Frocked!

Today was my proudest in the Navy so far. After starting the day off very normally as an FSA, by the time Quarters and sweepers had passed I was on my way to put on my new (with insignia sewn on the day before by my own hands - and my friend's sewing machine) and freshly pressed pair of coveralls for the ceremony on the flight deck at 0900.
 
Even the sun was smiling today! Brilliant blue sky with a light breeze and calm seas as we sped along at a good speed. It wasn't hard to stand at attention, it was such smooth sailing. CMC (command master chief) came out and arranged those of us being frocked by rank and name. The rest of the crew stood in a block behind us, and the officers and chiefs stood port and starboard as normal.
 
When the CO came to me (last in the line of 2nd classes), as the XO read my full name and title, he received my salute and congratulated me, and called me his "favorite blogger". He also thanked me for conducting evening prayers on the 1MC. I was very proud and pleased (and thankful).
 
After the ceremony I got congratulated by a bunch more people, then I finished checking out of S2 Supply division, and checking back into CA (Sonar). I only had WEPS, SUPPO (both officers) and finally CMC...and Chief let me go when I returned the signature sheet back to her.
 
Oh, it was nice to be back with my division! I've already trained on a scenario, a spot check, and a couple quals since being back! I am so excited to get completely qualified for my job, then work on the Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS) - pronounced "Eswaas" - pin. It's a requirement to have in the next 18 months.
 
And as a bonus, since it's Saturday, we had pizza and ice cream tonight. It felt like a celebration.

Petty Officer Second Class!

 First call... first call to Colors. (21 NOV 12, 1648)

I made it, I made it!

The scores came out late on Tuesday the 20th... people were finding out on the Navy Advancement Center's page on Facebook. I didn't bother because I thought for sure I'd be disappointed (with that little twinge of hope that never leaves me - I told myself no, but I was bursting with yes, yes, yes!). I heard people get congratulated every now and then, but not me. But right before dinner, someone came by and congratulated me! I could barely believe it! While I was serving, Senior Chief came over to shake my hand, saying I was on a fast pace for first class. :) That night I went to the NEX and got everything I needed for my uniforms.

All the next day, between serving the chiefs, cleaning their heads, laying down a thorough sweepers in the p-way, taking out trash, and doing the scullery that night, I got lots more congratulations. The CO announced the 31 names of people from Truxtun who were advanced over the 1MC during sweepers. People began to leave for our Thanksgiving 96-hour liberty that afternoon. It was very slow during dinner. Couldn't leave immediately though... we had LSC on duty that day, so she inspected our cleanup afterwords. When we did leave, I took my uniforms with me so I could sew the new tabs on the next day (Thanksgiving) at my friend's house.

Although I had Thanksgiving off as well as the weekend, I had to come in on Friday. It was a pretty easy day... Holiday Routine... no Quarters or Sweepers or anything like that. We did have breakouts after breakfast... I shared a pie with my friends during lunch and took a nap in the Chief's Mess during the toxic gas drill that included the mess decks after lunch... and I took all the morning's trash out just before dinner. Worked the scullery all three meals... but very easy as there was only the duty section there to eat.

Signing off for the first time as an STG2 Select...

Another Indoc, Two Tests and an Anniversary

My first Indoc (or indoctrination - an introduction to a command) was a formal class at Naval Station Great Lakes, and it appears as a week-long class on my CTARS (don't ask me what that stands for - its a confidential list of all the schools I've attended in the Navy). That one started my very first day... but that's a huge training command, and they've got to get people through it. The less formal one I had at the Fleet ASW Training Center occurred within one month of checking in. Here on the destroyer, I just finished Indoc this week, after being here for over two months. Life in the fleet is much more busy and complicated than at shore commands!

But as my brother said, some things in the military never change. I was skeptical that I would learn anything new, since I've been here so much already. Goodness, I'm already a quarter done with Cranking! But it turned out to be helpful, being introduced to certain people's jobs, where I knew people's faces, but not their rates.

Indoc started Monday the 10th, with... what other than a muster sheet? Then the CO came in ("Attention on DECK!") and gave us the same brief some of us had before on the "commander's intent"... that we're going to be ready for the country any time, any place to PURSUE, ATTACK and VANQUISH any enemy (it's our ship's motto - taken from a phrase used on Commodore Thomas Truxtun's gold medal that Congress struck on March 29, 1800 to award him for the defeat of the French ship of war L'Insurgente in the Quasi-War.) He also talked about how he wants the command to operate with rigor, transparency and I think the last was accountability. And then he touched on our ship's schedule again, which I had practically forgotten about since I've been cranking.

The XO came in after him and touched on things like berthing rules and the fact that all the administrative runnings of the ship are under his domain. We then had the command fitness leader (CFL) talk about the upcoming PFA... always fun to remember that I need to lose weight. :) CSC then came in and asked us a lot about ourselves, then went over the suicide prevention power-point... page by page. (My husband thinks it's funny that a month into cranking and suddenly I get a suicide prevention talk... the timing is odd that way, but no matter what a person's doing they're going to talk about that - since Big Navy has a big issue with it, we have to do it... all the time.) Lastly, CMC came in and talked to us about standards for work and for liberty. There have been some issues lately with people wearing "inappropriate" clothes off the barge.

The next day we talked a little about watch standing and force protection (with MA1), but I've already been through Between the Life-Lines... which is all about that. Next, SIGWO (signal warfare officer - boy, did that one take me a while to de-code while I was working the wardroom) came in and talked to us about OPSEC (operations security) and had us sign a "page 13" (acknowledgement form) - who knows where that term came from - about social media posts... and how we should be careful about how much we say where. CS2, who was also in the class, commented that he knew of a half-dozen guys at the Navy prison he was last working at who were spending 25 years to life for giving out too much information. Whoa. The rest of the day was with HM3... smoking secession, STDs (thank the Lord the projector was broken... no nasty pictures to look at this time), and finally CPR.

Wednesday was a succession of topics covering Tag-Out procedures, electrical safety, oil spills, entering void spaces, HAZMAT, fraud+waste+abuse, safety, ORM, awareness, MAN OVERBOARD procedures, and then finally a little tidbit on schools and doing PQS.

On Thursday the 13th, there was a little interruption to our Indoc schedule... namely, the Petty Officer 2nd Class Examination (mandatory test for 3rd's aspiring to the next pay-grade) held everywhere in the Navy that morning for three hours. It was awful! Hardly any Oceanography questions (which I can do better at) and lots on random equipment from all the fields of Sonar. Pretty hard to study for mine, since the test is classified Secret. That and we've been a little busy coming down to Mayport... and cranking on top of that. Won't find out the results for another couple months.

In the afternoon, we finished up Indoc with talks about (you guessed it!) Sexual Assault/SAPR, 3M (our maintenance procedures), PQS info and financial counseling. A whirlwind for sure. And indeed, before and after these trainings, CS2 and I had to be working on the mess decks. There was no skating off for us, even though we had this class. I even worked in the scullery during our lunch break.

It was my weekend to work right before this too... Friday the 7th I kept myself busy all day, trying to get the wardroom silver untarnished... worked it over with steel wool and cut my hand in the process. Saturday I saw a sea turtle for the first time (lots hereafter) and worked through a power outage during dinner with a flashlight. Sunday, the 9th, I got up to clean up the night's remaining dishes even though I was told to sleep in. Did go back to sleep for a couple hours before the extra-long lunch.

Wednesday the 12, during Indoc, the sewer tanks overflowed onto the mess decks before breakfast and the water was secured through lunch... and we had to use the heads (bathrooms) on a trailer parked next to the barge. The tanks flooded again the next Wednesday the 19, my first day back after my 96 hour liberty.

And that Wednesday the 19th, I caught up on the Damage Control Indoc that I had missed the first two days of due to my anniversary trip with my husband. Turns out all I missed was power-points about the same stuff we went over in boot camp. I copied someone's notes and studied them while we were waiting for DC2 Vigilant (awesome name for a DC man!) to take us on a walk-through of the ship's DC spaces... to show us the fire-fighting gear, the repair lockers, shoring and hoses and the like. Later on, after we were let go, we had a Dress Blues inspection (on the hanger, thankfully!) for the upcoming uniform shift on October 1st.

Thursday the 20th was the DC Indoc test... 100 multiple choice questions. Apart from that, it was my day off from cranking, so after the test I changed into civies and read my Peter Wimsey book for a long time before getting the first bus to the Mayport Naval Station (around 1500).

Friday the 21st was my TWO YEAR anniversary of joining the Navy. Goodness, it has gone fast, and slow. Seems like only yesterday, and it seems like forever ago. As for the day itself, I figured out a secret to keeping the dish-washing machine working better, and we had to hold Quarters on the rooftop due to yet more flooding on the mess decks. Someone was late again that morning, so as our MA promised, the next two early days were cancelled. That affected me on Monday... after working through the weekend. Yay.

Saturday was crazy. They secured the water ALL DAY LONG on the barge. That meant a continental breakfast, and hamburgers grilled on the roof for lunch. We had to carry lots of stuff up there... tables, chairs, food, ice... but it was a very good meal. For some reason, Chief thought after lunch would be a good time to field day (clean/scrub) the galley. That put us all in a very lousy mood. Dinner was pizza and wings... and I hated life until I woke up from my long nap afterwords. Went to bed at 1815 and woke up at 0100... went outside to talk to my husband, and while I did that I saw a manatee nibbling algae off the barge! I had very much wanted to see one, so it all worked out alright! I had done a good bit of fishing earlier in the day and caught a good sized Jack on my cheap pole. I do love that about this place! All the sea life I get to see!

Sunday the 23rd, all of note was I got my shins very mosquito-bitten while I cleaned my fish in the evening. Bad decision!

This week it was hard to keep going after the weekend. Monday I was running a little late, but thankfully no one noticed. The ventilation in the scullery wasn't on in the morning, so I was working in a sauna... FC1 said it was 100 degrees in there. I was really tired, my shins itched like the dickens, and for some odd reason, my left wrist hurt just that day. I wanted to hit something after work, so I consoled myself with crumpling up the 3x5 comment card we were given at our divisional training that morning. I didn't have anything to say that they wanted to hear. Life was better after taking a shower and reading while I did my laundry. I suppose I'll have to un-crumple the card.

I survived Tuesday with the knowledge that it was the only day to get through before my day off today. It was cloudy and cool too... and that helped. Caught and released a couple smaller Jacks in the break times and caught the bus to Mayport to spend the evening and next day far, far away. :)

Testing, Testing... 1,2,3

Three tests this week!

I may have been more confident about the written test on Tuesday, but Wednesday morning I found out I only had a 93% (after a couple give-backs), which is one of my worst grades so far. Oh, well. That afternoon we took the accompanying practical exam, and I was in the last group with Barrow. He and I did beautifully, scoring a perfect 100%. So my overall grade should improve from last week's let-down of 95.99% (and fifth place) since practicals are weighted more (I think it's 60%/40%). And since we went last, we helped STG2 get the cabinet back to normal. He had undone the outputs from circuit breaker 4... and he had trouble getting the nuts back on... so I volunteered to do it, and it was easy, since I have comparatively small fingers. Was in an excellent mood by the time I got home. :)

Today, I had no class. It was my first STG2 Examination... and it was awful! 200 multiple-choice questions covering everything from acoustics to sexual harassment, and lasting 3 hours. There were even questions about how you got points from the test I was taking! I have no expectations of actually making second class... and I'd rather not yet (best to be in the fleet for a while)... but I don't think I need to worry. I feel that I for sure got roughly 20 out of the 200, but then again, it is graded on the curve. I do hope I passed, because that will count for points on the next test... PNA points (Pass, but Not Advance; due to availability of billets). We'll see.