Most of my blog to this point has been about my deployment around South America. Foreign ports, funny stories, and some work along the way. And it’s easy to forget why I’m here. But on this day, I’d like to go back and talk about the events that ultimately led me down this path.
Most people reading this intimately remember September 11, 2001. Where we were, what we were doing, who we were with. I remember sitting in class when they told us that the world trade center had fallen to the ground. To be honest, I didn’t really know what that was, just that they were buildings. I remember not being able to find my father, who was flying to Washington that day. I remember being picked up from school and taken home early. As we were walking out the door, I asked why I was being taken out of school. My brother stopped walking and grabbed my shoulders, turning to me and said, “You really don’t understand what’s happening today? Thousands of people are dead.”
My 12-year-old innocence at the time, I think, wasn’t just because I was 12 years old. Nobody expected this. Nobody knew what to make of it. Life wasn’t like that. But my life changed with those words from my brother.
In a way, I wouldn’t be sitting here on a ship off the coast of San Diego if that day had never happened. It made me understand how fragile our liberty is, how we need good people to rise up and defend what’s right and support everything that we have, and it ultimately propelled me to join the military. It makes me feel guilty when I complain about work or tough things in life, because it all pales in comparison to everything that’s happened. Yes, our lives are divided into before and after, pre-9/11 and post-9/11, innocence and open eyes. But they go on, impacted by a life that was and events that changed everything about that past.
We have a couple of memorials planned throughout the day on the ship. We’ve rung bells when each plane went down and talked on the loudspeaker about what happened. We have a 24-hour run (on treadmills, of course) planned to memorialize those who died. And above all, we all remember why we’re here, why we joined, and a life that was.
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
24 Days... Not that anyone is counting or anything...
Boy, it’s been a long time since writing in here! Not that I’ve heard many (read: any) complaints about me not posting, but I feel the need to update people on how I’m doing. 24 days until we get back from deployment, and the entire ship is counting down. Many conversations consist of the following topics (in order of prevalence):
1) What is the first thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
2) What type of alcoholic beverage will you have when you go back?
3) What is the second thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
4) What is the first thing you’re going to do when you get off the ship?
5) What’s the third thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
As you can tell, people are excited about food. That, and American beer. Sadly, South America does not have my two favorites: Sam Adams and Guinness. I’ll be getting a case of both of those beers when I get back—and drinking them in short order.
We haven’t been doing much since my last post, hence why I haven’t written much. The highlights have been a trip to Panama for a port visit (4 days off the ship is pretty awesome) and an exercise called PANAMAX with Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Panama. It’s a simulated exercise in defense of the Panama canal.
Right when we were starting the exercise, we were called away to conduct a real life SAR (Search and Rescue) Operation. A Panamanian plane went down off the coast of Panama with six souls onboard, and we’ve spent the better part of the last few days looking for it, as well as any survivors. Unfortunately, we found the fuselage of the plane, but no survivors. A fishing ship about 20 miles away found a body. It’s sad, but we continue looking until they call off the search. Most of our time consists of navigating search patterns promulgated to us by higher authority. At night, it’s especially hard because we must search with spotlights and night vision to try and find bodies. Sad work, but it seems better than a simulated exercise with other countries. At least I feel like we’re doing some good.
We’ve had a few cool experiences, like assisting in some counter-drug operations, or pulling into Ecuador so their Navy could tour our ship (they are thinking of purchasing the ship when it decommissions) but most of our time has been spent drifting around in circles waiting for this PANAMAX exercise to start… And now we’re not even doing it!
All the same, we only have 24 days left, so people aren’t quite thinking about doing work—minds are centered around our return to San Diego. It seems so far away, and (ironically) foreign to me. Being at sea for 6 months makes you forget what life was like when you had some control over it. We’re constantly told when to eat and when to work, and even on liberty we have curfews and rules to abide by. Going back to a life with time for myself will be a sublime experience, and one that I’m richly looking forward to. We should leave from this SAR in the next couple of days and head back to Panama for a closing conference to talk about the exercise that we’ve essentially skipped. It doesn’t make much sense, but I won’t complain about time off! After that, we begin the journey back home, with nothing left but time standing between us and the United States.
1) What is the first thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
2) What type of alcoholic beverage will you have when you go back?
3) What is the second thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
4) What is the first thing you’re going to do when you get off the ship?
5) What’s the third thing you’re going to eat when you get back?
As you can tell, people are excited about food. That, and American beer. Sadly, South America does not have my two favorites: Sam Adams and Guinness. I’ll be getting a case of both of those beers when I get back—and drinking them in short order.
We haven’t been doing much since my last post, hence why I haven’t written much. The highlights have been a trip to Panama for a port visit (4 days off the ship is pretty awesome) and an exercise called PANAMAX with Peru, Ecuador, Chile, and Panama. It’s a simulated exercise in defense of the Panama canal.
Right when we were starting the exercise, we were called away to conduct a real life SAR (Search and Rescue) Operation. A Panamanian plane went down off the coast of Panama with six souls onboard, and we’ve spent the better part of the last few days looking for it, as well as any survivors. Unfortunately, we found the fuselage of the plane, but no survivors. A fishing ship about 20 miles away found a body. It’s sad, but we continue looking until they call off the search. Most of our time consists of navigating search patterns promulgated to us by higher authority. At night, it’s especially hard because we must search with spotlights and night vision to try and find bodies. Sad work, but it seems better than a simulated exercise with other countries. At least I feel like we’re doing some good.
We’ve had a few cool experiences, like assisting in some counter-drug operations, or pulling into Ecuador so their Navy could tour our ship (they are thinking of purchasing the ship when it decommissions) but most of our time has been spent drifting around in circles waiting for this PANAMAX exercise to start… And now we’re not even doing it!
All the same, we only have 24 days left, so people aren’t quite thinking about doing work—minds are centered around our return to San Diego. It seems so far away, and (ironically) foreign to me. Being at sea for 6 months makes you forget what life was like when you had some control over it. We’re constantly told when to eat and when to work, and even on liberty we have curfews and rules to abide by. Going back to a life with time for myself will be a sublime experience, and one that I’m richly looking forward to. We should leave from this SAR in the next couple of days and head back to Panama for a closing conference to talk about the exercise that we’ve essentially skipped. It doesn’t make much sense, but I won’t complain about time off! After that, we begin the journey back home, with nothing left but time standing between us and the United States.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Crossing the Line
Last week, we crossed over the equator, which means three things. Number one, we’re heading back north to home. Number two, the warm weather is back. But finally, it means that we all had to become shellbacks. What is a shellback? Read on… I’ll explain.
The tradition of “crossing the line” goes back so far that nobody really knows where or when it began. In the old days, it was a test for sailors to determine if new shipmates were fit for duty. They’d be put through a serious of rigorous “tests” where they were beat and bloodied, and if they passed, they were fair shipmates. As time progressed, it became more elaborate and more dangerous. In the last 20 years or so, the danger has dropped off significantly due to the Navy’s strict safety/anti-hazing stances, but we still do it in some form or another.
The way the legend goes is this: King Neptune, ruler of the deep, comes on our ship to find that there are slimy Polywogs (those who have not crossed the line) onboard. King Neptune declares that this is unacceptable and that they all must be converted into trusty Shellbacks. He calls on his Shellback disciples onboard to carry out the initiation. The Polywogs are charged with various crimes and subpeoned before King Neptune’s court (with Davy Jones as his right hand man) and asked to plead guilty to the crimes to purge themselves of their sins.
The day before this initiation, it’s tradition for the Polywogs to revolt. We did so in grand fashion, but paid the price the next day. The night before, each division of Polywogs was to prepare a talent show for the Shellbacks. Stupidly, they all gathered in one spot, leaving the rest of the ship open to looting and pillaging. Myself and the rest of the junior officers broke into the Captain’s stateroom and stole his door. Later on in the evening, we stole the ship’s bell, which is instrumental in everyday use both for practical purposes (ringing bells every half hour for the time) and tradition. They found the door that night, but didn’t find the bell until the next day when I told them where it was. For the ceremony, I was the first one through the ceremony and in the last group to finish.
The next morning, we were woken up at 5 a.m. and made to crawl around before being taken to breakfast, where they basically threw gross food at you, covered you in syrup and raw eggs, and then sprayed you with a fire hose. We were forced to work out, climb through buckets of “slime” water (that was colored green) and given hair styles from the “royal barber” who put mayonnaise, coffee grinds, and hot sauce in our hair. All the while, we were being sprayed with fire hoses on a consistent basis. It lasted until about 11 a.m.
All in all, it was a miserable experience that my body is still recovering from, but I am no longer a slimy wog… Next time, I will be the one spraying people with hoses and cracking eggs on their heads. We’ll be steaming around off the coast of Ecuador for the next week or so before getting some gas and heading up to Panama for the start of our last multi-national exercise of the deployment. But more on that later…
Friday, July 15, 2011
Lima, Peru, Day 1
Well, we’re in port, Lima, Peru. I am on duty today, but last night I had liberty, so this latest story is hot off the presses.
Liberty in South America has a lot of restrictions. They care a lot about how Americans look, so they have rules like calling in to the ship twice a night and of course, if we have duty, we have to be back to the ship the next morning by 8 a.m.—earlier (about 7:30) if you have watch.
We went out on liberty and decided to take overnight liberty, even though we had to get up at 5 a.m. to catch a bus back to the ship to make it for duty. Since we didn’t really plan on sleeping much, we decided to get a bed at a hostel. We had no bags, and it was only $7 for the night, so it was a good deal to have a place to stay. We went out for the night and partied until about 3 a.m. before turning in and going back to the hostel. Our one friend had turned in early, and he had the alarm clock. When we showed up at the hostel, he wasn’t there, and we had no idea where he was. We assumed that waiting here would be the best thing—that he would find his way back. We also knew that we were meeting at 5:25 at the hotel next to the bus stop if we ever got separated. It was our fail-safe.
We had no alarm clocks (we didn’t even plan on staying out overnight, but met a group of girls at a bar who invited us to a club, and we couldn’t say no) so we told the guy at the front desk we needed a wakeup at 5 a.m. to get back to the ship. We explained how important it was, and that he needed to make sure we were awake. He promised to throw water on our faces if we didn’t get up.
He didn’t.
Next thing I know, I wake up to my lost friend screaming, “Let’s go, let’s go!” Turns out, he couldn’t find the hostel. He got a room at another hotel and showed up at the fail-safe spot at the right time, but we never showed, so he assumed we had slept in. Somehow he found the hostel in the morning when it was light out. I looked at my watch. 6:25. We had just over an hour to get to the bus, take the 45 minute ride to the ship, change, and get on watch. It would never happen. The consequences for being late for duty are severe. In general, with few exceptions, you won’t be allowed to leave the ship for the duration of this port as well as the next two or three. Considering we only have 1 port left after this, it means not leaving the ship for 2 months until San Diego. No bueno.
We were dressed and out the door in under 90 seconds and started running toward the bus stop 10 blocks away. We still had time. If we could get a bus that leaves before 6:45, we’d be okay. We were told we weren’t allowed to take taxis because of their penchant for robberies, and even though there were approved taxi companies, they couldn’t get us onto the base anyway—we had to be with an official USN bus to get on. I ran faster than the other two members of my group, and at 6:40, I rounded the corner to see the bus. I broke into a sprint for the bus about 100 yards away… And then the bus started driving in the opposite direction.
At this point, I’d slept for maybe three hours—probably less. I was still half-drunk. I had been running at a pretty good pace for the last 10 minutes, a little over a mile, in shoes that were not meant for running, and I was starting to feel it. I hadn’t drank water in 10 hours, since you need to buy bottled water here and nothing was open when we left the club. I’ve heard stories about mothers overturning cars to save their children, or the man after the battle of Marathon who ran 25 miles, only to squeak out the word, “Victory” before dropping dead. But I never knew what went through those people’s minds or how they did it… Until I saw that bus driving away, and my liberty for the next two months with it.
I started running faster. I don’t know how, but I did. (My friend can attest to that.) It was like the last scene in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” when he’s running back home. I was cutting through parks, cutting corners, doing anything I could to keep with the bus. I was waving my arms and screaming at the bus as I was running, creeping closer and closer to the bus. I followed it for about 10 blocks—a flat out sprint for 5 minutes, until it ran a stop sign and turned onto a main street, as if it were hell-bent on leaving us behind. I now know how Carl Yaztremski felt when Bucky (Bleepin’) Dent hit a homerun to win the pennant in 78’. The grainy footage shows Yaz’s knees buckle when he sees the ball go over the fence—as his soul is sucked out of him and all hope is lost. That’s how I felt. I stood there for a second watching the bus fade away before remembering something: the bus was on a one-way road going away from the ship. It had to double back on another 1-way street. It was our last hope. I started sprinting again and ran back onto the main thoroughfare and stopped in the middle of the street. Lo and behold, there was a bus driving right toward me, just like it should have been. I stood in the middle of the street screaming and waving my arms. The bus stopped and I jumped for joy. I’d done it! I was a hero! I ran over to the side of the bus and went to get on before realizing that it was the wrong bus. I won’t repeat the words that I shouted here, but I was mad. The bus was gone, and so was our liberty. It was 6:50.
The worst part was that I had to run all the way back to the bus stop where my friends were, even after sprinting for 5 straight minutes. In the end, we had to take a cab back to the port and talk our way into the base before running across the base to get to the ship. We were there by 7:28. Two minutes to spare. Somehow, we made it back to the ship, and nobody even knew what happened. We’re tired and hungover, and ran something like 2 miles while drunk. I’m sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore. But we made it back on time and nobody’s the wiser.
Thankfully, I have duty today to rest. We have two more days of liberty on Saturday and Sunday. Instead of 15 hours of time off, we have 48. Who knows what will happen then…
Liberty in South America has a lot of restrictions. They care a lot about how Americans look, so they have rules like calling in to the ship twice a night and of course, if we have duty, we have to be back to the ship the next morning by 8 a.m.—earlier (about 7:30) if you have watch.
We went out on liberty and decided to take overnight liberty, even though we had to get up at 5 a.m. to catch a bus back to the ship to make it for duty. Since we didn’t really plan on sleeping much, we decided to get a bed at a hostel. We had no bags, and it was only $7 for the night, so it was a good deal to have a place to stay. We went out for the night and partied until about 3 a.m. before turning in and going back to the hostel. Our one friend had turned in early, and he had the alarm clock. When we showed up at the hostel, he wasn’t there, and we had no idea where he was. We assumed that waiting here would be the best thing—that he would find his way back. We also knew that we were meeting at 5:25 at the hotel next to the bus stop if we ever got separated. It was our fail-safe.
We had no alarm clocks (we didn’t even plan on staying out overnight, but met a group of girls at a bar who invited us to a club, and we couldn’t say no) so we told the guy at the front desk we needed a wakeup at 5 a.m. to get back to the ship. We explained how important it was, and that he needed to make sure we were awake. He promised to throw water on our faces if we didn’t get up.
He didn’t.
Next thing I know, I wake up to my lost friend screaming, “Let’s go, let’s go!” Turns out, he couldn’t find the hostel. He got a room at another hotel and showed up at the fail-safe spot at the right time, but we never showed, so he assumed we had slept in. Somehow he found the hostel in the morning when it was light out. I looked at my watch. 6:25. We had just over an hour to get to the bus, take the 45 minute ride to the ship, change, and get on watch. It would never happen. The consequences for being late for duty are severe. In general, with few exceptions, you won’t be allowed to leave the ship for the duration of this port as well as the next two or three. Considering we only have 1 port left after this, it means not leaving the ship for 2 months until San Diego. No bueno.
We were dressed and out the door in under 90 seconds and started running toward the bus stop 10 blocks away. We still had time. If we could get a bus that leaves before 6:45, we’d be okay. We were told we weren’t allowed to take taxis because of their penchant for robberies, and even though there were approved taxi companies, they couldn’t get us onto the base anyway—we had to be with an official USN bus to get on. I ran faster than the other two members of my group, and at 6:40, I rounded the corner to see the bus. I broke into a sprint for the bus about 100 yards away… And then the bus started driving in the opposite direction.
At this point, I’d slept for maybe three hours—probably less. I was still half-drunk. I had been running at a pretty good pace for the last 10 minutes, a little over a mile, in shoes that were not meant for running, and I was starting to feel it. I hadn’t drank water in 10 hours, since you need to buy bottled water here and nothing was open when we left the club. I’ve heard stories about mothers overturning cars to save their children, or the man after the battle of Marathon who ran 25 miles, only to squeak out the word, “Victory” before dropping dead. But I never knew what went through those people’s minds or how they did it… Until I saw that bus driving away, and my liberty for the next two months with it.
I started running faster. I don’t know how, but I did. (My friend can attest to that.) It was like the last scene in “Ferris Beuller’s Day Off” when he’s running back home. I was cutting through parks, cutting corners, doing anything I could to keep with the bus. I was waving my arms and screaming at the bus as I was running, creeping closer and closer to the bus. I followed it for about 10 blocks—a flat out sprint for 5 minutes, until it ran a stop sign and turned onto a main street, as if it were hell-bent on leaving us behind. I now know how Carl Yaztremski felt when Bucky (Bleepin’) Dent hit a homerun to win the pennant in 78’. The grainy footage shows Yaz’s knees buckle when he sees the ball go over the fence—as his soul is sucked out of him and all hope is lost. That’s how I felt. I stood there for a second watching the bus fade away before remembering something: the bus was on a one-way road going away from the ship. It had to double back on another 1-way street. It was our last hope. I started sprinting again and ran back onto the main thoroughfare and stopped in the middle of the street. Lo and behold, there was a bus driving right toward me, just like it should have been. I stood in the middle of the street screaming and waving my arms. The bus stopped and I jumped for joy. I’d done it! I was a hero! I ran over to the side of the bus and went to get on before realizing that it was the wrong bus. I won’t repeat the words that I shouted here, but I was mad. The bus was gone, and so was our liberty. It was 6:50.
The worst part was that I had to run all the way back to the bus stop where my friends were, even after sprinting for 5 straight minutes. In the end, we had to take a cab back to the port and talk our way into the base before running across the base to get to the ship. We were there by 7:28. Two minutes to spare. Somehow, we made it back to the ship, and nobody even knew what happened. We’re tired and hungover, and ran something like 2 miles while drunk. I’m sore in places I didn’t know you could be sore. But we made it back on time and nobody’s the wiser.
Thankfully, I have duty today to rest. We have two more days of liberty on Saturday and Sunday. Instead of 15 hours of time off, we have 48. Who knows what will happen then…
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Finally Leaving Chile
Boy, it’s been too long since I’ve written in here! So much has happened, and we’ve been so busy, that I haven’t had time to write back e-mails, much less update the blog.
We are currently transiting north toward Peru for our next port visit later this week. We finally are out of Chile, where we made 6 port calls. It seems like our second home port, but it’s nice to be moving north toward warmer weather. We already can go outside without a jacket on, which is a huge plus! Last week marked the end of our UNITAS Pacific phase of deployment where we were working with other navies. Now, we have a month of independent steaming to get to Panama for the start of PANAMAX, our final exercise, in mid-August. This means that steaming will be easy and pretty dull for the next couple of weeks, which is actually nice compared to the stress of multi-ship exercises.
A couple of weeks ago, I got my Officer of the Deck qualification. That means that now, when I stand watch, I am in charge of the safety for the entire ship, as well as making sure that the entire plan of the day is executed. It’s probably the biggest qualification in an officer’s career, so it’s nice to have that over with. I also moved into a stateroom last week, a three-man room with a computer, TV, lots of storage, and bigger begs, which has improved my quality of life tenfold. Thankfully, I’m moving up in the world after putting in my time for the last 13 months.
I had the opportunity last week to be on a Chilean ship for 3 days, which was a nice change of pace and interesting to see how the Chilean Navy does things. The best variation from the U.S. Navy? Tea time. Every day, 3 p.m. You sit around and drink tea and eat fresh-baked bread. It was great.
Last week, one of the most dynamic officers on our ship departed to go to his next duty as a ROTC instructor at Virginia Military Institute. The guy reminded me a lot of Dean Moriarty (real life Neal Cassady) in On The Road… a larger than life character that really enjoyed life, drank a lot of beer, and did everything big, bigger, better. Without him on board, life has become a lot more two-dimensional, and I’m sure liberty ports will be even more impacted. Seriously, the guy doubled my tolerance over the past four months. He’ll be missed.
Just over two months left of deployment, so we can finally start counting down until we head back to San Diego. The bulk of our port calls, unfortunately, are over, with about 2 weeks in between each port from here on out, but that will be good to keep the beer weight off and the money in my wallet, especially since casinos in Chile are, I’m convinced, rigged against me more so than American casinos.
We are currently transiting north toward Peru for our next port visit later this week. We finally are out of Chile, where we made 6 port calls. It seems like our second home port, but it’s nice to be moving north toward warmer weather. We already can go outside without a jacket on, which is a huge plus! Last week marked the end of our UNITAS Pacific phase of deployment where we were working with other navies. Now, we have a month of independent steaming to get to Panama for the start of PANAMAX, our final exercise, in mid-August. This means that steaming will be easy and pretty dull for the next couple of weeks, which is actually nice compared to the stress of multi-ship exercises.
A couple of weeks ago, I got my Officer of the Deck qualification. That means that now, when I stand watch, I am in charge of the safety for the entire ship, as well as making sure that the entire plan of the day is executed. It’s probably the biggest qualification in an officer’s career, so it’s nice to have that over with. I also moved into a stateroom last week, a three-man room with a computer, TV, lots of storage, and bigger begs, which has improved my quality of life tenfold. Thankfully, I’m moving up in the world after putting in my time for the last 13 months.
I had the opportunity last week to be on a Chilean ship for 3 days, which was a nice change of pace and interesting to see how the Chilean Navy does things. The best variation from the U.S. Navy? Tea time. Every day, 3 p.m. You sit around and drink tea and eat fresh-baked bread. It was great.
Last week, one of the most dynamic officers on our ship departed to go to his next duty as a ROTC instructor at Virginia Military Institute. The guy reminded me a lot of Dean Moriarty (real life Neal Cassady) in On The Road… a larger than life character that really enjoyed life, drank a lot of beer, and did everything big, bigger, better. Without him on board, life has become a lot more two-dimensional, and I’m sure liberty ports will be even more impacted. Seriously, the guy doubled my tolerance over the past four months. He’ll be missed.
Just over two months left of deployment, so we can finally start counting down until we head back to San Diego. The bulk of our port calls, unfortunately, are over, with about 2 weeks in between each port from here on out, but that will be good to keep the beer weight off and the money in my wallet, especially since casinos in Chile are, I’m convinced, rigged against me more so than American casinos.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Fire, Fire, Fire!
On ships, the biggest fear we have is the fear of fire. It may seem ironic, because we’re floating in a big ocean full of water, but fire, more than flooding, is the biggest casualty that we could face. We practice fire fighting on a routine basis. Even officers go to the fire fighting school—we could even be called on to fight fires, especially on small ships like Frigates.
Yesterday started out as a typical duty day. I was sitting down in the morning and brewing a pot of coffee. As the water started to drip down into the pot, I heard a rapidly ringing bell, followed by the words, “Fire fire fire, class bravo fire in number two SSDG. Away repair lockers away—provide from repairs five and three.” Our SSDG is one of our Ship’s Service Diesel Generators. It’s about 15’x15’ and takes up a whole room. We have four, and they provide all the electricity for our ship. When I heard this word passed, my heart sank. Fires are classified by a letter code—Alpha fires are your everyday fires, with wood or paper burning. Charlie fires are electrical fires. Both are fairly simple to contain most of the time. Bravo fires, however, are fires caused by fuel. For it to be a bravo fire, there had to be a fuel leak that caught on fire, meaning it is much tougher to put out.
Underway, this would be manageable. 200 people on a ship can fight a contained fire pretty easily. In port, about 140 of the 200 people are out on liberty at any given time. This meant that we were seriously undermanned to fight a large fuel fire. The ship has three repair lockers, where we get equipment to fight fires from. We dress into fire fighting gear there, and they serve as satellite vantage points to run the operation. Usually, an ensign is the locker officer, meaning he is in charge of running the locker of about 20 or 25 men. I have some experience in running a locker, but it was limited.
As I ran up the hatches I could tell that there was a fire burning. There was smoke everywhere and people were standing around, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, there was a chief there telling them to go to a repair locker. In a crisis, people fall into two groups. 90% of people freeze or freak out. They either don’t know what to do, or are so rushed with adrenaline that they can’t effectively do things to change the situation. The other 10% get very calm. They take a breath and figure out how to fix the crisis, and then get people to where they need to go. Officers are paid to be in that 10%.
I ran to repair three—I had to go up and around to avoid the smoke. Our main locker, repair five, is where the main fire team would go. It’s best equipped to fight the fire. Unfortunately, it is also right above the location of the fire. I knew we needed to get to another locker and that it would need an officer, so I went there to take control of the locker because I was the only other officer with repair locker experience on board. Some senior enlisted had already begun directing people, and we began having people get dressed out in fire fighting gear and sending investigators to the scene to get a handle on the extent of the damage. In a time of crisis, people take direction from leadership incredibly well. It’s a perfect example of the chain of command actually working. My job was to make sure that the repair efforts were running smoothly, as well as keep people calm, which was the hardest task. Some people were yelling phrases like, “Hurry! This is the real thing! Go, go!” A locker officer’s job is to calm them and direct people in a composed manner to ensure a quiet, quick, fire fighting effort. All of the normal political interactions that we normally have in a given day went out the window in the name of rank and position. It seemed like the chain of command was actually a comfort to people. It made sure that there was a structure to fix the problem.
As we were preparing to investigate the fire, the other repair locker had to evacuate because of the smoke in the area. They joined us to augment our manning. Thankfully, we have an installed firefighting system called Halon. It’s a gas that’s heavier than air, so when it’s discharged in the space, it suffocates the fire. It does the same to humans, though, so we can’t have people in the space after discharging Halon. We evacuated the diesel room and discharged Halon. The system worked like a charm, stopping the fire (except for a couple of hot spots) from spreading.
We spent about an hour and a half making sure that the space was fire-free and safe to enter without respiratory protection. Thankfully, nobody was injured in the incident. It really was a testament to our training and crew that the fire did not get out of control. They performed admirably and were manned and ready to fight the fire in under ten minutes. What started out as an easy duty day turned into the most eventful duty day in my time on board USS Thach. Hopefully, next duty day I can actually sit and sip on my coffee without bells and whistles interrupting my breakfast.
Yesterday started out as a typical duty day. I was sitting down in the morning and brewing a pot of coffee. As the water started to drip down into the pot, I heard a rapidly ringing bell, followed by the words, “Fire fire fire, class bravo fire in number two SSDG. Away repair lockers away—provide from repairs five and three.” Our SSDG is one of our Ship’s Service Diesel Generators. It’s about 15’x15’ and takes up a whole room. We have four, and they provide all the electricity for our ship. When I heard this word passed, my heart sank. Fires are classified by a letter code—Alpha fires are your everyday fires, with wood or paper burning. Charlie fires are electrical fires. Both are fairly simple to contain most of the time. Bravo fires, however, are fires caused by fuel. For it to be a bravo fire, there had to be a fuel leak that caught on fire, meaning it is much tougher to put out.
Underway, this would be manageable. 200 people on a ship can fight a contained fire pretty easily. In port, about 140 of the 200 people are out on liberty at any given time. This meant that we were seriously undermanned to fight a large fuel fire. The ship has three repair lockers, where we get equipment to fight fires from. We dress into fire fighting gear there, and they serve as satellite vantage points to run the operation. Usually, an ensign is the locker officer, meaning he is in charge of running the locker of about 20 or 25 men. I have some experience in running a locker, but it was limited.
As I ran up the hatches I could tell that there was a fire burning. There was smoke everywhere and people were standing around, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, there was a chief there telling them to go to a repair locker. In a crisis, people fall into two groups. 90% of people freeze or freak out. They either don’t know what to do, or are so rushed with adrenaline that they can’t effectively do things to change the situation. The other 10% get very calm. They take a breath and figure out how to fix the crisis, and then get people to where they need to go. Officers are paid to be in that 10%.
I ran to repair three—I had to go up and around to avoid the smoke. Our main locker, repair five, is where the main fire team would go. It’s best equipped to fight the fire. Unfortunately, it is also right above the location of the fire. I knew we needed to get to another locker and that it would need an officer, so I went there to take control of the locker because I was the only other officer with repair locker experience on board. Some senior enlisted had already begun directing people, and we began having people get dressed out in fire fighting gear and sending investigators to the scene to get a handle on the extent of the damage. In a time of crisis, people take direction from leadership incredibly well. It’s a perfect example of the chain of command actually working. My job was to make sure that the repair efforts were running smoothly, as well as keep people calm, which was the hardest task. Some people were yelling phrases like, “Hurry! This is the real thing! Go, go!” A locker officer’s job is to calm them and direct people in a composed manner to ensure a quiet, quick, fire fighting effort. All of the normal political interactions that we normally have in a given day went out the window in the name of rank and position. It seemed like the chain of command was actually a comfort to people. It made sure that there was a structure to fix the problem.
As we were preparing to investigate the fire, the other repair locker had to evacuate because of the smoke in the area. They joined us to augment our manning. Thankfully, we have an installed firefighting system called Halon. It’s a gas that’s heavier than air, so when it’s discharged in the space, it suffocates the fire. It does the same to humans, though, so we can’t have people in the space after discharging Halon. We evacuated the diesel room and discharged Halon. The system worked like a charm, stopping the fire (except for a couple of hot spots) from spreading.
We spent about an hour and a half making sure that the space was fire-free and safe to enter without respiratory protection. Thankfully, nobody was injured in the incident. It really was a testament to our training and crew that the fire did not get out of control. They performed admirably and were manned and ready to fight the fire in under ten minutes. What started out as an easy duty day turned into the most eventful duty day in my time on board USS Thach. Hopefully, next duty day I can actually sit and sip on my coffee without bells and whistles interrupting my breakfast.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Halfway Day
Well, 3 days ago marked the halfway day for deployment. Over the hump. It feels good, but it’s tough to know that we still have 90 days left (well, 87 now). These days in the middle of deployment are really the dog days of deployment—where you’re far enough away from home to be run down and tired, where you’re homesick but busy. All the while, you’re not close enough to coming home that you sense you’re almost there. It just kinda drags. I’m sure it’s how baseball players feel in the weeks after the All-Star break.
But we trudge on. It helps to have most of our in-port time during months 3 and 4 of our 6-month deployment. We have been underway for a few days to conduct some submarine exercises with the Chilean Navy, but after this week, we have an 18-day stretch with only 2 underway days. The variety helps things to move faster.
Prior to this underway time, we were moored in Concepcion, Chile for a week. There were lots of things to do in this city. South America seems to love casinos, because they’ve been in every port we’ve visited, much to the detriment of my bank account (except for last port, where I made up for it, thankfully). We were moored next to a small mountain, which I got to run up to the top of—a very cool (and tiring) experience. We had a wardroom social with officers on a Chilean Frigate. They proceeded to challenge us to chugging contests and drank us all into oblivion. Who knew Chileans could drink? It was very interesting to see their wardroom and ship and how similar it is to ours. Chileans had signs in English all over their ship. I asked why that was, seeing as their primary language was Spanish, and they told me that they were trained by the British Navy, hence the signs.
The weather is still cold, but it’s not as cold as it was down in the south of the continent. We’re transiting north at such a slow pace, that their winter is catching up with us faster than we are running away from it, so temperature differences haven’t been too noticeable. In about a month and a half, it will be back to ungodly heat. The temperature differences have thrown my body out of whack. I keep thinking it’s Christmastime soon, but I have to stop and remind myself that back home, it’s the middle of the summer. The warm weather will help with that problem.
Finally, a note about Concepcion’s mall: it rocked. Notably, they had two Dunkin’ Donuts (get it together, San Diego—Chile has more Dunkin’s in one mall than you do within a 500 mile radius) and Nuts 4 Nuts vendors everywhere. For anyone who’s been to NYC, they know Nuts 4 Nuts sell those hot honey roasted peanuts on street corners. They were everywhere here in Chile. They were a nice taste of home. Unfortunately, the Dunkin didn’t sell coffee. I know, I know… That’s like having a McDonalds without hamburgers, but it’s true. Just lattes, cappuccinos and donuts. But it was still good to see—I’ll take what I can get.
But we trudge on. It helps to have most of our in-port time during months 3 and 4 of our 6-month deployment. We have been underway for a few days to conduct some submarine exercises with the Chilean Navy, but after this week, we have an 18-day stretch with only 2 underway days. The variety helps things to move faster.
Prior to this underway time, we were moored in Concepcion, Chile for a week. There were lots of things to do in this city. South America seems to love casinos, because they’ve been in every port we’ve visited, much to the detriment of my bank account (except for last port, where I made up for it, thankfully). We were moored next to a small mountain, which I got to run up to the top of—a very cool (and tiring) experience. We had a wardroom social with officers on a Chilean Frigate. They proceeded to challenge us to chugging contests and drank us all into oblivion. Who knew Chileans could drink? It was very interesting to see their wardroom and ship and how similar it is to ours. Chileans had signs in English all over their ship. I asked why that was, seeing as their primary language was Spanish, and they told me that they were trained by the British Navy, hence the signs.
The weather is still cold, but it’s not as cold as it was down in the south of the continent. We’re transiting north at such a slow pace, that their winter is catching up with us faster than we are running away from it, so temperature differences haven’t been too noticeable. In about a month and a half, it will be back to ungodly heat. The temperature differences have thrown my body out of whack. I keep thinking it’s Christmastime soon, but I have to stop and remind myself that back home, it’s the middle of the summer. The warm weather will help with that problem.
Finally, a note about Concepcion’s mall: it rocked. Notably, they had two Dunkin’ Donuts (get it together, San Diego—Chile has more Dunkin’s in one mall than you do within a 500 mile radius) and Nuts 4 Nuts vendors everywhere. For anyone who’s been to NYC, they know Nuts 4 Nuts sell those hot honey roasted peanuts on street corners. They were everywhere here in Chile. They were a nice taste of home. Unfortunately, the Dunkin didn’t sell coffee. I know, I know… That’s like having a McDonalds without hamburgers, but it’s true. Just lattes, cappuccinos and donuts. But it was still good to see—I’ll take what I can get.
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