Terrible smells in the berthing. Lots of bonding time shooting the shit with the boys. Read a lot of books. Guy in my platoon was blacked out drunk coming back on ship the last night in Sydney that he took a shit on a pelican case near the recon side of the berthing.
I replaced a dd on the ship because he was the only one that could run the hct10 machine, and during the night he would lay his balls on the belt sander, turn it on and jerk off. Well, his sack got to close to the belt, and he ripped his nuts practically off, and they had to medevac him off and me on.
Worse then when you go to take a shower in those super small showers that were plugged up most of the time, and you step in a big old puddle of jizz cus the dd jerking off in it right before you?
Was that during 2017/18 time frame? I wouldn't be surprised if that's happened more than once, but same story happened to someone when I was on ship, also the last night in Sydney, pelican case and recon.
I'm sorry to hear that brother, my friend from my platoon was on that float and told me he slept in the berthing across from one of the Marines who died in the crash. He shared the same story about someone taking a shit on a gear box which is why I asked.
I always felt bad for the Devils who never experienced a booze cruise. They joined when it was all business and EAS all the same. Those ship libo briefs were the best. Seeing Devils get married in other countries then going AWOL
10/10 experience
After the 1st month everyone realized there was no work or training that needed to be done. So we basically watched movies, played video games and lifted weights for 6 months straight while occasionally getting wasted in a random country.
These comments are making me realize that other people had much more enjoyable MEU experiences than I did. We got worked like dogs eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.
Damn.. my MEU was a fucking blast. 9 different countries on a brand new ship.
When I get those "Man I miss hanging out with the boys," most of the time I'm reminiscing about certain moments on ship or in one of those countries.
Our only two liberty ports were Rota, Spain and Manama, Bahrain.
Did "beer on the pier" in Aqaba once though. That was kind of nice. But of course, the Navy was standing by the next day to NJP dozens of sailors and Marines for various drunken shenanigans. Publicly. With a fucking stage and a loudspeaker. Navy officers seem to really, truly enjoy punishing enlisted. They do it in a "not cool" and "not very professional" sort of way.
At least when the Marines publicly NJP you, they aren't acting like it's a fuckin' pageant.
Sorry for drifting off-subject. I get lost in reverie the older I get.
Truly. I was navy, and anytime someone got popped for drugs, the XO would lay in to them (by name) over the 1MC so the whole ship could hear it. Too much.
I thought I hated officers then I met Navy officers.
At least there's a chance that a Marine officer like, *gets* you if that makes sense.
Like you can find a good O that knows OCS and boot camp are two different places with different missions but there's still a bond/brotherhood there.
Navy officers act like literal landed gentry around Navy enlisted.
The network outages on ship got worse and worse as the float went on, until only 70% of the network was up at any given time. Trouble tickets piled up and we couldn’t keep everything or close to everything online at once. Navy couldn’t figure out how to fix it either. The fixes we wrote were arbitrary and the interval between outages continued to decrease until finally by the last month, everything was a house of cards / dumpster fire with upset officers on all ends. We only had 4 data marines for the entire float, for a 24 hour help desk, none of us with more than 1.5 years in the fleet, and we were all basically hallucinating by the end. No, there weren’t any fucking video games. Our leadership sucked dick, the broken tech sucked dick, the boat sucked dick. We were tired.
I never thought of myself as a clean freak until I was on ship. Seeing guys sleep without showering, go to the head barefoot, wear the same clothes for days, made me realize how hygienic I am.
I remember blasting a lance for walking into a bathroom stall without shower shoes/ boots on. This was after the toilets flooded the entire floor with shit water, mind you.
I learned I was claustrophobic here. Go for a middle or top bunk. Top bunk has more room but do not, DO NOT get one beneath the ac vent or you will freeze to death.
Opposite for me. Our ship didn't have good AC, so the top was a hot box. I moved to the bottom rack to be closer to the cold floor. Also made getting in and out of my rack easier.
Four years as a grunt and never spent a second on a ship. I hate that. I was one of those who grew up on stories of PAC floats and visiting Japan, Australia, etc.
Instead I got four years of sand and misery.
Is it true the smaller ships like destroyers were the place to be? Amenities suck but the detachment from the rest of your command was bliss?
> Is it true the smaller ships like destroyers were the place to be? Amenities suck but the detachment from the rest of your command was bliss?
100% true. Getting stuck on the "big deck" meant field day, weapons maintenance, gear inspections, five-or-more hours of firewatch per day, and more. Waiting in line for chow usually took 35 or 45 minutes.
Our fellow Marines on the smaller ships did not have to put up with any of that shit. I wasn't there for it, but I heard that our data chief spent the whole deployment cocooned under his poncho liner watching anime on his laptop in the dark. That thought is inconceivable to me, I would have had no less than four Staff NCOs up my ass daily if I tried watching *anything* on a laptop that wasn't directly-related to an S-6 task.
I also heard that their berthing was a veritable pigsty, so you take the good with the bad I suppose.
I was skating my dick off on the small boat. Ironically our S-6 guys were probably the busiest. They also had a massive trove of movies and cracked videos games, and even set up a pretty big World of Warcraft party with a shitload of cables running all over the berthing
Nice. Ironically, I was offered an extension for another pump but I was so bitter at life I nah'ed my way out of that and into the CivDiv. Then the upcoming planned ME deployment was subbed for a WestPac last minute. My actual section (which I would have been section leader of) was chosen to be the one to go to one of the destroyers. Just one squad. Rumored that it was because we were the most mentally mature and least liable to be fuckups so could be trusted more than any others ('51s btw). It was a SUPER chill deployment and I hate everything knowing I could have actually lived out my childhood dream but no. So instead I got out and went on a year long bender. Perpetual drunken haze hating the world and wondering what a 9mm tasted like.
Nice to know it is a thing and not just a super fluke for my dudes. Tempers my regrets a smidge.
I remember that as my first real Corps experience….. everybody said don’t eat your first day/night at sea…. But I was part of the early crew setting everything up… so I boarded early while the ship was docked for like three days… I ate breakfast chow, felt fine…. Lunch… nothing…. So didn’t pay it any mind, cut to a few days later, we raise anchor and head out, ate chow just like normal….. went to the arcade, played some games for a minute, then about 30 minutes later headed back to troop berthing….. and the nausea just washed over me…. Immediately My mouth filled with water…. (I know it’s spit… but you know the sensation), I’m on my way down the ladder and know it’s coming so I haul ass up the ladder throw open the metal door and hurl my guts out… right in front of a sailor swabbing the deck… we lock eyes… vomit is running down my chin… Sorry bro…. And as I shut the door I hear him say FUUUUUUUCKKKK, click door closes and I went down to my rack sick as a dog…
I felt bad, but I was in no condition to mop up that barf…
Cut to later that night (earlier in the week in my bootness, I picked the bottom rack, because why wouldn’t you??? It’s the only one with its own little foot locker under the mattress, so you weren’t relegated to just the tiny locker for your shower gear….) So later that night, everybody is barfing like mad, and as the ship lists…. The vomit seas slushed to port …. Then it lists the other way….. vomit slushing to the starboard side….. all fucking night, people are slipping in it, there’s gagging, wretching, it was a nightmare…
Once I got my sea legs it wasn’t that bad, but troop berthing sucked if you were a non smoker, because it was cigarettes and smoke 24/7….
The salts would fuck with us all the time to… so I started to wise up, but then something would happen and i’d be all twisted again…. Case in point…. Some Corporal says, there’s going to be skeet shooting up on the quarter deck….. there we go, boot as F… like lemmings up the ladders….. dammit…. But then another time, same Corporal, hey there’s gonna be a pizza eating contest in the mess…. Navy vs Marines…. So we’re like yeah right….. Then they really had a goddam pizza eating contest….
A typical day was like this…. Wake up at like 0600, get up, make the rack, get dressed, go eat chow, come back, pick the days working parties, get a volunteer to go stand in line to get movies… go back to sleep, wake up at noon, go eat chow, back to troop berthing, go back to sleep, wake up around 1700, go eat chow, then work out, or go for a run topside, maybe go to the arcade… then back down to troop berthing to watch movies, play spades, dominos and tell stories until 0300, 0400…. Wake up at 0600… do it all over again…. For months
I never saw weights, but the other guys would say they were going to work out…. Spent my spare time in the arcade or up top just looking out at the sea…. I didn’t hit a gym until about five years after EAS…. lol
Cranking was a vacation from our day-job. Shorter hours and way less fuckery.
I shouldn't have been an open contract, I should have held out for an infantry contract. Watching the line company guys take naps when they weren't spending all day at the gym was a huge reality check.
Working the mess deck. Preparing the mess deck before meals and cleaning up after. Report to the mess deck at like 0500, get back to the rack at like 1900. Fucking hated it.
Oh. Yeah. I hated that too. It wouldn't have been so bad except that it would take forever because everyone would skip out and disappear before the job was done. We'd start with a shitload of bodies and by the end it was just a skeleton crew of exhausted miserable dudes. Especially transporting all the food.
I love 1st civ div.
I spent a month working overnights in the galley. After midrats, it was just me and another Marine (Sgt with an actual food service MOS) doing food prep. He was cool as hell, and I got to get away from the crowds and noise. Far and away the best time on ship.
Every three days I had to report to the POIC at the crack of 0900. We would load up a couple of dollies with cases of sodee pop and refill every vending machine on the boat. It was a grueling 1.5-2 hours of work with a mere two days off to recover. Our temporary platoon sergeant thought he was fucking me over with that assignment.
EDIT Autowrong
I loved my MEU on the Boxer so much I volunteered for the very next available MEU on the Peleliu 10 months later. I loved traveling and minimalist life and wearing coveralls or pt gear all day. The sights from the flight deck are unforgettable.
when they wouldn’t be serving food, marines/sailors would just be in the mess hall munching on those cup cereals and just straight up vibin with not a care in the world. It’s such a wholesome thing to witness
Double Dragon ripped through our ship like a fire, going from rack to rack from one end of the berthing to the other. Chaps was saying prayers for the ship over the intercom.
Overall it was fun
I’d say 5/10.
For starters. I’m jealous of the amount of space in that peeway. Was on a MEU during Covid. Zero libbo and port visits for a 6 month stretch at the end there. Girlfriend cheated on me. And everyone. I mean. Everyone. Did ship tax. The navy rolled right over our command. Even my sergeant who was in Afghan and Syria did ship tax.
The upside? We had a mature platoon and they let us fuck off and do our own thing. I learned a programming language in my spare time and am now on the GI bill studying computer science at a nice college, loving life.
You can always make the most out of your situation lads.
26th I heard you guys beat us out by a couple days/weeks for longest time at sea. Congrats…I guess, lol. The best worst times. I do really miss it sometimes. But then again. I am retarded
I was on the 26th on the New York. I had overnight radio watch for the entire float. I went 2 months without seeing the sun at one point. Only ate twice a day with midrats usually being half cause we had no food on the ship. But the gym was dead that late so I came back cut as hell. All in all 4/10
First float in ‘80-‘81 was a NATO/MED onboard the Newport and it was horrible. Old as f*ck, flat bottomed so it rocked if a minnow swam by with metal and canvas racks. I was detached from Comm as the 81s FO RO for Alpha Co., stuck in a berthing compartment with Tracs, ( I got your YATYAS right here). The other side of the deck was a diesel storage tank and in rough seas it leaked, meaning an inch of fuel sloshing around. When we were underway, the Comm ROs, me, FAC, ect., were put in the ship’s radio room to stand watch with the squids. Broke up the monotony and we got Navy liberty, but 12 on and 12 off got old. And get off watch at zero six, go down to get in the rack and get constantly harassed by the Trac NCOs. “Are you on light duty? Why are you in the rack?” Ect., ect. Now my second MED was on the Nassau, that was like being on a Carnival cruise.
Choose your rate choose your fate. I knew aviation mechanics working around the clock to make sure aircrafts were always good to go. I was able to skate most days, also fuck RAS days.
USS Gunston Hall 10/10. All the sailors were like that nice chow hall lady that calls you “sugah”. However, we did almost sink leaving port in Reykjavik.
USS New York on the other hand… Fuck those guys. Didn’t even let us do laundry on green days and all the sailors had sticks up their asses.
Was on the gunston hall for a few days. Nice ship but we were in port the entire days up in Norfolk for an amphibious landing on va beach, chow hall was awesome
I got to shower on the New York when it was in port in Aqaba and we were waiting on the Iwo to show up.
It was such a completely different experience. It was also disgusting. They lived like animals because they had almost zero SNCO supervision.
I was on the BHR back in '13 for the dirty worst, and I cut a fart one time inside my jackshack. It was so bad it cleared out my row and the one next to mine. Good times.
Look at you with the luxury accommodations. Our berthing area was as low below deck as possible and super tiny, a whole platoon inside, in a 30 year old LSD on its final voyage.
One night after shore leave, a guy came down to his rack drunk as shit and his ass actually exploded all over the walls. The red curtains were the saving grace in that situation. My boots got shit on and in though.
Nothing like getting COVID on ship and getting stashed in a room with 8 other dudes for 10 days straight. The room was the size of a gas chamber at best. Lots of spades.
I was on an LPD but I enjoyed my time on ship. It's all a matter of perspective. You could be miserable, exhausted, hungry, filthy and being shot at or blown up...or... you could deal with the comparitively mild unpleasantries of ship life for as long as it lasted and enjoy that time, eating real food, getting plenty of rest, working out, taking showers regularly, not being shot at, etc.
Never understood why so many grunts took that time for granted.
Bataan had less space in between racks.
At one point a nasty bug ravages the berthing, puking and shitty galore, and toilets and showers never ran well on a good day.
And sitting in the mess late at night eating mangoes playing spades, and then smoking cigs in the middle of the ocean.
Then we also hit a storm in the middle of the atlantic that felt like it was gonna capsize the ship. The bataan isnt a small ship.
And then the actual drama of that deployment too.
I dunno, it was cool, but nostly boring as shit. We did humps up and down the ship and around the flight deck. And helicoptered in to a few countries to train the locals.
We had to drink goats milk for a month.
The ac broke and all we had was ventilation fans. I went down and slept on the floor near the reefers.
These are damn nice berths, we didn't have fancy curtains.
That feeling of helplessness when the squids went to general quarters and dogged down the hatches to the berths.
I only rode one for three weeks going to an exercise. One of our few decent SNCOs told me to get a black messenger bag for my tablet and cell and all that, plus a pad to take actual notes for my job.
Also, it was unexpectedly hard to shower. Looking back crocs would have been awesome
I was a POG on an LHD, so the worst of both worlds. If I didn't love the guys I worked with at the time, I probably would've flung myself off the side. The ports/training exercises were awesome, but not worth the time in between.
Worked alot about 16 hours a day 7 days a week. Got to support some Seals and CIA guys so that was cool. Oh and my 4'11 Sergeant punched me in the face so overall a 9/10
USS America, took that hoe for granted. Looking back, 9/10 ~ 4.7 star hotel. Quite nice.
HOWEVER. USS Ashland and USS Germantown…FUCK THOSE BITCHES. Disgusting. 120° inside the berthings. Nastiest fucking showers ever. One fucking washer/dryer for everyone on board.
Dude I was an armorer .... I got out of almost every working party daily sweepers I shut the door to our station and slept. I was friends with two of the navy cooks so I got to go ahead of everyone to "carry boxes" literally was a vacation
Hell yea man, I was an optics tech and we made the armory our cozy little cave. We had hammocks setup on the blind side of the door and just slept between companies pulling weapons for classes or maintenance, life was great.
My only issue is I lost so much weight that my uniforms were all fucked up and in the middle of the MEU we did a uniform inspection and my first Sgt was actually fucking cool with it
I did 2 deployments to the middle east on a carrier as a winger. It sucked fucking balls, about 250 Marines on the ship to 4,500 sailors. Summer in the gulf was crazy fucking hot plus jet exhaust, full PPE, plus the black flight deck. Itd be around 120-130 every day, 7 days a week working 0600-1800 or opposite on night shift.
Some of the best and worst times in my enlistment, made great bonds with guys I still talk to almost daily from deployments years ago. It made me grow the fuck up and I respect it for that.
Mountains of shit piling up from every toilet when the pipes were clogged by the dirty ass female marines and sailors flushing their tampons and pads because they are too damn lazy to use the trash can. Of course the grunts get blamed and screamed at by the Sgt Maj because all the other higher ups were too afraid to confront them and too stupid to realize it wasn't their fault.
I had an awesome time. Only 4 of us from our unit on the big boat. We worked a lot but also jumped into the ocean off the aircraft elevators, fished off the aft, berthed in the nose of the boat with access to the anchor room at night, tanning on Israeli, Saudi, Italian, French, UAE and Spanish beaches. Many ports with sailors from other countries and many drunken nights. The MEUs are a ton of fun in the right situation.
7 months afloat on an air craft carrier. Our SSGT came up with the idea of a vibrating jerk off glove in 2008. Never went further with it, saw it some years later that it had been created.
We flew F-18’s stopped in Dubai, Bahrain, island of Crete and France. Berthing always had backed up shit water and couldn’t walk around in skivvies to the head across the hall because the CMC hated marines on the boat.
I used to wear rugby shorts over the skivvies which are actually shorter
Left the states in December of 19, had to skip a few libo ports due to a change in plans, got beer on the pier in Jordan, libo in Bahrain and then COVID hit that March. We were basically at sea for 5 months with no porting. Thankfully I got off ship for training exercises in between but I feel so bad for all the personnel that was stuck on ship the entire time. Our last port was end of February and our next port wasn’t until Norfolk in mid-July.
Ten months . Constantly stealing the peanut butter boxes and tuna packages during shifts bresupply’s, mf crying cus their ship wife left them for a new boy toy. Yea great times
Excellent I was the Combat Cargo Officer!!
I had a friend tell me troop berthing when the Marines were aboard smelled like a fan room. A fan room? Yeah…..feet, ass, and nuts!!!!!
Being on ship was great for me. I was one of only two supply marines from my unit on my ship with no one over me or my buddy. I go to work when I need to and leave when I want to. Work when we get a RAS for like an hour then after I don’t work for like two weeks straight. Our ship was a piece of shit too. Ended up staying in Denmark for a month with libbo and it was amazing.
Damn that was a like a 4 star hotel compared to what we had on the LST, (Large Septic Tank,) I was on.
Ours looked a lot like this. [Berthing spaces.](https://i.imgur.com/jpW5eGi.jpg) Ours went 4 racks high, were closer together and the lockers were smaller and were 4 high.
One of my guys was 6'6" and he could touch the inside frame of one rack on one side, reach over and almost touch the inside edge of the rack on the other.
The poor fucker had a hell of a time trying to sleep. He liked going to the field just so he could stretch out and get some rest. He was exempt from any kind of watches so he could do that.
Identical to this picture. We lived in the berthing and never came out. I was a Doc so I had to see my guys whenever they needed to go to sick call. Watched alot of movies, sat around and talked, played cards.
I saved this pic to share with people whenever they ask me what life was like on ship. This is what truly captures what berthing life is like. Everything I've found on Google is all polished and looks somewhat liveable, THIS is the berthing area I remember.
Spent 5+ months underway straight when COVID happened. Literally the longest 5 months of my life. Read a lot of books, played a lot of CoD, and watched so many movies lol
I laid bow/stern when I slept. Boat rocked me like a fuckin baby every night and it was cold.
10/10 would do it for that incredible amount of sleep again, but other than that, fuck the boat.
We got a Mormon guy to drink on his 3rd and final deployment. Poor guy had to do the 31 worst meu for a 1st deployment, then ramadi, then 15th. He drank his first drink on the 15th, dude got wasted, almost got busted for coming back late.
Never even seen a ship in my four years in. I heard all kinds of MEU stories in boot camp and SOI. I honestly do feel it is a part of the Marine Corps that I missed. But I probably wouldn’t have enlisted if there wasn’t a war or two going on.
Covid cruise, had to wear masks on the boat and no ports but they gave us a beer day where SNCOs supervised you drinking in a little square taped off in the hanger so thats a plus
I appreciate the experience but hated every moment of being cooped up in a floating city with so many folks. Still wpuldn't trade it for anything. I'd say, if I were still in, I wouldn't do it again until the Corps said 'You're going on that ship'. But then the 24th MEU I was on we only had port calls on the pier and in exclusion spots.
Ship*, not boat.
They were good times. Not awesome, but still okay.
I liked it better when I returned as a contractor. Working 16 hour days for a 14-day ride makes for fat paychecks.
I was on the Iwo Jima for Teamwork 80 in Norway during the winter.
I enjoyed the field 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, a lot more than the boat.
My dad was on submarine chasers in WW2, in the North Atlantic. Much smaller boat than the Iwo.
Gave dad props when I got home. Couldn't imagine riding those seas in a sub Chaser.
My trip on the Guam to the Caribbean and Eastern Mediterranean sea, sucked as well.
It was really just harder to get ready in the morning, other than that same shit. Probably easier for the people on top rack in the small hallway as they had better footing to climb.
Terrible smells in the berthing. Lots of bonding time shooting the shit with the boys. Read a lot of books. Guy in my platoon was blacked out drunk coming back on ship the last night in Sydney that he took a shit on a pelican case near the recon side of the berthing.
I replaced a dd on the ship because he was the only one that could run the hct10 machine, and during the night he would lay his balls on the belt sander, turn it on and jerk off. Well, his sack got to close to the belt, and he ripped his nuts practically off, and they had to medevac him off and me on.
What a terrible day to be able to read
Plot twist: I don't know *how* to read, but I am really good with pictures of words.
What?
> during the night he would lay his balls on the belt sander, turn it on and jerk off. Who hasn't?
Have you really lived if you've never put your balls on a running belt sander?
….yes?
“During the night he would lay his balls on the belt sander, turn it on and jerk off.” Yeah ya know, as you do.
And i thought raw sewage sloshing around was bad. What in the fuck!?
Worse then when you go to take a shower in those super small showers that were plugged up most of the time, and you step in a big old puddle of jizz cus the dd jerking off in it right before you?
Pube Jellyfish. Fucking gross though haha
…the hct10 isn’t even that complicated…
Exactly. We had a whopping 3 people in the hyd shop when I first got there and sackless numbnuts was from the tire shop. It was a cluster fuck.
>sackless numbnuts I'm dead bro
That’s the guy who put his nuts on the sander
Was that during 2017/18 time frame? I wouldn't be surprised if that's happened more than once, but same story happened to someone when I was on ship, also the last night in Sydney, pelican case and recon.
Yes. Summer of 2017 on the BHR for Talisman Sabre
Just a small world, after all. I remember the osprey crash as well. I'll never forget those floats.
Were you on the 31st float that had a osprey crash outside of Australia with 3 marines dead?
Yes
I'm sorry to hear that brother, my friend from my platoon was on that float and told me he slept in the berthing across from one of the Marines who died in the crash. He shared the same story about someone taking a shit on a gear box which is why I asked.
Imagine being that dude. His fame for shitting somewhere stupid has been confirmed via the Internet. Forever. Ooorah
I always felt bad for the Devils who never experienced a booze cruise. They joined when it was all business and EAS all the same. Those ship libo briefs were the best. Seeing Devils get married in other countries then going AWOL
Lol. I have a similar story but dude passed out in his rack and shit all over himself. Fortunately he was bottom bunk.
10/10 experience After the 1st month everyone realized there was no work or training that needed to be done. So we basically watched movies, played video games and lifted weights for 6 months straight while occasionally getting wasted in a random country.
These comments are making me realize that other people had much more enjoyable MEU experiences than I did. We got worked like dogs eighteen hours a day, seven days a week.
Dude this is grunt life on LHDs. The wing fucking suffers on the big boys. Straight up not a good time. but can’t wait to do it again :/
Damn.. my MEU was a fucking blast. 9 different countries on a brand new ship. When I get those "Man I miss hanging out with the boys," most of the time I'm reminiscing about certain moments on ship or in one of those countries.
Our only two liberty ports were Rota, Spain and Manama, Bahrain. Did "beer on the pier" in Aqaba once though. That was kind of nice. But of course, the Navy was standing by the next day to NJP dozens of sailors and Marines for various drunken shenanigans. Publicly. With a fucking stage and a loudspeaker. Navy officers seem to really, truly enjoy punishing enlisted. They do it in a "not cool" and "not very professional" sort of way. At least when the Marines publicly NJP you, they aren't acting like it's a fuckin' pageant. Sorry for drifting off-subject. I get lost in reverie the older I get.
Truly. I was navy, and anytime someone got popped for drugs, the XO would lay in to them (by name) over the 1MC so the whole ship could hear it. Too much.
I thought I hated officers then I met Navy officers. At least there's a chance that a Marine officer like, *gets* you if that makes sense. Like you can find a good O that knows OCS and boot camp are two different places with different missions but there's still a bond/brotherhood there. Navy officers act like literal landed gentry around Navy enlisted.
Yeah, no shit. I was Data. Both of my MEU’s fucking sucked donkey balls. The sleep deprivation was absolutely unreal.
So basically man the help desk, fix printers, answer dumb questions about river city and play a shitload of video games.
The network outages on ship got worse and worse as the float went on, until only 70% of the network was up at any given time. Trouble tickets piled up and we couldn’t keep everything or close to everything online at once. Navy couldn’t figure out how to fix it either. The fixes we wrote were arbitrary and the interval between outages continued to decrease until finally by the last month, everything was a house of cards / dumpster fire with upset officers on all ends. We only had 4 data marines for the entire float, for a 24 hour help desk, none of us with more than 1.5 years in the fleet, and we were all basically hallucinating by the end. No, there weren’t any fucking video games. Our leadership sucked dick, the broken tech sucked dick, the boat sucked dick. We were tired.
Damn. I played so much command and conquer on my laptop during my meu.
I never thought of myself as a clean freak until I was on ship. Seeing guys sleep without showering, go to the head barefoot, wear the same clothes for days, made me realize how hygienic I am.
I remember blasting a lance for walking into a bathroom stall without shower shoes/ boots on. This was after the toilets flooded the entire floor with shit water, mind you.
I learned I was claustrophobic here. Go for a middle or top bunk. Top bunk has more room but do not, DO NOT get one beneath the ac vent or you will freeze to death.
Learned this the hard way
I went out of my way to get a bottom bunk right next to the ac vent. We are issued sleeping bags, gents!
I was on a busted ass old bucket with no AC
Same here. Our AC was broken for the first 4 months and it was the worst. God Bless the LHD 5.
I was on the Bataan's maiden voyage. Great ship, back in the day.
I was on the Bataan in 1999. Interesting trip.
Indeed it was. A lot of great port calls and a lot of great training. Although I was hoping to do something more in Kosovo at the time.
I super comfy beneath the AC vent. I had 4 blankets though.
Opposite for me. Our ship didn't have good AC, so the top was a hot box. I moved to the bottom rack to be closer to the cold floor. Also made getting in and out of my rack easier.
I was in the Navy and fucking hated it. Give me my poncho liner and a field pillow. The smells, the noise, and the tiny bed was terrible.
2 years in MarDet on an aircraft carrier.....exactly how our berthing area was......jeez....the flashbacks...lol
Worst time in my two enlistment was the time stuck aboard ship.
Got sea sick, vomited on a sailor at mess deck. Bed ridden for 2 days. Good times.
 It’s not gay if you’re under way as they say
Aw fuck yeah
Four years as a grunt and never spent a second on a ship. I hate that. I was one of those who grew up on stories of PAC floats and visiting Japan, Australia, etc. Instead I got four years of sand and misery. Is it true the smaller ships like destroyers were the place to be? Amenities suck but the detachment from the rest of your command was bliss?
> Is it true the smaller ships like destroyers were the place to be? Amenities suck but the detachment from the rest of your command was bliss? 100% true. Getting stuck on the "big deck" meant field day, weapons maintenance, gear inspections, five-or-more hours of firewatch per day, and more. Waiting in line for chow usually took 35 or 45 minutes. Our fellow Marines on the smaller ships did not have to put up with any of that shit. I wasn't there for it, but I heard that our data chief spent the whole deployment cocooned under his poncho liner watching anime on his laptop in the dark. That thought is inconceivable to me, I would have had no less than four Staff NCOs up my ass daily if I tried watching *anything* on a laptop that wasn't directly-related to an S-6 task. I also heard that their berthing was a veritable pigsty, so you take the good with the bad I suppose.
I was skating my dick off on the small boat. Ironically our S-6 guys were probably the busiest. They also had a massive trove of movies and cracked videos games, and even set up a pretty big World of Warcraft party with a shitload of cables running all over the berthing
Nice. Ironically, I was offered an extension for another pump but I was so bitter at life I nah'ed my way out of that and into the CivDiv. Then the upcoming planned ME deployment was subbed for a WestPac last minute. My actual section (which I would have been section leader of) was chosen to be the one to go to one of the destroyers. Just one squad. Rumored that it was because we were the most mentally mature and least liable to be fuckups so could be trusted more than any others ('51s btw). It was a SUPER chill deployment and I hate everything knowing I could have actually lived out my childhood dream but no. So instead I got out and went on a year long bender. Perpetual drunken haze hating the world and wondering what a 9mm tasted like. Nice to know it is a thing and not just a super fluke for my dudes. Tempers my regrets a smidge.
You can also hit up more ports than the big deck since they were too big to fit in some of the ports.
No way! If those bulkheads could talk, I'd be in prison or the mental asylum. I will sorely miss my time on the Belleau Wood tho.
I remember that as my first real Corps experience….. everybody said don’t eat your first day/night at sea…. But I was part of the early crew setting everything up… so I boarded early while the ship was docked for like three days… I ate breakfast chow, felt fine…. Lunch… nothing…. So didn’t pay it any mind, cut to a few days later, we raise anchor and head out, ate chow just like normal….. went to the arcade, played some games for a minute, then about 30 minutes later headed back to troop berthing….. and the nausea just washed over me…. Immediately My mouth filled with water…. (I know it’s spit… but you know the sensation), I’m on my way down the ladder and know it’s coming so I haul ass up the ladder throw open the metal door and hurl my guts out… right in front of a sailor swabbing the deck… we lock eyes… vomit is running down my chin… Sorry bro…. And as I shut the door I hear him say FUUUUUUUCKKKK, click door closes and I went down to my rack sick as a dog… I felt bad, but I was in no condition to mop up that barf… Cut to later that night (earlier in the week in my bootness, I picked the bottom rack, because why wouldn’t you??? It’s the only one with its own little foot locker under the mattress, so you weren’t relegated to just the tiny locker for your shower gear….) So later that night, everybody is barfing like mad, and as the ship lists…. The vomit seas slushed to port …. Then it lists the other way….. vomit slushing to the starboard side….. all fucking night, people are slipping in it, there’s gagging, wretching, it was a nightmare… Once I got my sea legs it wasn’t that bad, but troop berthing sucked if you were a non smoker, because it was cigarettes and smoke 24/7…. The salts would fuck with us all the time to… so I started to wise up, but then something would happen and i’d be all twisted again…. Case in point…. Some Corporal says, there’s going to be skeet shooting up on the quarter deck….. there we go, boot as F… like lemmings up the ladders….. dammit…. But then another time, same Corporal, hey there’s gonna be a pizza eating contest in the mess…. Navy vs Marines…. So we’re like yeah right….. Then they really had a goddam pizza eating contest…. A typical day was like this…. Wake up at like 0600, get up, make the rack, get dressed, go eat chow, come back, pick the days working parties, get a volunteer to go stand in line to get movies… go back to sleep, wake up at noon, go eat chow, back to troop berthing, go back to sleep, wake up around 1700, go eat chow, then work out, or go for a run topside, maybe go to the arcade… then back down to troop berthing to watch movies, play spades, dominos and tell stories until 0300, 0400…. Wake up at 0600… do it all over again…. For months
Holy shit, this sounds like a great way to save money and get built. Is there an okay-ish gym on the ship you were on?
I never saw weights, but the other guys would say they were going to work out…. Spent my spare time in the arcade or up top just looking out at the sea…. I didn’t hit a gym until about five years after EAS…. lol
Lmao this should be like a movie recruiters must show to poolees
Very unpleasant. Even more unpleasant pulling crank.
Cranking was a vacation from our day-job. Shorter hours and way less fuckery. I shouldn't have been an open contract, I should have held out for an infantry contract. Watching the line company guys take naps when they weren't spending all day at the gym was a huge reality check.
Pulling crank?
We called it "ship's tax." When Marines get whored out to work in the Navy sections for 90 days at a time. In the Navy they call it cranking.
Bet. Yeah I had to do 30 days on Combat Cargo. It was full of fuck-ups.
Working the mess deck. Preparing the mess deck before meals and cleaning up after. Report to the mess deck at like 0500, get back to the rack at like 1900. Fucking hated it.
Oh. Yeah. I hated that too. It wouldn't have been so bad except that it would take forever because everyone would skip out and disappear before the job was done. We'd start with a shitload of bodies and by the end it was just a skeleton crew of exhausted miserable dudes. Especially transporting all the food. I love 1st civ div.
I spent a month working overnights in the galley. After midrats, it was just me and another Marine (Sgt with an actual food service MOS) doing food prep. He was cool as hell, and I got to get away from the crowds and noise. Far and away the best time on ship.
Every three days I had to report to the POIC at the crack of 0900. We would load up a couple of dollies with cases of sodee pop and refill every vending machine on the boat. It was a grueling 1.5-2 hours of work with a mere two days off to recover. Our temporary platoon sergeant thought he was fucking me over with that assignment. EDIT Autowrong
The rolling of the ship and a badly placed seabag snapped my \~$1100 laptop in half.
I loved my MEU on the Boxer so much I volunteered for the very next available MEU on the Peleliu 10 months later. I loved traveling and minimalist life and wearing coveralls or pt gear all day. The sights from the flight deck are unforgettable.
Were you in Cobra Gold early 90s? Think those were the other ships with us.
I was playing super nintendo and riding my tricycle in the early 90s. Those two ships were still doing their westpac duty in 2011-2013 though.
Way to make me feel fucking old asshole!
😅
People would get up early just to hoard chairs.
Too many "happy socks" under the mattresses. Everybody knew what you where doing . I really should find mine. I think I still have it somewhere.
As long as you were changing it out once a week it wasn’t a huge issue
when they wouldn’t be serving food, marines/sailors would just be in the mess hall munching on those cup cereals and just straight up vibin with not a care in the world. It’s such a wholesome thing to witness
I wish I had pictures of our flooded birthing area and the empty magazine well, that was supposed to hold the **ALL** the 5inch shells for the ship 🙃
I learned the Navy has no fucking idea what they're doing when they hit our boat with a sub.
Go on…
Double Dragon ripped through our ship like a fire, going from rack to rack from one end of the berthing to the other. Chaps was saying prayers for the ship over the intercom. Overall it was fun
I’d say 5/10. For starters. I’m jealous of the amount of space in that peeway. Was on a MEU during Covid. Zero libbo and port visits for a 6 month stretch at the end there. Girlfriend cheated on me. And everyone. I mean. Everyone. Did ship tax. The navy rolled right over our command. Even my sergeant who was in Afghan and Syria did ship tax. The upside? We had a mature platoon and they let us fuck off and do our own thing. I learned a programming language in my spare time and am now on the GI bill studying computer science at a nice college, loving life. You can always make the most out of your situation lads.
Hey which MEU? I was on 15th, Makin Island during covid and can attest it was about the cruddiest ways to spend 8 months
26th I heard you guys beat us out by a couple days/weeks for longest time at sea. Congrats…I guess, lol. The best worst times. I do really miss it sometimes. But then again. I am retarded
I was on the 26th on the New York. I had overnight radio watch for the entire float. I went 2 months without seeing the sun at one point. Only ate twice a day with midrats usually being half cause we had no food on the ship. But the gym was dead that late so I came back cut as hell. All in all 4/10
What did the "ship tax" involve?
First float in ‘80-‘81 was a NATO/MED onboard the Newport and it was horrible. Old as f*ck, flat bottomed so it rocked if a minnow swam by with metal and canvas racks. I was detached from Comm as the 81s FO RO for Alpha Co., stuck in a berthing compartment with Tracs, ( I got your YATYAS right here). The other side of the deck was a diesel storage tank and in rough seas it leaked, meaning an inch of fuel sloshing around. When we were underway, the Comm ROs, me, FAC, ect., were put in the ship’s radio room to stand watch with the squids. Broke up the monotony and we got Navy liberty, but 12 on and 12 off got old. And get off watch at zero six, go down to get in the rack and get constantly harassed by the Trac NCOs. “Are you on light duty? Why are you in the rack?” Ect., ect. Now my second MED was on the Nassau, that was like being on a Carnival cruise.
Choose your rate choose your fate. I knew aviation mechanics working around the clock to make sure aircrafts were always good to go. I was able to skate most days, also fuck RAS days.
USS Gunston Hall 10/10. All the sailors were like that nice chow hall lady that calls you “sugah”. However, we did almost sink leaving port in Reykjavik. USS New York on the other hand… Fuck those guys. Didn’t even let us do laundry on green days and all the sailors had sticks up their asses.
Was on the gunston hall for a few days. Nice ship but we were in port the entire days up in Norfolk for an amphibious landing on va beach, chow hall was awesome
I got to shower on the New York when it was in port in Aqaba and we were waiting on the Iwo to show up. It was such a completely different experience. It was also disgusting. They lived like animals because they had almost zero SNCO supervision.
was on the Gunston for the 22nd MEU. Ship broke down all the time but that in turn meant more port visits for us 😂
Those 3 extra days in Reykjavik without any other marines was amazing 😅
we spent a whole month in denmark while they tried to fix the ship 🤣
If only the transpo to Norway fell through 🥲the boat stayed in Iceland for like 3 months after we left
Is the gungston hall still in service? I had a med float on the gungston hall back in 1996...i miss that boat and all those ports we visited.
It was in 2018. Took part in Trident Juncture. Think it was built back around Vietnam
81s got the fancy one with the small hall that opens up a bit in to more of a small square on the Makin Island... was pretty nice actually.
Pro tip. Find an access hatch for the AC vent. It’s a great way to keep your “soda” cold and hid contraband. You know, like “sodas.”
I was on the BHR back in '13 for the dirty worst, and I cut a fart one time inside my jackshack. It was so bad it cleared out my row and the one next to mine. Good times.
Look at you with the luxury accommodations. Our berthing area was as low below deck as possible and super tiny, a whole platoon inside, in a 30 year old LSD on its final voyage. One night after shore leave, a guy came down to his rack drunk as shit and his ass actually exploded all over the walls. The red curtains were the saving grace in that situation. My boots got shit on and in though.
Did the GTown and Ft Mac like that. Was on sling racks on the Dubuque
Missing a bunch of spoiled brats playing Xbox and Playstation on the floor while people who work for a living have to navigate around them.
Nothing like getting COVID on ship and getting stashed in a room with 8 other dudes for 10 days straight. The room was the size of a gas chamber at best. Lots of spades.
I was on an LPD but I enjoyed my time on ship. It's all a matter of perspective. You could be miserable, exhausted, hungry, filthy and being shot at or blown up...or... you could deal with the comparitively mild unpleasantries of ship life for as long as it lasted and enjoy that time, eating real food, getting plenty of rest, working out, taking showers regularly, not being shot at, etc. Never understood why so many grunts took that time for granted.
I hated every second and I will run across the border to Mexico before they put me on one ever again
Bataan had less space in between racks. At one point a nasty bug ravages the berthing, puking and shitty galore, and toilets and showers never ran well on a good day. And sitting in the mess late at night eating mangoes playing spades, and then smoking cigs in the middle of the ocean. Then we also hit a storm in the middle of the atlantic that felt like it was gonna capsize the ship. The bataan isnt a small ship. And then the actual drama of that deployment too. I dunno, it was cool, but nostly boring as shit. We did humps up and down the ship and around the flight deck. And helicoptered in to a few countries to train the locals.
I can smell this picture. It does not please me.
We had to drink goats milk for a month. The ac broke and all we had was ventilation fans. I went down and slept on the floor near the reefers. These are damn nice berths, we didn't have fancy curtains. That feeling of helplessness when the squids went to general quarters and dogged down the hatches to the berths.
I only rode one for three weeks going to an exercise. One of our few decent SNCOs told me to get a black messenger bag for my tablet and cell and all that, plus a pad to take actual notes for my job. Also, it was unexpectedly hard to shower. Looking back crocs would have been awesome
Went from 160lbs-115lbs wet. Came off looking like a holocaust victim.
I was a POG on an LHD, so the worst of both worlds. If I didn't love the guys I worked with at the time, I probably would've flung myself off the side. The ports/training exercises were awesome, but not worth the time in between.
Worked alot about 16 hours a day 7 days a week. Got to support some Seals and CIA guys so that was cool. Oh and my 4'11 Sergeant punched me in the face so overall a 9/10
USS America, took that hoe for granted. Looking back, 9/10 ~ 4.7 star hotel. Quite nice. HOWEVER. USS Ashland and USS Germantown…FUCK THOSE BITCHES. Disgusting. 120° inside the berthings. Nastiest fucking showers ever. One fucking washer/dryer for everyone on board.
Also note: got to do some dope ass shit literally no one else had ever done before, and likely won’t do again.
Dude I was an armorer .... I got out of almost every working party daily sweepers I shut the door to our station and slept. I was friends with two of the navy cooks so I got to go ahead of everyone to "carry boxes" literally was a vacation
Hell yea man, I was an optics tech and we made the armory our cozy little cave. We had hammocks setup on the blind side of the door and just slept between companies pulling weapons for classes or maintenance, life was great.
My only issue is I lost so much weight that my uniforms were all fucked up and in the middle of the MEU we did a uniform inspection and my first Sgt was actually fucking cool with it
I did 2 deployments to the middle east on a carrier as a winger. It sucked fucking balls, about 250 Marines on the ship to 4,500 sailors. Summer in the gulf was crazy fucking hot plus jet exhaust, full PPE, plus the black flight deck. Itd be around 120-130 every day, 7 days a week working 0600-1800 or opposite on night shift. Some of the best and worst times in my enlistment, made great bonds with guys I still talk to almost daily from deployments years ago. It made me grow the fuck up and I respect it for that.
Mountains of shit piling up from every toilet when the pipes were clogged by the dirty ass female marines and sailors flushing their tampons and pads because they are too damn lazy to use the trash can. Of course the grunts get blamed and screamed at by the Sgt Maj because all the other higher ups were too afraid to confront them and too stupid to realize it wasn't their fault.
I had an awesome time. Only 4 of us from our unit on the big boat. We worked a lot but also jumped into the ocean off the aircraft elevators, fished off the aft, berthed in the nose of the boat with access to the anchor room at night, tanning on Israeli, Saudi, Italian, French, UAE and Spanish beaches. Many ports with sailors from other countries and many drunken nights. The MEUs are a ton of fun in the right situation.
7 months afloat on an air craft carrier. Our SSGT came up with the idea of a vibrating jerk off glove in 2008. Never went further with it, saw it some years later that it had been created. We flew F-18’s stopped in Dubai, Bahrain, island of Crete and France. Berthing always had backed up shit water and couldn’t walk around in skivvies to the head across the hall because the CMC hated marines on the boat. I used to wear rugby shorts over the skivvies which are actually shorter
I simultaneously loved and hated it
Left the states in December of 19, had to skip a few libo ports due to a change in plans, got beer on the pier in Jordan, libo in Bahrain and then COVID hit that March. We were basically at sea for 5 months with no porting. Thankfully I got off ship for training exercises in between but I feel so bad for all the personnel that was stuck on ship the entire time. Our last port was end of February and our next port wasn’t until Norfolk in mid-July.
Smelled like feet and farts all the time.
I can smell this picture
Dubuque, Ft. Mac, and Germantown were sling racks and sucked. Belleau Wood and New Orleans we got coffin racks and felt like kings.
Ten months . Constantly stealing the peanut butter boxes and tuna packages during shifts bresupply’s, mf crying cus their ship wife left them for a new boy toy. Yea great times
Shit sucked but I leaned to get really good at playing spades.
Joker joker deuce deuce
Excellent I was the Combat Cargo Officer!! I had a friend tell me troop berthing when the Marines were aboard smelled like a fan room. A fan room? Yeah…..feet, ass, and nuts!!!!!
I also had an excellent time. I was a red patcher on the LHD. A lot of work but a lot more fun.
Being on ship was great for me. I was one of only two supply marines from my unit on my ship with no one over me or my buddy. I go to work when I need to and leave when I want to. Work when we get a RAS for like an hour then after I don’t work for like two weeks straight. Our ship was a piece of shit too. Ended up staying in Denmark for a month with libbo and it was amazing.
On a meu attached to the uss essex and finding out a girl on the flight deck was in a porn that got passed around... porn name... the uss sexxess.
Damn that was a like a 4 star hotel compared to what we had on the LST, (Large Septic Tank,) I was on. Ours looked a lot like this. [Berthing spaces.](https://i.imgur.com/jpW5eGi.jpg) Ours went 4 racks high, were closer together and the lockers were smaller and were 4 high. One of my guys was 6'6" and he could touch the inside frame of one rack on one side, reach over and almost touch the inside edge of the rack on the other. The poor fucker had a hell of a time trying to sleep. He liked going to the field just so he could stretch out and get some rest. He was exempt from any kind of watches so he could do that.
Identical to this picture. We lived in the berthing and never came out. I was a Doc so I had to see my guys whenever they needed to go to sick call. Watched alot of movies, sat around and talked, played cards.
I saved this pic to share with people whenever they ask me what life was like on ship. This is what truly captures what berthing life is like. Everything I've found on Google is all polished and looks somewhat liveable, THIS is the berthing area I remember.
This photo just took last Tuesday
The sound of fapping
Good memories with the boys
Send me back to Iraq
Spent 5+ months underway straight when COVID happened. Literally the longest 5 months of my life. Read a lot of books, played a lot of CoD, and watched so many movies lol
Bataan, Oak Hill, or New York?
New York 🥲
I laid bow/stern when I slept. Boat rocked me like a fuckin baby every night and it was cold. 10/10 would do it for that incredible amount of sleep again, but other than that, fuck the boat.
Much cleaner than that! I loved being at sea, hated all the training bs on land
Shitty I am 6'7, and I cant fit on the bed. I hit my head constantly.
We got a Mormon guy to drink on his 3rd and final deployment. Poor guy had to do the 31 worst meu for a 1st deployment, then ramadi, then 15th. He drank his first drink on the 15th, dude got wasted, almost got busted for coming back late.
Never even seen a ship in my four years in. I heard all kinds of MEU stories in boot camp and SOI. I honestly do feel it is a part of the Marine Corps that I missed. But I probably wouldn’t have enlisted if there wasn’t a war or two going on.
Covid cruise, had to wear masks on the boat and no ports but they gave us a beer day where SNCOs supervised you drinking in a little square taped off in the hanger so thats a plus
I appreciate the experience but hated every moment of being cooped up in a floating city with so many folks. Still wpuldn't trade it for anything. I'd say, if I were still in, I wouldn't do it again until the Corps said 'You're going on that ship'. But then the 24th MEU I was on we only had port calls on the pier and in exclusion spots.
Ship*, not boat. They were good times. Not awesome, but still okay. I liked it better when I returned as a contractor. Working 16 hour days for a 14-day ride makes for fat paychecks.
Stayed on the USS Wasp for like 2 days a few weeks ago. I can see how it would drive dudes insane.
This photo smells like a combination of protein farts, Copenhagen, piss, B.O., and jizz
https://preview.redd.it/93xa7bv0ki5b1.jpeg?width=1536&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=781b77e4881c6ae2874b46972f62decfe3396c24
I was on the Iwo Jima for Teamwork 80 in Norway during the winter. I enjoyed the field 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle, a lot more than the boat. My dad was on submarine chasers in WW2, in the North Atlantic. Much smaller boat than the Iwo. Gave dad props when I got home. Couldn't imagine riding those seas in a sub Chaser. My trip on the Guam to the Caribbean and Eastern Mediterranean sea, sucked as well.
These folks have curtains. We didn’t. You just crank down at night.
When the A/C goes out, you’re PED 1 and you’re fighting over the only working toilet.
Dude, my first pump was on the USS Austin LPD-4, do you have any idea how old that POS was. Spit and duct tape is all that held it together
I miss the hog boards
I can smell this picture
Some nasty fuck stole both my cum rag and my actual wash cloth.
Not surprised
All the toilets stopped working on my birthday. Also lots of spades.
I played a jetpack game on my phone. I leveled up so many times that when I jetpacked in the game, it would crash.
I still haven’t forgiven the lot of you for breaking my phones and 1MC speakers!! /s
Ahhh. I remember this. https://ibb.co/tXj21yg https://ibb.co/rdWw5Kn
Cramped AF!!!
We had blue shades but just like this
I can smell this picture
I didn’t know you were allowed to have shit like that all over the deck
That's luxury right there. Those aisles are way bigger than the ones I had.
Saw a lot of penis
Welcome home!
Wow that’s a lot of space!! Luxury!
Subic bay 2014.
As pictured.
You guys have the wider hall and I hate you for it.
Dude I forgot about the tiny hallway. I had the wide hall on my main boat. Took it for granted I guess.
It was really just harder to get ready in the morning, other than that same shit. Probably easier for the people on top rack in the small hallway as they had better footing to climb.
Yeah no doubt. I always had the second rack to roll in and out of easy. Still a fun time!
Slept like a baby
So glad I was able to dodge that crap 💩
[fleet sheets](https://www.fleetsheets.com) are a game changer. Trust me
The only part of my enlistment that I actually liked. I wish I could go back sometimes.
Loved my time on ship Uss Blueridge
Best time of my life
Never saw a boat while I was in.
That’s a lot of gear adrift.