People from all walks of life become Submariners for the work opportunities, the job security, the exciting lifestyle, the friends they make, and the unique team environment. But the Navy offers many financial benefits too. Enjoy a competitive salary plus generous super as you learn skills for life, plus more the longer you serve. Get a range of allowances that compensate for the unique challenges of Submariner work.
With nutritious meals provided at sea and subsidised housing when on base, you can put plenty away for your future. It means telling a tale — a tale that grows with the telling. Even on a fast-attack sub, if there is nothing to attack and you grow tired of listening to passing whales and pretending to target nearby destroyers, life can get repetitive, so the men slip into other worlds. One of the crew has a large tattoo on his back: "Never stop me dreaming," which might stand as a motto for all of them.
One evening, I wander into the control room at about midnight. The watch officer and sonar operators are discussing an important philosophical question: would it be more painful to be struck by a whole tuna or a tin of tuna? This is never resolved. These epistemological issues can be sustained over weeks.
On my fourth day aboard, I make my greatest discovery: that a badger, washed into the bilge tank in Bahrain, is being kept back'aft. There is a roster to feed it, and somehow it is being kept alive. I insist on seeing it — what a wonderful story! Of course, say the back'afties, come by this evening. After a couple of hours, even in my dim-witted, mind-clouded, headachy state, I realise I have been conned. Do they even have badgers in Bahrain?
But the fantasy has become important to some of the crew. The ability to relax allows you, when required, to be on the ball. This is a highly segregated society, yet also a very organic one. There are three separate messes, for officers, senior ratings and junior ratings, each situated on the short corridor that serves as the men's living space. The separate messes with their different atmospheres — the Xbox is never off in the junior rates mess — suggest division, yet everything else implies unity.
What other organisation has that sort of ratio between top and bottom? And every crew member, officer or rating, has to know everything about the boat — the function of every one of the thousands of valves. There are half a dozen trainees on the boat studying for their dolphin badges, and they are forgoing all sleep to memorise the handbook they have been given in time for a test that could be sprung on them at any time. Chief Petty Officer Paul "Jakie" Foran, the likable but occasionally terrifying Scot who oversees these tests, expects dedication, and woe betide any trainee AKA oxygen thief who is discovered having a cup of tea in the junior rates' mess when he could be unearthing the secret of the magazine spray drench system.
You learn early whether you will survive in this world. One young officer who wants to transfer from surface ships is aboard studying for his dolphins, and is reckoned to have too many airs and graces.
The crew are merciless in mocking this affront to their democratic values. He expects to be shown where every valve is and what it's for; don't be absurd or words to that effect , says Chief Foran, you must find out for yourself. Forget sleep. Forgetting sleep is easy. The crew work 12 hours a day, split into six-hour watches, with changeovers at 1 and 7.
Back'afties, because of the heat in which they're working, have shorter but more frequent shifts. When they're not working, most men will be in their "rack", but sleeping on a submarine is no fun.
The captain, alone on the boat, gets his own cabin; the senior officers share; and everyone else is in hot, cramped, fetid dormitories. Bed space is so limited that some of the most junior ratings have to "hot bunk", sleeping in the bed vacated by a man who has just gone on watch. You can hardly move in the bunk — sitting up is impossible — and if you turn over you are likely to tip out and end up on the floor.
You have to share your rack with a gas mask and various other bits of safety equipment, plus a lot of your own gear. There are small lockers, but I am never offered one, so sleep with bag, clothes and shoes in the bed. Each bunk has an air vent, which does offer some respite from the heat but also blows a blast of cold air into your right ear.
One morning I am woken by a sudden thud and fear the worst. Later, I discover it was just air being released — a routine operation. Several men mention "coffin dreams" — nightmares in which the sleeper shouts out that the control room is flooding or he is being pursued by a torpedo.
I sympathise: though I have no nightmares — I don't sleep deeply enough for that — the racks do feel like coffins. A better option is to sleep in the "bomb shop", where the missiles and torpedoes are kept. You'll continue to receive training throughout your career on a submarine, and you'll be expected to handle just about every role on a sub, from electrician to galley cook.
So what's it like to serve aboard a submarine? These submariners call a foot-long steel boat with no windows "home. Every submariner is familiar with the dangers involved with living and traveling the world's seas underwater can bring. But like any family, when nobody else understands them, they understand each other. Those words go a long way in understanding why the submarine warfare qualification process has always been mandatory. No, wearing Dolphins means that the crew trusts you to know how to save the boat regardless of the casualty, and regardless of your rating or rank.
Earning that trust makes you much more than a professional sailor, it makes you a member of the submarine family. My cooks should and do know how to fight a fire in the engine room, just like my nuclear-trained mechanics are expected to know how to isolate a power supply if smoke comes from the sonar shack. Everyone on a submarine is the damage control party—everyone. Palisin was careful to explain that damage control is much more than just knowing what to do if something bad happens.
Our lives depend on knowing that we can count on each other to watch our backs, to make sure the safety of the ship is placed well ahead of rank or rate. After all, practice makes perfect, and when you have only yourselves to count on, being perfect is the only standard good enough to keep you alive. Otherwise, we might get scared first instead of responding if the real thing ever goes down. Despite going to sea on a boat with no windows, no fantail, no helipad, and not even a hatch to allow in some tension-breaking fresh salt air, submariners are still sailors at heart.
These brothers volunteer for submarine duty and their commitment is no different than the sailors on aircraft carriers, cruisers or even tugboats. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.
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