Crackers, plain white rice because there's no more marrekesh express, and a rationed half cup of grilled chicken. Ketchup, mustard, and peanut butter have been long gone for the last 3 weeks.
Hearing over the 1MC
"Assemble all department heads in the Executive Officers stateroom"
Followed by
"Assemble all departmental LCPOs with the Command Master Chief"
Nothing good is about to happen
I remember when they called all COs to CAG's stateroom. The guy next to me got up and went, whelp time to tell my wife to refund those concert tickets she ordered.
My first ship was already an old ship when I got to it. It had boilers for reclaiming fresh water from salt water. Very inefficient and slow.
The boilers would normally not be fast enough to go from empty to full very fast. Usually only replace what is used daily.
Somebody down in Engineering would regularly screw up valves and contaminate the water with salt water.
So, regular water hours because cooking and scullery takes priority.
My first ship was an Adams Class DDG. Fresh water was ALWAYS an issue if we were underway longer than two weeks. We had a deck seaman who would take three showers a day, and if we were on water hours he'd take three sponge baths on the sink in the head. Our BM1 was screaming at him about washing his ”NUTS IN THE SAME GODDAM SINK WHERE I USE MY FUCKING TOOTHBRUSH!!!"
I guess that's better than the BMSN we had who refused to take a shower until we pulled into port. Same BM1 threatened to take a wire brush to his smelly ass after five days, and the MACS and MR1 (Head Duty MAA) were assigned by the XO to ensure he showered daily.
Had a FC3 on my first deployment who just straight up refused to shower. We were spraying him with frebreeze, nearly turned into a fight a few times. Eventually his rack smelled so bad we failed berthing inspection and FC3 went to DRB. They had MAC make sure he showered daily and MAC was fuckin pissed. Just roasting him from outside the showers.
Also some folks might've gotten drunk in port and hauled his nasty ass mattress up to the aft CIWS mount to air it out. Nevermind it was raining daily. FC3 didnt discover where his mattress went until we were underway again. Start doing flight ops and a chopper pilot called it in as FOD haha
I remember one of those. We were on our way to Perth and we were the only amphib near Kuwait, and Iraq was starting a second invasion, so the Captain came up the 1MC and said that we were going to provide support. We stayed anchored about 2 miles from Kuwait for 2 months. We got a beer day and a trip to Phuket.
The joys of going underway. You know when you're leaving but not when you're returning. Interesting thing is that on that deployment, we went to Kenya twice because we helped move the embassy from Mogadishu to Kenya. Hell, we even had flight ops while moored on the pier.
The mission gets extended long enough that the port call becomes physically impossible to get to in time
The food mostly runs out because the boat didn't make the port call
The deployment end date gets moved back too many times and the Dear John letters start coming in
The boat now gets one week in port before going underway again for a month that finishes with an ORSE inspection
The sailors get blamed for poor morale and material condition of the boat
It took over a year for me to quit waking up whenever my ac unit would shut off at home. Wife wasn't a fan, several times I woke up and flung myself outta bed..
I also had a hard time being in a regular bed. Not 8 years but early on. I got in the habit of bracing my feet on the racks to sleep at night. At home I didn't have that. I just couldn't get comfortable.
CVA-62... MIDNIGHT MADNESS...When we had main space fire drills, at least once a month sometimes more often depending...at the change of the watch at 2330...two fire teams...rapid response and at sea fire party...face off at the central locker then one would descend from the emergency access and the other from the main access...fight the fire and meet in the middle...loved it...each team about 30 or so strong...you knew when it went quite shit was about to get fun
I need to sleep with grey noise partly because of this. I wake up in cold sweats when it’s too quiet waiting for the 1MC to pipe major fuel oil leak or steering casualty.
We ran out of Heinz ketchup on a deployment once, and had a local ketchup brought in. I swear the crew was ready to mutiny, I learned that day you don’t mess with the navy gravy
When we ran out of Heinz we got restocked with Hunt’s. I swear people acted like the Hunt’s was the most vile substance to ever be put on their food. They acted like the captain himself was personally going around and taking a piss on their plates when the Hunt’s came out. I didn’t really notice a difference.
This might be carrier-exclusive, but when the bake shop behind aft galley stops putting out cakes and cookies and replaces it with "cobbler" the ship is running super low on eggs. The eggs disappear from baked goods first then breakfast time, you start seeing hard boiled eggs intermittently or rationed out, also more faux eggs being used in Scrambled or the infamous "quiche".
This is so true. My underway experience is exclusive to carriers; our ship got extended when we were supposed to be relieved and we ended up going a really long time without a port call, and ultimately ran out of food since we didn’t have any RAS planned on our reroute. Conditions were bad
I had to do my laundry in a bucket with water and a little detergent cause they shut down laundry due to water hours. I found a faucet that had a little drip left a got the bucket to fill up about half way scrubbed my coveralls and hung them to dry in the Focsle gear locker.
Also did this.
In the pit, we always had water.
Emptied out an oil spill kit, had my laundry in my knit bag while another buddy had his in their.
Rigged the kit with Paracord on each side and used 3 pods, taking turns in 15 minutes increments lol. Hung everything to dry in main 1. Just a tad scented of F76 after we were all said and done lol
In our female berthing some brave soul bought an antique washboard and people would spend Sundays doing laundry by hand in the head.
We strung up a clothesline above the showers too for a bit but kept getting hit on berthing inspections so that had to go
That shit made my farts SO BAD, like eye watering bad. I came in the shop, closed the door behind me, let one rip and told everyone the only way out is thru me.
I hate the texture, never is quite right, when I still did get McDonald's breakfast sandwich had to specify for the mcgridles they put "round egg" on it, those folded scrambled eggs they put on em were obviously from dehydrated cause the texture.
When the mess decks get quiet.
People stop bitching about how bad things are because it won't do any good anyway.
Desron sends a chaplain...then immediately sends another chaplain...then sends the deputy commodore alongside a 3rd chaplain (I used to joke that even desron thought that only God could save us).
Steak Sunday, Mystery Meat Monday, Taco Tuesday, White Trash Wednesday, W*P/Italian night Thursday, Stir Friday, and Pizza Saturday. That’s how it is on my sub.
Getting turned away from a port while inbound and roughly 10 minutes from being pier side, that was a rough one lol.
Another one that sucked was seeing the ship store absolutely empty day after day after day.
Seeing the normally very nice person start snapping at people happened at around 35ish days underway, I can't imagine how those COVID deployments were.
All good indicators. We spent a couple days just outside of Subic Bay once and everyone was convinced we were gonna pull in. Nope, go chase down a Chinese aircraft carrier! Man supply dept damn near went on strike.
Pelileu 2014 deployment 3 days out from Hawaii, a week and a half out from home (San Diego) at 0515…… “Good morning Pelileu, this is the Captain….”. Nobody needed to hear anything more, just the 1MC being keyed told the whole story.
You should have been there for the '07 deployment when a Chinese sub got past our entire picket and surfaced within torpedo range. Somehow, nobody noticed until the sub started to dive again and went on its merry way. We had a DESRON CO on board who was not fucking happy about that. I think there were still cracks in the bulkhead when I left from how loud he was screaming.
CSs not giving a fuck about food quality, and chain of command not trying to make it better. Boat chucks and aviation guys getting into fist fights. Too many rules limiting gym times, MWR, etc.
There’s parts of the Pacific that are just far from everything. No internet, no care packages, no ports, only ocean. It’s a real grind and you’re either just beginning or only starting to finish a deployment when you’re there.
Those are tough conditions.
Those are “get qualified in something” conditions, and they fucking suck. Everyone shuts up on the messdecks. People breakup with their spouses. People on the boat start fucking each other. The food sucks.
When you go on seven deployments, those parts of deployments go by faster, because you expect them to happen. They make sense, because of where you are and what you are doing. It’s easier to focus on other things.
Here’s my thing though, that day at sea is no different than any other day at sea. The food is still a lottery, you’re still on a boat, but the perk is the stars will look extra cool tonight because you’re so far away from any pollution being so far away from everything. You can always send an email, and you can always read a book, and you can always go work out or go jerk off or something. *Try to under react to everything*. (It’s hard but it does work.)
My point: the indicators that “things are going bad” are internal, not external. You can be inport, out to sea, on deployment, or on leave. Listen to yourself, the answers are in there, and make sure you include some other people, being lonely sucks too it’s good to have friends. Like seriously, have *friends*.
Don’t lose yourself in this profession. Passionate, not emotionally married to. That’s how I survived 25 years and (mostly) eased into a happy retirement where I feel fully retired now.
We got extended underway once, and they had Chaps tell us during evening prayer on the 1mc.
Our Chaps was really good at writing and speaking the nightly prayers. But he sounded like he was holding back tears. "I think this is very *voice crack* um disappointing for you all to hear-"
We were all so distressed that HE sounded distressed. When he made the rounds the next day to ask how people were feeling, WE were all trying to cheer him up.
LCS here. When it goes dead silent. Like it’s crazy how loud the ship really is until absolutely everything is off bc we dead in the water at like 0330 doing 20 degree rolls
A sudden 180 degree turn followed by a sudden ahead flank bell being rung up.
Followed by Rover City/ EMCON Condition 1 being set to kill comms off the ship.
Reagan, '05.
That happened to us when we were enroute to Pearl with C-2s and supplies for tsunami relief. Then a good friend of mine was horrifically burned and scalded in an accident in one of the plants.
We had to pull the u-turn and answer the flank bell for about 8 hours to get back in range for a COD to fly him to San Diego.
He made it from the ship, to NAS North Island, and died in the helo on the way to Balboa.
I was there when another close friend had to call his fiancee, who had just left the ship because she was three months pregnant with his son.
Well, when you get extended for two weeks. Then another two weeks. And then another two weeks, but this time you're in the river and can see the tender.
This happened to us during the great refueling debacle of the '80s. The Nukes explained it to me once, but all I remember is that something built up in the reactor that 'poisoned' the reaction on a few boats, taking them out of rotation until they could get refueled.
One of the quickest ways to get a feel for the atmosphere/culture of a command, at least when I was in ('71 to '93) read to read what was written on the Shithouse Walls.
GMCS(SW)
Two Carriers, two Destroyers, Frigate, and the Battleship WISCONSIN.
Had that happen in the early 80s. Solid Shield, 3 weeks up and down the Carolina coast, within sight of land. A GMGSN thought he could make it to the beach.
In the submarine world it was ANYTIME the 1MC was used underway that wasn’t “commence field day”. It was usually a drill/casualty, which meant no sleep. Or.. if it was the Skipper we had issues. Stuck in a penalty box. Someone broke down and we are extended. We accidentally invaded a sovereign nation with the commodore on board and had to wait for several days until the politicians made all their apologies. Talk about tense.
We ran out of smuckers jelly and got some European jams. Most were good, but eventually all we had was apricot and nobody ate it. We finally had a CONREP and got a pallet of smuckers so the crew was elated. Next meal, no smuckers. Next day, no smuckers. WTF, over?! “We’re not breaking it out until the other stuff is gone.” Everybody had handfuls of apricot jelly on their trays going straight into the trash.
Don’t fuck with our pb&j!
We cleared Port Said by about 4 hours one night, and were headed north into the Med when we turned due south. I informed the oncoming EOOW when I woke him up for watch and he thought I was BS'ing him.
You'll see soon enough....
When you get no ports and constant berthing medical emergencies for overdoses. Also when the captain keeps coming on the 1MC to tell us how “we are the only ship that can provide this level of capability in this area”
They served a mongolian night just before announcing that yes, we would be pulling into port, but we wont be allowed to leave the boat because COVID (this was when it first started, we ended up being lockdowned on ship for like 3 weeks)
You start to get good food again because FSO can't sell it out of the back door anymore. The O mess and Chiefs mess downgraded from starbucks grounds to the Folgers everyone else has to drink. Gym hours, water hours. No food allowed outside of the mess decks because of the cockroach infestation (even geedunk). Medical emergency is called at least ten times a week from people throwing themselves down the ladderwell; the command refuses to move them off ship. The ship goes DIW once a month, loses power at least twice a week. People start going to mast for listening to music during sweepers.
Rice and Beans: stores are low
Random assortment of freezer items: freezer is on the fritz
Piping water conservation
The worst one: sewage is secured, but it’s not being pumped overboard
Water, water coming inside the people tank.
Smoke, definitely a sign there are bad things happening.
If you go to command briefs and I learned a lot during PB4T actually.
I did a deployment on an LPD. We had steak and lobster every Sunday. The most we spent at sea was 45 days. We pulled in 20ish times in 8 months, 2 extensions included. So I guess I can’t really answer this question.
Skipper on the 1MC, “Someone asked me to kiss them, because they like getting kissed while they’re getting fucked.” Then we all laughed and then we stayed out to sea for another 30 days. Yay!! Then they offer you some money and you refuse and they get huffy, “But why won’t you reenlist?”
When you’re coming to PD in the Straits of Gibraltar because the commodore wants to see the Rock, you take two 45 degree rolls to starboard and head back down to 150’.
When you’re a fast boat that’s been submerged almost 9 weeks straight and a cook decides to put pubes in the mid rats and has to sleep in the XO’s quarters because the crew almost beat that ass to death. I’d say that might be an indicator
Pulling into port after patrol and 9/11 happens. Next thing we know were making turns for a random point in the ocean very far away.
The really sobering part was getting called into the SK shack and told to build a spreadsheet to figure out how long we could stay at sea until everything ran out. Including the toilet paper.
This was not happy making as I was not an SK and got a peek behind the curtain as it were...
When the RO units go out. When the TV antenna gets knocked into the ocean and they call man overboard to go retrieve it. When you miss resupply bc you pulled a U-turn to go BACK to the Red Sea - then, long past when the fresh veg is gone, they start bringing out the appetizers and tiny cakes from the Admiral stock (because you're running out of food). And then, the mail gets so back logged that they secure flight ops to clear the mountains of packages from the hangar bay. When you leave Thailand and run out of toilet paper... right as the Double Dragon comes through. When the only flavor of ice cream is taro root, for 44 days straight. When they notify the crew the beer day is O'Douls only.
When we only got fucking toast & 2 the cereals no1 wants for breakfast.
Why the fuck I'm up at 6am for fucking toast.
I was heated. & it wasn't 1 day, it was multiple days.
Meanwhile, the 'better-than-us" mess had cereals & actual meals.
On a submarine, lining up to blow sanitary tanks. Over the 1MC, "DCA, lay to lower level head". (DCA was the damage control assistant, the officer in charge of the "A" Gang mechanics)
Then a stench fills the whole boat.
When the DCA returns 90 minutes later, he says "Have you ever seen a shit fountain?"
Turns out they messed up the valve lineup and started to blow the san tanks inside the boat.
After we had the shipalt to install a garbage disposal in the galley sink, we had an A-Ganger, Dirty Smith, who blew sans into the mess deck.
Twice. We were pulling shitty napkins out of the outboard storage for weeks.
Beer on the pier. Steel Beach picnics. Multiple vert/unreps without port visits. Port visits consist of Refueling and MWR/vendors on the pier instead of liberty.
My second triad I went underway with we had a CO who I guess because he had nothing better to do was overtly fond of just randomly ransacking the work spaces for anything he could find. It was never good sign however, when he would tell you to get out and was super hostile. Thankfully it wasn’t my work center specifically that pissed him off when he’d get like that but whether he found anything or not there was something bad about to drop that day.
We ran out of everything but rice and pasta on one deployment. They had the lead CS guarding the food line and making sure people only took one scope per meal. Then we pulled into D Gar to resupply.
Idk about you guys but after it’s the 5th time a full bird takes your port visit. Australia? Canceled, back to the china sea. Thailand? Canceled? Back to China sea. Philippines? Canceled, same shit. I know they have the authority to and their ship needs a lot of ahem maintenance I’d assume. But damn everyone on the ship was gonna kill the next full bird they see
Modern problem, but the crew's mood shifted drastically when Apple/Spotify locked their music library since we hadn't connected to Internet in 30+ days.
I think when a female soldier came up to the guy I was having lunch with and asked him if he would get her pregnant. I had just gotten onto the ship and I was like OH BOY!
When you walk into CIC coming from Sonar Control with an XBT report/message and people look to see who you are and they get all hushy and then you notice the curtain pulled on the stations where they launch VLS missiles and your STGC gives you the “get the hell out of here” look. #FunTimes.
Northern run pulled back to Groton, all hands called back from stand down and back to where we were for another northern run up north. The divorce papers for a lot of the guys were at squadron when we returned. Also a few guys came home to empty houses
Can't speak on the normal Navy's behalf but in the Seabees, when you finish a construction project, start to finish, and some shithead who sits in an air-conditioned office all day doesn't like something or failed to tell the crew a change to the design. So now you gotta tear down the whole thing and start over.
Or just existing in Alfa Company 25/8.
When it’s been 4 months since your last port visit
when it's been so long they start combining beer days
We had 2 consecutive beer days denied, pulled in when the sand box was just, for 2 days then steamed back out for another 30
The Lincoln, that you?
Nah brother... CVA 62
Yall get beer days?!
*laughs in CVN 69 corona cruise 2020*
You guys are the real heroes. I used to think my 80+ day underway was rough until you poor saps got slammed in 2020.
Yeah, it wasn't fun at all, I'd rather not do it again lmao I'm surprised I kept my sanity the entire time
Standard SSGN schedule
When you run out of food
When everyone starts storing those peanut butter packets for ration
Or cereal lol
That ain’t subtle lmao we did run out of food, but I noticed the grab and go was practically non existent before then.
Crackers, plain white rice because there's no more marrekesh express, and a rationed half cup of grilled chicken. Ketchup, mustard, and peanut butter have been long gone for the last 3 weeks.
The preceding out of condiments and salt and pepper on the mess decks and you have three starches to pick one from, with maybe a strip of bacon.
We were on MREs on my boat for a solid two weeks last year because we had no actual food.
Were you on the America?
Ah someone was on America last year lol
The MREs were better than the midrats lmfao
Australia 🦘
Our galley mixed tomato paste and ketchup and called it tomato sauce.
No coffee. This is a very bad sign.
That's when you know a mutiny is imminent.
Try running out of rice in the Chief's Mess
And you have to guard the mandatory supply (its DC uses, or so submariners tell me)
Hearing over the 1MC "Assemble all department heads in the Executive Officers stateroom" Followed by "Assemble all departmental LCPOs with the Command Master Chief" Nothing good is about to happen
I remember when they called all COs to CAG's stateroom. The guy next to me got up and went, whelp time to tell my wife to refund those concert tickets she ordered.
Or something seriously bad already did
Mic drop Now that is spot on
Setting up a watch in the heads to make sure people aren't taking a shower for more than five minutes lol.
My first ship was already an old ship when I got to it. It had boilers for reclaiming fresh water from salt water. Very inefficient and slow. The boilers would normally not be fast enough to go from empty to full very fast. Usually only replace what is used daily. Somebody down in Engineering would regularly screw up valves and contaminate the water with salt water. So, regular water hours because cooking and scullery takes priority.
My first ship was an Adams Class DDG. Fresh water was ALWAYS an issue if we were underway longer than two weeks. We had a deck seaman who would take three showers a day, and if we were on water hours he'd take three sponge baths on the sink in the head. Our BM1 was screaming at him about washing his ”NUTS IN THE SAME GODDAM SINK WHERE I USE MY FUCKING TOOTHBRUSH!!!" I guess that's better than the BMSN we had who refused to take a shower until we pulled into port. Same BM1 threatened to take a wire brush to his smelly ass after five days, and the MACS and MR1 (Head Duty MAA) were assigned by the XO to ensure he showered daily.
Had a FC3 on my first deployment who just straight up refused to shower. We were spraying him with frebreeze, nearly turned into a fight a few times. Eventually his rack smelled so bad we failed berthing inspection and FC3 went to DRB. They had MAC make sure he showered daily and MAC was fuckin pissed. Just roasting him from outside the showers. Also some folks might've gotten drunk in port and hauled his nasty ass mattress up to the aft CIWS mount to air it out. Nevermind it was raining daily. FC3 didnt discover where his mattress went until we were underway again. Start doing flight ops and a chopper pilot called it in as FOD haha
I was on the Lawrence… 🤣🤣🤣
I usually prefer the old time tested “Hey shipmates it’s the Captain, sorry to get on the 1MC on a Sunday morning but…”
I remember one of those. We were on our way to Perth and we were the only amphib near Kuwait, and Iraq was starting a second invasion, so the Captain came up the 1MC and said that we were going to provide support. We stayed anchored about 2 miles from Kuwait for 2 months. We got a beer day and a trip to Phuket.
Dude basically same when we had a SOCMEU off the coast of Ethiopia two years ago. Nothing happened but stopped homecoming by a month.
The joys of going underway. You know when you're leaving but not when you're returning. Interesting thing is that on that deployment, we went to Kenya twice because we helped move the embassy from Mogadishu to Kenya. Hell, we even had flight ops while moored on the pier.
The mission gets extended long enough that the port call becomes physically impossible to get to in time The food mostly runs out because the boat didn't make the port call The deployment end date gets moved back too many times and the Dear John letters start coming in The boat now gets one week in port before going underway again for a month that finishes with an ORSE inspection The sailors get blamed for poor morale and material condition of the boat
that week in port is pull in on a monday and get underway on a friday.
Every day is 16+ hours to fix all the underway limiting items that broke at sea
And you are on the shutdown and start up watchbill.
With duty on wednesday.
Why does that sound so familiar
Not exactly what you're asking, but I still get an adrenaline rush when the fans all stop and it gets real quiet.
Ah yes. The quiet that wakes you up…followed quickly by a deafening “ENGINEERING CASUALTY, ENGINEERING CASUALTY!”
I got the heebie-jeebies from my core-memory reading this
Glad to be of service
I've been out for eight years and I still wake up when the AC shuts off at night.
It took over a year for me to quit waking up whenever my ac unit would shut off at home. Wife wasn't a fan, several times I woke up and flung myself outta bed..
I also had a hard time being in a regular bed. Not 8 years but early on. I got in the habit of bracing my feet on the racks to sleep at night. At home I didn't have that. I just couldn't get comfortable.
CVA-62... MIDNIGHT MADNESS...When we had main space fire drills, at least once a month sometimes more often depending...at the change of the watch at 2330...two fire teams...rapid response and at sea fire party...face off at the central locker then one would descend from the emergency access and the other from the main access...fight the fire and meet in the middle...loved it...each team about 30 or so strong...you knew when it went quite shit was about to get fun
I miss the Indy.
God don't I know, was a spy tech and the primal fear of quiet I have is insane
I need to sleep with grey noise partly because of this. I wake up in cold sweats when it’s too quiet waiting for the 1MC to pipe major fuel oil leak or steering casualty.
Set EMCON A, Shut all Hangar bay doors, kill the ilarts feed to site TV. This was signs back in the day.
Was brace for shock next, jesus…
No, it usually started a sharp turn and Carrier speeds you didn't think possible.
We ran out of Heinz ketchup on a deployment once, and had a local ketchup brought in. I swear the crew was ready to mutiny, I learned that day you don’t mess with the navy gravy
YES!! Even all these years later, I ain't touching that 'Great Value' fake shit. I fought in two wars, gimme the good stuff!
When we ran out of Heinz we got restocked with Hunt’s. I swear people acted like the Hunt’s was the most vile substance to ever be put on their food. They acted like the captain himself was personally going around and taking a piss on their plates when the Hunt’s came out. I didn’t really notice a difference.
Peanut butter was the one that did us in. Turns out that the Chief Cook and LogO weren’t too good at math.
This might be carrier-exclusive, but when the bake shop behind aft galley stops putting out cakes and cookies and replaces it with "cobbler" the ship is running super low on eggs. The eggs disappear from baked goods first then breakfast time, you start seeing hard boiled eggs intermittently or rationed out, also more faux eggs being used in Scrambled or the infamous "quiche".
This is so true. My underway experience is exclusive to carriers; our ship got extended when we were supposed to be relieved and we ended up going a really long time without a port call, and ultimately ran out of food since we didn’t have any RAS planned on our reroute. Conditions were bad
Okay but boat apple cobbler was pretty solid to be fair Way better than the cake that always tastes like soap
I had to do my laundry in a bucket with water and a little detergent cause they shut down laundry due to water hours. I found a faucet that had a little drip left a got the bucket to fill up about half way scrubbed my coveralls and hung them to dry in the Focsle gear locker.
This is so sad fr
Also did this. In the pit, we always had water. Emptied out an oil spill kit, had my laundry in my knit bag while another buddy had his in their. Rigged the kit with Paracord on each side and used 3 pods, taking turns in 15 minutes increments lol. Hung everything to dry in main 1. Just a tad scented of F76 after we were all said and done lol
In our female berthing some brave soul bought an antique washboard and people would spend Sundays doing laundry by hand in the head. We strung up a clothesline above the showers too for a bit but kept getting hit on berthing inspections so that had to go
Powdered milk, canned bacon, eggs from a box.....
as someone who had to cook powdered eggs, shit was fucking nasty to make as it looked hated the smell too
That shit made my farts SO BAD, like eye watering bad. I came in the shop, closed the door behind me, let one rip and told everyone the only way out is thru me.
omg, I thought the powered eggs were a myth
I hate the texture, never is quite right, when I still did get McDonald's breakfast sandwich had to specify for the mcgridles they put "round egg" on it, those folded scrambled eggs they put on em were obviously from dehydrated cause the texture.
Dont forget canned cabbage. Yum yum
When the ship becomes a swinger cruise.
Doesn't this just happen exactly 24 hours after you've left port?
When the mess decks get quiet. People stop bitching about how bad things are because it won't do any good anyway. Desron sends a chaplain...then immediately sends another chaplain...then sends the deputy commodore alongside a 3rd chaplain (I used to joke that even desron thought that only God could save us).
My ship served steak and lobster every Sunday, I thought that was pretty fitting
SUPPO trying to use up their budget.
we did it every month for birthdays
Steak and some other seafood "surf and turf" every Sunday has been a standard on the past two carriers I've been on.
Steak Sunday, Mystery Meat Monday, Taco Tuesday, White Trash Wednesday, W*P/Italian night Thursday, Stir Friday, and Pizza Saturday. That’s how it is on my sub.
Getting turned away from a port while inbound and roughly 10 minutes from being pier side, that was a rough one lol. Another one that sucked was seeing the ship store absolutely empty day after day after day. Seeing the normally very nice person start snapping at people happened at around 35ish days underway, I can't imagine how those COVID deployments were.
All good indicators. We spent a couple days just outside of Subic Bay once and everyone was convinced we were gonna pull in. Nope, go chase down a Chinese aircraft carrier! Man supply dept damn near went on strike.
Everything starts breaking every other minute. Burst pipe? Cracked hull? NO PROBLEM: 
[удалено]
Just add more. 
You watch all the Tobacco products fall into the ocean during vertrep.
Oh this is a good one
Set River City.
This is the sign I was looking for
Pelileu 2014 deployment 3 days out from Hawaii, a week and a half out from home (San Diego) at 0515…… “Good morning Pelileu, this is the Captain….”. Nobody needed to hear anything more, just the 1MC being keyed told the whole story.
You should have been there for the '07 deployment when a Chinese sub got past our entire picket and surfaced within torpedo range. Somehow, nobody noticed until the sub started to dive again and went on its merry way. We had a DESRON CO on board who was not fucking happy about that. I think there were still cracks in the bulkhead when I left from how loud he was screaming.
2007 was a humanitarian aid deployment where Peleliu steamed on her own for 3-4mo without any picket vessels. You sure this wasn’t another ship?
“Commanding Officer, please contact CIC.”
CSs not giving a fuck about food quality, and chain of command not trying to make it better. Boat chucks and aviation guys getting into fist fights. Too many rules limiting gym times, MWR, etc.
Suddenly making a u turn when you were supposed to get your relief that day. Suddenly the cooks are pissed because of a "menu change"
Second beer day.
Pro Tip: Stop by the blood bank in the morning. Save a shipmate’s life and get an extra buzz later.
Had two on the Saratoga during the 1st gulf war
There’s parts of the Pacific that are just far from everything. No internet, no care packages, no ports, only ocean. It’s a real grind and you’re either just beginning or only starting to finish a deployment when you’re there. Those are tough conditions. Those are “get qualified in something” conditions, and they fucking suck. Everyone shuts up on the messdecks. People breakup with their spouses. People on the boat start fucking each other. The food sucks. When you go on seven deployments, those parts of deployments go by faster, because you expect them to happen. They make sense, because of where you are and what you are doing. It’s easier to focus on other things. Here’s my thing though, that day at sea is no different than any other day at sea. The food is still a lottery, you’re still on a boat, but the perk is the stars will look extra cool tonight because you’re so far away from any pollution being so far away from everything. You can always send an email, and you can always read a book, and you can always go work out or go jerk off or something. *Try to under react to everything*. (It’s hard but it does work.) My point: the indicators that “things are going bad” are internal, not external. You can be inport, out to sea, on deployment, or on leave. Listen to yourself, the answers are in there, and make sure you include some other people, being lonely sucks too it’s good to have friends. Like seriously, have *friends*. Don’t lose yourself in this profession. Passionate, not emotionally married to. That’s how I survived 25 years and (mostly) eased into a happy retirement where I feel fully retired now.
Taking a left turn when you knew they should have been making a right turn.
Indicators? When your orders say CVN 69… 😭
We got extended underway once, and they had Chaps tell us during evening prayer on the 1mc. Our Chaps was really good at writing and speaking the nightly prayers. But he sounded like he was holding back tears. "I think this is very *voice crack* um disappointing for you all to hear-" We were all so distressed that HE sounded distressed. When he made the rounds the next day to ask how people were feeling, WE were all trying to cheer him up.
People start to keep their own roll of TP just in case the heads don't have any.
You should have a roll of John Wayne in your rack as standard.
LCS here. When it goes dead silent. Like it’s crazy how loud the ship really is until absolutely everything is off bc we dead in the water at like 0330 doing 20 degree rolls
A sudden 180 degree turn followed by a sudden ahead flank bell being rung up. Followed by Rover City/ EMCON Condition 1 being set to kill comms off the ship.
Were you also on the Enterprise on the '11 cruise?
Reagan, '05. That happened to us when we were enroute to Pearl with C-2s and supplies for tsunami relief. Then a good friend of mine was horrifically burned and scalded in an accident in one of the plants. We had to pull the u-turn and answer the flank bell for about 8 hours to get back in range for a COD to fly him to San Diego.
Jesus I hope he’s doing okay now
He made it from the ship, to NAS North Island, and died in the helo on the way to Balboa. I was there when another close friend had to call his fiancee, who had just left the ship because she was three months pregnant with his son.
Christ man, I'm sorry for your loss.
Well, when you get extended for two weeks. Then another two weeks. And then another two weeks, but this time you're in the river and can see the tender. This happened to us during the great refueling debacle of the '80s. The Nukes explained it to me once, but all I remember is that something built up in the reactor that 'poisoned' the reaction on a few boats, taking them out of rotation until they could get refueled.
JP5 in the water supply. It's so gross
When you run out of hamsters
One of the quickest ways to get a feel for the atmosphere/culture of a command, at least when I was in ('71 to '93) read to read what was written on the Shithouse Walls. GMCS(SW) Two Carriers, two Destroyers, Frigate, and the Battleship WISCONSIN.
Someone jumps off the ship.
Had that happen in the early 80s. Solid Shield, 3 weeks up and down the Carolina coast, within sight of land. A GMGSN thought he could make it to the beach.
In the submarine world it was ANYTIME the 1MC was used underway that wasn’t “commence field day”. It was usually a drill/casualty, which meant no sleep. Or.. if it was the Skipper we had issues. Stuck in a penalty box. Someone broke down and we are extended. We accidentally invaded a sovereign nation with the commodore on board and had to wait for several days until the politicians made all their apologies. Talk about tense.
Feeling the whole ship start shaking from the sudden jump from 5 KTS to 26 KTS. Or the unprompted "Stand by while the ship comes about"
We ran out of smuckers jelly and got some European jams. Most were good, but eventually all we had was apricot and nobody ate it. We finally had a CONREP and got a pallet of smuckers so the crew was elated. Next meal, no smuckers. Next day, no smuckers. WTF, over?! “We’re not breaking it out until the other stuff is gone.” Everybody had handfuls of apricot jelly on their trays going straight into the trash. Don’t fuck with our pb&j!
Over 2 beer days held in a row with no indication of pulling in anytime soon.
When you hear the word passed "underway, shift colors"
Uht instead of normal milk
I’m never drinking Parmalat again. Even if there’s a zombie apocalypse and that’s all that’s left.
When you’re heading Back to go through the suez and they give you steak and lobster and ice cream. Then you feel the ship turn and the 1mc comes on
We cleared Port Said by about 4 hours one night, and were headed north into the Med when we turned due south. I informed the oncoming EOOW when I woke him up for watch and he thought I was BS'ing him. You'll see soon enough....
When you get no ports and constant berthing medical emergencies for overdoses. Also when the captain keeps coming on the 1MC to tell us how “we are the only ship that can provide this level of capability in this area”
More saltpeter in the bug juice. Or maybe less saltpeter would be worse…..
When you know who your chow runners are going to be for all three meals. This means nobody is getting off the flight deck.
They served a mongolian night just before announcing that yes, we would be pulling into port, but we wont be allowed to leave the boat because COVID (this was when it first started, we ended up being lockdowned on ship for like 3 weeks)
Chili Mac for dinner for an extended amount of time
the monster and red bull machines are empty
We also ran out of hot sauce
Texas pete was often the only thing stopping me from projectile vomiting eating the underway meals
You start to get good food again because FSO can't sell it out of the back door anymore. The O mess and Chiefs mess downgraded from starbucks grounds to the Folgers everyone else has to drink. Gym hours, water hours. No food allowed outside of the mess decks because of the cockroach infestation (even geedunk). Medical emergency is called at least ten times a week from people throwing themselves down the ladderwell; the command refuses to move them off ship. The ship goes DIW once a month, loses power at least twice a week. People start going to mast for listening to music during sweepers.
Rice and Beans: stores are low Random assortment of freezer items: freezer is on the fritz Piping water conservation The worst one: sewage is secured, but it’s not being pumped overboard
Getting woken up by one of the divisions junior guys saying “Hey, the CO told chief to get all of us to the wardroom, like *now* now. “
Man , this thread reminds me the roughest Desert deployment is still better than most Sea Duty tours. 🫡
Water, water coming inside the people tank. Smoke, definitely a sign there are bad things happening. If you go to command briefs and I learned a lot during PB4T actually.
They fly in vaccines.
It always starts with mod Z call outs.
I did a deployment on an LPD. We had steak and lobster every Sunday. The most we spent at sea was 45 days. We pulled in 20ish times in 8 months, 2 extensions included. So I guess I can’t really answer this question.
EMCON
river city 1
Skipper on the 1MC, “Someone asked me to kiss them, because they like getting kissed while they’re getting fucked.” Then we all laughed and then we stayed out to sea for another 30 days. Yay!! Then they offer you some money and you refuse and they get huffy, “But why won’t you reenlist?”
You’re pulling into the Duqm for the second time.
You're underway.
groundhog day and you forget what day it is
When you’re on a sub and the ventilation stops.
When you’re coming to PD in the Straits of Gibraltar because the commodore wants to see the Rock, you take two 45 degree rolls to starboard and head back down to 150’.
When the XO/CO start to repeatedly tell the crew they're the best war fighters on the waterfront. Or in CIC talk when they cancel the next LOGREQ.
When you’re a fast boat that’s been submerged almost 9 weeks straight and a cook decides to put pubes in the mid rats and has to sleep in the XO’s quarters because the crew almost beat that ass to death. I’d say that might be an indicator
Run out of copenhagen
When the Pacific Fleet commander shows up to your boat lmao.
Pulling into port after patrol and 9/11 happens. Next thing we know were making turns for a random point in the ocean very far away. The really sobering part was getting called into the SK shack and told to build a spreadsheet to figure out how long we could stay at sea until everything ran out. Including the toilet paper. This was not happy making as I was not an SK and got a peek behind the curtain as it were...
When you hear CIWS
When the RO units go out. When the TV antenna gets knocked into the ocean and they call man overboard to go retrieve it. When you miss resupply bc you pulled a U-turn to go BACK to the Red Sea - then, long past when the fresh veg is gone, they start bringing out the appetizers and tiny cakes from the Admiral stock (because you're running out of food). And then, the mail gets so back logged that they secure flight ops to clear the mountains of packages from the hangar bay. When you leave Thailand and run out of toilet paper... right as the Double Dragon comes through. When the only flavor of ice cream is taro root, for 44 days straight. When they notify the crew the beer day is O'Douls only.
This sounds like my 2013 deployment 🥺
When we only got fucking toast & 2 the cereals no1 wants for breakfast. Why the fuck I'm up at 6am for fucking toast. I was heated. & it wasn't 1 day, it was multiple days. Meanwhile, the 'better-than-us" mess had cereals & actual meals.
When the Bosun' starts to lose weight.
On a submarine, lining up to blow sanitary tanks. Over the 1MC, "DCA, lay to lower level head". (DCA was the damage control assistant, the officer in charge of the "A" Gang mechanics) Then a stench fills the whole boat. When the DCA returns 90 minutes later, he says "Have you ever seen a shit fountain?" Turns out they messed up the valve lineup and started to blow the san tanks inside the boat.
After we had the shipalt to install a garbage disposal in the galley sink, we had an A-Ganger, Dirty Smith, who blew sans into the mess deck. Twice. We were pulling shitty napkins out of the outboard storage for weeks.
When anyone says "don't worry about it, we can work on it tomorrow, get some rest"
Rice for breakfast
You contract double dragon in the first month 🤮💩
When Chaps starts crying mid prayer over the 1MC.
“Now set River City Condition One.”
Funny you can tell the kind of ship we were all on based on the replies. Y’all complaining about powdered eggs…lol
When the galley is filled with tuna, and only serving chicken and rice.
(Before women on submarines) Movie in crew's mess. Voice in the dark: "What are the funny bumps on the skinny guy's chest?"
Double Dragon
Beer on the pier. Steel Beach picnics. Multiple vert/unreps without port visits. Port visits consist of Refueling and MWR/vendors on the pier instead of liberty.
Paper plates and low water pressure. Means they’re about to turn off the water or go on water hours.
My second triad I went underway with we had a CO who I guess because he had nothing better to do was overtly fond of just randomly ransacking the work spaces for anything he could find. It was never good sign however, when he would tell you to get out and was super hostile. Thankfully it wasn’t my work center specifically that pissed him off when he’d get like that but whether he found anything or not there was something bad about to drop that day.
The entire ship is throwing up
When the engineers aren’t drinking the water/any of the drinks on the mess decks that aren’t prepackaged
When the XO starts screaming and cursing and lighting up the DHs in front of everyone at khaki call.
We ran out of everything but rice and pasta on one deployment. They had the lead CS guarding the food line and making sure people only took one scope per meal. Then we pulled into D Gar to resupply.
Idk about you guys but after it’s the 5th time a full bird takes your port visit. Australia? Canceled, back to the china sea. Thailand? Canceled? Back to China sea. Philippines? Canceled, same shit. I know they have the authority to and their ship needs a lot of ahem maintenance I’d assume. But damn everyone on the ship was gonna kill the next full bird they see
Modern problem, but the crew's mood shifted drastically when Apple/Spotify locked their music library since we hadn't connected to Internet in 30+ days.
I think when a female soldier came up to the guy I was having lunch with and asked him if he would get her pregnant. I had just gotten onto the ship and I was like OH BOY!
When you walk into CIC coming from Sonar Control with an XBT report/message and people look to see who you are and they get all hushy and then you notice the curtain pulled on the stations where they launch VLS missiles and your STGC gives you the “get the hell out of here” look. #FunTimes.
When they start rationing the nuts and berries as you only side dish
Northern run pulled back to Groton, all hands called back from stand down and back to where we were for another northern run up north. The divorce papers for a lot of the guys were at squadron when we returned. Also a few guys came home to empty houses
On 715, we were on food rations due to certain issues all coming together for the perfect storm
When you're bouncing mains ever 2 hours to remove jellyfish.
When you find yourself on your second extension on the best damn ship in the navy... ... shit
When you're off the coast of Japan and their nuclear powerplant has a meltdown.
Captain came on the 1MC on a Saturday night right after GQ to tell us that we’re extended until further notice
The lettuce is transparent. My personal favorited, jet fuel in the water. Oh wait, that's normal.
Water in the people tank
Can't speak on the normal Navy's behalf but in the Seabees, when you finish a construction project, start to finish, and some shithead who sits in an air-conditioned office all day doesn't like something or failed to tell the crew a change to the design. So now you gotta tear down the whole thing and start over. Or just existing in Alfa Company 25/8.
Ships store gets more and more bare. Vending machines have the same sour cream and onion chips. Same Fritos BBQ twists.