Bootcamp, Part 3: 8 Bells

How many bells? Eight of them. Why? Because eight bells are what you hear at noon, the midpoint of the day. 

Unlike your average clock that makes a bell noise, the strikes of a ship's bell do not follow the number of the hour. Imagine if those clocks followed our 24-hour scale? You'd be throwing something at the wall when that thing bonged 23 times for 11 pm! Instead, there are eight bells for our system, one for each half-hour of what was the typical four-hour watch back in the Age of Sail. In those days, watches were timed with a 30-minute hourglass. Bells would be struck every time the glass was turned, and in a pattern of pairs for easier counting, with any odd bells at the end of the sequence.

Most of the crew of a ship would be divided into two, three, or four groups, called watches. Each watch would take its turn with necessary activities like manning the helm (steering the ship), navigating, trimming the sails, and keeping a lookout for other ships, weather, or landmasses. Interestingly, the ship's bell is also used for a variety of other purposes. This includes announcing the arrival and departure of high-ranking officers and officials and christening infants in the bell, whose name is then inscribed on the inside. 

Naval traditions are neat! Now, on with the meat of this segment. We're going to start with the negatives, and I'm going to keep those short. In the previous two blogs, I did my best to paint a realistic picture for you. To keep the rehashing to a minimum, and give positive aspects more time in the spotlight, the first part will be short and succinct. Following that, I have a collage of pictures to help illustrate the moments of this career that make all the bad days worthwhile.

1. So, what are the negative aspects of a career in the Navy?

I’ve already listed or alluded to most of them in previous segments. The separation from family and friends often the biggest one. I’m a man that still craves time to himself, but my wife, an ever-enriching relationship with my parents, and this fandom have somewhat “ruined” my ability to enjoy that solitude for more than a few days. It would have been quite hard for past-me to have envisioned a day when I would start feeling despondent and anxious due to lack of human interaction or simple presence. Along with that separation, is the lack of time and ability to enjoy one’s usual hobbies. It’s almost impossible to fit even the essential tools I’d need in my stateroom to continue my woodcarving in a meaningful sense. Time for reading and writing comes at the cost of physical exercise to stay fit, sleep, or meals. Moreover, persistent stress and a high operational tempo wear down nerves very effectively. 

Don’t take the following as a cry for sympathy. It’s the nature of a job that affects people very differently. Some folks I know who have been in for far longer have had none of the effects that I have felt. However, over the years, the additional wear has developed into muscles so tight a therapeutic masseuse once exclaimed, “How’d get so many?!” My shoulders pop and click whenever they rotate forward. My right knee starts to burn after a single mile of jogging, followed by my left knee making clicking sounds. The lower and upper back are in almost constant pins and needles pain, and a full night’s sleep often requires several melatonin capsules or some other form of sleep aid drug so I’m not waking up every hour feeling like I’m late or missing something important.  

The rest of my issues are relatively minor, but it’s the loss of time with family and friends and physical ailments that constitute the majority of them. However, even those don’t seem so bad when compared to the number of experiences I’ve been witness to, the places I’ve seen, and the stories I’ve collected.

2. Okay then, what are these great things that make it all worth it?

Photos inbound!

Southern California during an AWESOME day of shooting a big gun. See those powder shells all over the foc’sle? They’re about four feet tall. I have one for a doorstep at home. Any day you can lob hundreds of 5in rounds from a deck gun at imaginary bad guys is a good day. 

Sunrise (or sunset) somewhere in the Pacific, I think. I have a lot of pictures where I don’t remember exactly where I was when I took them. Either way, both times of day are magical at sea. Unfortunately, I don’t have a camera of high enough quality to capture what the night sky and nighttime ocean looks like. If you’ve never looked up at the sky on a clear night, in an area with zero light pollution...I can’t even do it justice. Counted 16 satellites (yes, you can see satellites as moving points of light with the naked eye) and about three dozen shooting stars in one night. Bioluminescent plankton flash in the waves and wake created by a ship, and sometimes the flashes are so numerous that it looks like fireworks going off underway. The best way I can describe it is that there are stars overhead and stars beneath the waves.

A WW2 landing beach in Guam. During our last surge deployment, I was sent over to an amphibious ship to play liaison officer for one week. That one week turned into five and in the process my own ship had to leave to support presence operations elsewhere. When a typhoon caused problems, that amphibious ship was diverted to help with the relief effort. I couldn’t go along so they dropped me on Guam to wait for my ship to return. I made use of my time off by scouring the island for historical sites and beaches. Turns out that a relative may have actually died during the battle to take this very beach back in 1944, if the spotty records are to be believed.

Pierside in Fiji. Part of what we do sometimes is partner with U.S. Coast Guard and foregin partners to conduct fisheries patrols. Looking for poachers, illegal fishing by countries inside another’s EEZ (Economic Exclusion Zone), and smugglers. It’s a great way to meet new people and compare/learn from each other’s methods and perspectives. I can’t say that I was too impressed by the parts of Fiji that I saw, but I don’t ever regret the opportunity to visit new lands and experience different people and cultures.

Pierside in American Samoa. There are actually two Samoan islands: the island of Samoa and American Samoa. Pulling into port that morning, I swear I was stepping into Isla Nublar from Jurassic Park. Everything had a very primal feeling and I was not the only one who kept waiting to see if a Raptor or other dinosaur would poke its head out of the foliage. American Samoa was an absolute delight, and it was the point in which I left the ship to travel back stateside to begin my current job. Leaving a place by the beach on the opposite side of the island, owned and operated by an expat American, we almost couldn’t get back to the ship and had to catch a ride with a local stage show celeb that insisted we stop off at the best restaurant on the island before we went back. Turns out, his idea of a fantastic restaurant was McDonald’s. To each his own, I guess.

I’ve forgotten where I took this, but judging by the land in the background...I think this is part of the Philippines. I’ve been through the Strait of Malacca dozens of times, but the sight of ships from one horizon to the next never fails to amaze. Even the deep feeling of coming outside and seeing nothing but ocean for 360 degrees, and knowing that you are hundreds or thousands of miles from the nearest spit of land, is an experience in and of itself.



Somewhere between Okinawa and Sasebo, Japan during a rainstorm. I don’t have access to the photo anymore, but during this transit we encountered a fairly strong storm that buffeted us quite badly. At some point, an owl from what we assume is the Okinawan island took shelter behind the sonar winch that you can see on the foc’sle of the Avenger-class minesweepers. The owl remained there for the entire journey and we steered what courses we could to keep the wind and spray from dousing it too much. Over the course of discussions had on the bridge regarding what we should name the owl and whether or not we had anything to feed it, we wondered if, just maybe, we were about to accident;y introduce a non-native species to mainland Japan, thereby playing a part in the downfall of an entire ecosystem. Obviously, not something that could happen but it made for interesting conversation. Thank you, Owlowiscious.

Pretty sure this is also somewhere in the Pacific. Maybe the Indian Ocean. The HDR on my iPhone made the sunset look like some like of nuclear explosion. You never get tired of the view. I even took the wife on a cruise for our honeymoon. That’s how “right” being at sea feels to me. If I only I could get a picture of going through the Panama Canal, then I’d finally have sailed around the entire world.

Places visited, people met, and great photoshoots from days during deployment are not the only perks that I have enjoyed. Those still in schools, beit college or high school or higher degrees, won't fully understand the anxieties of modern living until they consider the ramifications of being unable to afford insurance, rent/mortgage, debt payments, or even adequate food. I have not had to deal with any of those thanks, in part, to the benefits that the Navy grants me for enduring the negatives of the career. I'm especially grateful that I can use their assistance in the healthcare arena. And there have many opportunities for just general fun to be had. Case in point:

View from the rear cockpit seat of a vintage WW2 SNJ Navy training aircraft over San Diego. Not military related because it was a flight I booked through a civilian agency that’s available to anyone willing to pay. That same month I spent in San Diego, I took a ride down the Mexico-U.S border in a biplane and skydived for the first time. As a bachelor, I used to do stuff like this all the time because, until MLP-related charities, I had no one to spoil other than myself. Now, my wife gets to be the one that I try to spoil.

3. Any further opinions to share?

It's not for everyone, obviously. As of about one year ago, the total military service population equally less than 0.5% of the U.S. population. Something that further divides those in uniform from the rest actually applies specifically to officers: I can't express a political statement that favors one side or the other in a public forum. I can have political opinions, but the fact that I'm an officer means that people may take my personal opinion as the official position of the U.S. Navy, no matter what I might say top the contrary. It's with that fact that I launch into the last piece of the blog section. It's not a political statement or opinion, but the topic does include political elements from the authors of the editorials and news articles that I will be linking below.

I mentioned in an earlier segment about a growing divide between the general civilian population and the notion of a warrior caste with the U.S. Here's a few articles pertaining to what I mean.

https://www.businessinsider.com/divide-between-military-civilians-bigger-in-america-2017-7

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/25/military-service-warrior-caste-united-states/

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-army/2018/01/19/warrior-caste-is-a-public-disconnect-hurting-military-recruiting-efforts/

https://inss.ndu.edu/Media/News/Article/1428887/deconstructing-the-warrior-caste-the-beliefs-and-backgrounds-of-senior-military/

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/08/the-warrior-caste-of-military-families-that-fight-americas-wars.html

My dad once answered a woman at a wedding who, looking slightly down her nose at him, my brother, and I standing there together, asked what the “family business" was with: “We’re warriors.” She didn’t have much to say to that except “Oh” before walking away. 

There is a lot of material in there, and there is a lot more coming out of professional dissertations and discussions, but much of that debate is still closely held by the same people who exist within the caste itself. It's a cycle. Much of the above articles make points that I am completely in agreement with and have experienced. For example, in my family alone there is a Navy sailor, an Air Force pilot, a lifelong police officer, a former 911 communications operator, and soldiers and Marines in my extended family on both sides of the family tree going back prior to World War 1. By comparison, I know only two friends from over the last 22 years, prior to my enlistment day, who joined up. And I know almost no one with family or friends in a service outside of my professional circle of acquaintances.

It's not all that concerning to me except when viewed through a much wider lens of policy and public opinion. What other people think of me personally has never really bothered me too much, but their perception of me as a professional does, because an incorrect perception can translate into policy action or inaction that may hinder the ability to complete a mission. I will admit that a part of me enjoys the sense of elitism that comes with attaching myself to such a small group of people. The slight air of intrigue, insomuch that most of what I do is completely unknown to vast swaths of the population is also a small indulgence for my ego. And I can't deny that holding a key which has the capacity to level the infrastructure of a modern city carries with it both a heavy weight of responsibility as well as a spark of giddy pride. To say otherwise would be to lie.

To be even more honest, those articles linked above are what originally planted the seed of this blog series. I thought back to times when I heard someone, including my own family, trying and often failing to explain what I do or expound upon the day-to-day machinations of the military beast itself. This leads into another thought that I will save for the next section because it dives into the "why" of this career choice. I will say, as part of the same thought, a hope of mine is that by opening up my last 14 years to you, some of the scales will fall away from people's eyes. People in uniform should be held to a higher standard because they are often entrusted with higher responsibilities that could potentially affect many lives outside of their own. At the same time, those people are just people, too. And sometimes they don't enjoy the spotlight or the accolade, whether hollow or genuine. There is a growing divide, but what does that mean for the next generation? I'm not done thinking about that one.

We're nearing the home stretch now. Just two more to go. Next up is "Evening Colors" or "Why in the world did you do this to yourself? And what's up with that pony in your uniform pocket?"