Submarine Navy, 20 years & 3 months. Retiring as an E-6. 20 Strategic (underwater) Patrols, plus a few other deployments.
USS Maine (SSBN 741 Blue Crew)April 2000 through January 2005 (9 Patrols & 3-5 workups beating the crew of the USS Seawolf, and mopping the floor against the surface fleet {when we had a carrier fleet in Mayport} 3 times). We pulled into Kittery Port Maine on my first ever deployment (101 days long), I got drunk and danced with the fattest yankee girl there ever was. Those people were wonderful. We gave a tour to 11,000 people through a hole in the boat that allows one man at a time. We slept 5 hours, and worked 18 hour (vice 24) days. You stood your watch (6 hours), you ate (two half hours- each before and after your watch), you cleaned for an hour and a half, and you studied to learn all the systems on the submarine & all the systems related to your Rate (MOS Military Occupation Specialty). It was hard underway, but you were busy. Before deployment and after deployment you worked 15 hour days preparing the submarine to be ready to go immediately back out to sea. Loading food, weights, supplies, weapons, parts-& then repairing the sub, painting the sub, cleaning the sub, & especially negotiating your integrated systems (being secured or restored) with other systems throughout the boat (hydraulic lines of 3K PSI, Pneumatic lines of 4500PSI, multiple cooling water systems for the electronics, breathing air, High pressure Nitrogen, High pressure Oxygen) which HAD to be COORDINATED with other divisions and Trident Refit shops of the shore facility. Tagouts, thousands of briefs, failures, retests, tagout violations, people getting hurt and dying, and clearing tagouts. Tremendous coordination.
February 2005 - SWFLANT shore-facility loading & unloading hundreds of SLBM's (underwater ICBM's, unclassified range 4K) along with rocket motor ordinance that had more explosive power than MOAB.
We brought online the SSGN conversion where they put 7 Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in almost every SLBM (Trident D2 Missile) missile tube to the USS Georgia, Florida, Michigan, Ohio. Those converted Trident Submarines are STEALTH CARRIER PLATFORMS. From no where-detected, 144 Tomahawks would rain down death and destruction onto your pitiful third world country, like we did to Libya.
At SWFLANT, I loaded each one of those Tomahawks after 7 hours of attending Tulsa Welding School in Jacksonville, FLorida-drove 117 miles every day for 11 months. I operated a low-maintenance fork-lift with a lousy strap attached to the two tines and stretched out under the tomahawk carrying every Tomahawk to the crane vertical hoisting mechanism. Somedays I had only 3 hours of sleep-NEVER an incident!
February 2008 - 18 December 2012 USS Wyoming (SSBN 742 Blue Crew) (7 Strategic Patrols) I worked under two self serving Psychopaths Raymond Getman (Maine) & Lennard Walk - when you cannot quit, and the Navy will not bother with your reports that these two POS's break rules, & endanger others, under the 15+ hour days of refit, or with your submarine in the Explosive Handling WHarf (SWFLANT) and you CANNOT make mistakes while loading and unloading SLBM's-your job is 10X harder than any CEO. The second villain would not show up to work while we were handling ordinance in EHW. Working on the Wyoming was harder (because of Walk) than watching my father beat my mother to the ground at 5 years old-I **** you not. We stopped smoking on submarines, included gays into the Navy, & female submariners while I was on this boat. My Captain, slept with one of the female officers (the Supply Officer)-someone told his wife on him, he was facing Judicial Punishment and killed himself because he was not going to get to see his kids hardly ever and lost his wife-he couldn't face it. One of the Missile Technicians I served with (opposite crew, and this occurred after I left) recorded all of the female officers showering naked. He went to Leavenworth, and every sailor he merely implicated was eviscerated by the Navy. The Navy didn't even follow their own rules about punishment, 'they went overboard.'
Next was a tour 4 January 2013 to 22 March 2016 82B Launcher Shop at Trident Refit Facility. We worked with and for civilians maintaining the water tight integrity between the inner and outer missile tubes on the Trident 2 D5 Submarines. Fantastic. I did have a head to head confrontation with the General Foreman for attempting to violate a Nuclear Weapon Safety Rule because he wanted to connect corrupt electronics to the missile computer system in order to test his own equipment. I was reported, later having to face off two E-8 Senior Chiefs. They wrote me a counseling chit, because I eventually yelled at the Foreman whom was screaming in my face and shoving me. (This is how you retire as only an E-6, because of bad evals-it was absolutely the right thing to do.)
You can break some rules, like speeding, but murder or violation of Nuclear Weapon Safety Rules involves judges or the Pentagon-No joke.) I eventually told the Senior Chiefs I would accept the counseling chit, even if wrong and that if they even tried to push further that I would report what happened to Special Projects which would have shut down Trident Refit Facility for a few days and lead to a JAG & OCOA investigation (The foreman would have been fired without retirement). They called some people and immediately agreed to my terms. I no **** saved one SLBM system (24 missiles, meg at0ns of ordinance) from corruption, which would have included an investigation signed off through to the SECNAV.) They make you learn the Safety Rules as new Missile Technician, once onboard. These are the kind of rules that protect WMD's and the general population from ever having to worry about mishandling. The Air Force had to adopt most of our policies as they had dropped such weapons into the mediterranean sea, the south east U.S. swamp, and flying such weapons across statelines (google it) without the Secretary of Defence's expressed (signed) permission.
Finally I was assigned to the USS Tennessee (SSBN 734 Blue Crew) 22 March 2016 - 31 March 2019 - (4 Strategic Patrols) Including a trip to Scotland as directed by Obama after Putin kept flying Russian Aircraft up to our land bases and Naval surface vessels (we were doing similar posturing to China as China build up all their Islands in the SOuth West Pacific. This boat had the Best Chief Quarters I have EVER worked for.
Two port calls, 20 deployments-20 years, no windows (except through the scope) averaging 70 days a piece, several years of life underwater, with a few texts from family, willing to kill and die for American family. I am happy to get to this next chapter in life.
