About 6 months before my active duty enlistment was up in 1974, I drew another assignment that took me off the computer room floor. Somewhat SOP, they didn’t want those leaving close to their IBM mainframes. As my time became shorter and shorter, my uniform and demeanor become more bootcamp like. I was not going to give them any excuse to hold me longer. I also carried 60 days leave over June 1st that with the extra accumulation would give me Thanksgiving at home and 2 1/2 months terminal leave. Then they denied 17 days of my terminal leave. I was miserable and depressed those last days. Turns out they wanted to hold a formation to give me some kind of award. I thanked them but would have traded it for those 17 days in a heartbeat. So I understand there maybe moral issues with the extended mission on the Lincoln aircraft carrier. Having stayed at the disappointing Trump Las Vegas hotel, my sympathy is with the crew. Reports are that one of the crew jumped overboard and there may have been other attempts. Hegseth acts like the worst officers and NCOs I remember from the Marines. He has been purging effective command officers and as we used to say, “Spit rolls downhill.” Bob Wilson
Very likely both. My time on an aircraft carrier was depressing enough with 12 on 12 off 7 days a week and random general quarters* exercises during your rest/meal/cleanup hours. But at least we could count on getting out of the service on time. *A unique alarm sounds with the speakers wailing "General Quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations!" You had a couple of minutes to jump into your gear and navigate several stairs to get to your battle station before the bulkhead doors shut.
Sounds like you had it pretty easy... During which era of US wars did you serve? Being trapped on a super crowded ship with 5000 sailers for more than 250 consecutive days is a hundred times worse than what you went thru. The real concern in all this is that when soldiers are not treated well and are forced to fight a war that is being lost its not just a morale issue, it's a threat to the entire chain of command on that ship. As in some sailors aren't thinking about jumping overboard and dying they're thinking about sabotaging the ship and ensuring the untimely demise of their commanding officers. Specifically in Vietnam there were 904 incidents of fragging from 1969 to 1972. As in soldiers throwing a hand grenade into the officers quarters to kill them became a common concern. As in losing the war combined with disrespect of those forced to fight it created a direct threat to very lives of those in command of those soldiers. Massively clogged toilets and a huge laundryroom fire were some of the suspicious activitiies on the last aircraft carrier to keep its crew onboard without a break for near a year at the start of the Iran war. A war we have already lost, but in denial about it. Combine that with the failure of Hegseth on every possible level and I wouldn't be surprised if they're already covering up the deaths of commanding officers at the hands of the enlisted.
No matter the service (at least in my time, can't comment on later careers), chain'll always give you crap in your last few months in. Hadn't ever been on the roster in 3y, but suddenly w\ 90d to go, got flag duty 30d. Made the mistake of not showing up on time for one of them, rcv'd another 7d... (told below story before, skip if you've been reading my threads at all) Then at work were rmv'd from my clearance'd taskings (this I didn't have a problem with, as w\ @bwilson4web it was security protocol) but were told to report in BDUs to a variety of NCOs I'd never seen before at sites I'd never been, for jobs that boggled my mind with the immense waste of GSA in the mid-'90s. The DoD had (has?) these giant warehouses around the Navy Yard, stacked with expensive and esoteric crap of every description, purchased but never used with late chgs in requirements... so pushed into this gargantuan teen-hoarder's closet. My job, was to organise the mess -- yeah right. 6 - 7 GIs with gloves in BDUs in a non-A/C'd warehouse, moving stacks a couple stories high of office desks, drafting tables, Aeron chairs, miles of cubicle walls, brand-new construction tools, unrecognisable mainframes and their ancillary printers, drives, and organisers (crushed so couldn't be re-used), and shop tools -- miter table saws, mini-lathes, ladders, some not even unwrapped, still sticky with cosmoline... just mountains. Staff tells me and other short-timers to 'move what we could into the pickups outside', to head to landfill. Managed to grab some mechanical drafting pencils (Koh-I-Noors! Dumped by the case and all over the floor) and other art-applicable stuff in cargo pockets, side-eyed by the staff IC but also turned blind eye in the end. That's when I knew they didn't care if we succeeded -- they did care if we got caught by anyone other than them, as they'd be on the hook )... Granted were literally years since doing anything as physically demanding as back in 3ID, but yeah those last 90d. If you have either blooming arseblossoms or old-school Top / CO as your betters... prepare to sweat a month and a half. Not as if you'll have to do it again post-ETS, they reason... They were wrong, of course But doesn't matter right or wrong -- your arse was still theirs.
USS Abraham Lincoln has been plagued by reports of problems including plumbing: Sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln dealing with poor conditions, weak morale, families say One hopes that George Washington's crew will have fewer problems. -- I'm curious about what led Our Bob to stay at Trump Las Vegas hotel? With so many other options available.
It was a 3 day, vacation pitch. But I asked for a property with EV charging and they put me in the Trump dump. Las Vegas was not then and even now not an EV friendly destination. Too few properties with any guest EV charging. in contrast, free EV charging is at both North Carolina casinos, and most of the ones I regularly visit. Bob Wilson
History of disrespecting your own military service members to the point that they become more problematic than your own enemy has been well documented for thousands of years. There's no hope whatsoever for George Washington's crew under current leadership. Imagine being one of 5K sailors on a ship with no place to relax or have privacy for more than 250+ days when all military documentation on such things say sabotage and mutiny is a very real risk.
My guess is that almost all crew of 'Lincoln' saw their mission as over riding discomforts, and that almost all crew of 'Washington' also will. Military deployments by definition give people opportunities to express opposition, if they have it. -- Supplementing testosterone to military people might both increase expressions of opposition, and invigorate others to punch opposers in the face. So it seems a weird policy, but I have no access to Hegseth's inner thoughts.
I do wonder what reactions Abe's crew will have to today's headlined pronouncement: Trump says USS Lincoln’s record time at sea during Iran operations ‘not nearly long enough’ As for testosterone testing, I also must wonder if this will be another of Hegseth's levers to eject women from the military. For insufficient testosterone levels. Remember that earlier he declared that women have to meet the very same standards as men, there will not be separate testing standards anymore. Others have pointed out that the people who benefit and need testosterone supplements the most -- trans men that this Admin labels as "biological women" -- are already being ejected.
These ships and multi-million dollar weapons systems are antiquated and everything about them is so overpriced and hard to replenish that they become eventually defensless to cheap drones. Ukraine has clearly shown that you can destroy the entire Navy of a major superpower with $1K drones and its just a matter of time before aircraft carriers are obsolete. We're almost there. Putting 5K people on a ship like this is inhumane!
Ukraine's $1k drone are for fielding against individual foot soldiers. Their sea-drones for destroying some naval ships are much more costly than that.
"I do wonder what reactions Abe's crew will have to today's headlined pronouncement" Do you? I don't. I expect that aircraft-carrier's crew will all be happy about un deployment. Few or none will complain because this is what they signed up for. More or less. Imagine how complainers would be treated, and get closer to reality.
