The best part of deployments are the homecomings — and the worst part of deployments are the homecomings. As each day counts down and your homeport draws near, time slows to a crawl, the clock seems to freeze and restlessness grows. Nervous energy abounds as do anyone of a number of “oh yeah, we also…
SJS, Since the last post card not much else has changed out here. We are just approaching the International date line again. So soon we are going to repeat a day to catch up for the day we jumped over about eight months ago. So in preparation (or as a cruel joke) one of the…
Well, it’s been a short piece since we last heard from our deployed correspondent, Charles, and that from Hong Kong. He checks in today (well, actually a couple days ago but we’ve been a mite bit overtasked at the day job of late.. Yeah, yeah, yeah — whine, whine….) with another underway note: SJS, So…
If it’s Saturday, this must be Hong Kong…and time for another postcard from our deployed correspondent: SJS, So I am in one of my father’s favorite ports and a few of the old WestPac sailors favorite ports as well. Hong Kong. Home of fast action films, mainland Asian banking, and an every changing landscape. To…
In this age of (near) instantaneous contact via email or, where accessible, the various pieces of social media our deployed Sailors, Marines, Soldiers and Airmen can access, there is still nothing, and I do mean nothing, quite as satisfying as a letter or package that arrives in the mail. The whiff of perfume still tenuously…
Milestones. We live our lives and measure our time while deployed by milestones. Workups, CQ, “safe-to-deploy,” night qual’d – those are all milestones. First day underway, first trap of deployment, last night the lights of home are visible on the far horizon. . . We chop from one fleet to another in our transit; turnover…
AT1 checks in today with a post about routines – daily and otherwise. Folks who have never been to sea or put to sea for extended periods often ask how one gets by on a day-to-day basis, what with the monotony of the scenery and smallness of the ship and all. My answer is, as…
Checking in from deployment, Charles passes a review of one of Skippy-san’s most favorite locations in the Far East – Singapore (we’ll let Skippy wax eloquent on the joys therein on the comments if he’s of such a mind and can tear himself away from an ongoing email war 😎 ) And “ship’s liaison group” …
One of the reasons we went with the ‘Postcards from deployment…’ feature a couple of years ago was to bring an unvarnished look at deployments from a sailor’s POV that doesn’t always make it to the light of day, except in rare fora like the “Carrier” series late last year. Charles touches on something everyone…
Those of us who have spent any amount of time at sea recognize the syndrome – after the first week or two, when the initial rush of getting underway and operating at sea begins to wear off, the routine settles in and pretty soon, one day (or night) melts into the next and the only…
