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calendar   Tuesday - April 21, 2009

Welcome to the NEW USS Truxtun!

I served for four years (1982-1986) aboard the last USS Truxtun CGN-35. She was decommissioned in 1994, and scrapped in 1996. Thank you Bill Clinton…

Anyway, the previous incarnation of the ‘Tommy T’ was a nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser. I was a reactor operator (RC-div). Yes, one of those ‘nuke ETs’. NavVets will know what I’m talking about. I operated the nuclear power plants that made the ship go.

I received an official invite to the commissioning ceremony of the NEW USS Truxtun DDG-103. It sounds like a pretty powerful ship. I really wanted to attend, but couldn’t convince the wife to go. So I won’t be there this weekend. Damn!

Thought I’d leave you with this, though.

How To Simulate The Life Of A Sailor

* Buy a steel dumpster, paint it gray inside and out, and live in it for six months.
* Run all the pipes and wires in your house exposed on the walls.
* Repaint your entire house every month.
* Renovate your bathroom. Build a wall across the middle of the bathtub and move the showerhead to chest level. When you take showers, make sure you turn off the water while you soap down.
* Raise the thresholds and lower the headers of your front and back doors so that you either trip or bang your head everytime you pass through them.
* Disassemble and inspect your lawn mower every week.
* On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, turn your water heater temperature up to 200 degrees. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, turne the waer heater off. On Saturdays and Sundays tell your family they use too much water during the week, so not bathing will be allowed.
* Raise your bed to within 6 inches of the ceiling, so you can’t turn over without getting out and then getting back into bed.
* Sleep on the shelf in your closet. Replace the closet door with a curtain. Have your spouse whip open the curtain about 3 hours after you go to sleep, shine a flashlight in your eyes, and say “Sorry, wrong rack.”
* Make your family qualify to operate each appliance in your house - dishwasher, blender, mixer, etc.
* Have your neighbor come over each day at 5 AM, blow a whistle loudly, and shout “Reveille, all hands heave out and trice up.”
* Have your mother-in-law write down everything she’s going to do the following day, then have her make you stand in your back yard at 6 AM while she reads it to you.
* Submit a request chit to your father-in-law requesting permission to leave your house before 3 PM.
* Empty all the garbage bins in your house and sweep the driveway three times a day, whether it needs it or not.
* Have your neighbor collect all your mail for a month, read your magazines, and randomly lose every 5th item before delivering it to you.
* Watch no TV except for movies played in the middle of the night. Have your family vote on which movie to watch then show a different one.
* Make your family menu a week ahead of time without consulting the pantry or refrigerator.
* Post a menu on the kitchen door informing your family that they are having steak for dinner. Then make them wait in line for an hour. When they finally get to the kitchen, tell them you are out of steak, but they can have dried ham or hot dogs. Repeat daily until they ignore the menu and just ask for hot dogs.
* Bake a cake. Prop up on side of the pan so the cake bakes unevenly. Spread icing really thick to level it off.
* Get up every night around midnight and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on stale bread. (Midrats)
* Set your alarm clock to go off at random tmes during the night. At the alarm, jump up and dress as fast as you can, making sure to button the top button of your shirt and tuck your pants into your socks. Run out into the backyard and uncoil the garden hose. Stand there for an hour. Then re-roll the hose and go back to bed.
* Every week or so, throw your dog in the pool and shout, “Man overboard port side!” Rate your family members on how fast they respond.
* Put the headphones from your stereo on your head, but don’t plug them in. Hang a paper cup around your neck on a string. Stand in front of the stove, and speak into the paper cup “Stove manned and ready.” After an hour or so, speak into the cup again, “Stove secured.” Roll up the headphones and paper cup and stow them in a shoebox.
* Place a podium at the end of your driveway. Have your family stand watches at the podium, rotating at 4 hour intervals. This is done for three days, once a month.
* When there is a thunderstorm in your area, get a wobbly rocking chair, sit in it, and rock as hard as you can until you become nauseous. Make sure to have a supply of stale crackers to eat in your shirt pocket.
* Make coffee using eighteen scoops of budget priced coffee grounds per pot, and allow the pot to simmer for 5 hours before drinking.
* Have someone under the age of ten give you a haircut with sheep shears.
* Sew the back pockets of your jeans on the front.
* Lock yourself and your family in the house for six weeks. Tell them that at the end of the 6th week you are going to take them to Disney World for “liberty.” At the end of the 6th week, inform them the trip to Disney World has been canceled because they need to get ready for an inspection, and it will be another week before they can leave the house.

Gosh, how I miss being a sailor! (sarcasm)

Actually, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I learned to live ‘lite’, ie, had very few possessions to weigh me down. Got to travel, meet interesting people, without killing them (though that was always an option in the event of war…)

Then, there was a spiritual side to Navy service.

You are on a ship observing ‘darkness’ rules (no lights, don’t want the Soviets to see us easily…), it’s midnight, you’ve just gotten off the 8-12 watch, You and a couple of shipmates are out on the flight deck, doing some amateur astronomy. Why? Because you’re from the USA, and you’ll never get another chance to stargaze in the South Pacific, thousands of miles from any city lights. There, above you, is the grand beauty of God’s creation. Stars, like dust, shining with colors! You can’t make out the colors from home, but they stand out in the darkness of the South Pacific.

Add in the fact that Halley’s Comet was visible to the naked eye in ‘86 if you were in the Southern Hemisphere…

Actually, if I weren’t married, I’d go back to being a sailor.


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Posted by Christopher   United States  on 04/21/2009 at 04:53 AM   
Filed Under: • AdventureDaily LifeEditorialsFun-StuffPersonal •  
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