Busy Week!

Monday the 13th, worked all morning receiving lots of boxes of XBTs; had to consolidate some of them so they'd fit. Got to install the new trackball assembly for one of the consoles then I was let go to get a quote for open purchase office supplies at Servmart. Managed to drop off copies of my Lay Leader certificate and church letter to the ministry center on my way out too. Tuesday morning I put the system in training for the ship's events this week. Printed out the open purchase requests, then spent the remainder of the day replacing all 35 pieces of non-skid in all our division's spaces. Got the materials from the deck department in their forward locker. Had to cut the big pieces in quarters, then rounded all the edges to make it look uniform. I only measured the first piece before I realized how easy it would be. Folded the big piece before I cut it to keep my scissors straight through the middle. The result looks fantastic! Before we used three skinny strips laid down together to make a big enough strip for walking safely through doors and hatches... now they are all brand-new, solid pieces, that sparkle in the bright indoor light. Just another reason why Sonar has the best looking spaces on the ship. Wednesday was an odd day all around. Our LPO was in school, so besides quarters being a little different, Senior Chief asked me to attend our DITS out-brief in the wardroom with our Divo and himself. Division-In-The-Spotlight consists of an overall inspection of all a division's programs, binders and spaces. I am in charge of safety, security and repair parts. All three of these received the best marks possible... and high praise from all the inspectors; words like "flawless" "perfect" and "Bravo Zulu" (which is Navy for "well done"). This was only possible because I corrected every hit from the last DITS we had. Still, it felt really good to have things like that said in front of the command. After this and after lunch, I worked on organizing the ZIDL hits (zone inspection deficiencies list) into categories. Also, the Fathometer guys came over to teach me about replacing one of the springs for the chart paper, and they taught me a bit about the wave analyzer that I have to use for one of the annual checks that I have to accomplish this week.  Thursday, I had the first watch... five hours that never seemed to end. Between checking in over fifty contractors and visitors, passing the word, answering the phone and transferring calls (usually more than one at a time), blowing the whistles for colors, and ringing the CO aboard, I was pretty much plum tired out by the time my relief came. I spent the afternoon working in Sonar Control by myself, repairing lagging so I can complete those jobs I wrote for DITS last week. I had trouble with the pennants just before colors... I accidentally let one of the lines go as I was transferring it, and we had to fight with a very heavy safety net pole to bring it back down. But eventually we got it done. So glad I was able to get a full night's sleep!  Friday was a bookend to Monday, since I was able to complete the second Fathometer check that gave me so much trouble last year. This time I was prepared! I knew what I needed (test equipment set up) and I had it explained to me by the experts! Helps a lot! But I knocked that out at the end of the day... I started by going to medical for a screening for an upcoming event.

Slideshow

 On the bridge on a duty day... waiting for colors.

 Two hats...

 Two banes of my existence: transmitter cables and public speaking

 Doodling on our whiteboard. Who knew the sonar symbol looks like the top of a bowling pin?

On SCAT during our Nov-Dec month-long underway. You could say it was a little chilly.

Holiday Stand-Down No. 2

Just re-read my entries from holiday stand-down from last year... how long ago that was! And how far I've come from then! It was the very first time I stood an armed watch!

This holiday period in port really was holiday duty for me. My first duty day was a Sunday (had the mid-watch on the Quarterdeck with an Ensign from section 5 as OOD)... and the next was Wednesday... the 1st of January (afternoon watch on the Quarterdeck with BM2)... and the final was yesterday, a Saturday (Combat Systems Maintenance Central evening watch). As the first two were holiday routine days, we didn't have training and I had tons of time to get all my required training courses done. There were drills on Saturday, but we knocked them out in the morning. I was Team Leader for the DC drill for the first time... thankfully it was an easy flooding/pipe patching drill in self-serve laundry. We enthusiastically got it done right the first time.

Since it rained a lot, we swept a lot. I nearly swept the non-skid off of the missile deck by week's end. :)

And the ship did us all a good turn: since our pre-deployment leave is so awfully short, they let us have two days off during the week. We had short workdays on Monday and Friday, then we had time to relax Tuesday through Thursday. And boy, did that feel good. I started making a habit of leaving the ship in civilian clothes... and it made me feel even free-er. :)

A Month-Long Dream

Hello from the Truxtun... at my new station this last underway on the Small Craft Attack Team. (This I did at least four times the first week, and then three or four more times during the last three weeks.) I became very familiar with the process... and was usually the first one on station. For the last event, I had to take the covers off myself, and I put them back on when we finished too. I think I resemble a turtle in my flak jacket and helmet.

The ship passed all its tests with flying colors, especially Sonar, which scored the highest out of the entire strike group during the exercises. Something to be proud of for sure! There were at least two weeks where we were under the microscope, with ship-riding inspectors (a retired Sonar Senior Chief and the Navy's only female Sonar Master Chief - still active duty). Because of this, we were very busy in Sonar all the time... keeping it clean, running environmental data, sitting at the stacks, being vigilant. Despite this, my watch-mate and I managed to take and pass our Work Center Supervisor and Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist written tests; significant achievements in our Naval careers. And we managed to start on our First Class walk-throughs in the last couple days. Our former LPO gave us an in-depth grilling on all our Sonar gear before he signed off on it.

While on SCAT, I managed to see my very first flying fish! Also saw a couple sea turtles right up next to the ship as we sailed by, and dozens of dolphins... and even a baby dolphin or two. And I didn't mind getting all the fresh air either! The most fun day though, was when we had strike group maneuvers in rough seas... at times the deck looked like it was at a 30-40 degree angle and felt like riding a stand-up roller coaster. I had the time of my life! Got soaked by a few waves crashing on the deck, but didn't mind much because I knew I'd be able to get warm and dry as soon as we were stood down.

Was it only two UNREPs? No, I think there were at least three. I was on the fo'c'sle line each time, usually ending up second in line for the brunt of the hauling of the line from the oiler. There's a really tall guy at the station who always takes the first spot. I loved the last UNREP we did though... it was after dark, so even though it might have been more dangerous, it went easier than any I had done before. Before I knew it the probe was connected and we were taking on fuel.

I think it was three Man Overboard drills as well; only one of them was "real". It was from another ship in the strike group and it turned out being a false alarm. It definitely wasn't part of the schedule though, as it was in the middle of the night. I've never seen people turn out of their racks so fast before!

Ages ago, at the beginning of the underway, I brought some home-made pumpkin pies for my division to indulge in before Thanksgiving. Another fun event, near the end, the First Classes had a "Caroling on the Mess Decks" event. I shocked myself by volunteering to sing into a microphone for a well populated crowd (that included the CO and XO), and further surprised myself by not faltering when singing O Holy Night as if I was at home with my family sitting around the Christmas tree. They tell me I did well too... it felt a bit like an out-of-body experience, I was so struck with fear.

What was good for me was my watch section. The three of us females had a good time together; we're all a bit experienced, so we knew what to do and we did it. We were the best watch section (in my totally unbiased opinion) always cleaning the space and diligently marking contacts in the log, just as we were directed. I also learned a bit about a couple types of messages we have to draft and send to either the strike group or the data center. There were a lot of messages to send this underway... every day.

Even besides our duties, my watch section was headed up by our newest Sonar Supervisor, and she encouraged us to work out with her nearly every day. I know I wouldn't have worked out half as much if it wasn't for her... and she was already someone to look up to... she's the lead tech and my sponsor when I checked onboard, a year and a half ago.

When we were finally ashore, it all suddenly seemed like a very long dream that we were waking from. It took me a good while to fall asleep, since it's so quiet at home.

Hands-On Learning

We had an issue with our transmit box during testing the week prior, so this last week was up in the air as to when we would do what. Had some diagnostics on Monday or Tuesday... finished at midnight... then there was the matter of getting everything repaired. But the tech reps were quick about their job and showed us a thing or two as they went. It ended up that on Friday the 15th we had to plug all the cables back in, but it went a lot faster this time since we did it all together, with the tech reps assessing our job and helping out too. Then we were finally able to do the regular test on the system capabilities that night, and everything was back up and running smoothly. Even though I had to stay very late (got off at 2100) I learned so much about how our system works... so glad I was there to learn!

Sunday was duty, so it was laid back again in holiday routine. Had the last Combat Systems watch, so this time I even got to sit down and relax while I monitored all the alarms. Spent a good deal of the day organizing my stuff on board. Very happy to fit my little quick fix sewing machine in my personal drawer... that will come in handy big time for the upcoming advancement season. Friday morning alone I had two rush jobs... one for 2nd class crows and one for a parka liner tab.

A Tale of Two Duty Days

Once it was the busiest of times, and once it was the quietest of times...

The first day I was unable to vote... and the second I was unable to get a free dinner from the Olive Garden.

Election Day, November 5, was very, very busy. When I arrived that morning, there was a line of contractors all the way across the brow, waiting to get checked in by the overwhelmed Quarterdeck. I was busy with Sonar in the morning, then I had to bow out for the afternoon watch. ... in which I continued checking in over 30 more contractors, keeping track of badges (people coming and going for lunch), ringing the Captain off, back on, and back off near the end of the watch. And I started off with ringing eight bells at noon (signal that all is well on-board). I used to be afraid of the bells... of ringing it too hard or to soft into the 1MC speaker... but no more! After having to ring it twenty times on one watch, I simply had to get over it really fast... and I did. Even with all the contractors and all the bells, the craziest time was when I had three different things to pass over the announcing system with two phone calls coming in at the same time... all while I was trying to call someone myself, for someone who was waiting on the Quarterdeck. After watch (whew!), there was sweepers and anti-terrorism training, and a damage control drill... pipe patching drill. The whole day went by in a flash; it was a little wild.

Veteran's Day, November 11, was very, very slow. There was no training, and generally nothing going on overall. I took it pretty easy... watched two movies on my laptop, took a short nap, then did sweepers with the duty section. I returned below after mustering on the Quarterdeck because no one brought a dustpan or foxtail with them and one was needed very badly. So I picked up all the piles of dirt that everyone made and also did lots of detail work along the knife edge (lip of the hull) of the Quarterdeck area since those coarse brooms don't reach those tiny places very well. Immediately after that I had early chow for watch reliefs, because I had the evening watch as Petty Officer. My OOD was a duty swap from another duty section, so that was nice to get to know someone else a little better. Once watch was over, I called my husband and went straight to bed after we talked for a few minutes. Ended up getting 6 or 7 hours of sleep! That was very nice!

Lots of Testing (for two weeks)

The last week of October (28-1st), Sonar was involved in more scenarios... this time in conjunction with other ships on the waterfront. I had another meltdown on the announcing system... I read certain facts, but each time my Sup made me re-do it, I'd get something else wrong or forget one of the four or five things I had to say in the report. Made me feel completely useless... but again, this was the first time in a long time I had had to make a report. With practice, I will do just fine, but at that moment I wished I could have resigned. We were back at the schoolhouse on Monday, but I was back on the ship after the first lecture.

This week (Nov 4-8), we thought we were finally going to have a down week, but not so. There were more inspectors on board to do system tests... again. I also had meetings for the cruise book committee (a year book for deployments) and the beginnings of the SCPOA (second class petty officer's association). We'll see how they both go.

Back to the Classroom

After a week of working hard and staying late... for Sonar, it's another week of working hard and staying late. I mean, isn't the weekend enough of a break? :)

Early Monday morning, I dropped my husband off at the airport and still had time to come home and eat breakfast before changing into my uniform and reporting for duty... at a schoolhouse. We had special Sonar training and drills all week... the first two days for five of my fellow Sonar Techs and I were taken up with in-depth training for the environmental computer system we use to predict what sound will do in water... and therefore help us understand the best setup to use for Sonar.

Starting Wednesday, we had scenarios all day every day... and I was finally able to get formal training on the sonobuoy processing "functional segment"... a fancy phrase we use for a computer program. I'm excited about learning it because it's fun, and it's my next step on the path to becoming Sonar Supervisor.

My duty day was Thursday... since I was busy with Sonar, I didn't have to go to Turnover or Sweepers. After a brief training on the messdecks after dinner, I did some more training with the Sound & Security (engineering person who monitors water systems) watch-stander as he did his rounds. Got some sign-offs for ESWS and my OOD PQSs. Had the Mid-Watch as POOW on the Quarterdeck. I was so tired afterwords that I forgot to call my husband (we talk every night). I got three hours of sleep before I had to get the system up and in training for the day's scenarios; it had to be taken down for my maintenance check on Thursday.

Friday was a big day for Sonar. My Senior Chief transferred to his new command around noontime. We gathered on the forecastle for a medal ceremony, hugged him goodbye, then lined up as side boys as he was "bonged" off the ship. Two bells rung, "full rank and name, departing." [Commanders (O-5) and above get four bells or more (Ding, ding. Ding, ding) whenever they arrive or depart.] Whenever someone completes their duty aboard ship and transfers, they are allowed to be rung off. I was sorry to see him go, but I like our new senior chief as well. It was a busy day, too. Immediately after the ceremony, WEPS told us to go to Sonar for the last scenario, although we were already on the move. And first thing that morning, I had a simulated weapons shoot at an indoor range on base. The actual weapons were there (50cal, M240), but they were connected to a computer program as we fired at a screen. It was pretty fun.

Yorktown II

the Return to Yorktown...

We had Monday off for Columbus Day, and that gave me at least a normal weekend to relax, since I had duty on Saturday. But liberty expired a little earlier on Tuesday for our scheduled underway to Yorktown for a weapons on-load. I was getting a ride home with some other Sonar Techs that evening, so I didn't bother to bring my digital working uniform, as the underway uniform is coveralls. I un-characteristically arrived in civilian clothes to do so. What's the point of changing into a different uniform within an hour or so? None at all. My watch station for the very long Sea & Anchor between Norfolk and Yorktown was in Sonar Control, but as we neared the VA-17 bridge on the York River, I was told to go arm up for Petty Officer of the Watch (it wasn't my duty day, but they were utilizing people from "sister sections"... usually for when we drop down to 3 sections instead of 6). So I was allowed to arm up in coveralls instead of the usual working uniform... and I got to the Quarterdeck (on the flight deck that week) just as we were passing the bridge. Two sections of it broke apart and rotated 90° as we sailed through. Had to stand the watch for about four hours, even though it was only supposed to last a few minutes. The guy on the watchbill was busy with the anchoring detail, so there I was... and without the bell. As soon as the brow was open, the base XO, a Commander, came aboard. We tried desperately to get the bridge to ring him aboard (they always have a bell up there), but they wouldn't for some reason. Not a great way to start. But soon after watch, those of us who had rides were on our way home. Didn't get back to my car in Norfolk until 1800.

Wednesday I worked as Phone Talker for the aft launchers, to make sure everyone's fingers and toes were out of the way below as the missiles came down. And Sonar took on some torpedoes... which were awful to get out of their cases and into the magazine. Just the cases themselves were pretty heavy... and super awkward to carry... I had several bruises on my shins before we were done. Didn't get to leave until 1840.

Thursday I wore a worker's back brace... and boy, did that help! Did a little more Phone Talker, this time up forward in the morning. In the afternoon, Sonar helped out the Gunners with the 240 ammo (which required a two-man carry at 90+ lbs a box). Afterwords, I went down to the deep magazine to help with the five inch rounds. Got off about 1730... and I was all a-glow... my husband was flying in at 1800 to spend the weekend with me (and would have been there for the Tiger Cruise - family ride-a-long - if it hadn't have been cancelled due to a lack of money). But at least I was able to give a tour in-port Norfolk when we got back on Friday. And that way, he and my sister (who was also visiting) got to see more of the ship than if we were underway anyway.

With the Rear Admiral

Friday, School; Saturday, Duty

Friday, I never even saw the ship. I was TAD (temporarily assigned duty) to the Maintenance University at the TSC (training support center) building on base for a class in job writing (which was informative and useful!). Afterwords, I went to Servmart quickly for a few quotes for open purchase, then went home.

The next morning I went in early in case I had the first watch... and I did. I was topside rover, and therefore had to get a little wet in the morning misty rain. It had rained steadily for a couple days so there was a bit of water on the decks. By the afternoon, though, it had stopped and the sun came out. I spearheaded the effort to get the standing water off the missile deck... using my brand-new push-broom that had arrived from supply on Thursday... and it worked wonders. I used a bunch of the afternoon to get those open purchase requests ready to be routed up the chain of command on Tuesday. Went to bed really early so that when I got up for the last watch (petty officer this time) (I was doubled up this time from no fault of my own... we didn't have enough qualified people for everything because some people were on leave), I would be wide awake... and it worked. Did the daily checks right after disarming, then it was time for turnover, and then home for two days off in a row.

Truxtun in the News!

Here is an interview with HM2 and my CO, for their parts in the film Captain Phillips, which opens today.

That's pretty cool!

Here's a photo of the ship from her last deployment:

 And here's one from the film: