Why So Serious?

No this isn’t some post on why The Dark Night was a great movie; I just thought that as my last couple of post were pretty serious I would have some fun with this post.

Ok as you know I have about 4 months left in the deployment, well right around this time you’ve gotten use to being out at sea on a war fighting ship and all the stuff that comes along with that. At the same time you begin to dream of the day when some of the more annoying aspect of deployment life will be over. So I began to compile a list and here are a few. If anyone reading this has ever deployed in the Navy on a small boy they will feel the truth of this list.

So just begin each thing listed with the phrase “When I get home I won’t have to….”

1)Hear another freaking whistle (On the ship they blow a whistle over the ship wide speaker system as a signal for everything. It’s time to wake up, it’s time for breakfast, lunch, dinner, it’s time for flight quarters (flying the helicopter), it’s time for this, that, and the other. Always whistles blaring. And not a short little burst but long drawn out “really are you kidding me” whistles. They dig in your ear and rattle your brain until you want to scream)
2)Eat dinner at 4pm (I feel like a geriatric 65 year old cruising up on my hover-round for the blue light special. I can see it now I am going to get home after 7 months out at sea and be dying of starvation because its 5pm and we haven’t had dinner yet)
3)Dream about what carpet feels like (the floors (or decks) on the ship are all what you would normally find in your garage back home. You know that stuff you lay down like paint and then throw in those little plastic chip things in a nice little sporadic type pattern. And on top of it they are all sea blue in color. I mean are you kidding? Is this some kind of sick joke? Not only do we see the sea when we go outside, when we are inside the ship we get to feel like we are out in the ocean because of our beautiful floors. I mean I am all about some Navy pride but come on!!!
4)Take a shower with flip flops on (Yep that’s right, how many people have used that shower in the past week? How……yes all the other questions that come with that. And should you forget your shower shoes you are rewarded with some foot fungus you have never heard of. Oh the joys of community showers)
5)Care if I am showing a “White light topside” (Just before sunset the announcement goes out over the ship wide speaker system that we cannot show any white lights topside. What this means is that almost every light in the ship is switched to its red setting, so you feel like you are walking through a scene in a submarine movie (of course its always the Russians or Nazis who have the really red, sinister lights on). We do this because the red light is harder to be seen by other ships and it allows your eyes to adjust to night vision and be able to stay there.
6)Watch sporting events in 30 sec. burst (Yes the Navy was kind enough to think about the quality of life for their Sailors on deployment, so they put a satellite dish on the ship. The problem is that the Navy doesn’t care that much about quality of life, so they put the satellite dish in a place where you can only kinda get reception and that only if you are sailing in a specific direction. What this means is that you only see short burst of flowing reception and then it freezes and then another short burst of flowing reception and then more freezing. Tiger Woods with a 10ft put for birdie, there is the back swing and (Freeze)……now he is walking off the green. “Wait, did he make it?” and in a few weeks, USC’s quarterback Matt Barkley drops back for a pass (Freeze)……..and they are celebrating in the end zone 70 yards away. “What the crap happened?!?!?!?” And forget about watching the replay because the same thing happens, flow, freeze, flow………turn the ship……NO RECEPTION!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh the joys. At least there will be sea stories.

Josh