last ensign mike bulletin, on veterans day

It’s been a while since we heard from my friend Ensign Mike, but that’s my fault, not his. He actually docked in San Diego not too long ago, so help join me in welcoming him HOME! And as today is Veterans Day in the US and Remembrance Day elsewhere, I think it’s fitting to post the final update on his voyage. I promised seasickness, a change in route, and the news from Bahrain, but Mike also sent photos from the Panama Canal, so you get that too. Plus zombies. *grin*

Do you get seasick?

Monday and Tuesday sucked. Those seas were crappy. I felt like garbage. We had twelve-foot seas hitting us on the beam (from the side). When you’ve been out to sea for a while, you notice that you body reacts differently depending on how the seas are. In other words, they aren’t the same. For example, for a while we were going against the seas, so we were only bouncing up and down. Twelve-foot seas are not that bad if the period is long. However, they do give me headaches. Five-foot seas, but with a short period make me want to throw up even though they’re not that high. Beam seas, when we’re more rolling from side to side as opposed to up and down also suck for me. They screw up my digestion something fierce. *prepare for TMI* It’s a strange feeling. In my stomach it feels like I have diarrhea, but it actually makes me constipated. It’s really weird. The seas were more like the first type, but they went on for so long that I got all three of those symptoms. The Indian Ocean sucks. Never go there. Believe me!

So do you notice the waves more because you’re on a small ship?

We do notice the waves more than on a big ship. The same waves that have us “walking on bulkheads (navy for walls)” are barely even felt on carriers. My ship displaces 4,100 tons. Carriers displace 100,000 tons. Huge difference. It’s prolly an even smoother ride in a carrier than in a car.

Are zombies freaky?

To me, no. ‘Cause I know they only exist in movies, which never scare me, so mostly when I see zombie scenes in movies I’m like “really now?”

Your ship has its own website?!

Yup, we have a web site. Every ship has one. Some are better than others. I forget how ours is. When I was researching ships I had to look at a lot of them. Mostly the bios of the CO and XO…

How’s life in general?

For me, deployment is getting easier because my life has reduced down to eat, sleep, work out, stand watch, and study. Working out is pretty new to that list. It’s really sad, but for the first 6 weeks or so of deployment, I hadn’t worked out at all. I’ve been pretty good about workin out these last two weeks, except the last few days have been kinda hectic getting ready to pull in to port. (We’re finally here in Bahrain, btw. Yesterday was my first day on land since late June.) I had been kind of letting myself get fat and nasty during deployment, but I told myself, “hmmm, this has got to stop.” So I decided a couple things. 1. I will now work out at least three or four times a week. 2. I will only eat two meals a day. 3. I will only drink soda if I need the caffeine, and even then only diet coke. *prepare for TMI* 4. I will shower at least five times a week. If you think your hygiene gets bad in college, its even worse on a ship. You’re prolly now thinking “Eww, he is disgusting.” But different rules apply onboard ship.

Working out has kind of become both my coping mechanism for stress and my alone time which an introverted person like myself needs a lot of (I realized/remembered how aloof I really am these last few days). It has taken me a while to find adequate replacements for those two things when you’re on a ship that’s only so big. Back in college I would just chill in my room and rock out to my ipod and think for hours at a time. Which would go over well on a ship. [note sarcasm]

Can you share more photos?

This is a picture of us in the Panama Canal. Would you believe that there is a webcam for you to watch ships go through?

The locomotive looking things on the tracks are called mules. They pull the ship through the locks. You can see the lines that are rigged from the ship to the mules in the photos.

It takes only took about 10 minutes to flood the locks. I was surprised at how fast it was. I could visually see ourselves rising, it was that fast.

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I want to end by PUBLICLY congratulating Ensign Mike for passing an important qualification, Combat Information Center Watch Officer. He sent me his designation letter, and I had to quote from point number 3, because it was that awesome:

“This qualification requires nothing less than eternal vigilance, constant preparedness, and continuous foresightedness.”

Happy Veterans Day, and happy homecoming, Mike!

sea rescues and other naval excitement

My friend Ensign Mike is out cruising on a naval frigate somewhere in the Eastern Hemisphere, and we communicate weekly by email. I introduced him in a blog entry and posted subsequent updates here and here. Today’s dispatch includes medical trauma, the morale of food, why Thailand is awesome, and sea rescues. Plus, for the first time EVER, current tour PHOTOS. Don’t tell anyone, but the pictures I’ve posted before were lifted from social networking and other various interweb sites. These ones, however, came through direct email from the man himself. Be amazed!

On medical ‘experiences’ and other joys of military healthcare:

I don’t have a blog, but if I did I would have posted about two days ago. The military absolutely freakin loves to give us shots. And that is what they did to me on Wednesday. Two of them. Now, I HATE needles. With a passion that burns inside of me. I used to pass out when I got shots, but I thought I was over that. I was wrong. I passed out. TWICE. Seriously. I passed out, woke up, and then passed out again. Maybe it woulda been okay if it was like a flu shot and a Tetanus shot. But oh no, it wasn’t! For someone who doesn’t like needles, getting stuck with SMALLPOX and ANTHRAX is a little overwhelming.

On food:

(coffee) I’ve been told that I should try and cut out coffee since it makes you dehydrated and were going to the Persian Gulf at the hottest part of the year. As in 120F hot. Yeahhh. But sometimes you just need it, ya know?

(random daily menu) In case you were interested this is what we’re having today...Brunch/lunch: turkey pot pie, BLTs, carrot slices, tater tots, strawberry shortcake (yay!), and knickerbocker soup (I dunno what that last one is supposed to be). Dinner: grilled steak, BBQ chicken, potato salad, baked beans, chips.

This photo is of the vacant mess (dining) area - it's pretty small, and everything's bolted down.

You wouldn’t believe how much good food can do for morale. Last week we had the best lunch menu EVER. Crab legs, steak, fries, baked beans, and the best fresh baked rolls you’ll ever taste! Freakin amazing! Unfortunately I had watch next, so I wouldn’t have had time to properly break in to some crab legs, so I had just the steak instead. Oh the memories!

Why Thailand is awesome:

So the Thailand recap. We were there for four days. I’m in duty section 3 of 3, so I only had one day of duty (technically. I’ll explain later.)

Day 1: Thailand is *the* place to get cheap suits, so me and some of the guys got fitted for custom tailored suits. Some of the guys dropped huge cash in there, buying multiple suits, blazers, shirts, but I only got one suit and tie. Then we went to the tourist part of [insert port city here] and got some food and walked around. We ended up going to see a Thai boxing event. It was cool, but it was a little weird seeing really young kids, like eight years old, fighting for money. Apparently I was the only one who felt this way.

One of the busy city streets in daytime.

Day 2: More walking around. Ate at a Mexican restaurant (Why would I eat Mexican food in Thailand? I don’t know.) Really chill. The guy I was hanging out with is really not wild and crazy, even more so than me. (We have to go out with a liberty buddy or we don’t go out. It’s been really hard to find someone exactly at my social level.) So just hanging out. Outside the pier, there was like a marketish thing with booze, food, and souvenirs. I don’t know if it’s always there or just when ships pull in. There were four other US Navy ships there at the same time. I bought some souvenirs and called it a night.

Day 3: Duty. Couldn’t really leave the ship, but I was able to go down to the pier and by some chicken on a stick and some fried rice.

Day 4: Was gonna go out again, however one of the pieces of equipment I own got serious messed up so I was there until 5pm fixing it. Liberty expired at 2359 for everyone cause the next morning we were leaving so I didn’t have time to go in to town.

The next day we left. I got to drive us out. They let me do this one cause it was relatively easy and I’m still new.

Just your average day…

I forgot to mention on one of those days with really bad seas we kinda rescued a small fishing boat in distress about 100 miles or so from Sri Lanka. We got out the helo and air lifted them out and on to the ship.

The helicopter conducting the sea rescue.

So...excitement, eh? That’s it for this Ensign Mike post. Coming next time: seasickness, a change in route, and the news from Bahrain.

daily life, on a frigate

I introduced my friend Mike the naval ensign, and continued featuring him in this post. Today’s entry carries on with my questions and his answers about life aboard the USS X, a frigate cruising somewhere in the Persian Gulf. The conversation is copy-and-pasted from our email exchanges.

Is there air conditioning at all?

There is AC. In fact we keep the ship super super cold. One, AC removes the salt and humidity from the air, which slows rusting. Two, the ship would smell something awful. Three, we have a lot of electronic equipment like radars and computers that generate a lot of heat, and would almost literally melt if not cooled.

Describe your quarters in detail. How big of a room is it? Do you share with lots of people (and if so, do any of them snore?)? What furniture do you have? What color is everything? Where do you keep your personal effects? How far away is the nearest bathroom?

The room I live in fits twelve people, although only nine live here at the moment. Our racks (navy for “bed”) are small: imagine sleeping in a coffin, only slightly smaller. About seven feet long, by three feet wide by maybe two feet high. So with my head on my pillow, I have about five or six inches of clearance. There is a blue curtain on one side to block out the light, and there are two straps that I can fasten to keep me from rolling out of the bed. The floor is blue, our racks are grayish… My bed is on a hinge so I can lift it up and I have compartments where I can put stuff. I also have a small locker, like the ones from high school… There is a “head” (navy for “bathroom”) just about ten feet away. Even though I am an officer, I don’t have a nice stateroom. We have way too many officers, so I actually live in the overflow berthing next to the enlisted guys. It’s easier to just use that one than go up a ladder (“navy” for stairs) and down the hall. So I share a head with about 90 other people. Four sinks, two urinals, three stalls, three showers.

Do you guys see wildlife, or are you too far out in the middle of nowhere for that?

I’ve seen about six birds. And two hundred Homo sapiens. That’s it. There is nothing out here at all.

I assume you get shore leave in [insert Asian port city here]? What's the first thing you do when you get off the ship?

Seriously… I’ll get to go ashore for two days. The last night I have duty. I don’t know what I’ll do when I get off. Some people wanna scuba dive and snorkel but that’s not me. Others just wanted to get terribly schwasted. I just wanna chill, find a nice bar and just hang out. Also, I generally like the other officers on the ship, however most are people that I would never hang out with outside of the ship. Maybe one is my type as far as friends go. Not that I’m choosing friends. Some are just too old, some are just too crazy party-wise, others are just too culturally different from me. And [port city] isn’t so much a “let’s go crazy and party port” but more like “lets relax on the beach.” Now our next port is, and that place I’ve heard is completely bananas. I’ve heard there is a Costco, so I’ll need to buy some snacks, maybe some new boots (mine suck), an iPod charger, energy drinks, etc…

When I sent Mike the transcript of my first blog post, I asked if there were any issues with it. He said:

I’d prefer you not put the name of the ship. In case I have any potential stalkers, lol. But it’s more of an OPSEC thing (Operational Security). In other words, even with family and friends I can’t be too specific about where we’re going and what we’re doing, even routine stuff. Especially with random people reading your blog. Like you may have noticed instead of saying “we’re pulling in to Jacksonville on July 1st and we’ll be there for five days until we leave for Pensacola,” I’m like “We pull in to Jacksonville in a couple weeks and we’ll be there for a couple days before we leave again. That first one would give you a ton of information about where we are, what we’re doing etc. Not that I think you’re a spy or anything. ;)

He also explained that his work had changed:

Now we’re in 3 watch sections. So instead of 5 on, 15 off, we’re 5 on, 10 off. So not including all of the other work I have to do, I’m automatically working almost 70 hours a week. Then when you add on studying, briefs, divisional work, paper work, special evolutions (evolution is the navy word for event) like UNREPS it’s even more. Right now I’m prolly sleeping more than I should (about 7 hours a day), but once I get completely used to the pace of deployment I’ll prolly be working anywhere from about 17-19 hour days.

I’m starting to handle more of the paperwork/administrative part of the division too. The actual AUXO knows he’s getting out in 2 years so he doesn’t really care all that much, so he’s really chill. So I’ve been picking up a lot of the slack lately. Which is cool with me. I don’t really mind cuz if I were the AUXO on any other ship I would prolly have to do everything by myself anyway. Although I would have a stateroom instead of living overflow so it would be easier to get the additional work done.

Next time with Ensign Mike: medical trauma, the morale of food, why Thailand is awesome, and sea rescues.

steel beach picnics and other glories of naval vessels

I introduced you to Mike, my naval ensign friend, in this post. I’m continuing with tidbits from our emails leading up to the Fourth of July here.

What will you do for Independence Day?

Fourth of July should be fun. A Navy ship is a cool place to spend the holiday. We had what we call a “steel beach picnic” on the ship on Sunday. We’ll prolly have one of those for the Fourth.

What is a steel beach picnic, exactly? What do you eat at an event like that?

A steel beach picnic is basically where we put the grill out on the flight deck and barbeque. Chicken, steak, burgers, Cokes, etc. Just like a regular barbeque. The name is just a little bit facetious since we are obviously nowhere near a nice beach.

Do you wear your uniforms?

We wear civvies (civilian clothes). Shorts, tee shirts, sandals, that sort of thing.

Photo of Family Day aboard the USS X, where they set up food like they would for a steel beach picnic.

Is there room to play touch football on deck?

There were a few games. For $0.25 each you could buy golf balls and we had a tee so you could shoot into the ocean. There was also the game where you toss bean bags to score points depending on whether you landed on the board or in the hole. I forget the name [It’s called corn-hole, I think]. The flight deck is pretty big, enough to fit a helicopter, but no, we weren’t playing football. It wouldn’t be allowed anyway. It’s such an unnecessary risk of having someone fall overboard. If we were on a carrier though, the hangar would be plenty big. And some people were playing cards and chess. We had movies too. I think we get them free to show on the ship. Right now they’re playing Beerfest. At lunch it was Ocean’s 11. A couple days ago after I got off watch I saw Gran Torino…

What card games are most popular? Poker, spades, pinochle?

I actually just got an email today about a dominoes tournament on the ship. But I only see the enlisted guys playing card games though. Normally I would not be allowed to just sit down and play cards with some random 19 year-old enlisted sailor because I am an officer. That would prolly be considered “unduly familiar.” The official term is called fraternization, which encompasses so much, I can’t explain to you in just one email, or even several. You can Google “fraternization” and “navy” or “military” and I’m sure you would get a million hits.

UPDATE (7/20): Well as it turns out, its okay for me to play cards on the mess decks with enlisted sailors. And I did a couple times last week.

How much clothing/personal effects do most of the crew bring along? And are you allowed personal computers and electronics, or is that all provided and public?

We don’t have that much space to store stuff. A few jeans/pants and five or six shirts is about all of the room for civvies that we have. Of course we also have underclothes, hygiene stuff, ipods, laptops, movies etc. Some guys bring an Xbox or PS2. I bought a new ipod so I could put enough music to last me six months on it since I can’t get new music for a while. I brought a couple Spanish and Portuguese books too so I don’t completely lose my knowledge of them. There are computers scattered around the ship. Since I am an officer, I have more of them at my disposal.

Coming Soon: description of living quarters, an update on duties, and why I cannot tell you the real name of the USS X (stay tuned, or else)!

introducing my friend the ensign

Meet Mike, my military friend. We met in Gainesville (circa 2007) when we had Portuguese class together during my stint at UF. He has since graduated and is serving aboard a Naval vessel based in San Diego. His ship is out cruising right now somewhere in the Indian Ocean. He can’t access most internet sites and doesn’t get snail mail very often, so we’ve been emailing every couple of days. I also send him my blog updates for news and humor.

Mike with friends last summer, aboard a Brazilian ship.

[He's the dude in the middle]

He’s been answering my questions about life on board from the start, and I thought they’d make interesting reading for a broader audience. I’ve decided to post once in a while with my questions and his answers. These are a mix from our first few emails. Enjoy!

What kind of boat/ship/submersible are you on? Does it have a name?

My ship is the USS X [not its real name obviously, but he asked me not to mention it for security purposes], stationed in San Diego. It’s a frigate. Frigates are kind of like the Geo Metros of ships. Old, slow, they don’t do much, and they have old equipment, they get laughed at. We don’t even have missiles, except on our two helicopters. But for me the most important thing was to have a small crew. Our crew is just over 200, as opposed to destroyers and cruisers, with crews around 400. Did I mention they are falling apart? Frigates were built during the Cold War to be cheap, versatile ships that could hunt Russian subs. They were only intended to last 10 years. My ship was built in 1984. It is the year 2009. It should still be in service until the year 2015. Do the math. Everything is old, and everything constantly breaks. But I knew what I was getting into, and I don’t at all regret my decision to be on this ship.

What is good about a small crew? You said the bigger boats have 400...what's great about 200 instead?

Actually some ships have way more. Amphibs have over 1000. Carriers about 5000. I just prefer a smaller, close knit crew over a big one. What’s the point of going all over the world seeing exotic places when there’s no one you wanna hang out with? That’s one of the things I didn’t like about UF. Way too big…

What do your duties look like?

I have two main responsibilities. First is standing watch. Somebody’s gotta be awake to watch the ship, right? We have five watches 0200-0700, 0700-1200,1200-1700,-1700-2200, and 2200-0200. We have four watches, so that means we go backwards through the order. Earlier today I had 0200-0700 (or the Reveille Watch), tonight I’ll have the Mid Watch (2200-0200). Right now I’m standing watch on the bridge, which means I help drive the ship. Later I’ll rotate down to Combat, where I’ll help key an eye on other possibly hostile surface, subsurface, and air contacts.

My other responsibility is being a Division Officer (DIVO). I’m the Assistant Auxilaries Officer (AAUXO). It’s kind of a made up job. There are so many Ensigns (my rank) that they had to make up things for us to do. In my case, they just gave one Division and extra DIVO. The actual AUXO has been in the Navy for two years, so he actually understands more of what’s going on and handles most of the Divisional Work, like paperwork and makin sure parts get ordered. Little by little I’m learning what I have to do for this part of my job.

Where are you going?

We are going to the Persian Gulf as I said earlier. I don’t think I can tell you exactly what we are doing, though I do know. But I’m not quite sure where in the region we will be going, although I do know that we are scheduled to make a couple port calls in Bahrain.

What's the best thing so far?

The best part of the job so far is going outside in the middle of the night, breathing the fresh, unpolluted air, and being able to see thousands and thousands of stars.