[aubreyq]

Wishing a Happy Veterans Day to all of those who served or are serving the US military.

Sent from my Samsung Focus using Board Express

[palandri]

Happy Veterans Day!



Who is this good looking guy on liberty in Washington D.C.?

[power5]

Happy vet day.

Also 11.11.11 day. Hope all vets have at least 1 good thing happen for them today.

[aubreyq]

Now that's a good picture, palandri. Is that you or your dad?

Sent from my Samsung Focus using Board Express

[palandri]

Now that's a good picture, palandri. Is that you or your dad?

Sent from my Samsung Focus using Board Express

Me. We only had film cameras back then. :D

[aubreyq]

Me. We only had film cameras back then. :D

Hey, I still remember film cameras ;-)


Sent from my Samsung Focus using Board Express

[joemd60]

Happy Veterans day, and thanks to all the veterans.

[palandri]

Another year has past. Happy Veterans Day again!

I was in the U.S. Coast Guard. Here's a video of all the different things the Coast Guard does:

[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gp32mUEuM3k[/YT]

[speedtouch]

Happy Veterans Day!

Click to view quoted image


Who is this good looking guy on liberty in Washington D.C.?

Well, if you're wearing pants, then I must say...you're out of uniform, son!! :D

I was in the Chair Force (AKA corporate military). I commandeered my computer like a champ.

[Mystictrust]

Hope all vets have at least 1 good thing happen for them today.

I was at Chili's eating my free entrée (from their limited menu for veterans) and I ordered a Mango Iced Tea on top of that. The waitress came up with the check when I was done and told me she didn't add the iced tea to the order so my bill total was $0.

I still tipped though. How nice of her :)

Happy Veteran's Day all!

[palandri]

I was at Chili's eating my free entrée (from their limited menu for veterans) and I ordered a Mango Iced Tea on top of that. The waitress came up with the check when I was done and told me she didn't add the iced tea to the order so my bill total was $0.

I still tipped though. How nice of her :)

Happy Veteran's Day all!

What branch were you in? and what was your MOS?

[Mystictrust]

What branch were you in? and what was your MOS?

USN. I worked as an Aviation Ordnanceman ("built", put together, stored, and carried around bombs, missles, etc.) My specialty was in building the equipment that moved the ordnance and, well, signing it out to the squadrons who needed it for their jets or helos.

[palandri]

USN. I worked as an Aviation Ordnanceman ("built", put together, stored, and carried around bombs, missles, etc.) My specialty was in building the equipment that moved the ordnance and, well, signing it out to the squadrons who needed it for their jets or helos.

Very cool! Where were you stationed?

I was station in Alameda, California, Yorktown, Virginia and St. Louis, Missouri.

I spent most of my time at Yorktown, Virginia. I was on a 210ft Cutter most of the time. The mistake I made was not getting a guaranteed school. The recruiter told me i didn't need one. He said there would be plenty of billets to pick from after bootcamp. The only billets open when i got out of bootcamp were gopher jobs.

Once i finally got out to Yorktown, I was able to take schooling at the Coast Guard base and the Navy base out of Norfolk.

My last 6 month of duty were in St. Louis.

[Mystictrust]

Very cool! Where were you stationed?

I was station in Alameda, California, Yorktown, Virginia and St. Louis, Missouri.

I spent most of my time at Yorktown, Virginia. I was on a 210ft Cutter most of the time. The mistake I made was not getting a guaranteed school. The recruiter told me i didn't need one. He said there would be plenty of billets to pick from after bootcamp. The only billets open when i got out of bootcamp were gopher jobs.

Once i finally got out to Yorktown, I was able to take schooling at the Coast Guard base and the Navy base out of Norfolk.

My last 6 month of duty were in St. Louis.

Illinois for boot camp, Florida for my technical training school, Virginia while they were completing the construction of the ship I was assigned to (USS Ronald Reagan - aircraft carrier), San Diego once the ship construction was complete.

Ronald Reagan passed away while we were in Rio de Janiero during the big move to our homeport (which was us basically floating all the way around South America from Virginia to get to San Diego, CA) so that was kind of sad :(

I spent most of my time stationed in San Diego on two different ships: USS Ronald Reagan and then, due to some interesting circumstances, a transfer to amphibious assault ship USS Boxer. That's the ship I was on when we got deployed to sea for 9 months in support of everything going on in the Gulf (Operation Iraqi Freedom / Operation Enduring Freedom).

Man, 210 ft is incredibly small for me, wow! I was used to living and working on a floating city :P

So what exactly is it that you did... everything in that youtube video? ;)

[palandri]

....Man, 210 ft is incredibly small for me, wow! I was used to living and working on a floating city :P

So what exactly is it that you did... everything in that youtube video? ;)

210ft is really small and we use to bounce around like a cork. You really got sea legs, and walked around with sea legs after being out for a few weeks

Since I really hated being out on a 210ft Cutter, I applied for all the schools I could, just to get off the Cutter for a while. The first school I went to was Boatswain's Mate school (12weeks, 3months off the Cutter) and that gave me my Boatswain's Mate designator. Then I went to Fireman school at the Navy base, but kept my Boatswain's Mate classification.That was scary putting out diesel fires with water. Then Marine Safety school for barge and tow boat inspection. Then Coxswain school for small boat operations. Part of that video shows a small boat going throw a rip current, that was probably filmed during Coxwain school.

[Mystictrust]

I had heard that on small boats in rough seas that you had to learn to walk on the walls a little, and that there's even nonskid on some of them! Wow, I haven't used military jargon in a while... I wanted to use the term "bulkheads" but it doesn't seem natural anymore.

I don't think I ever got my "sea legs" being on an aircraft carrier and an amphibious assault ship. The roughest seas I ever encountered were 30+ foot waves once we cut through the Strait of Magellan to bypass the icebergs at the tip of South America. As soon as we hit the Pacific Ocean, it was rough seas ahead... on the video cam that showed the flight deck I happened to watch as a wave completely overtook the deck! I mean, the ship is like 20 stories high! Well, 20 stories goes from the waterline to the top if the "island" so it's probably more like 15 stories to the flight deck.. but still! That was one ridiculous wave. I no doubt got sick for the first and last time on a naval ship... it was so weird to watch my food tray slide completely across the table if I wasn't holding onto it. It barely even feels like you're moving out to sea most of the time when on a carrier, except maybe for when you stand still and the seas are kind of choppy (or you're looking outside at the water).

You went through a lot of training! I'm sure you have hundreds of stories to tell about all that... you must know everything about ships!! I'm curious though, why wouldn't you use that foam (I forget what it's called now) on the diesel fires instead of regular water? It's been a LONG time since I've been to any of those fireman classes - not that I needed to be super specialized in it or anything, but I got to put out a flaming jet once and I think even a dummy ship. The dummy ship might have just been in boot camp, I don't remember now.

[palandri]

Foam was one of several methods we used to put a diesel fire out, but we also had to know how to do it with steam using water only.

The one story that still makes me laugh today is, we had one guy on ship who had been an E-2 Seaman Apprentice for 6 years. He couldn't pass the Seaman test. When he resigned with the Coast Guard, the Yeoman told him he should work on getting his GED. Then he started walking around the ship smoking a pipe and telling all the Officers he was going to take a Bell & Howell correspondence course to get his GED and then apply for OCS (Officer Candidate School). :D

Then he took his resign money and bought a new van. He told everyone his van was going to be a chick magnet. He went out and bought a roll of shag carpeting for the van. A few us were leaving the Cutter when he started installing the shag carpeting. About 6 hours later we came back and he had about 200 self tapping screws sticking out the side of his new van. He didn't realize the self tapping screws were too long. :D

[Mystictrust]

LOL! Tell me someone got his reaction when he saw his van's exterior :P