Beer with a Bubblehead

Hey, team. Welcome back to another episode of the three hamster boys podcast. Today we've got something a little different, a little special for you.

Not special. Just different.

It is special because this is our first episode of this kind of video we hope to have as a reoccurring. Yeah.

Yeah. I I think when we are, like, thinking about this podcast and, like, what we wanna talk about and what we wanna sit down, we started with, like, a top three list as kind of the basis, but we wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about other things that maybe we're knowledgeable about or things that we wanna learn more about. And so this is one of those episodes. It won't really follow the same format we've had before, but it will be broken into three parts, and we'll have three different alcohols to be trying while we're going. We're gonna keep that consistent because, we we just like trying new alcohols, I think.

So And why I wasn't part of it.

Yeah. First, I'm fine. So this is, me going off, on my own and, just picking something. So we're gonna talk about, my navy life on a submarine. And so I said, well, I'm gonna try to get three nautically themed, beers to drink. And so I have no idea how any of these taste. They're basically randomly selected. I just like the names. And so I said, hey. That that looks like a cool bottle.

Alright. Here we

go. Cheers. Cheers. Wow. That is really good.

It doesn't taste like, doesn't taste like I was expecting it to.

It's got more of a pale ale kind of taste to the stout. It's not as rich and as, I guess, chocolatey would be the way you would say it.

It's like not as smooth.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what I was gonna say.

It feels like it does it's like more beer.

It's more beer to that's what I'm saying. More more like a like an ale.

Yeah. Yeah.

Not the best I've tasted. Definitely not anywhere close to like a a Guinness or anything like that.

But Not bad.

Not bad. Still stout. Still still drinkable. So Yeah. Still drinkable. That that that's the measure of acceptability.

For sure.

So kind of as a little more background on this kind of episode type, obviously, dad, our father is going to be the focus of this episode. Yeah. So I think it'll be more of a I don't wanna say like an investigative journalism kind of situation, but it will be more of like a Nick and I asking questions and just kind of, like, hopefully leading down our father into some interesting answers and just maybe some narratives and stories from his submarine days. And and maybe answering some questions that you, the viewer at home, might not know or may be surprised to to learn about how subs are. Granted, it's been a few years.

I'm sure

some things have changed.

It is crazy for me to think about it because, in this room, I look over at the wall across from me, and there's a picture of my submarine. There's a picture of all my, awards and medals I've gotten. Back here, you have, two, special kind of certificates. One is for going through the Panama Canal, and the other one is for crossing the Equator, which are really big traditional things that if you're on a a ship, you would do not just a submarine, but just any ship. When you cross the Equator, you go from a poly log to, oh god.

Did you evolve and get your ears pierced?

No. I I got my one ear pierced before I went in the Navy and at the time when I joined the Navy, you were not allowed to have ears pierced. They do now. They do allow Right. Guys to have piercing ears.

So if you get your ears pierced on a submarine It's fine. They either okay with it?

Or they were it was like kind of under board. No.

No. No. You never did it. This was sailors got their ears pierced in the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. Oh. It was not part of the modern navy.

Oh, wait. So you're saying back in, like, the old days, they were like, oh, it's fine if you pierce your ears, and then when you were there,

they were like, no. Yeah. I mean, so, if you think about a sailor uniform

Yeah.

There's a little flap on the back. And the reason for that is because sailors let their hair grow really long. And then they would use the tar that they use for rigging and stuff on their hair, and it and it that flap would catch the tar on your hair. Mhmm. So your hair didn't go everywhere.

I thought it's so catch could pick up their young. No. Alright. But

before we get too ahead of ourselves, we're already going down a rabbit hole here. We're gonna break these into what we think are kind of good three segments, which this segment here will be before the sub and kind of like a little bit of, like, context. And then we'll do another drink and then we'll have, like, during the sub, which I think will be, the the size will most, like, large chunk here And then after the sub and how things have changed, and in between, like, each section, we'll have another drink.

Yep.

Because he only only got us one bottle. So we're not drinking that much tonight.

Yeah.

So let's go ahead and kick it off, as like big context. Why did you join the Navy and why sub specifically?

So, when I was at the end of my sophomore year in high school, I was six in my class out of 300. I was on that college path, National Honor Society, AP classes. At that time, they didn't have dual enrollment. Yeah. So, the expectation was that you would be going off to, you'd be going off to college.

Is this like a a written test? Is this like a Scantron

It is where we look at it? It is very it's a very unique test. So like there was a bunch of different sections and it basically aligned with what your professionally professional aptitude was for. So there was if I remember correctly, there's a math section, there's a vocabulary section, but then there was also a boxes laid flat. And if you folded them, what shape would they go to three dimensionally?

Oh, yeah. We we did those tests and, gifted. Yeah.

And then there was also, you had you had one minute to fill in the circles as fast as you could. And you basically they gave you a hundred circles to fill in. You had one minute, and you tried to get as close to a hundred as possible. If you got a hundred, that means you you could do, office work transcriptional work. Interesting. So there there was a lot of different sections to it. I think it was like seven or eight. Don't don't do that. But anyways, I scored it.

Don't quote you?

Don't quote me because that was a couple years ago.

It's been one or two years.

So the Both of your children are older than 18.

Yeah. So to to give you an idea, they, that was I took that in 1982.

Yeah. I wasn't alive.

That was a couple years ago. I also

surprisingly wasn't alive at night.

So anyway, so because of that, all four armed services reached out to me and said, we'd like for you to join. And I was sitting there going, well, what am I gonna do? And the navy guy said, look. We've got a great program, nuclear power on submarines. This is our most elite program that we have for someone that's really smart.

It was sad.

It was sad. So I went to go talk to the navy guy, and the navy guy was talking to someone else. So my dad's like, well, let's go talk to everybody else. So I talked to the marine guy, and I said, well, the navy's offering me, you know, this nuclear power submarine. There's a lot of advantages to it. You got automatic promotion, all this stuff. And I said, so what does the marines have? And they said, three meals a day. Oh. Oh, no. It's like, that's interesting, but probably not where I wanna be.

Wow. Good sales pitch. You're like, the other people aren't gonna feed me three meals?

So the the the marines were selling their image of what they were. You know? They they were gonna be the elite fighting unit that was gonna be in the front. So that that was they were looking for a certain type of character and personality to do that. Not good or bad.

Just Yeah. No. No. Just

a super person.

So, and then so we went to the, army guy next. And at the time, the army was offering a college plan because there was no GI bill. There was no ability to have any college supplement, but the army said, look. You come in for three years. We're gonna give you money for college. I thought, well, that's pretty interesting, but you're gonna be a soldier. You're gonna pound you're gonna be a ground pounder. You're basically just gonna march. Right. I said, okay.

And this first test was different than the test that you already had taken.

Yes. Was it harder? It harder?

It was much harder. So basically, the nuclear power test is goes from, it it it ended up being advanced physics, advanced chemistry, and advanced calculus questions in it.

Are these tests that you study for or that you can

study for? You can't study for them. No. So then the nuclear power test was 80 questions. You go in there, you take the 80 questions, and you get out. And you need to get, I think, a 72 in order to get accepted into nuclear power program. So

you need at least a c to make it No.

72 out of 80.

Oh, I'm sorry. 72 questions on 72%.

No. Not 72%. You need 72 questions out of it.

You could miss eight.

You could miss eight. Wow. And the the hard part for me was is that I had not taken physics or calculus.

That does seem like an issue.

That would be an issue.

However, I was number one in my class for AP chemistry.

You were a nerd.

I was a nerd. I was also doing, programming.

Oh, I thought you were about to say I was working on physics for fun. Anyways, in

my free time.

We were

doing it because I was real I was really I was really close. I was really, connecting with the chemistry teacher. Yeah. So we were doing, some nuclear physics kind of things in the class. It was like extra credit. So I did I did have I had some inkling of what I was doing.

You were you were talking about, like, fission and fusion in in the classroom.

Well, we were talking about interactions of of atoms and electrons and stuff like that. So which is, which is it's kind of where you go with it. So anyway, so I I got a 76 or 70.

No. I think your men say I got a 72.

No. No. No. No. They they they I did really well. So here I am 17 and I joined. And, you go into what they call the delayed entry program. And, basically, I had braces on, and you can't go in the military with braces. So you have to wait till the braces are off. So you go into the delayed entry program for up to a year.

Yeah. This is, like, the image that you're building is wild to me because it's like, hey, kid. Come on down. Here's a pizza party. Also, pee in this cup for me. Thanks.

Yeah. It was it was kinda like that because you would meet at the recruiter's office, you would pee in the bar, you pee in the thing, and then you would go. And they they would have to have two guys. So that's when the marine guy was there. The marine guy and the navy guy, because they were in the same office, would would verify that I wasn't cheating or whatever.

Cheating Cheating on the p test? Yeah. Oh my god.

Were they in the room?

The it wasn't quite like that, but it was it was it was not a private situation. Yeah. Because, like, I think there was a bunch of us. There were a couple guys that didn't make it to their

Yeah.

To think because they they pop positive on that.

Were most other people, like, the same age? Were, like, was it just a bunch of other 17 year olds?

In general, yes. Although there were others that were delayed entry because of they got arrested and this was their option. Rather than going to jail, they were gonna join the military. But because of other extenuating circumstances or court dates Mhmm. They got delayed before they went to to boot camp.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Okay. So, anyway, so you get to my my date that I'm supposed to go in. You go to Richmond. They give you one last physical. You raise your hand. You say once again, I reaffirm because you when you get a physical and so in December of nineteen eighty two, when I officially joined, I raised my hand. I got a physical. They said I was okay. There were some there were some issues.

What do you mean by raising your hand? You're just like are you physically able to close your hand?

You raise your hand you go. I solemnly swear. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Pick me. You basically say I solemnly swear that I will perform the duties of whatever.

Oh, okay.

Is this like the liability waiver?

No. This is you It's like you're swearing

into the service.

Oh, okay. Okay.

Yeah. So everyone does that and you're on a big room. So you go down to what they call the MEPS station in Richmond.

Gotcha. You

get a physical, and then everyone is afterward, they pass the physical, raises their hand, and does that together. So there's there was a there was a room of, I don't know, 40 or 50 of us.

Mhmm.

But we were all going in at different times. Some were leaving right then to go. Oh, wow. Okay. So, anyways, you get to your your date. You get in there and they go, okay, Jeff, you are going to get automatically advanced because you're nuclear power. So you're the most senior guy here.

Oh.

Here is the military records for the seven guys going with you. You will accompany them on the plane. We flew to O'Hare. From O'Hare, we picked the bus and went to Great Lakes, Illinois for boot camp.

And you were, like, 18 at this point?

I was 18 at that time. Yeah. Wow. But I was a senior guy by rank. Okay. And then what you do is you get there and it's late at night and so you're in civilian clothes and you don't bring anything else. You just bring your clothes.

You don't bring anything else. Do you bring like extra clothes? No.

Or do

you just bring like one pair?

What you have on is what you're doing. Wow. Next morning, they wake you up. They march you in civilian clothes. They cut off all of your hair. So all of a sudden you're equalized. Then you go into a building.

I think you mean all of a sudden you're bald.

Well, you're bald, but you you don't remember who you were with. Everyone is so different once they go bald.

Right. It's like

You know, it's it's the equal. Anyway, so you go to boot camp and that gets worse. So then you go to a building and they're gonna fit you for your uniform. So everybody ships down to underwear.

Lovely.

So you have 80 guys in underwear.

Yeah.

That that's a company. And you march in front of these women as they measure you. And then they give you a tray and you go and you have a slip of paper and they look at your slip of paper and they put the size that are supposed to be in it. You get at the end and they yell at you put on one t shirt, put on one pair of socks, put on one pair of pants, one shirt.

Yeah.

You put that on then you march to breakfast.

Oh, ma'am. This isn't what I ordered.

I think my

menu is wrong. You march to breakfast and then you go to the doctor's office and everyone gets their shots. So they line up 20 guys, you drop your pants, you bend over, and they give you a shot in the butt.

I thought that was just like a thing they did in, like, media. Like, I didn't think

it No. Yes. You do it. And the worst part about it is that if you don't move your muscle, your leg gets stiff. So in the morning, if you're in the top bunk, you get out, you'll see half the company collapse on the floor.

Got you.

Because it is so sore because excuse me. They're not gentle. They don't care, and they're fast. Click. They get a it's an intramuscular shot.

They're surely, they're better spots. No?

No. They so this particular shot, I I think it's a tetanus shot, needs to be intramuscular. So that that's

Yeah. But you got muscles all

over the place. Yeah. But it's

better. I don't I

don't know.

I don't Yeah.

Check-in with that doctor. It wasn't doctors. It was a bunch

of female nurses that were I don't know.

But but the doctor, whoever's running that Whoever signed off on that. The nurses, they're like told. Right? Like they're like, this is what we gotta do. Right?

Well, they just say line up, drop your pants.

That's what I'm saying.

That's what

I'm saying. There's someone

in charge of that.

Who green lit who green lit? Who green lit that?

You're a piece of meat. Yeah. I don't care. It's different. I think it's different now.

I think it's different now. I think it's

different now.

I'm pretty sure I see like you like have your your arm, you like you you like roll up your sleeves. And then Well,

they do do that.

You you roll up both sleeves

and you get shots in both arms also.

Oh, it's you you're just, like, boom boom and in the tushy?

Yeah. One, two, three? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I think there was five or six.

Okay. So there's seven of them.

There's a there's a bunch of stuff.

Anyway. Available

VC. So anyways, so, after that, then I went to boot camp and then I went to my trade school and I was a machinist mate. So I learned how to do the trade of a machinist's mate.

Mhmm. What what is what is a machinist's mate?

So in the in nuclear power, there's three there's three ratings, three jobs.

Mhmm.

A machinist's mate, an electrician's mate, and electronic technician, ET.

Yeah.

So, a machinist's mate, will do all of the steam part of the engine room. They do all the mechanical part of the engine room. Okay. Okay? It's inside in inside the engine room and also inside the reactor room. So all the mechanical parts of the reactor, they also work on.

Is this something you chose or is this like they're like based on your test results, you get this?

It's a combination. So test results made me eligible for doing an ET, an EM, or a machinist mate, but they want older older people to do the ET role because that's the reactor operator. They're the ones who are actually moving.

They're like we don't want an 18 year old.

Well, I mean there are there are some 18 year olds but if you've got any college because a lot of guys going there were guys going into the enlisted that had four year degrees.

Mhmm.

Usually that means you're gonna be an officer, but there were some enlisted guys that had a lot of education, one or two years. Anyway, so you you do the trade school.

Yep. Then you go down

to nuclear power school. And basically, that's a six month academic class school. You take basically three classes a day. You're basically taking three tests a week. You're spending a minimum of two hours every night studying, and you go from basic arithmetic up to nuclear physics.

I don't wanna judge, but you started this off being like, I was done with school.

Yeah. And

Oh, no. I didn't realize.

And this sounds like school.

It is school, but I was getting paid to go to school.

That is nice.

I was in Orlando. I was in Orlando where the drinking age was 18.

Sure. Oh, back in the Oh, hold on. Hold on.

For sure.

The the Florida was one of the few states that held off raising it to 21.

Makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. It's Florida. Hold on. There's another part. Yeah. Orlando was also the place for the women's boot camp.

Okay. Okay. Well Every Friday. We don't we don't we don't we don't need to.

Anyway Anyway, so you go to Nikka PowerSchool. And then after that, you go to a privately run reactor and learn how to operate a reactor. Mhmm. And then you go to a summary.

Wait. I'm sorry. When you say privately run reactor, you're saying, like, a civilian owned reactor?

Owned by the government?

Kind of. Oh. Okay. So so, like okay. So, when I was in, there was three places you could go. You go to Connecticut, Groton, Connecticut, and that was run by a company called Combustion Engineering because they were one of the first developers of reactors. I went to one in Upper State New York, which was run by GE because GE's plants in Schenectady and all of the

Okay. General Electric's, like, whole, you know, repertoire of things that they do.

It is. But but but to to to give you an idea, the submarines that were being built at that time were GE reactor plants.

Okay.

Gotcha. And then in submarines. In surface boats, they were being built by Westinghouse, much larger larger and different reactors because they were for aircraft carriers and they were doing training in Idaho. So I went to to, Upper State New York and got through that then I reported to my first submarine.

And then you were you finally made it to the And

that so that so I joined in October of an October of '80 '3. I went to boot

camp. Yeah.

I got to my first submarine July of eighty five. Sorry. July of eighty five. So it took you basically did schooling for two years Wow.

Okay. So yeah, you started this by no schooling ended up doing schooling for two years But my question is by the time you got to the submarine what were the expectations that you had, about like living on a submarine? Because I'm sure you'd like there's training, there's things that you've gone over, but you haven't actually been on the submarine. Did you have any sort of like big expectations about how submarine life would be?

No. I think that the only thing that I really that only thing I knew was really World War two movies. And I knew that the submarines that were being built at that at at the time that I went in were very different.

Oh, my God. I'm gonna talk to Sean Connery.

Yeah. Well, so Hunt for Red October hadn't got out come out yet. So It's even worse. And so, so to think

Who's this random guy? So

to give you give you a perspective of size, and I know we're coming up on hand here, of the first session. The the World War two submarine was about a 50, two hundred feet and had 40 guys on it. Mhmm. The new submarines were 400 feet long, had a 25 to a 50 guys on it. Mhmm. So and there was three decks. In a in the World War two submarines, there was one deck. So in a in a modern submarine at that time, there was three decks. So this this is 30 foot diameter interior walls. Yeah.

That doesn't sound that big.

We'll talk about that.

Yeah. I was like, no. We'll talk about that in a second here. We're gonna start pouring the next drinks, and when we come back, we'll have more to talk about. See you in a second here. And we're back for our next section here. We've got some new alcohol in front of us. And normally, I'd be looking over to Nick. But, dad, you picked all all of these.

I do feel at a loss.

So this one is it was unique. Number one, it's in a can, which is not always my favorite.

It's not ideal.

There's so much like disdain when either of you say a can.

But anyways, I thought it was interesting. Once once again, we talked about boot camp. This is Great Lakes Brewery, and it's the Edmund Fitzgerald, which is a famous ship that sunk in the I think it was, like, Michigan. And there's been a lot of folklore around it and people hunting for it and whatever. Once again, it's another dark. This is a porter.

Wait. You're telling me they didn't find it? They have not found it. Oh, my gosh.

It's a big lake.

It's really big. Big lakes, but yeah. Wait. They don't

know which lake it is?

There's five Lake Michigan?

No. Anyways. Okay.

He's anyways, cheers. Cheers.

Once again, it's it's not as strong as I'd like it to be.

I feel like this one has a a similar taste to the last one, honestly.

It's lighter. It's

lighter and I don't know. I feel like you this is like the the time where you chose the the drinks Less on, like, the interesting flavors Right. And more on the actual, like, branding of it.

Right. It it was it was more a branding one.

So Yeah. Why doesn't this taste like salt water?

I was hoping for, like, maybe a little bit maybe a little something. You know, you're like, woah.

Well, if I had my choice, I would have probably picked one of the ocean aged whiskey.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Barrel of Yeah. Like Jefferson and there was that Japanese one we saw also. I thought that would be interesting.

Maybe maybe if we do another one we could have all three.

Anyways, alright. So, one of the things that we did not talk about Yeah. Was how do you get on submarines?

Mhmm.

Because I I kind of glossed over that and went to boot camp, and all of a sudden, I went to a submarine. Well, in order to be on a submarine, there's a couple of things you have to do. Number one, you have to volunteer for it. And believe it or not, every time I went to a new school or place and also every month, they asked to reverify that I wanted to be on submarines.

Is that part of, like, the, mental analysis that they do

on it? It is part of that because

I feel like you gotta be a little crazy to be like, yeah, put me in a box in

the ocean. Put me in a box, drop it down 300 feet.

Put me in a tube and, they they wanna make sure k. So in general, the the military really doesn't care how you feel. But in this case

I feel like it probably has changed too.

In this case, they do care how you feel about being in a submarine underneath the water. Because you talked about it. 30 feet doesn't seem like a lot. The other thing with submarines is that when they build them, they forget to put beds in there. So you're really the the machinery takes up the majority of the space of the submarine. So the space that you have for people is very limited.

Mhmm.

Right? Because it's a war machine first.

Yeah.

And it carries people with it. Yeah. Alright. And so they always tried to verify that you wanna do it. And then one of the oddest ones is that you take a psychological profile. It's a written test.

Yeah.

And then you talk to a psychologist afterwards or psychiatrist.

That's the oddest test that you have?

That was the that was well, the one was

This guy just kept asking, are you sure you wanna be locked in a metal tube with a 69 guys for months on end, and I just didn't get it.

Yeah. Are you sure? The reason that this is a funny test is because the you you go through these questions, and they're they're they're they're geared toward making trying to understand your biases and how you looked at like, one of the questions that I always remember is, the it's a comparison. It's like, a boat captain is to a train captain as an airplane pilot is to what? And the the options were a bunch of different things, and one of them was a bus driver.

a captain of their own ship.

Yeah. Is it like, like, you think less of it? It's just like You

think less of it.

You you think that the the pilot is just a, like, more

Correct.

Like, higher status.

And that was kind of how the questions were except for the last question. The last question was on the last page. You get to last page, it's blank, except for the question at the top. The question at the top is Please write your name. The question no. Worse. The question on the top was draw a nude person.

No. Yes. Why?

So Yeah. Yeah.

You So so I went

all those years of art school finally paying off. So I

went up and this this is where I was baffled by this question. Yeah. So I went up to him

and I said, look, I can't draw. Please, can I switch this out for a math problem, please?

And they're like, just draw something. I'm like, I can't draw. Nothing I'm gonna it doesn't matter what it looks like.

Did you

draw a stick person?

Please. Please.

Did you draw a

stick person?

Well, the next thing I said, well, is it should I draw a man or a woman? Because I I you know, this is the analytical side. I'm like, I want clarification. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It's too vague of a question.

You're like, come on. You're like, you you gave me physics questions. You gave me math questions. I want you to tell me exactly what equation am I solving right

now.

So so all of these tests on this exam are are more psychological. Right? Yeah. So this one is just baffling the heck out of me. It is odd. And so they they said, well, it doesn't matter. Whatever you wanna draw. Like, I don't know what to draw.

He said, I don't wanna draw.

I can't draw. Yeah. And they said, draw something now. That's an order.

Okay. There you go.

Yeah. Stick person, please.

I drew a stick person with two breasts. I couldn't think of anything else. You got

that question wrong? Yeah.

No. So so afterwards they take the exam they grade it except for the last question. So they're going through it and they're grading it to see if there's any type of biases in what you're doing and they said we think that you're stable enough to be on submarines which is a crazy thing to say anyways

yeah except for this last question

is but we have a question about the last question and I'm like okay so why did you draw a breast on this stick person I said because a stick person doesn't look like a person so I thought if I put breast on it it would at least look like a person

be more believable

more believable as a person and she's like okay. And that was the end of the interview. That was the only psychological profile I had the whole time.

And then you got to the sub, and then a 70 pictures were magnited to the side of the submarine.

All of them were on the refrigerator.

All on

the refrigerator.

This is what my son drew.

And it's got your names on it. It's got their their rank, and

then and

then they're like, listen. This is you now know who you're living with. I think I would like that exercise a little more.

So, anyway, so so I got to my first submarine, and it was the USS Honolulu. And I got there, like, the July 2. And on July 4 the submarine was getting commissioned, which means it was

Very patriotic.

Well it was. So it was which means that it's the first time it's actually launched. It's completed and ready to do sea trials.

Okay. So they're not, like, crunching. They're like, oh my god. We need to finish making this submarine before the July 4.

Yes. They are. Oh, okay. Yes. They are. And it wasn't quite ready on July 4, but they still launched it until Oh,

that's it. No. We haven't finished the sign.

We left a giant hole in the bottom.

Well, the the crazy thing is that I was walking through the soap for the first time. Oh, no. And I ran into Mary.

Oh.

Our cousin who was working there as a painter.

Wait. Our your cousin?

Our cousin.

She kinda is our cousin too? Is that how cousins work?

Yeah. Cousins are just related by That means she's

like second cousin to us?

He's like second cousin to you guys. But anyway, so this Mary, my cousin actually worked at the shipyard.

Yeah. Was she building your submarine? Yes.

She was on working on my It's

it's like walking into your apartment and they're putting down the floor as they're handing you the keys.

But you also know the person who's putting down the you're like, oh, hey. What's up? Well, I

know you're doing a good job, I guess.

I am

interested. Well, this is what's funny about it is I got there and there's like they're like, we can't deal with you right now. Go away.

Come back in a week. What were you the only one?

Yeah. Because not you you get there as you get done with school.

Oh, okay. Yeah. You're like

Well, for new for nukes that's out of school, there are other ratings that go through school also, and they get their different. So I was reporting that day.

Mhmm. So As a quick tangent, just for explanation, on how I understand it, Honolulu City. Right?

Yeah. So

And then the naming of of ships vessels, it's it's cities?

Is it like hurricanes? Like do you No.

No. No. Is it alphabetical?

No. No. It's Okay. It's so basically every class of submarine or ship Yeah. Has a category that they're being named. Okay? So the aircraft carriers that are coming out, the largest ships

Named after countries.

No. They're named after they're named after presidents.

Oh. So you

have like the George w Bush. You have the so the

The Washington.

Yeah. The George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. The submarine that I went to Los was a Los Angeles class, which was a fast attack submarine, and I'll explain that in a second.

Well, I'm sorry. Wait. Your your submarine that was named after a city is in the class, like, classification that is also named after a city? No. No. It's a the the fast attack submarines of Los yeah. The Los Angeles they caught the

The Los Angeles class.

They caught the Los Angeles class.

Because that

was the original. That was the first one. That was Oh, okay.

Is the progenitor.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

And the progenitor follow is the the beginning of the naming scheme.

So you you could say that you were in a Los Angeles Honolulu.

I was in Los Angeles class. Honolulu. Name Honolulu.

Yeah. Okay.

Because like like I talked about Norwell. There was a group of The narwhal. Yeah. Whatever.

No Nar.

Norwell. There's no You're like saying

a different word. There's no o o.

Anyways, but like, at the same time, they were building a ballistic missile submarine. And those were named after states. There was the Alaska class. So Okay.

I see that. That's making sense to me.

But then the narwhal

Was an old version of nuclear submarine, and they had, like, the Wahoo. There's a bunch of fish that

Oh. They they had, like, more

well, they're named after fish. I won't say it's, like, more fun, but I feel like a narwhal is a really good name for itself.

Well, I mean, it's, like, I'm going into the beluga.

Yeah. Exactly.

You know, I think it's cooler if it's, like the nautical, like Yeah. Embrace it. I'm So Was there a kraken? Because that would be

There was not a kraken.

Okay. They fumbled. Alright.

Whoever whoever Nessie the sea monster. Nessie the lightest monster.

The the the submarine that I went into after the the Honolulu Yeah. Was a John Marshall. And what that one was was there's a class of, ballistic missile submarines that were named after famous Americans that weren't president. So it was a James Polk. It was which who I guess he was a president. James Polk, Thurgood Marshall, John Marshall.

Benjamin Franklin?

I think Benjamin Franklin actually got an aircraft

Okay. He's on the hundredth.

Yeah. Yeah. So but but anyway, so

It's all about the Benjamin. It's all about the Benjamin.

Anyway, so, so a fast attack submarine basically is geared toward, doing missions. At the time, we were in a cold war with Soviet Union, so we would chase Soviet subs. We would go hunting around for things. We would we would For Red Octo There you go. Basically hunt for Red October. That was a Los Angeles class submarine. The Dallas.

And A city. There you go.

There you go.

Was there a Los Angeles Los Angeles?

There was. The first one.

That's the

first one. SSN 688 was the first one and that was the Los Angeles.

Okay. Okay.

The big thing about the Honolulu was it was the first one named after a city in Hawaii.

Yeah. Okay.

So after we did our initial trials and you go back in and get refitted for up to date stuff.

Everyone gives you a tiki? We we Like that you get the drinks?

We went we went over to Hawaii from Norfolk because we were down in Newport News Yeah. Shipbuilding. That's when I got across the Equator. That's when I went through the Panama Canal.

Wow. You did all the oh, wait. Do you you went down with the ship. Right?

With the ship. The ship came through.

Sorry. That's bad for me.

Down with the ship.

Yeah. Yeah. You went to Hawaii in the sub.

In the submarine. Okay. Okay. Yep. And so we were part of the Hawaii week festival that they do every year. And we were parked in Honolulu, so we we gave tours and stuff like that.

Woah. Nice.

And then we they have a big banquet. And this is where the East Coast Hawaii thing is very different. It was formal attire, which meant khakis and a Hawaiian shirt and your best flip flops.

Sounds good to me.

So it it was kind of crazy because we were all in our dress whites for this banquet. You know? But, anyway, so fast attack, basically, you have a 25 guys. You're going out there. You're chasing. You're doing missions. You're you're doing things. You're basically frontline.

Mhmm.

Then the ballistic missile submarine is you carry ballistic missiles on their 16 or 24, depending on what classes submarine you were. And basically, you used to joke you punch holes in the ocean not to be seen. So you go six knots to nowhere. You go in circles or crazy eights, whatever you wanna call them, and you hide. And then you go out for three months, and then you come back in and there's two crews, a a blue and gold crew.

And what you're saying though? That was your second sub that you were in.

The second sub was different.

Okay. Was that not the ballistic?

It was so there was a treaty called the SALT two, which was strategic arms limit limiting treaty or something like that.

Okay.

And so they they took these ballistic missile submarine, and they basically we always say they they cut the tubes out. So they're no longer ballistic missile submarine, but they wanted to use them for something operational. So this submarine, the second submarine with John Marshall, went to a group called Special Ops. Mhmm. Alright?

Gotcha.

And so you don't get on that submarine unless you're you're unless you're recommended. So on my my first submarine, the last year I was there, I got what what they call a Navy Achievement Medal, which is the most the highest enlisted medal besides the Congressional Medal of Honor. And so I got one of those for the work I was doing on my summary.

I was about to say, what does it take to get a medal like that?

There was there's there's two facets with it. Number one is, I don't sleep well. Yeah. I don't, sit well. So I We know that. Volunteered for everything. So I got qualified in a bunch of different things not related to nuclear power. Mhmm. And I always just did stuff like that. And so I got to do some really cool things that were not related to being a nuke.

Mhmm.

Which was once again back up in Upper State New York and go back to the private plant.

Yeah. The General Electric reactor.

The General Electric. The crazy thing about the General Electric is that it was a shell of a submarine that they put the reactor in. So you were running it like a submarine.

Makes sense.

Yeah. That makes sense.

That gives you a more practical vision.

What I what I've heard now was that they actually have old submarines on piers that they trained down at the Navy.

I think that makes sense.

Smart. Yeah. Alright. I wanna make sure that we're being cognizant of the time, and I don't wanna spend, like I know we said, like, this middle section is gonna take forever or it's not gonna take forever. It's gonna be, like, longer than the others.

It's true.

Unlike all of the movies, there are no windows in some. If you go down more than 50 or 60 feet, it's

dark. Mhmm.

There is no light. It it's just there and you're not on there to look at outside. Yeah. The way you see is through radar or through sonar. Okay? You're you're listening. You're doing passive sonar. You're listening to everything. You can hear things a hundred miles away.

Mhmm.

And you're you're listening to the screws, being able to tell exactly what type of ship that was, what type of submarine it was by the screw turns.

How loudly can a fish fart then?

Believe it or not,

you do How loudly can you fart? So

in in hunt for October, they talk about biologics. Those are the sounds that sea creatures make in the water.

Yeah.

And that's a real thing. So I I I qualified as a sonar tech a sonar operator, so I was able to see it. And you basically are looking at noises and sounds and how they do it. And then you turn and you change how the angle it is against the ship, and you can tell the speed and the direction of the other

Oh, yeah.

Other crap. So it's it's a it's a math problem, basically.

No. Yeah. Oh, I wanted to get out of

school anyway. Oh, I got certified in all this stuff going to school, and now I'm

doing basically more school work. How do the toilets work? Is it like, airplane toilets?

No. Not at all. So

They don't drop it off of the bottom? They don't.

So, toilets are really an odd thing because what you do is you have the toilets are basically a steel ball. They're not porcelain.

Mhmm. Yeah. I couldn't believe that.

The newer ones have porcelain.

Oh, really? But they

have a steel ball in the middle. Okay. So basically, you pull a handle down and you drain it off and you open this valve to run water down. Then you close the valve, run a little bit more water so there's water in there and you shut it. And, basically, what you're doing is you're preventing the gases that are in the tank from coming up. So you keep water there as a as a trap. Mhmm. That tank gets full. Once that gets full, there's two ways to get it overboard. Okay?

Mhmm.

Okay? The problem with that is that it makes noise.

Right.

Okay. And you don't wanna make noise. So the way the most of the ways you do it especially at really because you gotta remember every hundred feet feet you go down is 44 pounds per square inch that you're adding on to the pressure of the seawater against the hull of the submarine. Mhmm. To easy numbers, if you go down a thousand feet, there's 440 pounds per square inch on the hull of the submarine.

Right. Yeah.

So in order to push something out with air, you have to do 450 pounds because it has to be higher pressure so that the water does not go into the people tank.

Right. Yeah. Along with all of the

Other stuff. Waste. Yeah. So what you do is you isolate it, you pressurize the tank, you open the outside valve, and you bleed it off. Mhmm. That makes noise too, but you can do it in one big swoosh and you're done. Right. So you can do thermal layers and stuff like that. So that's that's how that works.

Okay. You're a vegetarian pescatarian right now. What kind of food did you eat and were you able, like, would you have been able to keep that lifestyle? Did you keep that lifestyle?

So I became a pescatarian when I was a junior in high school. I went to Germany for school for six weeks and I was not a pescatarian family. Yeah. Germany was not vegetarian family.

Yeah. Since our grandmother was like every single meal must have a meat.

Yeah. So But that's also

like a southern thing too.

Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

So, when I went into boot camp, there was no possibility for this to occur. Basically, you ate what they put in front of you. You were always hungry. You were always eating in two minutes or less. It just there wasn't an option to do that.

Right.

So boot camp, There's like a physical trainer, nutritionist out there cringing.

Yeah. Well, definitely. You should be cringing because if if you were late, you would do what they call pass and reviews. You basically get your tray of food, you're eating it to the trash can, dumping it, getting back in line so you can get to your class in time.

Oh my gosh.

That's called pass and review. Anyways, when I went to Orlando, I had more control over my diet. Mhmm. And so I ate very little meat at that time. Occasionally, I would have meat. When I went to, Saratoga Springs up there in Northern, New York, I lived on I rent an apartment and everything, so I had control over at that time.

Yep.

When I went to my first submarine, submarine has the best food. However, there is no fresh. There is no milk. It is all dehydrated and reconstituted, but it's good.

You're not eating spaceman food.

Well, you weren't eating spaceman food. But like like, for instance, you had a guy at night that baked all the bread. So you had fresh baked bread, fresh baked cookies and cakes every day.

Oh, you you got like sweet treats?

Yeah. So you basically, the one of the one of my submarines, the guy that was doing the the midrats, the overnight cook, he wanted to get out and start a cookie company. Aw. So That's fun. He he made the captain loved it, but whenever he he got close to port to come home, he didn't wanna be fat for his wife. Wow. So he took him off of the He was a cook. And he put a bad cook on there for making sweets at night. Anyways, but, so It's

like morale is needed on a summer. Yes.

Hey, that that would suck to be that one guy where you're like, you are designated the bad

cook chef. Well, a lot of chefs don't like baking.

Yeah. Yeah. That's fair.

So, the bad part is that you had really good food. It was also meat based. Yeah. I did not eat a lot of meat. Occasionally, I would have a hot dog or hamburger, but in general, I did not eat a lot of meat.

Yeah.

We were supposed to pull in at day 45. So we were stretching food to begin with. With. We were out of food, about to pull in The Philippines, and the typhoon hit The Philippines. So we had to pull out and wait two days before we could pull into Philippines. So rather than four meals a day, they were done. Two meals a day, we were eating pancakes because we didn't have any flour left to do bread. And we were eating dehydrated cottage cheese that they reconstituted, which is just horrible.

Oh. We we

used to joke, it can't sound like Maracas. Oh. Because because of the the chi the cottage cheese cream.

And he started eating the floors.

Well, we came in there. I think there was one case of pork butt left in the freezer. And that was it.

Okay. Well, this kinda quickly ties into the next thing. What was the longest that you've been out to sea for?

I think the longest I was underneath the water was seventy nine days.

That that one that

that was the one trip. And mainly because, like, the trip didn't go to plan. You just kept getting pushed back.

We kept getting things added to our mission.

So we

had we had a mission portfolio for forty five days. The captain we had we had had something occur that the captain was afraid of his reputation, so he kept taking on more and more missions, and we kept getting extended more and more out.

Gotcha. Alright. Really quickly, you mentioned before submarines were built to not have, sleeping people in mind. How did you sleep? You got bunk beds, hammocks?

They're basically three high bunk beds.

King-size beds? Yeah.

Why don't we talk about this with an ex Okay. Okay.

This is about to be a long time.

This is a little bit longer.

Alright. Then one last question. Did you drink grog while you were on the submarine?

There is no alcohol allowed on the sub on American Tobacco. There's no alcohol allowed

on it.

No. What kind of you get caught drinking, you get court martialed, and you go to jail for years. What what kind of Alright.

Well, with that, we will grab our last drink, and we'll be right back. We'll see you in a second. Hey, guys. Welcome back. We are here for the third and final section. We've got a new alcohol in front of us after leaving off on the no grog for the sailors here. Dad, what are we drinking here?

So this one is, I do not know French, but this means the end of the world.

That was Belgian.

It is a Belgian beer, but it's the French language.

Yeah. Oh.

The the end of the world.

As our mother corrected me so viciously.

So but In friend. I just I I love the the title of it. There was another one that they had, which was like the voyage was their other one.

That's a fun one.

That was a fun one, but I just love the end of the world. Because I think that, when you're on submarines, you're underneath the water, at that time, there was no way to be connected with anybody. Yeah. So my parents, because I was single at this time, my parents did not know where I was, did not know anything about what I was doing. They just knew I was out to sea. Yeah. And, when anything happened in the world, there was always a chance that we were there.

Mhmm.

And so when I took when I we talk about me taking that longest trip. Yeah. At the same time, a destroyer in the Arab Sea got hit with a missile. It's the USS Stark. And so all my parents knew was that I wasn't supposed to be out to sea at this time. We were supposed to be in port somewhere, and I was gone for almost three months. Yeah. Which is crazy what your parents are going through. My dad, who had always been on surface boats, could always communicate. I'm I'm fine whatever.

Yeah. On that note, anyway,

the end of the world. Not no. Like it's I don't know. I feel like the end of the world, I imagine it's like the the old, like, sailors.

Yeah. Yeah. It is. It is.

Sort of like

Whenever you try out when those when those explorers went out, they were going to the end of the world because they were gonna go off the edge.

It's like a it's like a call. Yeah. It's like we're gonna find the end of the world. Yeah.

I mean, I think that that the explorer attitude is part of it.

Yeah. Alright. Did you did you feel that explorer attitude?

Yeah. I did. I mean, I think that the reason I joined was for that explorer attitude and also the sense that I should serve, you know. Definitely a Bill Janao.

I was I was about to say the same exact thing.

I would say they're more fun on the branding and the marketing than the actual tricks. And it's because if you can gather from our previous ones, we like the weird. We like the the oddities. We like to try things and taste things that, like, we're like, this sounds weird. I'll probably like it.

It. Yeah. I mean, we we Or we won't. Or we like creeps like That was worth tasting, though. That was worth tasting.

I don't know if it's worth tasting. We needed to taste it.

We needed to taste

it. Because,

Yeah. Because there's an explorer and all of us.

We need to know the truth.

Yeah. I'm sorry. Wait. So one one of the questions two questions that we've kinda left, hanging on the last segment was the grog thing. So, every navy in the world except for the US Navy allows drinking. So we would partner up with English submarines, and you would go on there, and they had a full pub inside their submarine. So you would go in there and you would get your beer.

You know, I'm imagining Nick and I were just at a concert, and we were just at an English pub before going to the concert. I'm imagining that they have, like, metal metal metal submarine, and then they've got, like, the wood, the back of the It was. And then just, like, a bunch of random, like, trinkets and flags.

They would have flags,

and palm, and carry on. Yeah.

It it was it was a true traditional pub.

They They have a a random guy tending. He's not part of the military at all. He's just a bartender. It's an

older guy with a towel.

And he's and he's always cleaning a mug no matter what time of day it is. And he's just like, oh.

The the difference is is that because they have they do angles and dangles

Yeah.

On summer. Everything's in a locked cabinet, so it doesn't move around.

What do you mean by angles and dangles?

So when you first go out to the water and you dive, they wanna make sure that if we have to do, like, escape from a torpedo

or we're

trying to evasive maneuvers

Quick actions.

That you're not making noise. Because there's no use doing evasive actions if you're gonna make noise because that's how you get tracked. So what they say is they go, okay. We're doing angles and dangles. And so they'll do 30 degrees down, 30 degrees up, 30 degrees down with a 25 to the side or a 45 to the side or whatever. So they're doing it, and you'll hear crashing and booming all throughout the submarine for things that weren't secured.

Do you feel that? Like No. You don't feel that. Is it

like a roller coaster

for you? No.

Yeah. No. Actually, I have a scar on my finger because we had done, an we did emergency blow.

Oh, you you weren't secured.

We did an emergency blow test, and we were going very fast, full blow of the tank. So you you you have these air tanks that can so it's submarines double hull. Right? Yeah. So you fill out the area between the two holes with air, and all of a sudden you come up like a cork. So we did an up angle going really fast, and we blew the thing. So now we're flying up there. And literally, you're I was holding on to the side of a door, you know, not feet out in the air, but almost feet out in

the air. Yeah.

And the door slammed and slammed on my hand.

Oh. Oh my gosh.

I I broke my ribs under way because someone lifted up a a seal lifted up a a

Yeah. Yeah. The thread in there was seal saw.

He lifted up a hatch and I end up falling on top of him because he didn't say he was coming up.

Oh.

And so the the hatch caught me underneath my ribs and I broke three ribs.

Oh.

But there's nothing you can do and you're out to sea so you don't do anything. You don't you don't normally carry a doctor on a subject. I

was about to say do you have a doctor but no.

No doctor. So basically, if I I've told you guys this story before. One guy thought he was having appendicitis. So what they do is they put some heavy metals in you and shut down your appendix.

Yeah.

So we got into Hawaii, and he's like, I feel great. I'm I'm fine. He goes topside, meets his wife, and all of a sudden his appendix blows. Blows. And so they're rushing him to the hospital. If it had been, you know, a day earlier, we would have been

out to see and no way to see him. Oh my gosh.

Once again, the end of the world.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I don't need to make this too grim.

No. No. No. No. I mean, so here's another Grim Thinks.

No. No. Wait. Wait. Wait. I just said He said we don't need to make it grim.

We don't need to make

it grim.

We can.

Anyway So anyway, so let so the other thing you asked about was the birthing situation. Of sleeping.

No. No. No. No. No. Being

No. I did not ask about that. I did not I didn't use that.

Birthing birthing as in b e r t h.

I didn't use that terminology at all.

I I Were there people giving birth on this somewhere? Birthing, b e r t h.

The appendix.

No. Birthing, b e

The appendix made birthing room.

Okay. Alright. Yeah. Tell us about the sleeping situation.

We're still

talking about the pub.

The sleeping situation is, like for Los Angeles class you carried 125 so there was there's 13 or 14 officers. Okay? The XO and CO get their own staterooms that's usually connected and they share a shower.

What is an XO?

So you have the commanding officer which is a CO and then you have the Is

that thing you add at the end of the letter XOXO?

Yeah. It is.

Loves and hugs.

Yeah, it is. And then you have the executive officer. And basically the commanding officer is the nice guy, the executive officer is the mean guy.

Oh, he's a good cop bad cop?

It is a good cop bad cop.

Is it like captain versus quartermaster? No. Oh.

So what the executive officer does is he makes sure that the ship is clean and that we run drills properly. So if you run a drill or there's a true fire, flood, whatever Mhmm. The executive officer is the one on point. He's the first one there, and then you have everyone else that are there and so the joke used to be so I did get for my second submarine I got another Navy achievement medal because it was a thirty year submarine I left and it got decommissioned a month later. Because you left?

So you basically That's an engineer right there. Yeah. So Oh, wait. We need to have people living on here.

Yeah. So so like I said, there's, like, 14 officers. So

And then they went, oh, wait.

We might need a kitchen. Yeah.

No. They put kitchens in. Kitchen and eating area was always there because food was always they had huge walk ins for the freezer and the the refrigerator.

Oh. Oh. So the the the food area was bigger than the sleeping area.

Yeah. That's why I'm imagining they're just like, you know what? We can just add futons in, like, cupboards in the kitchen and just have them

Can't they just do like the old days and just strap, hammocks across? Yeah. Exactly. Anyways, so, so you you had the 14 so you basically had the executive officer and commanding officer. They had their one stateroom, which is right next to control, which is the main center of the the submarine.

Okay.

Okay? They had their own birthing area. They had a little area where they they got together, and then there's their beds were stacked up. And that was usually I think that was nine on each side, so 18 Okay. Beds there. So that gets you to a hundred. Hundred people.

Yeah. Barely.

So that's a hundred people that you need racks for that that don't have racks, and they put 68 in. So

Wait a minute.

Hold on. Wait a second. I know a little something about math,

but They sent a lot of you all to math classes.

So how it works is that your normal rotation is you do six hours on watch, whatever your job is.

Mhmm.

Okay? Then you do six hours afterward in which you are damage control. So if something happens, you're the ones rushing to it so that the people on watch can maintain their job. Okay. And then you do six hours of sleep. So you're up twelve, down six.

Wait a second.

No. No. No. Wait.

That's not a full day. Wait a minute.

That's only an eighteen hour day, but that's how it works.

Yeah.

Ups up 12, down six.

I guess days just don't mean it mean anything if you don't have a sun.

So as soon as you close the hatch, you adjust the time to Zulu time, which is Greenwich Mean Time.

Okay. Okay.

So you could be pulling out at 07:00 in the morning. Soon as you shut the hatch, it's 01:00 in the afternoon.

Okay.

It just automatically becomes that because you don't see the sun. Right.

Yeah.

If you're on the other side of the world, it's exact opposite at 01:00 in the

morning. Yeah. Right.

Anyways, so, so what they did was they would put three people in two racks and two beds.

Cozy.

And what you would do is each one of the three people had a different time when they were on watch.

I was about to say, so you never really had, like, a bed to call your own. Right. You're not. Yeah. The these two are mine sometimes.

Yeah. So you would you it ended up working that you would alternate beds, basically. Yeah. So every 18 hours, you would alternate a bed sometimes. If you're running drills or you had stuff to do, in general, I would do three watch rotations, which would be forty hours, and then I would go to bed.

I think OSHA would like to have a word.

I just it just because I could never I could never get into the eighteen hour one. And when I got to the third one, the third watch, I had to be up anyways.

Yeah.

And and how it worked is that you would do so to give you an idea, so you would do midnight to 6AM. Mhmm. Then your next watch would be 6PM to midnight. Then your next one would be 6AM to noon.

Yeah. Like, your circadian rhythm is, like, completely off.

Right. So so you're you're constantly you're you're they nowadays, they do go to four hour watches and they do no, they go to six hour watches, but the eight hour watches three times a day. So you're you're doing the same time, same eight hour watches.

But with the eight hour break Right. Included now instead of the six.

Instead of six. So you're doing you're doing sixteen and eight Yeah. Which is

Which is the twenty four.

Which is the 24.

I feel like that should have just been the

So standard. Here's the problem. Yeah. Okay. Once again, it's a crazy world. So when you're getting ready for qualifications or you're about to go on a mission where there's a possibility where you may need to have extra damage control expertise Mhmm. You would do twelve to six for the mid watch. Right? Twelve midnight to 6AM.

Yeah.

Then you would break the next three next twelve hours into three four hour watches. What? So that all three watch sections

Are awake and on damage control.

Yeah. Awaken doing the things because if you have a drill, everyone has to get up anyways.

Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Okay. So they're like, okay. Your your head's hitting the bed. You know, you took like maybe like twenty minutes to get ready.

When you when you get off watch, usually eat, and then you have to go back and clean for an hour.

Okay. So so basically, it's instead of six hours now like four and a half.

So so, but yeah. So basically, what you would do is like, if you did the midnight to six Yeah. Your next watch would be from two to six in the afternoon.

Okay. But you don't get to bed until 08:30?

Till 08:30 or twelve or 09:00 at night. And you still have to so the other thing is is you still have to qualify That's

crazy for all

these watches. You you don't just go on watch. You have to fill out these qualifications and be qualified to do this job.

Okay.

Yeah. So, like, my question is, right, watch is when you're doing your job. Right? So, like, when you're working in, like, the nuclear, like

In the engine room. Yeah.

In the engine room. That's, like, your job. And then you said there's a there's a job where you're like on call. What are you doing while you're on call?

You're studying for your next watch position because so like for for Machine SMAte there was there was three watch positions Mhmm. And that were in spaces. And then you had an interim supervisor, which was a machinist mate that wandered around to help out. Okay? And then after that, you went to engineering watch supervisor, which is a senior role that all of the positions enter in.

So are you, like, shadowing these people?

You're shadowing me. You have a you have a you have a, qualification card, so you have to do these operations. So it'd be like

Oh, okay.

So, like, if you're in lower the lower level was the first position you did. So things that you would have to do is you'd have to clean the oil filters. You'd have to be able to start up and shut down the engine room. Okay? So you you would have all of these things that you needed to do. On top of that, you're also qualifying for submarines. Alright?

In order like, stay on them?

Yeah. So in order to be on a submarine, you have to get your dolphins with what they call their dolphins, which is a pin that says, I know every job on the submarine. And you go to each one of these jobs and you learn what they do.

So even when you are not specifically working your job, aka being on watch, you are going around and doing other people's jobs anyway.

You're learning that because if all of them got wiped out Yeah. You would need to be able to step in. Mhmm. Here's the other thing. They always make you do a rotation in the mess hall too. So you do four to six weeks working in the in the

Like how to cook?

In the kitchen.

Yeah. It was.

Basically serving and washing dishes.

And that's good luckiest. Your dolphins?

Yeah. I got my dolphins. You have one year to get it.

And then what?

Then you're qualified on some rates. But what

if you don't get it in a year?

They kick you off.

Woah. Yeah. You have to get your dolphins. Wow.

And and hit the the biggest test of the dolphins is at the end of it, you have three people that ask you questions about anything on the summary.

And you have to answer them as

to your best ability.

You have to answer them correctly, not to the best of my ability.

Oh, sorry. Oh, yeah.

There's one other test they do. Is it so because oxygen goes away when there's a fire in a submarine. Soon as the fire starts, oxygen goes away. Yeah. K. Because you're in a contained space and doing you wear these things called EAPs. They're in your in your bunks. There's one in there. And then these manifolds There's one? In each bunk. In each which hold three people.

Only 68.

But there's only there's only

One sleeping at a time? But

like in like in the in the, dining room, all of the benches have EABs.

Oh, okay. Okay.

They're all over the place.

Okay. I would hope. I would hope.

There's also manifolds all over the place. And if you go on the floor, if you see a rectangle, that means the manifold is, parallel to the to the rectangle and pointed down. If there's a triangle, that means it's at some sort of odd angle.

Oh, okay.

So you you because if it's smoky, you're not gonna see anything. Yeah.

Right. So what they do square. So what they do is

they put you in the front, very front of the boat in the torpedo room, and you have two minutes with the with the taped off to get to the screw in the back where the engine room is. Now you gotta remember the They give you, like, a little obstacle course. Don't have to because there's hatches. And you're holding you're holding it. It's already

a maze on its own.

You're you're going through that. You're going through it. You're totally blacked out. You can't see anything. You're you're trying to get this to the

Oh. Oh. When you say taped off, you mean that they they, like, taped the mask part, like

So it's all black. So so they

like they they put like gaff tape over the front of it so you can't see anything. So basically they give you like blind goggles.

Good luck. Get to the end of the boat.

You get to the end of the boat and halfway down you'll see guys that are like gasping for air trying to figure out where the manifold is.

Oh my gosh.

And so sometimes they do they do throw in like, okay, this hatch is this hatch or ladder is not usable. Oh. You can't use that ladder.

Yeah. So that's when you also have to be familiar with all the jobs, but also be super familiar with the the boat. With the boat.

Now once again, we talked about this. It's it's only three stories. Yeah.

Right? The only three stories.

But it's not that big

because all

those three stories, it's 30 30 in diameter.

The the the back two thirds of it is the engine room. Right. And the engine room only has two decks. Right. An upper level and a lower level. So

So you're basically just getting trying to get to there and then you're pretty good.

No. Because there's less manifolds. Because it's more machinery back then.

Right. Okay. Of course. No. Because you die back then.

So once again, you're you're you're you're just trying to get there. And Yeah. Usually two minutes is more than enough time. But you

know. Alright.

I mean no one's stopping you.

Yeah. No. No one's stopping you. Because they really want you to to pass. They do want you to get your your Dolphins. Yeah. But it's a big it's a big deal. Yeah.

I mean it sounds like it.

Yeah. I wanted to to talk about after the sub. I know like it's really interesting to, like, hear these stories. But, like, afterwards, like

How long were you in the in the Navy on subs? Yeah.

So I I joined in December of eighty two. I went to boot camp in October. I went to my first submarine in July, and I got out in December of ninety one. Mhmm. So it was continuous sub duty.

Yeah.

Because of the delayed entry program and all that. Right. And they said, okay. In order to to get cheap, you have to do two more years. That pushes pushes you over the ten year point, and you can retire from the Navy at twenty years. Now it's not Yeah. They they're dog years. There's no doubt about it. You are you are beat to heck. And so

I mean, you just said you were doing forty hour shifts. Yeah. And then what? Sleeping for six hours?

Yeah. Five or six?

Less. Because we talked about you have an hour to clean up and

Yeah. Yeah. So, I loved it. Yeah. It it was it was a

I think you have to. You have to love it.

It's it's the craziest thing. You just absolutely love it. Yep. You're right. I I I don't know I don't know how to explain it, but it was it just was I loved it.

Yeah.

And so I got out. The hardest part So they tell you when you get out, here's resources for you. The average life expectancy at that time for someone getting off submarines was five years. Wow. Suicide suicide by car, by motorcycle

Right.

Whatever it was. Yeah. You are when you're on submarines, the things you do have consequence. As soon as you get out, nothing you do has consequence.

The the gravity is is not the same.

It's not at all. I mean, there is none. Yeah. I was making decisions that could have cost a whole submarine of lives. Mhmm. I got out. And there was nothing. Yeah. There's there's a void that cannot be explained. I cannot even imagine the guys that were coming from Iraq or Afghanistan. Mhmm. Because that void is even worse. Because they did things that morally they may not believe in.

Right.

And they were coming back and having to live with those decisions.

Yeah.

I never had to make that moral decision.

Mhmm.

And so I think that, I I came back and I was lost. Now we always say that God has a plan that you don't know. Yeah. Within a month of getting in, I met your mother.

Yeah. It's true.

And When

you're going to school, and you met in

Chemistry. Chemistry class.

And you had

chemistry. Actually

It was like an analytical response.

Actually mom said I was the most obnoxious person she could have. Yeah. But but I think that

That's first in some place.

So I think that that is what saved me because mom can tell you the person I was when I started school was not a nice person. Yeah. I just wasn't that I I wasn't a nice person. It it was I had ideas of what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be, and I knew that it was gonna take me just turning a 80 degrees out. So it was it was it was a weird thing.

Well, we're we're just about at the end of our time here. Do you miss being on subs?

I do. I I love the people I was with. I loved what we did. I loved that what I did had consequence. I really felt one of the we talked about this. The reason I went in the navy was because the adventure side of it, but also I had this deep sense that I needed to serve, and part of that serving was this. Yeah. I could have been the Peace Corps. It could have been anything, but I felt like as a citizen of The United States, I needed to serve, and

this is how I served. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you want, we can trade bunks.

We can rotate around. Yeah.

We can rotate around. You can

find a small room, I think, and just put a little bunk in there.

Alright. Really quick because we're just about out of time here. What was everyone's favorite drink of the night? We'll start with Nick, and we'll end with you, dad.

I think I'm going to go with the Great Lakes 1, the Cannes One. I think I think that's crazy.

Belgian is my favorite.

I think I'm gonna go with the Belgian because the the other two darks disappointed me.

Okay. Fair enough. Well, thank you all so much. We'll see you next time. Bye.