There’s one thing I remember that I can’t seem to find a way to duplicate. Sleeping in a berthing between the bow catapaults on the JFK. 150 MPH freight train coming thru your rack every 45 seconds.
We were one deck below the cats, and just aft of the fo’c’sle. I got used to the catapaults, but the anchor dropping that one time when i was asleep scared the hell out of me.
3 1/2 years there, 3 1/4 years near the arresting gear on the Nimitz, and 3 years with a berthing (thankfully) on the third deck on the Ike. But the idiots from fuels would come every night around 0200 to sound tanks, and wake everybody up.
I thought I had it bad, I had a rack on the Midway about 15 feet to starboard of centerline under the #3 wire. I was working night shift at the time. Everytime they landed a Phantom it sounded like they were crashing 20+ tons of airplane right over my head.
Oh, yeah, they were!
Three years on JFK as a BT- work in a Sauna for 9 hours a day plus watches unless doing firesides and watersides on a boiler-then work until finished and be denied food in the meantime in the galley because you are “too dirty”. Yeah, I wanted to reenlist!