NAVY #06 Wash the windows, check the oil, Dollar's worth of gas

Originally written in 1997


Being on an Oiler I discovered something. Oilers are never in port. They leave Monday morning and come back on Friday. They will be in for the weekend and then leave again Monday morning. They are also very minimally manned. There is a lot more work that has to get done than there are people to do the work. I hate that.

We just got back Saturday Morning from a nice pleasant Ocean Voyage. It was quite thrilling. The "Powers that Be" decided that my guys, (the people that work for me) would be standing watch up in Combat, also called Combat Information Center or CIC. This is supposed to be the nerve center for all Combat related activities onboard. But there is a problem. We are big, we are slow, and we are a floating bomb. We have one little surface search radar. We have two 20mm Close In Weapons Systems that sometimes work, and we have four .50 cal Machine guns that are usually kept locked away down below. Your average High School student is better armed than we are.

We had nine people up standing watch the other night. Nine people to watch a single radar scope. I am being trained to be in charge of all of this during my watch. Lucky Me. We stand Port and Report. That means 8 hours on watch, 8 hours off. So a kid stands watch from 12 midnight til 8 am, then is off til 4pm, then stands watch from 4 until Midnight. In addition to standing watch eight hours on and eight hours off, I have a buttload of work scheduled to get done and no one available to do it. It doesn't get any better than this.

Monday we got underway. It was fun. As usual we went East, then South, then West, then North, then East again. That's all we did all week long. We stayed in an imaginary box out on the ocean, making right turns. On Thursday we were supposed to hold an Unrep with the USS George Washington, a bigass Aircraft Carrier. An Unrep is an Underway Replenishment.

On an Oiler, we carry two things, Jet Fuel and Diesel Fuel. Our sole purpose in life is to act as a floating gas station (that doesn't sell beer). We refuel ships, but we do it while we are moving. That makes it much more fun. Imagine trying to fill up your pickup while driving along next to a Tanker Truck on the Interstate. It can be quite interesting.

On Thursday the seas were running 10-15 feet. That's 10-15 feet between the crest of a wave and the trough or bottom. It's really not that bad until you are doing it. It was foggy, and the winds were coming across the bow (the pointy end up front) at 55 knots. That's about 70mph. We were doing about 7 knots or 10 mph. So now imagine trying to fill up your pickup truck from a Tanker Truck while driving 50 mph down a gravel road in the dark, without headlights. If you try it, I guarantee that State Farm is going to raise your insurance rates.

I stood by my lifeboat and watched. I knew that somebody was gonna end up getting run over. The GW (George Washington) finally decided to call it off because they were being tossed all over the place. They are a LOT bigger than we are. So if they were being tossed around, you can imagine what was happening to us. If you have never been at sea in rough weather, let me see if I can come up with a comparison. Imagine trying to stand up on a waterbed, while two drunk, sweaty, extremely fat people are frantically trying to make love on the same waterbed. Like we all haven't tried that at least once in our lives.

We leave again on Monday. We will be gone three weeks this time. We are headed South toward North Carolina to participate in some Marine exercises. Some people there are gonna practice being Marines, that is storming a beach, shooting people, eating dogs, and generally making a nuisance of themselves. Thank God they are doing it in Eastern North Carolina. If they were to try to do that crap in Western North Carolina they would be in serious trouble. That area has the largest concentration of armed Four-Wheel-Drive Pickup Trucks east of the Mississippi. I don't think even the United States Marine Corps is a match for a herd of liquored up hillbillies with deer rifles.

After we finish gassing up the Marines and all those guys, we will head down to Florida! Not that we will get to leave the ship. We are pulling into Jacksonville on a Thursday morning and leaving on Friday Morning. I guess they are scared that If they give us too much time off they will have to retrain us.

I am taking a College Course at sea. History 1301. That's American History up to 1877. Otherwise known "How the Pope and White Folks fucked up the New World." We don't have an instructor on board, That's because all the Instructors have been to college and earned their Masters and Doctorate degrees. They are far too smart to want to spend three weeks driving around in circles on a floating gas tank. Instead the course is presented on Video Tape. I have been too busy to do any work on it. This underway period I am gonna have to get my fat butt out of bed at around 3am so I can learn something. I think I have already learned something. I have learned that I messed up really bad in getting assigned to an Oiler. Still, it beats Recruiting Duty all to hell and back again.

I haven't had any time to play my mandolin or guitar. This next week I have about 160 manhours of work scheduled with only about 60 manhours of time to get it done in. Now I didn't do real good in High School algebra, But I still have got to figure a way to make that happen. My Ensign (Naval Officer)is no help at all. He is in charge of three different Divisions. He's 23 years old and he's a pretty nice guy, But he is too busy going through puberty and learning how to shave to be able to make a decision. The other two Divisions that work for him are complaining that he won't let them do anything. That he won't give them permission to do this or do that.

My Division is not having that problem.

Mainly because I operate on a different premise than they do. I long ago got tired of asking permission. Now I ask for forgiveness instead. I just do what needs to be done and then tell him about it afterwards. What's the worst thing he can do to me? Make me a Navy Recruiter? Put me on an Oiler, and send me out to practice right hand turns for weeks on end?

As long as the work is done, and I don't hang his ass out to dry, then he is happy and all is as it should be. That's the key to effective leadership. If you train your leaders right from the get go, you won't have any problems with them later down the line.