In the End, It Was Alright

Wednesday was my duty day, but my watch wasn't until very late. I started off doing a maintenance check after the usual morning stuff. Just as I finished, a tech rep had arrived, delivering a very important piece of gear that had been CASREP'd (it was really important). I installed it right away with a bit of help from the tech assist. The hard part was screwing the ten mammoth cables back into the transmit/receive unit afterwords. This was a little bit of a deja vu, as last year I had to screw all hundred or so of them back in. And even though it was only a little, I still had to take my blouse off, it got so warm down there. My hands and arms were bright red (and I imagine my face was too) from straining.

After a quick lunch, I mustered with the duty section for line-handlers. There were about ten of us who went to the next pier to cast off the lines for the huge USNS Robert E. Peary that was getting underway. The long lines were so heavy I had to heave around (pull) on the line so we could get it over the top of the bollard on the pier and let it be retrieved by the ship. When I got back to the Truxtun, Senior had been looking for me... he and the ASWO (our DIVO - division officer) needed some particulars about the installation for reporting the CASREP complete. And right after that, I closed the associated job.

I was so hungry when I went to bed... I almost ordered pizza... but the online site I was using required a street address... and that was too complicated for me. Went to bed around 2130 after talking with my husband, and experienced one of the worst feelings of my career so far when I was woken up by someone a half-hour after I was supposed to be on watch; I had fallen back asleep after my alarm. I made it out there as fast as I could, but that was still much too late... it takes extra time to arm up to be the Rover. As it turns out, I was relieved late by the oncoming duty section... so much so that we called the galley to keep some food for me for breakfast. For tomorrow's duty day, I am assigned two watches as a consequence. Even though I feel very bad about what I did and don't really need more watch to be reminded how bad it is to be late, I don't mind taking the extra watch either. And I will be bringing another alarm clock!

That was Thursday morning. It was extraordinarily awful. While waiting to get relieved, my monthly cycle started as I was standing there... and I was helpless to do anything about it. After Quarters, I did three maintenance checks, all while teaching our new guy that arrived this week. I showed him all our spaces back aft, and then we walked through the two checks up forward together.

Right after that, I had to rush to get to the Little Creek Joint Expeditionary Base (about a 20 minute drive) for a gun shoot to keep people's qualifications up to date (so they can still stand armed watches). It was for the pistol, and it took quite a while to cycle everyone through. I was very pleased with my score... 227 (just shy of an Expert score!) Next time I will be more careful and go even slower. Even though it was pretty late in the afternoon when I finished, I had to go back to the ship to work on an issue. Ended up leaving later than normal.

Today, after a normal sleep in my own bed, I'm feeling much better and more relaxed in general. Right away in the morning, I had to go to a site on base for a simulated M-16 gun shoot. Although it went really fast, I really enjoyed it. I shot better than any of the nine guys on the line with me. And it was wonderful to get to go to my Senior Chief's re-enlistment in downtown Norfolk on the USS Wisconsin.

Today marks the end of my first three years in the Navy (and without NJP - non-judicial punishment - or Captain's Mast) so I earned the Navy's Good Conduct Medal (the patch I had bought online after visiting the USS Constitution in June 2010... without realizing what exactly it was):

It was a difficult, busy and sometimes frustrating week. But it's one foot in front of the other... left, right, left, right.

Oh... and just before the re-enlistment, I walked around the Hampton Roads Naval Museum and I saw a model of the USS TRUXTUN... from World War I:

 From the placard:

USS Truxtun (TBD-14), Scale 1/8" = 1'

The Truxtun was one of the first torpedo-boat destroyers authorized by the Navy. Like other ships of its class, this veteran of the Great White Fleet was originally intended to combat torpedo boats, not submarines. As submarines developed into formidable weapons, these "destroyers" became the most effective anti-submarine ships afloat. The Truxtun patrolled the Chesapeake Bay during the summer of 1917.