The Deckplates

Obviously as we all know Barack Obama has been selected as the next President of the United States, and with that he will be my new Commander-In-Chief.  Though there are mixed reviews about having him as our next President, no matter what I think or believe, I will carry out whatever he deems necessary and involves the military because I am an American serving in the Armed Forces, and I took the Oath of Enlistment stating “that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States.”

I do offer my congratulations on his achievement in becoming the next POTUS and the efforts put forth in order to gain the trust of the people of the United States to select him into office.  As a military member, I do not do my job based on race, religion, personal preference, but to complete the mission at hand, be it real or an exercise.  I do it because I don’t know when my Commander-In-Chief will call upon the Navy to carry out a real life mission, but at least I know I will be ready.

To those who refuse to accept Barack Obama as our new President, there is nothing you can do and will accept him like every President before him.  Those in the military who do not accept him, he is your new Commander-In-Chief and you will carry out his orders because you took the same Oath as I did.

Yes, I have my exact dates of arrival to not just to my next command, but to an intermediate stop in between for school.  I will be detaching this place and making a stop in Virginia for school for a good month.  As much as I dislike the east coast, I wont mind a month out there because I will at least get to see places like Washington DC.  Baseball season will also have already started so maybe a stop in Boston to see the Red Sox game.  At no point under my own free will would I ever go to Virginia, but since the Navy is making me go for a month, might as well make the best of it and go to places I would never want to make a living in.

I am going to another ship, but because I am coming from the FDNF, and only have a year of sea duty left for my rotation, I only will be at my command for a year.  Three months on board and I will already be up for orders and I will do my shore duty.  Still not sure what I plan on doing because I will only have a year left before my EAOS when I go to shore duty.  I plan on staying in California for shore, and if I do re-enlist, it would be for 3 years and only if they let me extend on shore for a year and do 4 years shore.  If that is a possibility, then when I complete my shore duty I will not go out to sea again and put in for separation.

We’ll see what the future has in store, but for now let the count down begin for when I leave this place!

I made it to the Philippines and was able to stay the whole time. Earlier this year we made a stop in the PI, but do to an emergency back home, I was flown out and though I had one day to enjoy it, I decided to stay on the boat. This time, all was well at home, and I had a blast, especially having a Filipino liberty buddy to get us to where the fun was at.

Also, I went to Hong Kong for the fourth and, I believe, the last time. Of the four times I’ve visited the HK, I never had a bad time and I will certainly miss going out there. Each time I visited there, I went out with a different group, and new memories were created. Will I ever take my own trip out there? I highly doubt it because the only thing that makes it great is being there with those who truly know how to appreciate it, and those people are Sailors. The best part of it is walking down the street and seeing your buddies holding hands with girls they just met and seeing there face light up with the “this isn’t what it seems” expression.

I am not sure whether or not these are my last port calls for this ship, but either way the ports I have visited were all enjoyable. There were two or three ports that you had to dig deep to have a good time, but I made the best of them.

Port Call List:
Hong Kong - 4 Times
Sasebo , JA - 3 Times
Guam - 2 Times
Pusan, ROK - 2 Times
Brisbane, Aus - 1 Time
Laem Chabang, Thailand - 1 Time
Manilla, PHI - 1 Time
Cebu, PHI - 1 Time
Chinhae, ROK - 1 Time
Saipan - 1 Time
Maizuru, JA - 1 Time
Kure, JA - 1 Time
Nagoya, JA - 1 Time
Okinawa, JA - 1 Time

I never realized it until making this list, but I have been to a lot of places, and for each one I can think of something memorable about it, even places I’ve been to more than once. Guess you never realize where you’ve been until you look back, and I will miss the good times I’ve had.  We’ll see where San Diego takes me to next.

I finally got orders, and they are to San Diego.  I will be detaching this command early next year and will be off to school, then to my new command.  When I received notification that I was denied orders, and asked if they denied all of my requests, I was told yes.  With that, I was requested to call to negotiate orders and I told them what I wanted, a ship in San Diego.  Only three ships were available and two of them were big decks, which I told myself in the beginning that I was going to stay away from those.  My last option was a small boy that I am used to and I got verbal approval of the offer.

Now I must wait for the paper copy to roll into message traffic so that I can figure out when and how I am going to get out of this place.  I have been out here for over 2 1/2 years and it got really old quick.  I guess as people left and new people rolled in, it was different adapting to however they did work.  I was really used to how things went in the beginning, and when a change of command occured, things just went crazy with their policies and way to  conduct business.  Now I am going to a new command and being in the FDNF, I am used to how I do business and going to a ship that spends a lot more time inport than I am used to.  The second we get underway I have high expectations only because that is what the FDNF has taught me.

I will do my best not to be that guy no one wants to work with because I want work to get done and will be an asshole to make sure it gets done, but the Navy is Navy, and I will bring the FDNF standards to San Diego, the useful ones anyways.  And, I don’t mind being corrected, especially being in an area where things are done completely different than what is expected in the FDNF.  Hopefully I will get Workcenter Supervisor and CSTT while I am there, since I am not getting it here.

I can finally be with my family again and spend a lot more time with my Dad like I used to.  I will definately miss Japan and the good times I had.  One thing I can expect is a lot of my friends from here will be in San Diego, so I won’t miss things too much.  I am ready to start over yet pick up where I left off! San Diego here I come!

I did not get orders again and for once I thought I would be a shoe in for something, considering I put in for five ships, all in San Diego. I blame Japan for this because the cost of sending a 2nd class to the states, especially because San Diego is not cheap, and though I chose to come to Japan, I requested to go to San Diego when the opportunity arose and it would have been for free, but I was told by the command I couldn’t.

I was told by the detailer to call to negotiate over the phone, but more than likely it will turn into me going to a carrier out of Norfolk and me hating the Navy even more. Because of the time difference and when I received the email, I have to wait until late in the evening or early in the morning to call. We’ll see what happens.

Well today is my birthday and I am now 22 years old.  Unfortunately I have duty, and because I really don’t care about this birthday, I thought I would write about the USS George Washington finally arriving in its new home port of Yokosuka, Japan and I have to say I was not surprised with what I saw.

I debated whether or not to head out to the Honch to have a few drinks with a buddy, as well as mingle in with the new crew that had just arrived.  After being out at sea for an exercise that I believed we shouldn’t have been involved in, a few drinks were in order.  Obviously I expected all of the places to be packed with sailors, new and old, after their long journey from Japan to San Diego back to Japan.  When I got out there, the streets were indeed crazy and the MAAs was in full force.  Because of all media attention towards the George Washington and Japan not being a fan of anything nuclear, everyone had to be on their best behavior and security was out to make sure it stayed that way.  To make it even more clearly to them how important a first impression was, no one was allowed to be on the streets past midnight if you were a GW sailor.  Of course, the drinking curfew was midnight for me; I was still able to stay on the streets so long as I didn’t have an alcoholic beverage in my hand.

Some of the things I noted when I was out there were, of course, all of the MAAs roaming to keep everyone on the up and up.  They even went after guys who were just sitting down because in Japan, if you pass out on the streets, you could wind up in jail and that is the last thing this crew needs for a first night.  They asked him if he was alright, and whether or not he had too much to drink.  He told them he was find, but they still recommended to him to head back to base just in case.

Of course with new sailors, comes the massage ladies that walk the street asking if you want a massage, though we all know there is another agenda that goes on behind closed curtains.  Those not familiar with Japan are asked by these ladies if they want a massage and a big smile goes across their face.  Some of them would actually walk up to these women and ask them about it, and I was laughing my ass off.  I was able to ward them off by holding out my cell phone acting as if I was texting someone.  It appeared to them that I wasn’t new to Japan and I know what happens during these massages.

I guess it isn’t very often that 3000 new people arrive in Japan at once, so when I saw that there were tour guides to the Honch, I was definitely surprised.  There would be a group of about twenty people and would say break off, ten going one way and ten going the other and meeting back at a certain time.  Apparently those who weren’t new to Japan didn’t explain that there isn’t much to really tour about in the Honch.  All it is are bars, clubs and a few food stands.  Maybe it is just me, but if I was on the GW and someone told me the Honch is where everyone goes to hang out and drink, I wouldn’t need a tour guide to show me the bars around.  I’ll just walk right in to a place and ask for a drink.  Some places, people would just look to see what is going on, and if they only see a few people they just proceed on and don’t even give the place a chance.  Believe it or not, it is nice to be able to drink some where and not have to worry about a million people crowding the place while I am just trying to relax with a beer.

Well, I haven’t heard of any wrongdoing out last night, so hopefully a good first impression was made.  There was no way RADM Wren was going to have one of his sailors mess it up for the first night and I believe he did a good job placing these measures to prevent anything that would bring discredit upon the Navy and the crew of the George Washington.  Congratulations on a good first night and with the weekend upon us, and the rules relaxed, let’s see how long the GW goes before an incident occurs.

I finally finished watching the T.V. mini-series Carrier.  From May to November 2005, the USS Nimitz went on deployment to the Gulf in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  With them came a camera crew from PBS that followed the crew around to see how life really was like in the Navy.  My review of it is mixed because sometimes through the documentary I was like, yeah that’s how life is and at points I felt that people conducted themselves in a manner to sugarcoat or exaggerate situations because it was going to be on T.V. I will do my best not to spoil the show for those who haven’t seen it.

When the USS Nimitz first gets underway, they had the crew man the rails. Not to say that manning the rails is not something a ship should do when it goes on a six month deployment to the Middle East, but I’ve asked a few people who have been on carriers and even at heated points in the war, none of them left port manning the rails. Then again, when I started watching the show, I nit picked at everything just to find something wrong.  I didn’t want it to give the wrong perspective of how things are conducted in the Navy.  Pulling into ports, though, I fully understand manning the rails.

It appears that to others who have watched the program that the CMC would appear to be Joe Navy. He was that squared away guy who went around making sure that everyone else was squared away. I did see the Joe Navy in him, but at the same time I thought he was micromanaging his crew. Whenever the camera was focusing on the CMC, it was because he was around asking people why they are jacked up, or asking the senior person why their people are jacked up. Each time he did this, it was preceded by the word “shipmate.” One scene that really caught my attention was when he found a Sailor in one of the spaces. He proceeded to call him shipmate and asked him what color liberty card he had. He told CMC that he was a white card. After that the CMC asked him his name then told him that he needs to square himself away and get his blue card.  He didn’t even know the guy and assumed he was jacked up, and for all we know the guy just checked aboard to the command and was doing something that he wasn’t familiar with, but appeard as if he was goofing around.  I understand that its crew is 5000+, but before you grill someone, you should at least find out who the Sailor is, then question them before accusing them guilty.  I wrote a previous post about the word Shipmate and he did a good job helping me justify why Sailors now a days don’t like being called one because they know where it leads to.

At first, I hated AN Garzone, now MC3(AW), because he came off as that guy who wanted the attention. He did this when he went around interviewing people appearing to be a reporter for the ship, with a microphone and all. Well I came to realize that it was part of his job in the Navy, so if I was in his field, I probably would be doing the same thing. Actually, I felt sad for him when his best friend, Phil with one L, got out of the Navy. That is indeed one of the biggest pains in the Navy, when you meet someone you can socialize with, and the next thing you know they are gone and no one understands references made because it was part of an inside joke. I’m sure he is doing fine now, because all we can do is move on, but we never forget.

AN Altice was probably the most interviewed person on the documentary because of his unique situation. Unfortunately, it does happen, and it has happened to me, as far as having a girlfriend back home who can’t handle their boyfriend who is gone for so long. About the thing that makes it so unique, well I am glad I did not have to go through that. Obviously it has happened to Sailors in the Navy and it is tough to deal with loved ones back home because they have to carry on without you there. They eventually become weak and scooped up by someone who is available. Hate to word it like that, but it does happen and being out at sea, there isn’t much one could do about that. If I was Altice though, I probably wouldn’t have taken it so mellow. With the cameras around, though, I would have restrained myself.

Overall though, from underway to port visits, and to mooring back up in North Island, I felt what everyone on the ship felt because I am in the Navy. It touched base with what does go on while we are out at sea. Unfortunately my situation is different because we aren’t out for 6 month deployments only to be in port for another 6 months. We go out for a few weeks, pull in for a week or two, go back out for a month, etc… I’m not saying what they do is much easier, but in comparison, the FDNF is a lot more challenging because those without families come back to port with no one waiting for them on the pier upon our arrival. None the less, I highly recommend this show for anyone who wants a taste of how the Navy life is.

I am in my fourth and last cycle for negotiating orders of where I want to transfer to after Japan.  This cycle there are absolutely no orders that I am willing to take because either the NEC is not what I want or the location is other than San Diego. 

Why these to things matter to me is because I already have the NEC 2735, Network Admin and I am good at it.  The only NECs listed for San Diego are for systems like GCCS-M or SNAP III, that do nothing but make me the SME in one area and gives everyone the excuse to pass work on to me.  I am not going to be the only one who knows how to fix GCCS everytime an OS can’t establish a connection or run backups for NTCSS for my whole tour.  I do still have sea time left, so no matter what I am going to a ship, but what I am trying to do is keep from getting the bullshit work that I know I would reporting to a new command  with these NECs.  I am content with the work I have already.

Also, I am from California and that is where my family is at. A few months ago there was a tragedy and I was no where around when it happened. I found out after it had already occured and had to wait three days before I could be flown back home. My family needs me now more than ever and San Diego is the closest place to home.

My options have been narrowed down to not selecting orders and see if they’ll give me an opportunty to get orders next month, or go IA.  I don’t think that anyone in my chain of command or detailer would approve of me not putting in for orders.  I’ve emailed my detailer about going IA to see if I can negotiate what I want for my return.  Hopefully we can work something out and I am back home with my family doing work I am already good at, because that is all I want

Well we are in Nagoya Japan for some more PR related BS that our ship likes to volunteer for. It has been a while since I have had a disappointing port visit, and this now resets the counter.

On the first day, no one was allowed to leave the ship until it was deemed clean for Japanese tourists that were scheduled to come aboard. The whole point of visiting here was to promote the Navy, and that we aren’t all bad. As a phone talker on the bridge for pulling in and out of ports, I get see everything that goes on when we pull in or out and this one had protesters waiting on the pier. Definitely a warm and welcoming arrival to Nagoya.

When we finally got out, the first thing any of us wanted to do was get cash and a chuhai. Apparently, no one had money and the closest bank was eleven train stops away in downtown Nagoya. Fortunately I decided against trading in my yen for baht in Thailand, and had plenty to spot my buddies. We got out there, found a bank teller, pulled what we needed, got our drinks and proceeded to get some grub at a near by Yoshinoya.

Full on food, we went out and wanted to find a bar to relax at and play some pool and darts. We found a place recommended on brochures that were handed out to us on the quarterdeck and it didn’t seem bad. The workers were polite and friendly when we got our table and drinks, drinks being a bit pricey. While we were drinking and playing the locals at pool and darts, one of my buddies noticed they did song requests. He asked one of the guys if they had AC/DC and he replied with “We don’t have your music here.” Shocked and appalled, we immediately hated the place, but because it was too late to find anywhere else, we had no choice but to stay, plus we had a cute waitress.

The next day, I didn’t get up until sometime past ten in the morning. Though the bar we were at was not as friendly as we thought, I still had a lot to drink to temporarily get rid of the thoughts of work and had a slight hangover. None the less, we now had a full day ahead of us for sightseeing and we did as much as we could. Actually, we walked around for hours only to visit the TV towers, but we got a good look of the city from the top. Once again night time rolled around and all we wanted was to get drinks and relax and maybe mingle with the locals. The second night consisted of going into bars that resided on third floors or higher and each time we got a look of shock at our presence. I think I’ve gotten down the places that Americans usually aren’t welcomed. About 90% of the places I have experienced that aren’t US friendly reside in bars that are higher than three floors up. I think they put the places up that high because Americans just want to walk into a bar, and not have to ride up three floors to have a good time. The second night a lot more disappointing than the first, we rolled out early and figured that we could probably get some good sleep before our next day for duty.

We will be back in Yokosuka soon, and I can finally get back to my bed that I have been dying to sleep in since we left Thailand. Once again I am in the state of mind that my life is going no where being in Japan. Some things that are headed my way are moving out of the barracks once again, though just a rumor at this point. It would make sense though because I will be getting paid next month. Also, I still am not under orders and my detailers are no help. We will also be going into the yards soon and I am one of the three that will be moving our LAN over to a barge and making sure it is working properly while we get our upgrade on the boat. As much as I am looking forward to this ship getting a LAN upgrade, I feel that I will get nothing out of it because my transfer date is shortly after the yards period. Maybe I’ll get a NAM, but it will be included in the End of Tour, but when I transfer, all I can say I got out of Japan was a few good ports and a lot of lessons learned. I got a lot of good training, and I will carry it over wherever I go next, but I feel I got it to take the load off other peoples shoulders. I’m sure in the next few days I’ll get a talking to about how I am doing and if things are alright but things deep down I can’t to anyone about it, except just a few friends from home who already know.

Just a few months left and I’ll finally be free of this place.

Since I decided to put the Plurk Widget on my site, I thought that I should blog about it as well. Plurk is a place to put your thoughts down, in under 140 characters, about what is on your mind aka microblogging. Another site known for this is Twitter, but this site was brought to my attention first and thus the better of the two, in my opinion. Though it doesn’t seem like much at first, it really isn’t a bad site to just stream bits of your thoughts here and there.

It’s a pretty good alternative to Myspace where you have a blog, which more than likely none of your friends read. Plus, when you sign up, you can either be a fan and view other peoples “plurks” without them having to see yours. If they view your profile, they will be able to see your plurks, and can decide if they want to be friends. Also, the more active you are, the higher your “Karma” goes which allows you to mess with features like display names and such. What ever your put down will be readable by everyone, unless specified private.

As much as I would like to blog about every little thing that goes on in my head, Plurk is nice to dabble a few thoughts here or there without having to write a whole story about it. But don’t worry, I shall continue to blog away when something sparks my interest and feel others should know about it.

Thailand was one of the best port visits I have ever been on. It will never be better than Australia because Thailand is for vacationers and Australia is more of a place to make a living, in my opinion. None the less, it was an awesome port visit and I had a blast.

The area we pulled into was Laem Chabang and isn’t far from Pattaya Beach, which a lot of sailors are familiar with when coming to Thailand. There was a bus that took everyone to the main area of Pattaya and ships are usually anchored out and ride a boat into Pattaya, but we were lucky enough to moor up. The bus ride was about 30 minutes, but left at the top of the hour every hour. So if you missed the bus, you had to wait an hour for the next one to roll out, unless the bus filled up.

The first night was a bit rough because I didn’t get off the boat until sometime after six and didn’t arrive in Pattaya until 8:30. Also I dropped my ID card sometime after I pulled out cash because as we were walking away I noticed it wasn’t in my wallet. I told the guys I was with and freaked a bit cause I thought I’d ruined my time in Thailand. I was able to find it lying on the ground next to the bank teller and continued on with the night. We were able to find a club and dance and impersonate the waitresses by wearing there ID tags. It was a decent first night. More…

Every sailor goes through them, and dreads them. The Division In The Spotlight program is an event where the Commanding Officer does an inspection of an entire division from a from cleanliness to properly managed programs like RPPO and mentorship. It’s a time when everyone’s heads are cut off and you are running around trying to find it because a light bulb is out or that corner of the space is cluttered and plugs aren’t safety checked. The biggest portion of DITS is the zone inspection where the CO walks through all of your spaces and tells you what is wrong. My division just went through ours, and for the third time, it was just as painful as the first.

My first DITS with this command was a complete disaster. It was the last one my division had with our current CO before he turned over a few months after. Weeks and days leading up to our DITS consisted of hours of cleaning, chipping, grinding, and painting followed by replacement of items such as light bulbs or missing tempest caps. The biggest hit we probably took was the mulch room. It was pretty much the storage room for all the crap we moved out of Radio and other spaces we owned, and tossed in there to prepare for the zone inspection. What was even worse was that the day of the zone inspection our mulch room was so full of junk it was in no condition to be inspected and at the last second, I was tossing things to the side just to clear a path to walk through because there is a fan intake room inside as well, and is also inspected. The second the CO walked in, all I heard was a yell “Oh Shit!” I couldn’t help but chuckle because I knew what he was yelling about, but my LCPO knew the fate of that room and what the reaction was going to be.

The last DITS we had with our new CO was still not good. Our mulch room was definitely a turn around in that you could see the deck, but there was still junk in there that we’ve collected and haven’t gotten around to tossing. Plus, this was a new CO, but then again a first impression is always remembered and there was no doubt that however we did, the next inspection would have to have improvements or it would seem to him that the division doesn’t care about raising its standards and its material condition is completely unsat. With an unsat material condition, it reduces the ships ability to do it’s job and when that happens, it all falls on the CO and he wasn’t going to have that.

The inspection did go a lot better than the first, and the hits were pretty evenly spread out through our spaces, but none the less as a CO, it is his or her duty to find everything and anything wrong. If a CO goes through a space and says it’s good, then the division in charge gets into a relaxed mode and eventually the ships is unable to complete an INSURV and is declared “Unfit for Operation”.

This DITS, compared to the previous two, weren’t as bad because everyone knew what had to be done. Unlike the first two, we didn’t have to juggle our jobs while trying to get ready. We were able to prioritize our time to cleaning, painting, entering in jobs for work we can’t do ourselves and need outside assistance. In fact, this was the most prepared we have been for a DITS since I’ve been here and was confident in that we were going to make it through without feeling like we didn’t do enough. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case and we got cut at the legs for things we could have taken care of and didn’t. Our spaces were indeed a lot cleaner than before, deckplates and all, but there were some areas that weren’t taken into account because either we couldn’t reach it, or thought we couldn’t reach it and get it cleaned. We took our common sense hits and in the end we knew we didn’t do enough to get a better outcome.

At the end of the inspection, our Divo told us that we did a hell of a job, though we didn’t feel like it. He said that it is the CO’s job to find these hits or else we’ll just toss them to the side, forget about them and will eventually bite us in the ass, but more importantly bite the CO’s ass. He told us that you have to know your inspector, and since officers are around the CO all the time, they have a better idea of what to expect and better understanding of his comments and reactions. One thing he said was that when our CO is really upset with something, he’ll pull either the Divo or LCPO aside and tell them one on one about something that could have been corrected. That didn’t happen once during this inspection, or so I was told, and it made me feel better.

I still believe there was a lot we could have done, but overall the effort our division put in to getting discrepancies corrected was outstanding. I just hope that with what little time I have left, another DITS is unable to be fit into it.

I am seriously pissed at the way the Navy is handing where I want to go next.  I have less than 8 months at this command and am in the process of choosing new orders.  The only place I want to go is San Diego, because that is where my family is and the only place I feel comfortable going.  I can’t do another overseas tour because I didn’t apply for COT and did it on purpose because of how shitty the Navy treats those who serve overseas, especially Japan.

Last detailing cycle I put in for a squadron out of North Island; it was the only set of  orders I applied for so if I didn’t get them, I wouldn’t get orders and would have to wait another week to apply and another month to view the results.  I obviously didn’t get the orders and was told by my detailer that San Diego was a hot billet.  He advised me to broaden my range of where I wanted to go and I did.

The next cycle I put down for three ships: USS Bonhomme Richard, USS Gridley, and USS Benfold, one of which is an amphib, and the other two destroyers, all in San Diego.  I figured that it would be almost impossible not to get any of those orders since they are all ships.  Majority of the time those who are looking for orders try to find  orders that are easy as hell, but I decided that I wanted San Diego bad enough that I would put down for nothing but ships.  Would you know that two of them were given to someone else and the last one said NOSELECTED which is a big “fuck you” to my face.

I don’t understand why I am unable to obtain orders to San Diego because I’ve done what they wanted from a first termer.  I am a second class petty officer and I have my ESWS, all on my first tour in the FDNF and before I hit my 3 year mark in the Navy.  If anything, I’ve gone above and beyond the  Navy’s expectations for a first term sailor.  I emailed my detailer already because he didn’t give me any reasons as to why I wasn’t selected for anything again.  I plan to call him up as well to get a verbal response and maybe some advice to get San Diego orders.

Now I have to wait another week to apply again, hoping that something decent pops up.  I also plan to call my detailer to see what I actually have a chance at getting and hope that whatever he says yes to I actually get.  I have a bad feeling that the Navy is trying to force my hand to take an IA tour which I don’t want to do.  I don’t mind heading to the desert, but I want to do it by ship,  not by plane

Thought you were in trouble didn’t you?  That is the thought for a lot of sailors who are out in the fleet.  When you are walking down a passage way, and from behind you hear the word “shipmate”, more than likely you will think you’ve done something wrong, or those who are out in the fleet will think that.  Those who have not yet reached the fleet, and are either in DEP or in boot camp are unaware of the context shipmate is used out here.  Those in DEP hear the word shipmate from your recruiters meaning “Welcome to Our Navy”, while in boot camp you hear those words from your RDCs meaning “You are now a sailor,” when you complete battle stations and receive your Navy ball cap.  Out in the fleet, it has come to mean “You are jacked up.”

Somehow the Navy has let the word shipmate turn negative, and I believe that to be true.  Actually, the first time I heard it used in a negative context was when I reached A school and by the Chiefs.  If you were talking in the passage way, forgot to take off your cover indoors, or caught falling asleep in class, the word shipmate came from his mouth followed by “why are you jacked up?”  It wasn’t the term itself, but the tone of voice it was used in.  The majority of the time it was in a yelling manner and no one wanted to hear it.

From A school to this ship, it is still used the same way.  Many sailors consider it a curse word and feel disrespected when being called a shipmate because of how it was used to them and others.  I have a buddy in particular who tells me to fuck off every time I call him it.  It has got to the point that I do it to piss him off. More…

So I had all of my gear on the ship and made my way up to radio to grab my Ipod out of my backpack. When I walked into the shop, I was told by one of the first classes, who was on duty, that I was able to keep my barracks room. My response, “I just finished moving all my stuff out of the barracks.” Obviously not everyone first impression of good news, but I was still confused on the whole situation.

The person simply known as Mike left a comment on my previous post, Moving To The Ship, telling me that I should talk to the CMC about it, which I did. He is the head honcho in charge of the Homeport Ashore program, and is the one who gave the order to move the E-5s out of the barracks. Apparently I wasn’t the only one who talked to him. Usually after the frocking ceremony, he sends out his email telling all divisions to have there E-5s who live in the barracks move out, but this time he looked at who had rooms and how much space was available. He saw that he had plenty of room available even if those who advanced remained, and made the decision to keep us there. He did an all E-5 call today to explain his decision in doing this, and obviously those who advanced last cycle weren’t as lucky as this cycle.

At the all E -5 call today, the CMC made a good point. There is the right thing to do, and follow the Homeport Ashore instruction that says E-5s are to leave the barracks after being frocked, and there is the leadership thing to do, which was to see if leaving the newly E-5s in the barracks would affect those who were eligible for a barracks room and an E-4 and below.