Navy Life

Modeling Subjects Ships
1

I found this online and as a 9 Yr Navy Vet I can tell you “How True it is!!”

THE REAL NAVY!
There is segment of the US population who know too little of true Navy life. We all have friends, co-workers, and family members that think that the REAL Navy is a "TOP GUN " existence. You know those people that have watched one too many episodes of " JAG ", and think that the Navy life is glamorous.

Here are a few suggestion for those people on how they can experience Navy life, right in the comfort of their own homes.

Buy a dumpster, paint it gray and live in it for 6 months straight.

Run all of the piping and wires inside your house on the outside of the drywall.

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

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

Perform a weekly disassembly and inspection of your lawnmower.

On Mondays. Wednesdays, and Fridays turn your water temperature up to 200 degrees, then on Tuesdays 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.

Raise your bed to within 36 inches of the ceiling.

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.”

Have you mother-in-law write down everything she’s going to do the next day and read it to you.

Eat the raunchiest Mexican food you can find for 3 days straight, then lock the bathroom door for 12 hours, and hang a sign on it that reads “secured, contact OA DIV at X-3053.”

Submit a written request form to your father-in-law, asking if it’s o.k. for you to leave your house before 3pm.

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 6 months is up, take down the boards, and since you’re on duty, wave at your friends and family through the front window of your home… you can’t leave until the next day.

Shower with above mentioned friends.

Make your family qualify to operate all the appliances in your home, for example, become a dishwasher operator, blender technician etc…

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

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

Empty all the garbage bins in your house, and sweep your driveway 3 times a day, whether they need it or not.

Repaint your entire house once a month.

Cook all of your food blindfolded, grabbing for any spice and seasoning you can get your hands on. Now, chow down! you have 5 minutes…

Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month. losing every 5th item.

Spend $20,000 on a satellite system for your TV, but only watch CNN and the weather channel.

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

Sew back pockets to the front of your pants.

Spend 2 weeks in the red-light districts of Europe and call it “world travel .”

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

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.

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 and hot dogs. repeat daily until they don’t pay attention to the menu anymore and they just ask for hot dogs.

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

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 E-cert, and that it will be another week before they can leave the house.

2

That’s all too true, but you have to double the chow line time if you are on a carrier and triple the engine room light off time if you are on a submarine.

3

Tell the Navy to “secure a building.” They’ll turn out the lights and lock the doors when they leave.

Tell the Army to “secure a building.” They’ll put up a chain link fence around it and refuse to admit anybody without a pass.

Tell the Marine Corps to “secure a building.” They’ll launch an infantry assault with artillery and air support.

Tell the Air Force to “secure a building.” They’ll take out a three-year lease with an option to buy.

-Anonymous

4

Sounds like ‘Navy Life’ is an oxymoron (is that how you spell it??). I get the same thing from my students, being in the Army Guard, they think they’ll be heroes just by joining and don’t believe me when I tell them there’s no glory in the job, just a lot of dirt, fatigue and hard work… long days, longer nights, cold chow, garbage chow, lonliness, more work. Sometimes injuries, hopefully not death, but it’s possible.

Ron

5

Yup that about sums it up, except add the 12 to 16 of hours of being in a room thats noisier than an AC/DC concert and is 128 degrees on a cool day. Or “Hot bunking” with two other guys and one is an excesive drooler. Or having to wear dress blues when your in the tropics because it is winter time in Washington. Or having to sleep two decks below the arresting gear in a room full of stainless steel lockers than vibrate like a washer machine full of marbles when the ship is underway.

We always think about the soldiers in harms way, yet the Navy has many of the most thankless jobs of any service. Many of these jobs are life threatening, and we lose many sailors every year who are performing these jobs. These folk too are defending our country, they just are doing it from a hot, noisy engine room, cargo hold, bildge, magazine, laundry room, or one of the many places aboard a ship that requires a lot of will power and stanima to work in.

I should’ve joined the Airforce. But I love the sea.

Scott

6

I was never allowed to serve but would have gone NAVY all the way. What is a bilge? I have heard of it but don’t know what it is?

7

I’m a tanker and artillery man myself, but I think a bilge is the very bottom of a ship’s hull… I’ve heard it’s where officers come from, but I’m not sure. I’ve also heard it’s about ten times nicer to bunk in a bilge than where our Marines and soldiers are stationed right now in Iraq… not as many camel spiders. … but more officers?

Cheers all,

Ron

PS I love the one about standing watch by the podium! I remember the thrilled look on the faces of sailors doing that at Pearl Harbor.

8

Some you missed:

Spend as much time as you can indoors during the daytime, stay out of direct sunlight. Go to work only before sunrise and come home after sunset.

Eat food that you can only get out of a can and requires water in order to eat it. Empty out your refrigerator and turn the temperature control down, turning the refrigerator into a freezer. Get rid of all fresh fruits and vegetables.

Repeat back everything spoken to you. Repeat back everything spoken to you.

Sit in your car for six hours at a time with the motor running. Keep hands on the wheel. But don’t leave your driveway. Log readings of your oil pressure, water temperature, speedometer and odometer every 15 minutes.

Put Lube Oil in your humidifier instead of water. Set it on high.

Buy a trash compactor; use it only once a week. Store the rest of the garbage in your bathroom.

Don’t watch movies except in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch, then show a different one.

Have the paperboy give you a standard Navy haircut.

Take hourly readings on your water and your electric meters. But only for a six hour period.

Sleep with your dirty laundry.

For you old mechanics, set your lawn mower in the middle of the living room while it is running. Only for six hours a day.

Invite guests but don’t prepare enough food for everyone. Serve food cold. Limit the time they sit at the table to 10 minutes.

Wake up at midnight every night and make a peanut butter sandwich, use stale bread. Better yet, make your own bread but cut 3 inch thick slices and use these. Optional: warm up some canned Ravioli or soup.

Make your family a menu for the week without knowing what food is in the cabinets.

Set your alarm clock for various times at night; adjust the volume to the maximum. When it goes off, jump out of bed, get your clothes on as fast as you can, run outside and grab the garden hose. Then go back to bed and do it all again when the alarm goes off.

Once a month take apart every appliance completely and then put them back together.

Use 18 scoops of coffee per pot and allow it to sit for 5 to six hours before drinking it.

Invite at least 85 people you really don’t like and have them stay for a couple of months.

Store your eggs in the garbage for two months and then cook a dozen each morning.

Have a fluorescent lamp installed under your coffee table and lie underneath it to read books.

Put a complicated lock on your basement door and wear the key around your neck on a special chain.

When making cakes, prop up one side of the pan when cooking. Use extra icing to level it off.

Every so often, run into the kitchen and sweep all pots, pans and dishes off of the counters onto the floor, and then yell at your wife for not having the kitchen area “Stowed for Sea!”

Put on the stereo headphones (don’t plug them in), go to the stove and stand in front of it. Say (to no one in particular) “Stove manned and ready” stay there for 3 to 4 hours. Say (once again and to no one in particular) “Stove secured”, then role up your headphone cord and put them away.

Pull out your refrigerator and clean behind it for 4 hours and then put it back when you are done. Have your wife come and check every 10 minutes with a flashlight to see how you are doing.

When doing your laundry fill it only 1/3 full, sit in front of your washing machine in your underwear and read a book or magazine you’ve read at least 5 times before in the last week. When the wash is done, only run the dryer for half the normal time.

Fix-up a shelf in your closet that will serve as your bunk for the next six months. Take the door off of the hinges and replace them with curtains. While asleep, have family members shine a flashlight in your eyes at random intervals and say either “Sign this!” or “Sorry, wrong rack!”

This is Coast Guard Life, too. Do it all in the middle of the coldest winter, and you have Polar Icebreaker duty.

9

Wow, this thread brings back memories of my Med Cruise with the 24th MEU back in 97! People think Marines are strange, but life aboard a ship is like a prison sentence in the Twilight Zone. I got to ride the USS Shreveport for six months, and when I got back, my wife wanted to go on a cruise! I looked at her like she had a third eye in the middle of her forehead and, in no uncertain terms, told her it would be a while before I was ready for that. I always wondered about some of the things the crew had to do while we were both in port and underway, give me patrols, raids and live fire ranges over shipboard “life” any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

10

use tie down chains to tie down your car in the driveway, and make your kids stay up all night checking chains every half hour, and then make them go to school the next day.

Make sure to keep everyone up all night working around the house, and schedule all of their medical, chow, and personal things 2 hours after they should be in bed, and back to work 2 hours after they’re finished.

Clog up all of the shower drains, toilets, and sinks…make everyone change large amounts of oil, and hydraulic fluid…send to bed…repeat…

Tell everyone the A/C is broken, and will be repaired in about 6 months (two weeks before you get off the boat!!!)

Make sure to shut off electricity to your house once a day for four hours claiming the damn generator is out again.

When making plans for vacation, tell everyone you will be going to Australia…if they are too enthusiastic change in two days to Hong Kong…in two weeks change to Africa…once they get used to that idea…change back to Australia…never mind, we’re not going anywhere!!

Make everyone work at night on extremely complicated components (Transmissions, engines, wiring, etc) with a stupid blue flashlight, 'cause it’s lights out tonight.

Pull into the toy store parking lot, and tell your youngest he has first watch, and has to sign out the rest of the family to enjoy the fun.

Declare that for now on, anytime you walk by anyone, you will all pass at 45 degree angles due to the rocking.

build a line of stalls, and anytime someone sits in one, yell from yours “Hey, can you toss me some PAPER!!!”

LOL, memories…I was in the 13th MEU USS Peleilu ‘97-98…USMC HMH-462. Maybe I wasn’t in the Navy, but I was along for the ride for a little over 8 months!! I served too much chow duty, too much laundry duty, and too much chain shakin’ to ever do it again!!! My ex-wife actually tricked me back onto a boat about a month after we got back…we were supposed to go fishing for a couple of hours with her dad on a tour…when it started getting late, I asked why we weren’t in port yet…Hardy, Har, HAR, HAR!!! Joke was on me, we were spending the night!!! Only good thing to come of that, was I slept like a baby, and she was sick all night…karma will get ya everytime!!! LOL

11

I spent 3 years on the USS Guadalcanal (LPH-7). Everytime we left Moorhead City, NC with a fresh load of marines you could tell who hadn’t ever been on a deployment before. They usually spent the first 3 days puking into any trash can, toliet or sink they could find. It was kind of comical (in a sick sort of way).

12

LOL I hear ya…luckily I don’t get motion sickness, and my Grandfather owned a sailboat when I was younger, so I wasn’t a total stranger to boats and water…of course being in San Diego almost gurantees you’ll be aboard a boat at one point or another. I will admit, I wasn’t expecting the rocking, but it was pretty fun…I wouldn’t trade the experience for the world!!! BTW they are opening the USS Midway Aircraft Carrier floating museum in San Diego this summer, and plan on taking numerous pics, as I’ve never been on a carrier myself…should be fun since I get to return home when I’m done looking!!!

13

Hi Jimz66.
A bilge is usually the lowest section of a boat/ship where fluid will accumalate.
Either from hull leaks or machinery leaks and normal moisture from the boat “sweating”. On submarines it was always a cold and rather oily place… In WW2 the old smoke boats would pump bilge water overboard to cause an Oil slick to give impression that it was sunk to it’s pursuer… …To have a bilge cleaning assignment was usually a punishment or assigned to junior guys…
The worse job on Submarine was what is called mess cook… It’s being a slave to the Cook and crew while getting qualified… Only job besides Helm and Planes watch that a new guy was trusted with until he qualled…The Nazi navy did the same with their nubs.
I have a question for you. How can someone be “Not Allowed to serve” as you have stated??? Gee I wish I knew this method when I got Drafted in 69… My family did not allow this either but it was not their call…unfortunitly. Unless you have a mental or physical disability or a criminal record… No body can stop you from enlisting???
Can They??? In the U.S. at age 18 it’s your call… on anything you do.[?][?]

14

I was with Lima Co, 3/6 on our cruise, we were “boat” company. Got to ride around in zodiacs most of the time. Always wondered why we’d get the stink eye from the blue side of the house whenever we’d come back aboard from an exercise. (couple weeks in the field with no showers, a lot of cammie paint and soon as the boats were back in the well deck and stored, we’d head to the mess deck) Need I say we used a LOT of fresh water getting clean? I think they could SMELL us coming into the stern gate, and I swore they’d put all the good chow away and get the nastiest “food” they could find to feed us.

I never got sick, but a couple of my squad would lose it at the slightest hint of some rolling. Never a good thing down in the berthings.

15

Short version of life afloat - Being in prison with the added prospect of drowning…

16

[;)]You almost forgot! Nowadays some jerk who looks like this:[oX)] pulls up and parks outside your bedroom window in a beat-up piece of junk that makes the Beverly Hillbillies’ truck look like an '04 Hummer. He then proceeds to blow himself and the thing up–reducing your house by 3 rooms and creating some extreme “air conditioning” effects.[:(!]

There were somewhat worse conditions in the bygone days of the Maritime Service (MCSC, MSTS, USMS, etc.) Perpetual duty on a “Flag of Convenience” Vaseline Tanker?[xx(]

“Should we prosper it shall be as is our custom…by Miracle!”[4:-)]

17

I was on the USS Kearsarge '98-'00. I was the 3rd female to report on board and the only female in my division until Aug '99. Now that was torture at times, being locked behind a 6 in steel door with a safe combo and a cipher lock with 26+ males. Don’t forget having Marines on board and trying to get through the chow line. All they do is eat, sleep, work out, shine their boots and eat 12 times a day. Sorry for my rant.

Demankat

18

A few hints for those wanting to join the Navy.

Go to the recruiter and listen to everything he says. Then go to the local used car dealership and listen to the car dealer, then go to he pawn shop and ask the loan shark for a loan. Look for any differences in the information these three people tell you.

When you are enlisting and are filling out the dream sheet, if you want a carrier, put down that you cannot stand crowds, can’t be away from home for more than a few days, and are afraid of airplanes and large open spaces. If you want to be stationed in Kansas for your full 4 yrs, then put down that you want on a carrier and work on airplanes and love to be out at sea.

Whatever job that you think you qualify for and strike for will be the least likely job that you will be rated with. If you are good at fixing airplanes, you better get the book “100 ways to cook Spam”. If you like to cook, then you better learn what ailerons and thrust reversers do.

If you ever wonder why they call it “A” school, wait until you meet some of the instructors.

Do not try to undo all 13 buttons with one quick jerk when going to the head. Trust me, you won’t find them all.

Always keep track of your underwear, even it could be “shared”.

Go to a town with an airforce base and visit a nightclub. Listen to the airman cry to his girlfriend about how much he’s going to miss her because he has to go into the field for a whole six weeks. Remember that you will be envying him when your out at sea for 6 months.

Get used to listening to Rap, Country, Rock, Gospel, and many other exoctic forms of music being played at full volume all in the same room.

Unless your buying a Donkey, don’t pay to go see a Donkey show.

From a 4th generation squid.

19

Not all of us Marines are like that!!! LOL I was an Air Winger!!! On the LHA, it was split into three groups…Squids, Jarheads, and those Damn Air Wingers, who get special passes in the front of the chow line due to “Flight Ops”. I was night crew for almost three years in my enlistment. There was no way you could get me to work out, or shine my boots!!! LOL The Air Wingers are almost the exact opposite of your basic grunts. Unfortunately, we all get lumped together into one group. I had just as many Navy friends as I did Marines. It’s too bad we didn’t meet when I was in Demankat, I would have changed your perspective of “Jarheads” a bit!!![;)][:p][:D]

One time I read this hilarious article this guy wrote trying to hunt down a “Donkey Show”. LOL Needless to Say there were some interesting shows, but not one of them contained a Donkey!! LOL That’s all I’m gonna say, unless I see ya at the Nats!!!

20

Hey! I resembled that comment! The reason we ate and slept all the time on ship was because we weren’t doing much of either of those while out in the field during all the exercises. I seem to recall the ship’s crew sounding liberty a lot earlier in the day than we Marines ever saw. Though being the only woman on ship has to be about as isolated as you can get, Demankat. How many marriage proposals did you get on that cruise?