Posted on 09/05/2002 4:25:35 PM PDT by Britton J Wingfield
The giant aircraft carriers of the US Navy are run like modern cities, boasting 2,400 telephones, six-channel television, five dentists, four shops, two barbers’ shops, two lawyers and one post office. On any one day more than 17,000 meals are being prepared and served for the 5,600-strong crew.
Boarding one is like entering a time warp back to the former Deep South. In the bowels of the carrier, where the crew are cooped up for six months at a time, manual workers sleep dozens to a room. Most are black or Puerto Rican, paid $7,000 to $10,000 a year to work in the broiling temperatures of the kitchens and engine rooms.
As you move up the 11 segregated levels towards the pilots’ quarters beneath the deck, the living quarters become larger, the air cooler and the skin tones lighter. Officers exist in almost total ignorance of the teeming world beneath them, passing around second-hand tales of murders, gang-fights and drug abuse. Visitors are banned from venturing down to the lowest decks, which swelter next to the vast nuclearpowered engines.
Despite the reminders of normality suggested by libraries and supermarkets, there are few real diversions. Television monitors are dotted about the ship relaying news programmes and feature films from the United States, but otherwise the daily routine revolves around work, sleep and repetitive slop from the ship’s canteens. Religious differences are catered for by allowing different denominations to worship in the ships’ chapels — there are 12 Muslim chaplains serving in the US Armed Forces.
Access to the deck, which buzzes with F14 and F18 aircraft taking part in exercises, is banned for all except the flight crew. Every couple of months, the carriers stop for a few days shore leave to restock with supplies and allow the crew to glimpse natural sunlight.
While the officers have the distraction of military exercises, the rest of the crew spend most of their time looking forward to their return. “I wanted to see the world, and board and lodging is free,” is a typical response when questioned about the appeal of life below decks.
“I would only have ended up in prison” is another, frank, explanation offered.
The US Navy, sensitive to claims of on-board racism after well-publicised riots on the Kitty Hawk in the 1970s, has trained recruiting specialists to persuade ethnic candidates that their career opportunities can extend beyond the engine rooms. This was backed by an advertising campaign promising that “You Can Be Black, and Navy Too”.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
And I don't want to hear them call for a waaaaaaaaaaambulance.....they have e-mail! Try waiting 6 months between letters (communications)
Ivan FYI!
Let's hope they are not all doing duty in the brig. Perhaps they are all vacationing at some luxurious outpost in Cuba now.
Not a rose garden but far, far from this B.S. smear peice.
If the liberal press is going to lie, at the very least they could try to lie about things that can't be checked. For example, here is the web page showing monthly pay scales for the Navy from the Secretary of Defense's web site: Military Compensation. The bottom line is that the minimum yearly pay is $12,000 and that doesn't include allowances and tax advantages.
However, the second half is utter garbage. $7-10k a year? Brand-new single E-1 pay, maybe (I made $350 a payday when I first joined--I was single, E-2, and paying into the GI Bill).
And I do so love the insinuations of racism. People from all races and walks of life are represented throughout the ranks, officer and enlisted. In fact, I would contend that military people were less likely to be racist, since we have to live and work in such close quarters. I don't give a damn who or what you are, can you turn a @%&#*! wrench or not?!?!? Sure, there are jackasses who think differently, but they are few and far between.
I'm surprised that the Brits and their Euro-socialist loving ilk don't like the military. The pay is (approximately) the same, the health care is free (to the recipient), and everyone works as a collective towards one goal. Sounds like a "worker's paradise" to me!
But that really isn't the point, I suppose. In such circles, one learns that "all men should be equal, so long as I am treated better than they are and don't have to live by the same rules."
Bah, enough ranting from me. I just hate being slandered by such scum.
R,
FC1 (SW) Skwidd
Sounds like these guys confused a cruise ship with a military aircraft carrier.I have heard drugs do that to people..LOL
Heh, as my grandfather is so quick to remind me (WW2 era cook).
Email is a recent innovation. I first saw it onboard ships in 1997 (Independence), though I'm sure other ships had it first. But here, this ought to really twist ya--they have phones now, too! AT&T phones were also onboard the Indy. They were hell to keep working, but they were available.
The satellite dish for the network was on the port side, just above the Sea Sparrow deck--that means that if you turn just right, the superstructure blocks the signal to the satellite. I always knew whenever the AT&T phones were down, because the phone in my shop (ship's phone) would start ringing off the hook; one of the guys I worked with had maintaining the satellite dish as a (unwanted) collateral duty.
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