once making the remark “That’s how you get out of writing night orders!” (forgetting he only edited and signed what the navigator handed to him, but that’s another sea story).

Anyhow, the scheduled change of command was coming, and we were looking forward to “change.” In our minds, this sort of management style was, shall we say “difficult” to perform under, yet we drove on, knowing the tunnel was a one way traffic flow, and the several lights we had seen ahead had turned into the virtual trains that are joked about, but this time the lighting at 000 deg relative was natural light.

An amount of work had been backlogged by the leadership’s working ethic, or perhaps I should say desire to determine exactly the right tone, wording and nuanced references. Many, many edits took place of reports leaving the command. So, there we were, at sea, during a fleet exercise for the upcoming deployment, with full watch standing responsibilities, with the direction to get everything wrapped up.

Needless to say, once more, sleep was an almost unheard of luxury for about a week. One late evening, the Ops Boss and I were in the donated staff space on our guest vessel, slogging through our assigned tasks, adding some manufactured cheer to our attitudes, when all of a sudden, he looked at me and said: “What if he’s (the incoming commander) worse?” Hard, in that moment, to imagine, but there was that possibility. We got quiet and went back to work. At about 0230 on the morning of the change of command (at sea, working environment, with the Battle Group Commander heloing over to speak), I was told, as the signature went on the report that had been in the works for 6 months, that it was my fault that it was late (2 months at that point). A cheery “Aye, aye, sir” was all I could dare to respond with. That job was now done.

“Change” occurred about 1100 that morning. After lunch, we were ordered to the commander’s cabin, he looked about, with a big grin on his face and asked “did everyone get enough sleep last night?” Oh, no….He continued, as no one said a word: “Get to bed. I can’t afford tired people making bad decisions. I’ll take the watch and call you when I’m getting tired.”

Needless to say, there was major change in the working environment.

Here’s the open post…link ‘em up!

In the meantime, today’s “sea story” isn’t directly about the sea, but rather things I learned while in the profession of being at sea.

Now, I take you into the “wayback machine” and send you three years of blogtime into the past for “The Value of the Military Skill Set - Part II.”

Comments appreciated. Fell free to travel about the links in that post to the other in that many-parted serial post.

Free space here to advertise your posts….

Check out Frank Gaffney’s take on Nancy. You know, it’s “Blue Light Special” time form jihadi communications. I bet some comm lines are burning up now, while they use all the bandwitdh they can, setting up operations and logistics, free from being listened to in the US. Abrogation of responsibility that comes to mind.

Training for a new job, and not sitting at a computer, nor will the work be near one, either.

Stay tuned, watch for the shot by an AEGIS BMD ship, pay attention to what Barack isn’t saying, and if you’re looking for a free bottle of water, hang out near the front row of one of his gatherings.

Ropeyarn was canceled today, but Open Trackbacks aren’t!

A “sea story” of sorts:

Sorta like when the 1st plane flew into the WTC, the reaction was one of “OMG! How horrible!” It took a second, then third for us to know it wasn’t a major coincidence.

First one, then two, now four submarine cables have been cut that provide internet and associated data services to the Middle East.

It’s not like there haven’t been storms in the area of the Suez Canal before, with ships dragging anchor. Worth keeping track of….

Update: Bonus! I’m ripping Taco Bell, the kilt wearing Gyrene, off for a sea story (yes, Marines are part of the Navy). He has a great one up about a dummied up letter to the editor of Stars and Stripes, while serving on an island full of Marines back in 1994. It’s a hoot!