The Subtitle Says This Is the Blog Board

[Abbot Mythos]

This is not what I expected. But then, I've never started a blog before.

Anyway, having spent far too much of my misspent youth on big, much older, ugly, gray ship, this particular subject is of special interest to me:

Moldy showers and no soap: Military families are outraged by conditions on USS Lincoln

"The aircraft carrier's long deployment in the Iran war is raising concerns that the sailors and Marines on board are facing poor conditions, low supplies and fatigue."

As per this article:

"The crew of the Lincoln has had only two days off the aircraft carrier since it left its home port in San Diego in November. The ship had a short port call in Guam in December and then did not have another stop until July 7, when it briefly pulled into Oman after 208 continuous days at sea — a modern-day record for a Navy aircraft carrier.

Long workdays with few breaks can lead to accidents, said Brett Snow, a Navy veteran whose son is serving on the Lincoln. Even when a carrier is operating in peacetime, it is an extremely hazardous place to work, Snow said.  "It's the most dangerous place in the world already, and now you're grinding it out, day in and day out, with no breaks," he said. "It's an environment that's ripe for accidents."" 

And, further along in the article:

"Snow, the Navy veteran, says he has noticed carrier deployments getting longer. That will make it harder for the Navy to persuade sailors to stay in the service when their tours are up, he said. "If this trend continues, it's going to impact retention and it's going to impact operational safety."" 

Now, having experienced something like this myself, I can testify that an insane deployment like this is going to have serious, long term consequences.

On my first cruise, my boat was deployed for 300 days. (This is currently listed as the fourth (4th) longest deployment of a USN aircraft carrier.) But, my own longest time at sea between port calls happened during my second cruise, and that was for forty-two (42) days. So, when people asked us how long we had been at sea, we told them, "Two days longer than the Arc." And, although we thought it was a bitch, it was nothing close to what sailors today are expected to endure. (Still, our surprise bonus after being out at sea for those forty-two days was a port call in Athens, Greece, just in time for the festivities of the infamous "Athens Polytechnic Uprising.")

And, from my own experience, making it "harder for the Navy to persuade sailors to stay in the service when their tours are up," is the least of the consequences to be expected from this long deployment. Now, in truth, after my own long deployment, there were only a few cases of outright desertion. But, a noticeable percentage of the crew, many of whom were "snipes" from the boiler room crew, went AWOL for extended periods. And, many of those AWOL sailors elected to finally turn themselves in at naval stations far away from where any aircraft carriers were based. And so, months after finally returning to our home port, we started hearing stories about AWOL guys who had told the officers who had taken them into custody that they were willing to serve their punishment in the brig, but would go AWOL again if they were sent back to duty on an aircraft carrier.

Still, the desertions and AWOL sailors were not the worst of the consequences from my own boat's "extended deployment." But, that's another story.