The Sun Hates Us

Of course, that's to be expected - we're submariners.

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received as a nub, other than “don’t piss off A-gang”, was to always bring sunscreen on patrol. Unlike the warning about A-gang, it didn’t make a lot of sense at the time (due to the lack of windows and whatnot), but it paid off the very first time we pulled in to Pearl and I didn’t fry my ass off like the other guys up in the sail. Several weeks underwater leaves you less than prepared to deal with those harmful UV rays; even more so if you live somewhere that the tanning season is a week in August when it’s not raining.

But, in this case, there’s another Sun that hates us, and this one I can at least unsubscribe to. Yes, I’m talking about our local “paper” (quotes most definitely intended, as their journalistic ability is roughly the same as the “fact of the day” the yeoman adds to the bottom of our POD); let me tell you what it’s like dealing with them.

The Sun is pretty much the only local paper here, and I’ll be honest when I say their online site isn’t too bad. It’s free, and the comments (especially in the 911 section) are especially amusing. Of course, the comments also occasionally add new info to the story, with lots of “I know this person and they would NEVER…”-type insight, some of which occasionally finds their way back into the original story. Sort of like a lazy reporter’s tip line. But I don’t begrudge them this, or when they basically just re-word info they’ve received from other news sources (mistakes and all) with MOTO skills that put us all to shame. It’s tough to get by with few subscribers and a community college degree in journalism.

What I really don’t like is their anti-military slant. It’s so blatant that I’m surprised they set up shop in our town, which exists almost solely because of the military. I’m even more surprised they continue to survive; no one I know subscribes.

You see, if some local punk gets in trouble, they basically report it as “A 19 year-old man was caught…”. They may also include what town the kid is from, but they more-or-less stick to the facts. If, on the other hand, the person involved was in the military, the headline will most certainly include “A 19 year-old Sailor was caught… “ or “Sailor on the USS Bonejob was caught…” (if they can somehow find out what boat he’s on via Facebook). Even though the person’s job usually has as much to do with the story as their hair color, it’s going to be in the headline.

There are two basic reasons for this. The first is that the story probably reflects poorly on the service, and that gives their staff a warm little chubby. The second is that it helps sell papers; a story about someone else you might know, or who is at least in the same line of work as you, is going to be more interesting. If I do happen to know the actual story (sometimes you do; I’ve got a few phone calls in the middle of the night about my guys in the past), I inevitably cringe the next day at how far off the Sun is from what really happened.

We've tried calling them on their bias, in the comments section, and with editorials. The Sun initially responded that they think military folks should be held to a higher standard, which is why they were being singled out. But you can look at this both ways: if you’re willing to literally lay down your life for your country, perhaps the community you protect should be willing to cut you some slack over the little things. Not at the Sun, however – if you screw up even a little, and they find out you’re in the military, you’re a headline.

More recently, the kind folks over at the Sun have changed their story (pardon the pun); they now claim that they include the fact someone is in the military as a way of letting the rest of us know what town they’re from. It’s true; some Sun articles about the locals will include this info (“A 19 year old Bumfuck man was caught…”), but most of the time they rightfully skip it as its irrelevant. If they really, REALLY needed to get that info out for some reason, why not just list where the sailor lives in the same way? Most of us live out in the town.

I’m not real crazy about them trumpeting the mistakes sailors make just to sell a paper. It’s not like a few months in the Navy is going to make a 19 year old kid much more mature than his local counterparts, and 19 year old kids do dumb things from time to time. Playing up the military angle every time they do just shows us how biased they are over at Sun Central, and may explain why they’ve taken to giving away free copies outside the mall in a desperate attempt to attract readers.

I believe the Sun staff should accept the same challenge and hold themselves to this “higher standard”; everyone from the editors on down to the delivery folks. Given how that last group drives when they’re in my neighborhood, I imagine the “traffic beat” section of the paper would at least double.

My Buddy John

One of the most demoralizing, yet ever-so-typical things I was forced to do as a nub was clean the officers' head. Nothing clues you in to the fact that two years of training doesn't mean jack like having savor someone else's stink while you polish a shitter. Yeah, I know, -someone- has to do it, and that someone's usually a nub... but when I was that nub, I vowed revenge.

And it's not like the officers on my first boat were any more clean than us blueshirt scum - their head was actually kinda nasty compared to ours, even back when you could smoke in the head. That's probably because we cleaned up after ourselves when we were done using it, whereas the zeroes didn't.

Anyhow, payback was actually pretty easy; I just stuck an empty poopy suit in the stall after I got done cleaning it, along with an old pair of topsiders I found in berthing. You see, I'd heard one of the JO's whining in the Weirdroom that the crapper was occupied, and realized that they would rather go somewhere else (or hold it) than say anything. Even if the stall was occupied all watch, none of them were going to investigate further.

I shoved a few rolls of TP down the legs, and voila! One occupied shitter. The JO's tended to just use the small head down by AMR if theirs was busy, and apparently none of them had the sack to knock on the stall door and find out what was taking so long.

And they HATED using sharing a head with us. Not as much as sharing 9-man, but close.

I thought it might work for a few hours or so, but no one caught on for about two days. What finally happened was "John" (as we affectionately dubbed him) fell apart when we came up to PD in sea state 3. Even then I'm guessing the zero that found the mess wasn't exactly sure what was going on - everything was bouncing around, so it may have looked like someone just left their clothes in the head, and some TP fell out of the rack. But pretty much all the blueshirts knew by then what was going on, so half of the time the head by AMR was secured for some reason or another. I'm guessing one or two JO's ended up pissing in a funnel back aft, just like the rest of us.

Laundry Day

I'm stuck here doing laundry today, and it occurs to me that about the only useful thing I learned in boot camp (aside from how to tell if a girl has VD) was the ability to professionally fold any piece of clothing. I still remember how to fold all my stuff the way they trained us in Orlando, even the gloves. The fact they'd cycle you until you pissed blood if you screwed up has nothing to do with it.

Speaking of laundry, one of the biggest wastes of time I recall from when I was in the pipeline was trying to get my laundry done. Living in the barracks, with no money and no car, you were pretty much obligated to compete with several hundred other squids for the use of 30 washers and dryers in the one dingy laundry room they thoughtfully provided.

The first time I showed up to do my wash was on a weekend afternoon. I couldn't even get in the door, the place was so packed. One squid, and this is completely true, actually offered to sell me his place in line. No freakin' way. Being a nuke, I was sure I could beat the system.

My first idea was just to buy new clothes whenever I ran out, but this only put off the inevitable. For one, there's only so many pairs of tighty-whities you can stuff in a stand-up locker (as a student, absolutely NOTHING could be left out in your room during the day - it would either get stolen, or cause you to fail one of the many daily barracks inspections), and for another, it cost too much. Along the same lines, I tried having the exchange dry cleaning shop do my laundry for me, but that was so pricey I still have a few sets of whites there I don't the money to reclaim.

Doing laundry took up an entire day, which was usually the one day I had off. Remember, it's not *just* a job.

This went on for about two months, until I caught a break. One night we got back to the barracks early (~0200 - early for us, anyhow) and happened to stagger by the laundry. The place was deserted! There was only one weird little geeky dude in there, and even he was almost done. This was the solution: do your laundry in the middle of the night, and you could wash everything all at once. Sure, giving up a night off sucked, but not any worse than the B.S. "security watch" they made us stand from time to time.

(One small aside - the geeky dude wasn't actually doing his own laundry; he was this twidget who was trying to earn enough money to buy a new computer or something by washing other peoples' stuff. Or, at least that's what he said... a lot of the laundry he was folding up looked suspiciously feminine, which begged a lot of questions no one wanted to ask back then).

Anyhow, that system worked for most of A-school, at least until too many other people figured out what we were up to. By the time we graduated, it was busier at night than during the day. I had to come up with something better.

Inspiration struck when we were "smurfing", that pointless exercise in slave labor you got to enjoy between the end of A-school and the start of Power School. There were so many pet projects going on back then that they actually delayed us from classing up one class to ensure they had enough bodies. I worked on several details; a few were kinda okay (like running the video arcade room for a week), some were sort of demoralizing (like being the guy who went around dropping off newspapers in the morning all over the base, on foot), and some just plain sucky (i.e., the galley). But one of the last jobs I had as a smurf was cleaning up the laundry room.

This was a thankless job, since no one was going to close it down long enough for you to clean it up. Even in the middle of the day, when you'd think every one would have been in class, the place was busy. It usually took a few hours just to sweep the floor. But, in the end, it turned out to be quite good deal in disguise.

You see, there were a lot of broken machines in the laundry room, and the chief in charge of the barracks had absolutely no interest in getting them fixed; as long as one washer and one dryer were still working, he could officially report the laundry was open for business. I wasn't looking for new work myself (see how that esprit de corps actually works, boys and girls?), but I was somewhat curious if my 3.2 grasp of all things electrical was sufficient to actually fix anything. One afternoon, having completed all my usual smurfy crap, I took one of the OOC dryers apart with my dig'it tool.

And, to everyone's surprise (including my own) I actually was able to fix it using the schematic glued to the inside of the controller. It was a simple fix, sure (a wire had fallen off the start switch), but it made me thirsty for more. I wasn't quite as lucky with some of the others, but by cannibalizing some machines I got others working, and actually felt some small measure of job satisfaction. Since the chief I worked for didn't care if the machines were broken, he cared even less when I fixed one. It wasn't exactly stimulating, but it made the day go by faster.

It also got me thinking: I had plenty of time to do laundry now, while I was smurfing. But I knew getting up in the middle of the night to wash my clothes would suck hairy goat balls once I got to power school, and it would be worth my while if I could come up with a way to 'reserve' a machine or two for my own personal use by then. I eventually did, and it only cost me a few bucks at the local Radio Hack.

When I fixed the last washer and dryer, I added a special feature: I put a magnetic reed switch inline with the start button. I glued it back behind a wire bundle, where even another electrician would have missed it. The reed switch interrupted the signal from the start button until you closed it with a magnet, so the machine remained OOC until I "fixed" it by sticking a magnet on the back of the controller when no one was looking.

You'd think something so obvious would have been eventually have been found and repaired, but then you'd be underestimating how little the "staff" cared about such things in Orlando. With just a little discretion, I had a washer and dryer all to myself throughout power school, and even made $100 when I turned over my secret to an MM right before I left for Idaho.

I can't say I wasn't tempted to perform the same modifications when I got to Pearl, but luckily I wasn't in the barracks long enough to need to. The moral of the story: a bored nuke is a dangerous thing, and nothing's more boring than doing laundry in the middle of the night.