Today we kick off Episode 2 of the 7-part Guest Post series: Military Life: Two Perspectives
In case you missed the introduction to the series: Military Life: Two Perspectives with Leto and Avalune
Reminder: Leto & Avalune will available for real-time conversation about this post on 3/11. That’s this Wednesday around 7 pm.
Leto wrote a wonderful 4-page article, and excerpts are included in the post below.
Read today’s full article here. ~WG
Deployments are a Fact of Life for the Military
Deployments are a fact of life for the military. Pre 9/11, deployments were something you hoped you were able to do. Deployments mean traveling to remote lands, making a few extra bucks via incentive pays, and potentially putting your training into use.
In the post 9/11 military, deployments are a matter of routine. You will definitely be selected for a deployment. In the Air Force, deployments are another way to earning rank because you typically earn a medal at the end of one, and medals are used in the point tabulations for rank advancement. Also there’s the “every one is getting in on the action, so I better get in on it before it dries up” mentality that’s always affected young people.
A deployment is made up of a lot of different items. The pre-deployment items are rather nondescript/routine: being cleared via medical and dental that you’re able to deploy.
Training before Deployment
Another item that we brief members on (and I’m sure Avalune will have a host of talking points regarding) is ensuring that our members’ families are going to be ok with them gone. That ranges from the simple things like, “Can we cut your grass? We’re going to cut your grass. We’ll be over Tuesday even if you’re not home and your grass will be taken care of.” to the more serious issue of, “Does your spouse know how to balance a budget? Can they pay the bills while you’re gone?
Family Support
This is where we (leadership) step in. Because there’s nothing like getting a call from the spouse saying a collections agency is threating to turn off the electricity/water/repo the car because Airman Ding Dong hasn’t been paying the bills. So to head off that career ender, we have classes to help sort stuff like that.
On my side of things, I was a bit luckier that most in that I married a very smart woman who took care of all that even while I was home. It didn’t hurt that we made that arrangement before I went into the military (I worked, she did the budget), but as I look back on things it was also pretty darn smart. It freed me up to be able to focus on my job more effectively, which in essence is what we want for all of our people.
My Catch-All Field
I’ve spent close to a thousand days deployed, but I’ve never really done what I was trained to do. My career field (3D1X3) is a rather catch-all career field. We maintain radio systems that span from the mobile/tactical world (think of the movies where you see the radio guy with the radio on his back: I can fix that) to what we call heavy earth terminals, i.e. any big satellite dish you see (I can fix that), to whole host of communications systems that people don’t really realize we work on, but yet we do.
My First Deployment
My first deployment in 1999 was to al-Jaber Air Base, Kuwait, as a TCN watcher. A TCN is a Third Country National. When the DoD hires a company for, say, a construction project on a military base, that company in turn hires a subcontractor, who might also hire another subcontractor, who then in turn shows up with a work force of TCNs. These people are typically from very low-wage countries (East African, India, Pakistan, Djibouti for example) and they’re the main workforce that the subcontractor uses to build X.
In turn, we (the US) have to provide security to watch these people and that’s what I did. I was part of an 8-man team, 7 lower-enlisted and 1 NCO, and I spent the end of June through the first week of August watching people dig trenches for communications projects, bringing water onto base, and doing a whole host of dirty jobs that, in a just world, would definitely be worth more than about $40 a month.
Al-Jaber, at the time, was still an undeveloped base. That means that most of us lived in tents, would occasionally find a camel spider asking if we had a spare cig, and the heat was like nothing I can really describe. Most people talk about wet/humid heat or a dry heat… there comes a point where your brain is on fire and it’s just hot. Wet, dry… nope, it’s just fucking hot.
But that was a glorious deployment because, honestly, so little was expected of me.
My Most Dangerous Deployment
My third deployment was the longest, and also probably my most dangerous. I was “picked” for a 365-day deployment to Iraq. This was right as Gen. Petraeus was implementing his Surge campaign. I, along with 79 other AF personnel, was picked as part of the ILO program. ILO stands for In Lieu Of.
In, roughly, 2005 the Army went before Congress and basically said that the AF and Navy weren’t pulling their weight in Iraq. The Army was starting to deploy their people in 12- to 15-month stints, as well as starting to send some of those same people out for their third/fourth/fifth deployments.
The Army was basically asking for help, but in the most Army way possible. The AF and Navy, in true chicken-shit fashion, immediately rolled over, pissed on themselves, and gave up as many people as the Army needed. What that initially meant was that you had Air Force personnel, with basically no training, being door kickers on small-fire teams. As soon as the AF learned that’s what the Army was doing with its people, they freaked the hell out and actually stood up for us.
My Team on that Deployment
What my team, and the other 67 people going out to various places, did was logistics support. We were stationed at Kirkush Military Training Base, FOB Caldwell (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirkush_Military_Training_Base). Kirkush is the equivalent of Lackland Air Force Base: it’s where all the new Iraqi army soldiers go for basic training. My team provided support in the form of communications training, medical training, fuels support, and a variety of different things.
We also provided support to the various MiTT (Military Transition Teams) stationed there. Those teams were responsible for going “outside the wire” (they left the confines of the base) and trying to win the hearts and minds of the local populace. Sometimes they also engaged the enemy. One of those teams was led by Major Andrew Olmstead (http://www.andrewolmsted.com/). That’s how I eventually found Balloon Juice, but that’s for a different time.
Dangerous Deployments
This was the first deployment where my family actually understood the danger I was heading into. One of the hardest things I’ve had to do was tell my son that’s where I was going, and to have him ask me, repeatedly, couldn’t someone else go? I tried to explain to him that I couldn’t do that to someone else, that I couldn’t ask someone to go in my place. But explaining that to a 10-year-old isn’t the easiest thing to do.
My responsibilities on this deployment were more substantial. I was responsible for all the radio equipment that my team would use for everyday matters, as well as for when we had to convoy locations. On top of that, most of us did some cross training with each other’s career fields. We did this to help each other out, but also in case the worst should happen. Because if you leave your most critical functions to just one person, that’s just asking for disaster to happen.
My Last Deployment: Team Leader
I’m going to skip over my deployment to Afghanistan and talk about my last deployment to Al-Udeid, Qatar. This deployment was my second shortest at four months, but by this point in my career I was the leader of the team. I was the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge of the radio shop. I led 8 other Airmen in maintaining various equipment, as well as just doing whatever the commander asked us to do (gotta keep the boss happy!).
By this point it wasn’t so much just making sure that I was ok, that my family was ok, but ensuring that all of my guys were doing fine. All of the things that I mentioned at the beginning: lawn care, financials, how’s the family doing? It was my responsibility to make sure all of that was taken care of for my team.
Yes, I could’ve relied on their home station supervisor to ensure it was done, but fuck that noise. 1) It’s within my scope of responsibility to ensure everything is taken care of, and if it’s not I’m going to make sure that it’s fixed and 2) it shows your people that you care about them. If you take the time to show your care about your people, they typically return the favor by going the extra mile when you need it.
The supervisors that I respected the most always made sure Avalune and the kid were squared away. That everything back home was taken care of, so that I could focus on the job at hand. Some did it for purely selfish reasons, but others did it because they genuinely cared. And while I have selfish reasons (the job needs to get done), for the most part I genuinely care about my people. If makes for a more pleasant work environment, if nothing else.
In Conclusion…
I hope this sheds a bit of light on the deployment process. While long, it’s abbreviated. So whatever questions you may have, toss’ em my way and I’ll answer to the best of my ability. Hopefully some of our other vets will also chime in because I love hearing what they have to say. I hope Cole can regale us some more with stories about storming San Juan Hill and what a bastard Teddy was after his sixth drink. Or maybe that was Omnes’ story? I don’t remember. Either way, have at it!
WaterGirl
Leto and Avalune, just checking in, are you guys ready for questions?
evodevo
Thanks for this…my son is in the AF flying Dragon Ladies, so gets deployed to the ME and Korea a lot. His wife and my grandkids are left behind at Beale then, so it’s good to get an idea of what goes on behind the scenes….
Leto
@WaterGirl:
Our operators are standing by for your calls! Don’t be shy folks!
:)
JPL
Thank you so much for the article, and I wish local communities could do more to help.
Ruckus
The military has both changed and not changed in the last 50 yrs. The mission is different, the environment doesn’t seem to have changed significantly other than communications with home seem to be much better.
Leto
@evodevo: That’s cool! I definitely know his squadron and what he does. Funnily enough, my son is involved with his squadron (different career field that depends on your son’s squadron) so as always: it’s a small Air Force after all :)
Leto
@Ruckus: Pretty much. When I get a chance to swap stories with older vets, it’s kind of amazing how much of the same suck we all went through. It’s just the toys got better :)
Baud
Thanks for writing this.
SiubhanDuinne
That was a fascinating read, Leto. Thank you.
it does seem that structured support for families has improved considerably. And with improvements in communications technologies, staying in touch with stateside family and friends doesn’t seem as fraught as it once was.
Leto
@JPL: I will say that local communities are often a good source of help. But it also depends on which branch is there. There’s a reason Fayetteville, NC is known as “Fayette-nam”. Army bases tend to be rougher areas, as reflected by their people. Air Force tends to be the opposite.
It’s also a reflection of which states the bases are located in as to the support. South Carolina likes to pride itself as being all for vets (Republican think), but when it comes to support for vets it’s basically at the bottom of the list of states. Most of the extent of state “help” is that you can get a license plate for your car identifying that you’re a vet. Jeez, thanks.
But this also reflects the larger change in ways of thinking about the military. It’s a NIMBY situation. They generally like the military, but don’t want it here (with here being defined as anywhere close to them). Places that do want the military are typically places that have grown to be almost 100% dependent on the base as a place for good jobs and reliable local economic income/growth/development. I’m thinking of the Dakotas (pre-oil boom and most def post-oil boom) where the bases are the #2 employers in all the state, and also Sumter, SC, home to Shaw AFB. Sumter would disappear overnight if Shaw closed. So Sumter does everything it can, with the AF help, to ensure that the base stays there. For both good and bad.
But these are some of the issues that we as citizens need to tackle.
Baud
@Leto: Did you ever feel in personal danger?
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: Hey! My fellow PT buddy!
It has. Not saying it’s 100% perfect, or anywhere near that, but the military definitely realized that it had to support the families in order to keep their members. Not just productive, but keep them in the service. We use a lot of eye-roll catch phrases, but one of them is, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” Corny but true. And that really is something that affects members decisions to re-enlist or separate. If your family is miserable because of your work, and you have a choice about staying/going, what are you going to do?
This is something that evolved during my time in, and you saw a lot of the older generation be sort of confused by this. Mainly because, “It sucked for us, it’s part of service!” And you’d talk to their spouses and it was a lot of, “Yeah, it was rough, but we made it through!” But their was a generational/attitudinal shift. Family is important, and if you’re not going to take care of them, well I’m going to Lebron it to the civilian sector.
Avalune
Just checking in: I AM monitoring but also walking the dog and doing other things since this week is pretty much about the deployed and I’ll be talking about my side next week. ? (The dog who right now just got her walk and treat but is still fussing for some reason).
SiubhanDuinne
@Leto:
*waves at Leto with recovered arm*
JPL
@Avalune: OT I read today that if you have to self quarantine, you are not suppose to pet the dog. Good luck explaining that to the dog.
SiubhanDuinne
@Leto: I wonder, too, with so many more women deployed — often women with partners and kids at home — if some of the shift is gender-driven.
Yutsano
So much familiarity here…
When Dad would come home from going out to sea (he retired as a Master Chief) he wasn’t allowed to talk about exactly where he’d been. But subs don’t usually get exotic ports of call. I will say he’s probably happy he never has to see Diego Garcia again!
I have a friend going out on his first next month.
Leto
@Baud: In Iraq, yeah. Kirkush Military Training Base was broken up into different sectors. You had FOB (Forward Operating Base) Caldwell in one corner of the base and the building where we lived was about a quarter of a mile away. We had t-walls (large concrete barriers) surrounding our building, but we basically lived with all the Iraqi’s surrounding us. We had some special operation forces right behind us (we shared a wall), but in the event that the shyte hit the fan, we were to hunker down in our building and wait for the cavalry. We couldn’t go to the spec ops guys because they were going to batten the hatches and do the same.
The intel officers there suspected that at least a fourth to a third of all trainees there were actual insurgents getting training to then disappear and re-emerge later as people we’d fight. I liken this to the similar reporting that says that here in the states white supremists are doing the same.
Over time the general anxiety level went down but you could never really let your guard totally down. I trusted my Iraqi counterparts, the ones I spent a lot of time with because we had built personal relationships, but I did view most of the general training soldiers with suspicion. How warranted was that? I don’t know. But being in the middle of it you don’t really have time to reflect on that. You’re just trying to string as many good days together as you can until you can get your shit back on the helo to leave.
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: Haha, I can wave back now! It’s taken 18 months, but I can basically do it. I only realized how long it had been yesterday as I was talking to a new patient there at my PT place because they’d asked me how long it had been. It been a while, my man.
Waves!
Feathers
Thanks for this. Most informative.
Reminded me of a friend of my brother’s friends who served in the first gulf war. Said it was like spending a year in a Kmart parking lot on the outskirts of hell. This has always been my image of desert deployment ever since.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Used to be referred to as “same same” or “same ole same ole.” Things change less than they stay the same.
Also, I was stationed on a ship at Charleston, and I understand that the base is gone. Part of not actually being realistic to have a 600 ship navy. Part of the city not actually wanting the navy to be there. Liked the money it brought in but I doubt anything else.
I’d imagine that a deployment to a war zone was a lot different than a six month cruise to a not war zone. The biggest worry for some was not being thrown in jail in a foreign country. One guy that worked for me bought a lid and the seller turned him in. Country where it happened pot was not illegal but selling to a foreigner was. The consulate got involved and he was returned to the ship, never to be allowed to set foot in the country again. Which wouldn’t have been bad had we not stopped there a couple more times. BTW the seller got his pot back and kept the money. Fun times.
Avalune
@JPL: I don’t really see how I could do that. I know they can be carriers though and perpetuate the whole thing. I’m definitely more worried about Leto because the last time he didn’t feel well it was not pretty. (Not that it ever is but it was especially ugly but he’s a lot stronger now than he was then too.)
SiubhanDuinne
@Leto:
So great! I’m really happy for your progress!
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: Women being in leadership roles has changed us in many ways. Again, good and bad. I think this generation of women are more true to themselves. They don’t have to quite mold themselves in the, “I need to be like one of the guys to fit in/be accepted/be heard”. One of the best senior leaders I had, before she was in comm she worked on the flight line. She didn’t put up with shit, was super fucking smart, made good decisions, and generally took care of her people. But the stories she told about that environment in the late 80s/early 90s… JFC I can’t even imagine that. And she made sure that it wasn’t like that under her command. Because that’s a horrible fucking work environment for everyone and it drives people out. And right now we need every person we can get (to a point).
@Yutsano: Oh man, can’t even imagine sub life! Spam in a can! I never got to Diego, but I’m also not particularly heart broken about not getting to that dirt strip. Fleet deployments are so weird. Can’t really imagine being cooped up in a ship for months at a time, even with being able to get out on deck for regular vitamin D visits.
Villago Delenda Est
GEN Shinseki told the cretinous warmongers of the deserting coward assmalistration that there were not enough troops in the entire Army to include full time paperpushers and cooks to properly occupy Iraq.
He got fired for bringing reality to Dick Cheney’s fantasies.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: Winning battles is far different from occupying territory. Anyone who has been to OBC or first level NCOPD should know that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Ruckus:
When I was on TDY to Honduras in 1985, we had a satellite uplink to Fort Bragg. After duty hours, we had something called “mama calls” where deployed soldiers could call back to Bragg and then get connected to their own base to make a local call from their to the family. Needless to say, even with multichannel links, the demand was high. When an engineer battalion was deployed in Honduras to build some roads (excellent training, btw) for the locals, the demand doubled, and the stress was great. Newer technologies ease that up considerably. Considering that this wasn’t available to troops in Vietnam, it was quite the upgrade, but nothing compared to what’s available today.
Oh, and Leto, thanks for your very informative and interesting post here. Things have improved, in the 80’s we were just beginning to grasp how the new “family Army” was different than earlier iterations. Supporting families is really important, and devoting adequate resources to do that is key.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
In all the foreign ports I was in I never saw a sub. I did 2 NATO cruises and had some amazing shore time. Subs never saw any of that. I did once realize that I hadn’t been outside and seen the sun for almost 4 weeks once while at sea other than ship refueling. You get used to the routine and not having an outside world as a general rule. I imagine that communications with home, that really didn’t exist 50 yrs ago, would make a huge difference. Even the telephone wasn’t nearly the same. To make an overseas call you had to go to the telephone exchange and wait your turn for a line and operator to make the call for you, at dollars per minute. Real last century. Which of course it was.
Leto
@Feathers: haha, that’s a pretty apt description! I think that’s been one of the biggest changes, in how we support our deployed people. We try to make sure they have as many of the comforts of home as possible. But it’s not always possible and can lead to a rather different perspective on how you’ve served. Let me explain/give an example:
My base in Iraq was essentially my building, where we lived/worked, and FOB Caldwell, which was essentially just a small outpost. It had the dining facility (coupe of trailers put together), a gym (really nice), what we called the “hajii mart” which were three tents that these three specific local Iraqi’s ran that sold soda, Knick-nacks, and bootleg dvds for $2 a pop, a barbershop, and the Army command building. It was pretty bare bones.
Now compare that with one of the mega bases, such as Balad where our command/leadership was located. Think of it as a small city: it had 5 different dining facilities, with each one offering something different. Movie theaters. Gyms galor. At least 2 base exchanges (Wal-Marts for the military). I mean… yes, they’re housing a population at least 200x the size of ours but the first time I was able to rotate back to Balad, I had spent the past 7 months at my tiny speck of a place and coming back to this… opulence was just overwhelming. I spent a solid minute standing in the middle of the dining facility, gazing in disbelief at the 5 (FIVE) different chow lines for all different foods. My place had one line with three options, with a sandwich bar around the corner. I’d had the same, roughly, 7 meal choices for basically 7 months. And these motherfuckers were complaining about it being Mongolian day, again! THE HORROR!
And that also exposes some of the mentality within the military between the different services. When I tell Army vets that I’m AF, I do get the ribbing about Chair Force, 4-star hotel life, etc… and it’s good nature ribbing for the most part. But I also tell them that I’ve spent nearly half my career directly supporting the Army (speciality of my career field) and then list a lot of the shit places I’ve been. The internal response is, “oh, he’s one of us”. And when AF people talk about how hard they have it, I usually chip in with a, “yeah, well you haven’t been sleeping on a piece of plywood in sleeping bag for the past six months so shut your fucking yap”. Perspective, people.
SiubhanDuinne
@Avalune: I’m really looking forward to reading your perspective.
Maybe this is premature, but (a) the topic is so broadly interesting, on so many levels, and (2) you both write so well: have you thought of or would you consider co-authoring a book, with your separate long posts and perhaps incorporating some of the Q&A. I think there might be a market for such a book — plus, it would be fun! Also plus, lots of jackals would buy it!
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: “It’ll be quick and easy. They’ll welcome us with open arms!” Mf’er ><
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Then/now. Fantasies of the stupid and powerful. How do we put up with this shit?
Vets, what is the most used phrase you hear in whatever service you were in? I vote for “Fuck this shit!”
Frankensteinbeck
I’m sorry to go off topic, but I just saw some Israeli news. Do I understand correctly that all the right wing parties got 58 seats together, and there is no realistic way Netenyahu can form a coalition? Which means he’s going on trial any day now?
Avalune
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh that’s very kind of you! Let’s get through the next five weeks and then we can consider the status of our pending book tour lol!
I’ll check back in shortly – getting my hairs did!
WaterGirl
I just want to chime in for a minute with a reminder:
Leto & Avalune will available for another real-time conversation about this post on Wednesday 3/11 around 7 pm.
That’s this coming Wednesday.
You easily can get back to this post, or any post in the series, by clicking this link: Military Life: Two Perspectives with Leto and Avalune
The link is also in the sidebar under Featuring. (In the menu bar, aka hamburger on mobile.)
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: Do you remember this?
That time a soldier used a payphone to call back to the US to get artillery support in Grenada
I know sooooo much about this because 1) this is what I did for a living and 2) it directly led to the Joint Tactical Radio System, which is what I spent the latter half of my career working on/with, and which is responsible for just so much bullshit/personnel cutting. I mean, this is a whole separate rant I have tee’d up (a lot of my friends have heard me go on for hours about this) for another time.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ruckus: I heard, “Great idea, sir,” a lot. Does that count?
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
She of the street smarts :-)
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Autocorrect!
(manually corrected, thanks for the heads up)
Leto
@Ruckus:
Gotta tell you, something I learned later about the Navy (which validated my AF choice) was learning that the Navy planned/expected to lose X number of people each fleet deployment due to being thrown overboard and never found. I was like… wtf? I’ve had a few Navy friends confirm this and it’s just like… *mind blown gif!* AF expectation is you leave with X, you return with X. Also our operating environments are totally different, but still!
Yutsano
@Ruckus: Subs, especially nukes, can only dock at American bases. This is how my dad saw Japan and Australia but never New Zealand.
@Leto: The beauty of a sub is it’s really hard to fall overboard. It can happen but it’s a lot less common. Insatiable boredom and being stuffed in at tube with 100+ other men you can’t really get away from is another story. Dad had to manage a few of those personality conflicts, sometimes not in the best way…
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s what I’d say to my officers, above say O-5. O-4 was a more moderated response, with O-3 and down being complete candor. Extra candor for O-3*E and down.
*O-3E is the rank given to prior enlisted folk who made the transition to the officer ranks. Yes, we make sure to give them a scarlet letter for extra fun times.
Leto
@SiubhanDuinne: I laughed harder than expected at this. I will say that she has pretty good street smarts to back up the book smarts. She is a pretty smart cookie.
Ruckus
@Leto:
On board ship, food is the number one concern, because it makes all the difference in tolerating the routine and the not routine. Routine at sea is monotony personified. Day in, day out, same, same. Food is the one thing that you look forward to. When it’s bad it changes everything for the worse. We came very close to having a mutiny over the food. Lifers were discussing over powering the small arms locker and taking over the ship by force. One lifer actually saved the day by walking in the wardroom and discussing the food with the captain in a confrontational manner. It worked. It might not have.
In a war zone much would be routine, interrupted by moments of nothing like routine. Had a buddy on a sister ship that went to Vietnam. One of their missiles turned back on them and flew between the stacks, just missing hitting the ship. Here’s a picture of the ship I was stationed on, that armed missile few supersonic speed between the stacks of his ship.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
Sounds about the same to my ear, so yes.
Your milage may vary.
Ruckus
@Yutsano:
ADDED – I reread your comment, I see the word AMERICAN. Yeah that would make all the diff.
Rota, Spain. We did stop there once for, if I remember less than a day. The subs could and did dock as far as we were told but that was a separate part of the base. They may not have been ballistic, but attack subs.
Mnemosyne
@Ruckus:
I’m guessing that it’s one of those magical phrases like “I’ll pray for you” that has multiple meanings depending on tone. ??
Martin
@Yutsano: A lot harder now. My dad started out on a WWII diesel that was about to be decommissioned. He says its pretty fucking easy to go overboard on one of those.
The diesels needed to stay on the surface the majority fo the time, so they had manned watches – two guys on the sail. My dads boat spent most of its time in the north atlantic, so those two guys were clipped to the rail so they wouldn’t pitch over in 40′ seas. He said that manning watch in a storm like that, when it’s -20 out and you’re soaking wet and puking over the rail has always been a good place for his mind to go when shit was going bad. No matter what was happening, he knew he’d been through worse.
Mike in NC
A six month deployment to the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq conflict convinced me that I needed to find another profession.
Martin
@Ruckus: Pretty sure my dad was on the George Washington Carver (boomer) when he visited Rota.
Leto
@Ruckus: Regarding food: that’s hilarious because of how true it still is! For my Afghan deployment, we looked up the base we were headed to and found out it was rated, “Worst DFAC in the AOR”. Let me tell you, they did everything they could to live up to that reputation. First off it was a Belgian company called Supreme. Equivalent to KBR for Europe. Our third week there, me and my small staff of 4 walked into the dfac and we all kind of immediately noticed a bad smell. Smelled like sewage. Got up to the line and discovered that it was the rice that smelled like sewage. I immediately got the spaghetti (because I like rice, and I wanted to keep eating rice later in life) but two of my guys, who claimed to have “iron stomachs”, got the rice. We sat down and basically just watched them. One guy made it like two bites? The other finished about half of it before calling it quits. That was week three of an eight month deployment.
Good times. It did get better at the six month mark because KBR came in, built their own dfac, and started serving decent food. I didn’t eat there because FUCK KBR forever, but at least my people had a different option.
Martin
@Ruckus: My dad said the sub food was always a lot better than the surface ships because they knew a month under the waves with bad food would result in bloodshed.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Doing plane duty in the Med for the carrier America, we had to look for a crewman who was blown off the flight deck. He was never found, his glove and life jacket was. The flight deck was about 75 ft off the water. That’s a long fall, especially after being blown off by a jet engine. It was his fault, he failed to follow instructions of never, ever walk behind the planes, they will fire up/throttle up without warning.
We had a kid get knocked overboard by a wave as he was throwing out garbage. He caught the top lifeline and hung on and fortunately someone else walked out on deck and saw him and dragged him back on board. He said five more minutes or less was all he had in him to hang on. Extremely lucky he was.
It is, can be a very dangerous job. My job during refueling at sea was forward refueling connecting and maintaining the comm line to the ship refueling us. Two ships in open water about 100 ft apart, attached to each other by 2 steel cables, with 2, 10 in hoses full of JP5 pumping 20,000 gal in about 15 minutes while you stand within 10 feet of the coupling is not a safe work environment. Try it in winter with the temp around freezing. When shit hits the fan, it hits it hard.
Leto
@Yutsano: @Martin:
Check out these stunning photos of sailors swimming next to their nuclear submarine
27 Incredible Photos Of Life On A US Navy Submarine
US Navy sailors have one of the coolest job perks in the world (1 minute YouTube video)
Subsole
@Ruckus: Holy fuck! How did that happen?? One of the rudders get jammed or what?
Leto
@Mike in NC: I believe it!
@Ruckus: Yeah, I know how dangerous life on the deck of a carrier can be. General life on a ship is dangerous. You people are insane! :)
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
Ho-lee-shit!
Was the missile labeled “Acme”?
Ruckus
@Mnemosyne:
Tone and who you are speaking to. I’ve mentioned here that on my discharge the ship’s XO told me that I’d be back in the navy, my kind always came back. I told him I had a friend whose family owned a dairy with 5 facilities and each one had a lot of cows. Every one of those cows shit a lot, every day. And I’d work there till my dying day, shoveling cow shit rather than come back and work for people like him.
No swearing, no name calling just painting a picture he could understand. He was speechless, and I walked out and off the ship, and out of the navy. And have only looked back in joy that it was over. I served, I did my job well, my crew was decent, we managed 100% up time on all our gear, fully operational. That’s the job, that’s what I did, but there is always the nagging feeling that it wasn’t worth it at all. It got me the VA and I am and always will be thankful for that. Unless numbnuts manages to fuck me over by cutting the VA and SS, my lifelines. I have no idea what I’d do then.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Did 2 NATO north Atlantic cruises. In winter. Not as bad on a tin can as a diesel sub but not a picnic in the park either. Had a lot of fun coming back from the second one of those. Only about 5 of us on the ship didn’t get seasick.
Leto
@Ruckus:
Oh, so I’m not the only one. Honestly I know I’m not the only one as there’s whole genres of films/books devoted to that subject. But yeah.
Omnes Omnibus
On a general note, a platoon sergeant in my first battery, offered this advice: If you are married and are coming home form the field unexpectedly, do not go directly home. Stop at the battery HQ and call your spouse. Take a shower, change into a clean uniform, have a cup of coffee, and then go home. It lets you decompress, it lets your spouse get cleaned up (if they want), and it makes sure that you won’t walk in on a situation you don’t want to see. As Smoke said, “I trust my wife completely, but if I’m wrong, I don’t want to walk into a situation where someone ends up dead.” Senior NCOs aren’t cynical, but they are realists.
Leto
Hey everyone, just wanted to say thanks for coming out and asking some really good questions, or sharing your experiences. I’ve got some thing to take care of around the house so I’m heading now. If you still have a question you’d like answered, I’ll check in later and answer it. Also remember that this Wednesday, 11 March, Avalune and I will be here at 7pm answering questions about this topic. Her post about this, from the spouse’s perspective, will be up next Saturday.
And again, thanks to Water Girl for making this possible. Thank you WG! :)
Avalune
I kind of wish I’d chosen Avenue now but then I wouldn’t have the pleasure of watching people lose battles with the autocorrect on their devices.
Ruckus
@Subsole:
I have no idea, he had no idea. These missiles were supersonic before they left the rail, which was maybe 8 ft movement max so they move very rapidly. Also this was basically 50 yrs ago so the technology was not as advanced as today. And a lot of munitions were fired in Vietnam. So they were manufactured rapidly. Who knows if there was a fault or damage or just a crap missile or guidance system/radar malfunction?
Ruckus
@Leto:
You people are insane! :)
Why thank you!
Martin
@Leto: My dad got a nice fungus infection swimming off the boat in the caribbean.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
A very good point. Realism in the military is a very good idea, not as often seen as one might assume. I’d bet we all have stories……
Avalune
@WaterGirl: PS Your phone is still winning.
Martin
@Ruckus: My dad was up there with the chief once who went puking over the side. My dad described him as the kind of guy who was born there, who would do the most disgusting job on the boat just to show you how to do it right. But even he would lose it now and then. Made my dad feel a bit better.
He hated being in the Navy. Better than Vietnam, mind you. As much as he hated it, it really did have a big positive impact on him, though.
West of the Rockies
Thank you for your post, Leto.
I have a question. The 1,000 Yard Stare… Do you see it a lot? Does the military now have in place mental health people who can attempt to treat that sort of shock and horror? It sure seems like post-combat mental health treatment is one place where the VA is lacking. But I say that as someone who never served. I registered in ’80 but would have been 4F (I had glass sling-shot into my eye when I was 4 and after 3 surgeries, have terrible vision in that eye).
Martin
@Ruckus: Those missiles are amazing. 100g acceleration, so it’s remarkable they don’t just rip apart. They hit mach 1 in under a second.
The technical work behind the military is just incredible. Shame it needs to be used in the manner it is.
Ruckus
@Leto:
My VA clinic is the area VA hospital. It is not a military hospital, which I’ve been in 2 of. But all the patients are of course ex military, most of them are Vietnam era, with a very few WWII/Korea era vets left and with maybe 25% from the last 30 yrs. I’d say there are far more of them asking the question rather than not. From the hats and patches, missing limbs and wheelchairs I’d bet there are more than a few answers of no, it wasn’t worth it, but at least I’m alive. Part of that is that the VA is far better than it was just after I got out. I was in college with a girl who worked at the VA in research. I participated in one study then and so visited the VA even though I was not enrolled. She said it was crap and the general consensus seems to be she was absolutely right. The major change I heard about was when President Obama entered office and demanded better. And I’ve seen some degradation since shit for brains entered office. The medical staff is great, the support staff is great, the atmosphere is not toxic but it isn’t as good as it was. For those of us who have copays the VA no longer collects the money, some outside company does that and people lost jobs and it doesn’t work nearly as well, I’ve been over charged and charged for things like appointments that didn’t happen. It gets fixed but I still get billed, which I now have to check with a fine tooth comb.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Exactly my view, word for word.
It is a major time in your life, it envelopes you completely, no matter how hard you try to remain outside it. The military is every second of every day, you have really no choice, even if you enlisted, like everyone did in the navy, no one was drafted into the navy while I was in. Including me. Look at this post. I have stories, things are clear as a bell after almost 50 yrs. Faces, places, things that happened. I can still picture my rack, where I worked, the equipment, most of the people I worked with, food I ate, etc, etc, etc, etc.
It makes a lasting impression, like it or not, positive or not. And of course for me it wasn’t all bad, even if not much of it was good. And I’ve spent some real quality time with men who saw the face of combat up extremely close and personal and it changed them forever, some for the worse and some just changed, some hollowed out almost beyond belief. PTSD was real, even if we didn’t know what to call it then. Most of us aren’t made to kill people for little reason or any reason. And that haunts a lot, often more than one can measure. And I did carry a loaded weapon in port on duty and had orders to kill if necessary. That’s a burden I never wanted to have and am lucky that I never had to draw that weapon. But I doubt I’ll ever forget that.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I have a couple of pictures of those missiles being launched. 1000/second shutter speed. First I clicked the shutter when they said “Fire.” I got the flame out the back. Second I clicked the shutter when I heard “One.” I got most of the missile still on the rail. Not all of it. Fast does not describe it. MF fast does not describe it. Fast is not in the same ballpark as this. To this day it is amazing. I’ve watched a launch at Cape Canaveral and that is amazing because of the size. This is far faster accelerating.
Martin
@Ruckus: And it happens at the point in your life when those things really hit – young enough you’re still figuring things out in a big way, but old enough that real responsibility gets handed to you. That’s why college has the same feel about it.
Kent
It never occurred to me that this would be service-specific. But then thinking about it that makes sense. Over the years I’ve lived near Army bases (Fort Hood), Navy Bases (Everett, Corpus Christi), and joint AF/Army bases (Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage and Lewis-McChord in Tacoma)
Of all those places, Killeen, outside Fort Hood was the roughest and most trashy
Might also have something to do with the fact that Army bases tend to need really large acreages of land which tends to put them off in more remote backwoods parts of the country. While Navy bases need deep water ports that tend to be in populated areas. And air bases are distributed geographically to defend populated areas.
Leto
@Kent: Checking in, but the first time I saw this was my pre-deployment training at Ft Riley, Kansas. It was sort of stark in the just run down atmosphere of everything there. More pawn shops than I’ve seen anywhere else. I’m loathe to draw a correlation because it’s my own observation bias at work here, but I know it’s not just me. There’s a long standing culture there that has to be reworked.
Omnes Omnibus
@Leto: It’s true. Places like Altus, OK, are pretty awesome.
WaterGirl
@Avalune: Dammit!
Kent
@Leto: Perhaps it also has something to do with numbers as well. How many soldiers pass through the average Army base compared to airmen at the local Air Force Base? It seems like Army bases tend to be larger and fewer while Air Force bases tend to be smaller and more spread out.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I think that college is more what you make of it rather than what it makes of you, which is what the military does. I could see that for some people but I think the ratios are exactly the opposite. College is for most the first real time being treated as an adult, the military doesn’t really do that, especially at first. I saw some who didn’t seem to be phased by the service but many, many more who were deeply affected, some good, some not. And that was the opposite of college as well, at least in my experience.
Villago Delenda Est
@Leto: I do indeed remember that. I was a 25A, a signal corps officer, and like you, communications was my thing. Of course in the late 80’s as PCs and laptops proliferated, I became the HQ Computer guru. And of course being asked to fix coffee makers, because electricity was present. My comm chief (an E-6) was not happy about this, and muttered “fuckin’ grunts” barely under his breath.
Omnes Omnibus
@Villago Delenda Est: “Just make the fucking radios work. Also, why doesn’t the digital to the guns work? Voice works, but digital doesn’t. It can’t be that fucking hard.” Every FDO in the late 80’s to every SigO ever.
J R in WV
@Martin:
My money is on your dad getting that fungus from the head on his boat! I never swam off my sub-tender, not really possible, but I still have problems with foot fungus which I expect traveled on someone’s feet from Vietnam to my ship in FLA.
My ship was commissioned in the 1940s and served in the South Pacific supporting WW II diesel subs attacking the Imperial Japanese Navy and Japanese shipping in general. Then hauled troops home after Japan surrendered. It was of course rebuilt and upgraded over and over, including my last year on board, when it was refitted to support Fast Attack boats in the Med.
My nephew is LT jg on board a fast attack boat currently doing research support under the North Pole. He’s a nuke, and the only reason we can know where that boat is is because it’s a publicly known research mission. We aren’t close, I expect he will be a lifer, while I enlisted to avoid the draft, so more or less at the point of a gun. I always had a soft spot for guys in historical novels (or history books!) getting shanghaied into His Majesty’s Navy, having had that happen to me.
I was a bosun and so worked outside in the tropical sun, I am not a sun-worshipper, so avoided it as much as possible. My ship went from the yards in Mississippi to Sardenia in 1973 not long after I got out. Mississippi was terrible, but the duty station in Key West was pretty good. I learned to dive on the reefs around the island, learned to handle heavy cargo (torpedoes! and 90 foot small boats) with medium and large cranes and cargo booms, had some good friends, knew some enemies.
I did get GI Bill benefits, which led to a good career in IT software. So that was good. I enjoyed being at sea the few times we put out to sail, but of course a sub-tender is a barely mobile floating warehouse and repair facility, not a warship like destroyers and cruisers.
Wife and I were not a good fit in the military, as we both participated in the anti-war movement. While Raven was big on Fuck LBJ, I was always more Fuck Nixon, who was fearless leader when I was drafted. I worked hard, kept my head down, did the best job I could, got out and carried on a civilian life.
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
I’m really a Fuck LBJ and Fuck Nixon guy. LBJ got us heavily involved and Nixon of course lied his ass off about ending the war to get himself elected. But at least LBJ got Medicare done. Not a fair trade off but it’s better than GWB did.
I wonder if the country will ever enter post derangement era in my lifetime?
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: When a radio is designed with data never in mind, bad things can happen. Multichannel radios (like you found in a TRC-145) were designed to pass PCM (pulse code modulation) so did much better, but those systems were for brigade to higher comms, not inside a DivArty or an Arty Bde comms.
As cell phone technology has swept the military, I think passing data might be a bit easier now than it was when we were struggling with things.
sgrAstar
Leto, thank you (and Avalune) so much for doimg this! I am just enjoying it tremendously. Also, the comments by our BJ vets, Ruckus, JR in WV, Omnes, etc are adding fascinating detail. This is just really useful info for me as I try to understand the experience of our family’s recently enlisted Sailor.
?
texasdoc
@Kent: Air bases can be out in the boonies too–my dad was stationed at air bases in Presque Isle, Maine, and Rudyard, Michigan (south of Sault Ste. Marie on the UP). Since these were not large bases, they didn’t have their own schools. Sometimes the schools were good (Presque Isle) and sometimes atrocious (Rudyard). I acually ended up boarding with a family in Sault Ste. Marie during the week so I could complete high school there.
Avalune
I just finished my draft of Saturday’s post and boy I could write 10 posts on deployment easy!
Leto
I just finished Avalune’s upcoming post and man are you guys in for a treat! She def needs to write a book.
Leto
@Villago Delenda Est: Just wanted to follow up with this and say, yes, things have greatly improved since Thermopylae with regards to data transmission via radios. Take for example Link 16 with which I have quite a bit of experience. That’s not to mention the amount of data being passed in the field via systems like Blue Force Tracker (wiki that, it’s cool) and other TADIL systems. Basically if your radio can’t do data, we’re not using it. If you can’t connect it to a laptop to do imagery processing/intel sharing/etc… we’re not using it. Here’s the radio that basically the entire force is using, in one version or another: PRC-117 Again, really really cool shit packed into something the rough dimensions of an ipad.
WaterGirl
Leto, do you want me to just repost what I posted on Saturday in the new thread?
I tried to call but you didn’t pick up.
Avalune
@WaterGirl: Welcome to my life.
WaterGirl
@Avalune: Ha! Except he called me back just now!
eclare
@Leto: Cool pictures and video! I once met a woman married to a submariner. She said when he returned from deployment, he slept as if in a coffin, very compact, NO movement.
Avalune
@WaterGirl: That’s great, next time I can’t get him to answer the phone, I’ll call you. :-P
WaterGirl
@Avalune: Anyone who knows me will tell you that I’m a good share-er. :-)
Leto
@eclare: Wouldn’t doubt it; Navy submariners sleep in really small places because space is at such a premium. Also most of those sailors usually share a bunk with another sailor. I barely like sharing my crayons, never mind my bunk :P
WaterGirl
@Avalune: Plus, you do have seniority!
Yutsano
@Leto: Even the captain. There is very little luxury on a boat. And what little there is must also be silent. It’s crazy to outsiders but vital to the submariners.
Leto
@Yutsano: who does the captain hot bunk with? Thought he’d be one of the very few who wouldn’t (senior enlisted sailor, maybe also XO)?
“You need to make the bunk.”
”But you were just sleeping in it captain…”
”Have you ever seen the inside of a torpedo tube, son?”
Yutsano
@Leto: I meant the small sleeping quarters. True s/he* does get basically a suite, but it’s pretty small. You have to admit that would be sitcom levels of absurd if the CPT had to share with the XO!
*I don’t know if there have been any female sub captains yet.
Avalune
@WaterGirl: I find it interesting the Balloon Juice ads starting trying to sell me a snap divorce after this conversation.
WaterGirl
@Avalune: Seriously??? I guess you have noticed a few comments on the other thread?
Avalune
@WaterGirl: yes, seriously! It made me giggle.
yeah I was keeping an eye on both.