After two months of boots on ground, I have completed my Expeditionary Warfare Specialist qualification.  I started the second I arrived out here and feel good to know that I’ve finished.  Unfortunately a lot of those who had the qualification here already have left the last few days so the command is low on qualified personnel.  Now that I am qualified, I can help out those to get their qual to beef up the qualified list so we don’t stay low for too long.

What makes this qualification more special is that it won’t be around forever, and will only get harder to obtain as the years go by and begin moving out of the countries.  I have no idea when we will finally get out of here, besides what the papers have said, but either way the program will only get more limited as time goes and commands shut down.

Now that I have this qualification, not only am I salty having my ESWS pin, but I have gotten myself sandy as well with my EXW pin.

No, I am not MIA/POW, nor am I UA. With that, I am also no longer in San Diego, for the time being anyways.  That is right; I am currently TAD out to the Middle East.  I am not going to say where and what I am doing for OPSEC purposes, but an IT was needed and I was qualified to fill the position.  I am in a safe area though, and feel confident that no attacks are going to affect me while I am here.  Have there been some attacks? Yes, but nowhere near I am currently at.  Don’t worry, though, I have not become complacent in that nothing will ever happen.  Every drive, I am always looking out to make sure nothing happens to me or those I am with.

Though I am not in San Diego like I wanted to, I did mention before that going out here would be an option for me.  I didn’t mention, though, that the ship I currently am attached to is in the yards for re-modernization to keep it going for many more years and that being IA would have been a better career move since my ship is just sitting in the yards for the good portion of the year billet I am filling.  Had I not gone IA, yeah, I would have been WCS, CSTT and other such things a 2nd class does when one arrives to a new command.  I can say that the billet I am filling out here is normally filled by an E-6 or E-7, so I definitely am gaining some experience points doing this.  Plus, the command I am at has the Expeditionary Warfare (EXW) program going and I am almost finished with that.  Not only will my chest say I am salty, but I was sandy as well.

I will be back to my command next year, but only for three more months to finish up my sea time and move on to shore duty.  That’s right, I am in my orders window once again and just like last time, I am not getting anything.  Well, I have only selected for once cycle so far, but for the three billets I put in for, I didn’t get anything.  This cycle has hit an all time low, though, because there are not IT2 billets for San Diego.  As much as I would love to stay in San Diego, I can’t just sit out a cycle, so I put in for orders on the East Coast.  Don’t worry; I didn’t put anything in for Virginia because any IT will tell you that those billets won’t get you anywhere.

Hopefully I won’t wait as long as I did to put up a new post.

It appears that the new LPO in my division has some tendencies that I remember quite a bit from USS Last Ship.  Though I’ve been in a school for a few weeks, I really haven’t had much exposure to the fairly new IT1, but from what I hear throughout the division is an unanimous vote that no one likes the LPO.  To go a bit further, the ship is getting the same feeling as the ITs and I am certainly not happy with this.  Here are a few examples of some of the things that have gone on in the division since I’ve been out.

Scenario 1: Two of the ITSNs are giving training to the fresh new seaman who just arrived a few days ago.  Obviously they want him up to speed on what things he will need to know to be better at his job because like all motivated seamen, they just don’t want to sit to the side and play the “I don’t know” card.  IT1 strolls down and sees what is going on, but still asks what they were doing.  The seamen explain that they are showing the new IT how to properly terminate an ethernet cable.  Well, the IT1 didn’t like this because the new IT needed to attend the safety PO meeting.  From my understanding, safety PO is the job of an E-5 and usually one who has been at the command a while, not a 3 day old ITSN who has barely gotten his feet wet.  Well, the seamen can’t do anything but listen to what the IT1 says, so they ask if the IT1 can do the cable so that the seamen can carry on doing other tasks for the day.  Unfortunately, the IT1 didn’t have her wire manual available and couldn’t do it.  Maybe it was left in her paint coveralls?

Scenario 2: A shipmate from another division was having issues with his email and was unable to open up his outlook.  He dropped by the ADP office, being the closer location than the server room, and asked one of the ITs to see if they could assist.  The IT1 wasn’t happy about that because the ADP office isn’t the proper location for assistance with trouble calls.   It just so happened, though, that one of the leading ADP ITs was in the space and offered to assist with the issue.  The IT1 rejected that offer and repeated that all trouble calls must be dealt with in the server room then proceeded to kick the person out of the space.  I know where I won’t be if I don’t want to deal with trouble calls.

Scenario 3:  Apparently too many people are viewing non-DoD related websites.  I’ve definitely had my fair share of viewing non-DoD websites.  Well, the IT1 doesn’t like this and tasks the ITs with blocking just about every non-.mil website the world has to offer.  Okay, a bit of an exaggeration, but sites such as yahoo, msn were blocked.  Obviously, websites such as social networking and personal email sites must be blocked due to lack of security, but search engines and other websites that assist in bill pay?  Well, her understanding that these are DoD computers for DoD use only.  From where she came, which was shore duty, this is the norm.  Unfortunately, when it comes to underway time and this is still enforced, I really hope she doesn’t have a car or house payment because it’s going to do a lot of good to not being able to access those bill paying websites.

From everything I’ve heard with the new LPO, I’ve been missing out on a lot.  A lot of people are taking a disliking to her and I feel very sorry because when it comes time for us to back her up, I see very little eagerness from the ITs to help out.  It’s already getting to a point where the ITs know that it won’t be until after 1600 that they will leave for the day.  What I remember about that from the last ship was nothing got done until the last half of the day because we all knew when we were leaving and there was no real change in that.  It’s starting to happen here and I don’t want this to happen.  When I return from my school, I really hope she is understanding when I talk to her about this because I won’t be here for too much longer and when I come back, I don’t know what the shop will be like.  I have my ideas and they revert back to Japan and that is something I really don’t want to see.

Well, I am aboard my new ship in San Diego. It certainly has been some time since I’ve written a post about myself and what I have been up to.  The last month has been pretty hectic being on my new ship, and the two months prior to that, not really much going on to write about.  When I left Japan, I mentioned that I would be on leave, then to GCCS school before I arrived.  Now that I am here, and been on board my new ship for a little over a month, I can elaborate on how things are here and how they compare to how it was in Japan.

First is the GCCS school, which I did in Virginia Beach, VA prior to arriving here.  The class wasn’t all that bad and I learned a whole lot that I took for granted when I was on my last ship.  Obviously without this school, it is a bit more difficult to comprehend what was going on, but I can say I could have done a bit more to learn the system while I was there and help out as much as I could before I rolled out.  It wasn’t a difficult class, and the system itself can run smooth, but from my memory in Japan, the main problem lied with the user more than the administrator, and that was confirmed when I took the class.  My ship doesn’t have the upgraded version for what I went to school for, but I already know that no matter how smooth the upgrade goes here, it is up to the users to be able to use the system properly and that a reboot isn’t always the answer, though in some cases it could possibly be.

So I’ve been in San Diego now for a month, and comparing ship to ship, where I am now is a whole lot better than where I was before, but as far as where I was at, Japan was the greatest place ever and I miss it like crazy.  I get along with my chain of command a whole lot better, and the op-tempo is a whole lot more relaxed, but I miss getting off of work, heading outside of the main gate and rolling into the Honch.  Here, you have to drive to get to where you want to go, or taxi, and unless you can walk to your residence, you have to cab it.  Like anywhere, DUIs are career killers, and unfortunately, are a lot more common in the states.

I did get to experience a very brief underway with the ship to Seal Beach, but I did demonstrate my tech control abilities and surprisingly enough was accepted amongst the crew.  My division lacks in experience when it comes to tech control, and since before I left Japan, I made sure I knew as much about tech control that I could take some of the load for the guys.  The first day I checked on board, everyone referred to me as the tech control guy; I guess it really was that bad.  Maybe because being of being out at sea so much, the ADP guys had more opportunities to learn the tech control side.  Too bad I can’t say the same for the tech control guys learning ADP while in port.  Also, with the exception of my Chief, no one had been stationed in the FDNF, so when we get off by 3, complaints of being let out late come up.  Oh, if they only knew.  My Chief and I just shake our heads and chuckle.

The biggest thing that I’ve honestly been missing is being out to sea.  My ship is currently in the yards and won’t get out to sea until towards the end of the year for sea trials.  I hate to admit this, but being out at sea at least gave me a purpose of doing my job, and just sitting in the yards doesn’t do much for me.  What worries me the most is my tech control knowledge, and how much of it I will remember when I go out to sea.  Some of the equipment in the shop I hadn’t had a chance to learn as far as tech control goes and I want to get my hands on them, but can’t while in dry dock.  Never thought I’d see myself saying how much I miss being out at sea.  Guess you just get used to it.

Well, I have bigger news for my  next blog, but didn’t want to reveal it just yet, but when I get close to finishing up paperwork for what I am doing next, I’ll be sure to give the full spill.

Hope people still read my blog since it’s been so long since I’ve written anything.

I am officially on my last month here. I have my TIS completed, my itinerary in hand, and I am ready to roll. Unfortunately my CoC doesn’t realize that I am ready to get out of here. I am still getting the taskings that would be given to someone who will be around for a while. I am not saying that I should not be doing anything at all, but at least less big stuff and more mediocre, bull shit jobs like cleaning. I will clean everything for days until I leave, but it’s not going to fly.

I still have collateral’s that I haven’t turned over completely, mainly because we are underway and all the new people are on the mid-watch and all the senior people on days. When I say new, I’m not talking about seamen, I mean people who just checked in who will be here for a while.  Well, I can’t say that we don’t have one new person on the day watch, because we do have one new person, but I don’t believe that person is motivated enough to take in the information and move on with it.   The others, I would sit with them for hours to go over the things I know because I know they appear motivated to know their job.   Those who have been here for some time, well they already have enough work for themselves and giving those more to do will hurt more than do good.

I am currently on my last underway with this ship and my flight isn’t until after the ship gets underway again.  That means I will be staying at TPU for a few days and don’t have to worry about going to the ship every night.  Also, I get to miss out on 2 certifications that will go on just after I leave.  I did both of them when I first got here and they were a pain in the ass then, and they are already a pain in the ass now.

I am still very nervous about going to my new command.  I am excited that I am leaving this place, but to beat a dead horse, I really am going to miss the people that I’ve known that I won’t be able to hang out with anymore, unless they get orders to San Diego.  It will definitely feel weird walking through being the stranger of the ship.  I will once again be the new guy of the ship, but I think things will be a bit better coming in as an E-5 vice E-2 like I did when I first got here.  Plus, I got my pin, and I am going to another ship of the same class, so I won’t have to requal.

What awaits on the other side of the Pacific Ocean will be a major change for me, though I am from Southern California area.  It won’t take long for me to adapt, and I hope it comes quick.  The last thing I want to do is sulk because of the fact that I am gone.  Leaving Japan will take some time to get used to, but leaving this ship, not so much!

I now have less than 3 months left aboard and I am anticipating the day when I can finally check off this ship for good. Though I have had a rough time while here, I know that leaving I have experienced a lot of great things and accomplished a lot being an IT.

At the end of March I will be transferring out of Yokosuka, Japan and will be heading home to Buena Park, California for 30 days of R&R.  From there, I will be heading down to Virginia Beach, Virginia for a 26 day school for a system I dreaded since the day I heard of it.  Originally I was to go to GCCS-M 3.x and take leave, but my orders were modified and I will be going for 4.x.  Those who don’t know what the X stands for, it is for Xtra Shitty – Thanks Pip for the run down!  The upside of this is that I will be near New Jersey for Bamboozle.  Bayside will be playing there and when I saw them in February last year, it blew my mind and couldn’t wait to see them again.  I get my chance in May, so Jersey here I come!  After that, I will head down to San Diego for my ultimate duty station and be there for just over a year.  I will be able to drive and live in a house, things will be looking up for me back in the great state of California.  Since I will be there for only a year, months after reporting I will be in my window once again to decide where I go next.  This time I will be eligible for shore duty which means no going out to sea for me!

Re-enlistment sounds like an option at this point because how shitty the economy is so might as well stay here with guaranteed job security.  The debate I have is where to go next?  Two options have rolled through my mind; stay in San Diego for shore duty or go back to Yokosuka and get to enjoy everyday knowing that I won’t be going out to sea!  I’ve mentioned this plan to one person already and they were not very happy with that.  I know that I have protested how much I miss my family being out here, but I think my anger was mainly directed towards the ship and people I see and work with everyday.  The schedule is pretty shitty too, but when we get ports, I rarely have a disappointing time, but going around in circles for at least a week, I think we can do better with our time like enjoy it in one of the neighboring countries.  I understand that we have a mission, but doing exercises over and over again does get overdrawn and probably makes things worse for us in the end.  Everyone is capable of defending the ship and our country if it ever came to that, but breaks in between do help build the morale of the crew and makes us want to do a better job at it knowing the rewards accompanying it.  If passing an inspection meant Thailand, you know I’d put my blood and sweat into it.  That doesn’t happen though because just before a port visit, and exercise slips in and it is crucial that we participate so we know what we are doing, so why bother.

Can’t believe it is my turn in line to roll out from this ship.  With all the BMD missions, the carrier and dual carrier operations and to top it off, and complete network upgrade, I think I’ve done pretty well for myself by not blowing my brains out being here.  When it is all said and done, I know I’ll miss this place, not so much the people but definitely Japan.

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.

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.

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…

What was just another Japanese port visit turned into an actually exciting time in Kure; well at least I had a pretty good time out here. Unfortunately, a lot of people on the boat didn’t make the best of it and either stayed in local Kure or went to the bars in Hiroshima.

The picture shown is what was the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, now known as the Genbaku Dome, or A-Bomb Dome located in Peace Park in Hiroshima. It was the closest building to withstand the blast, only 150 meters away from the Hypocenter. It has been left in its entirety as a reminder of what happened August 6th, 1945 and in hope to one day abolish all nuclear weapons. I took a tour of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and what I saw was unbelievable. Though very graphic, it emphasizes the effects of nuclear weapons from clothing, homes and but importantly, the human body. It definitely was a slap in the face view of what could happen if a nuclear event ever happens again. Even worse, the amount of power from Little Boy is nothing compared to what is being used today. In all seriousness, the fact that the city was able to recover from everything that had happened, the Japanese that survived are truly a remarkable people. More…

Reports came out not too long ago about a stabbing, but in my opinion a massacre, in the Akihabara district of Tokyo, Japan. The total of deaths from the incident is confirmed at seven with 10 wounded. It was reported that this man was suffering from depression and was “tired of life.”

From the article

TOKYO – A man plowed into shoppers with a truck Sunday and then stabbed 17 people within minutes, killing at least seven of them in a grisly attack that shocked a country known for its low crime rate.

The lunchtime violence in the Akihabara district, a popular electronics and video game area, sent thousands of people fleeing.

The assault, which occurred on the seventh anniversary of a mass stabbing at a Japanese elementary school, was the latest in a series of knife attacks that have stoked fears of rising violent crime in Japan. More…

According to the BBC, the UK has a new ID card in the works. Though this isn’t new or recent, what is recent is as to what information is to be put on there as far as being able to identify a person. As far as the US goes, we have state drivers license and ID cards already. The difference between what we have and what the UK wants is putting privacy information such as fingerprints and to go as far as eye scans. This would be the “National Identity Scheme” and would be the official form of ID in the country.

From the article:

The committee said it accepted the government’s assurance that the scheme would not be used as a surveillance tool.

However, “we seek the further assurance that any initiative to broaden the scope of the scheme will only be proposed after consulting the information commissioner and on the basis that proposals will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny in draft form,” it said.

Committee chairman Keith Vaz said there could be “potentially disastrous consequences” if data was mishandled. More…