"Why I preferred the Navy, from a culture POV."

[Lumber]

Couple of DITs from my part.

During one of my very first sails we ended up having the hands Christmas dinner at sea. In order to let all the Jr ranks attend, their bossed took over their basic watch keeping positions. I ended up with a PO2 CSE tech who could steer port or starboard, but got help us if we needed to change steering modes.

Fast forward to the mids watch (midnight), the Jr ranks are now back on watch. Unfortunately, during the Christmas dinner the two drink limit was definitely not adhered to, with HODs and CHODs basically free poring wine into whatever glasses were even partially empty and without any question of whether that person was going on watch soon or not. The end result was that half the Jr ranks on the ship were half cut going on watch at midnight. This was 2011.

 

[Lumber]

Nope earlier than that. It was the CAFs initial foray into Anti Piracy. We circumnavigated the continent of Africa. If you look up HMCS Toronto and Red Sea volcano you will find some stuff about that trip.

Patrolling all sides, with 2 port of calls. 1 in Cape Town and the other the Seychelles.

Sorry right, I was on Toronto in 2009 with Graham. 2007 was Virgin. One of my two best men was on the same trip as you. He said the port visit you had in Spain before going around Africa was a wild time, but that basically no port visits the whole way around made the trip a real slog. Also, didnt the task group do a drag race at some point?

 

[dimsum]

Also, didnt the task group do a drag race at some point?

Fumes or RuPaul?

 

[Halifax Tar]

Sorry right, I was on Toronto in 2009 with Graham. 2007 was Virgin. One of my two best men was on the same trip as you. He said the port visit you had in Spain before going around Africa was a wild time, but that basically no port visits the whole way around made the trip a real slog. Also, didnt the task group do a drag race at some point?

Virgin will go down as one of the greatest in my eyes. Our crew would have sailed through hell with him. Topshee was the XO. Truth Duty Valor was with us, there is an episode on us. We partied like pirates and worked like dogs. Made for a very very tight crew.

We came home mid Dec and we were back at sea the day Christmas and NYE leave was over, and sailed straight for the year, with small breaks at home, a week here and there. We did something like 500 days away from home in 2 years. Good for keeping your car's milage down, not so good for families and relationships.

Rota, Spain... It was wild. And I won't say more on this forum lol

Yup very few ports, not much extra pay.

Yup a 3.33 mile drag race. TOR was in the lead for most of it then the TICO hit her pace and passed us at the end.

 

[dimsum]

Virgin will go down as one of the greatest

 

[Halifax Tar]

Hahahaha

Commander Virgin. I think he retired a Capt(N). Submarine guy, came over to skimmers.

An absolute gem of a man. He was hard on his officers, and loved his Sailors. He treated us with a ton of respect and compassion, and expected us to get the job done.

We, the MS and below, held a special, just us and him, Change of Command goodbye function in the main cave for him. Not a lot of dry eyes, including his.

@Lumber if your pal was on the ship when we finished WUPs in Norfolk ask him about that night lol

 

[SeaKingTacco]

My two best COs were Tim Howard in CAL and John Gardam in OTT.

In CAL, the entire crew would have sailed through hell for that man. Never raised his voice and laughed at you (in a good natured way, if you screwed up. I have never seen such respect and good humoured relations between all three messes, before or since. The CAL TV episodes were epic. Entire departments would down tools to film elaborate shows that would be shown weekly on ship’s broadcast (I don’t know how the ship managed to sail with all the film production going on, all the time). The wardroom parties were also epic, keeping in mind it was a different Era. The entire ship was literally pulling in same direction. Topshee was the Nav O for that one.

In OTT, Skippy Walker was the XO (and Topshee was Combat…his name keeps coming up…), so every HODS/morning prayers was a comedy routine. The Wardroom was tight, with excellent HODs all round. The Chiefs and POs was also very strong. John Gardam had a light touch as a CO. He never raised his voice or lost his cool. If you screwed up, he would pat you on the back and tell you to do better next time- which was way worse than getting yelled at, because you did not want to disappoint him.

 

[Eaglelord17]

Sure, but I'm suggesting that @Eaglelord17 may have been viewing the "good old days" with rose-coloured glasses.


Yeah, that's not on - especially if there happens to be an emergency. You don't want a bunch of drunk folks trying (and likely failing) to do Damage Control


Given that many (most?) folks are on a watch system and you need to be 8 hours post-drinking to work, how many people would that really apply to at sea?

Its not rose coloured glasses, I understand there is potential issues with it. I also understand that the Navy is a miserable element and it was one of the few benefits available to it.

Out of the CAF the Navy gets the shortest stick. Constantly away from home. Constantly losing days off (go out sailing friday sometimes, come back monday, just to work the week and lose the weekend). Constantly working extra hours because there is no one else to do it. Being crammed into a tiny space with next to no privacy for months on end. Overall it sucks.

Things that helped make the Navy bearable was things like drinking at sea (and again it wasn’t abused to any extreme degree), partying in port, AAMR parties, and doing some cool stuff occasionally.

Sometimes you need to give a couple bones to make things more enjoyable even if that means on occasion things aren’t going to be perfect. Some people will over do things, thats when leadership steps in and prevents it from going to far. We aren’t robots, and providing next to no benefits other than your going to get to work more causes burnout and releases.

There is a reason most remote workforces have heavy drinkers, coping mechanisms, lack of family to tie them down, etc. Be it fly in mines, lumber industry, fishers, etc. It helps keep those people sane in that environment.

Not saying it is for everyone, but if you want young people you have to make it fun for them. Most youth like to party.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Its not rose coloured glasses, I understand there is potential issues with it. I also understand that the Navy is a miserable element and it was one of the few benefits available to it.

Out of the CAF the Navy gets the shortest stick. Constantly away from home. Constantly losing days off (go out sailing friday sometimes, come back monday, just to work the week and lose the weekend). Constantly working extra hours because there is no one else to do it. Being crammed into a tiny space with next to no privacy for months on end. Overall it sucks.

Things that helped make the Navy bearable was things like drinking at sea (and again it wasn’t abused to any extreme degree), partying in port, AAMR parties, and doing some cool stuff occasionally.

Sometimes you need to give a couple bones to make things more enjoyable even if that means on occasion things aren’t going to be perfect. Some people will over do things, thats when leadership steps in and prevents it from going to far. We aren’t robots, and providing next to no benefits other than your going to get to work more causes burnout and releases.

There is a reason most remote workforces have heavy drinkers, coping mechanisms, lack of family to tie them down, etc. Be it fly in mines, lumber industry, fishers, etc. It helps keep those people sane in that environment.

Not saying it is for everyone, but if you want young people you have to make it fun for them. Most youth like to party.

I do think people don't quite understand the camaraderie that can be developed from a team that parties and works hard together.

The problem is, often in big groups there are individuals who are liabilities.

My understanding too is that CJOC rules around deployments and alcohol had a lot to do with our drinking restrictions.

 

[dapaterson]

The CDS was removed from office because, as a senior naval officer, in a drunken party on board, he sexually assaulted a female subordinate by ramming a male subordinates face into her breasts.

But sure, drinking on board wasn't a problem.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

Wether a drunken party is onboard or ashore, stupidity can (and will, some would say) occur. It's the drunken party part that matters, not the location. Anyone wants to argue that there have never been drunken parties at Army or Air Force Officers messes?

The reality is that a ship, to sailors, is more like their home - after work - rather than like a deplyment in a forward base for the Air Force or a field exercice/operation for the Army. Look above and think about what Halifax Tar is mentioning: 500+ days on deployment over two years. In my experience, its par for the course (was, at least during the cold war). When was the last time the Army or Air Force had its people away from their base for such duration (and I exclude the MH world, to incorporate it in the Navy side for this one)?

So this said, for morale, when 98% of sailors behave and consume reasonably 98% of the time, why collectively punish them for the behaviour of 2% of the people 2% of the time?

I am willing to bet that, in the "old days", if you tallied the officer's chits and graphed average consumption then looked at the dates, you would see huge drops in the average consumption during days at sea. In my limited experience, most of the drinking at sea was from the non watchkeeping officers (Log O, Med O, CSe O, etc.) but even then was limited. I know very few NWO, Mse O or pilots who drank at sea, save perhaps one drink here and there for a special occasion.

 

[Eaglelord17]

The CDS was removed from office because, as a senior naval officer, in a drunken party on board, he sexually assaulted a female subordinate by ramming a male subordinates face into her breasts.

But sure, drinking on board wasn't a problem.

So in a party, not at sea, basically the same thing as a mess dinner. Do we outlaw all forms of socialization at any point for military members because it reduces the risk of any sort of inappropriate behaviour?

What happened there was a failure in leadership to pursuit the event and punish the offenders, taking years to come to light and do anything about it. That isn’t a alcohol problem thats a leadership problem.

If you can’t trust the people your expected to go into battle with enough to have a few drinks with them, we have clearly failed to create the work environment required to survive in a warzone.

These are the actions of risk adverse bureaucrats, not a warfighting force.

 

[dimsum]

So in a party, not at sea, basically the same thing as a mess dinner. Do we outlaw all forms of socialization at any point for military members because it reduces the risk of any sort of inappropriate behaviour?

What happened there was a failure in leadership to pursuit the event and punish the offenders, taking years to come to light and do anything about it. That isn’t a alcohol problem thats a leadership problem.

If you can’t trust the people your expected to go into battle with enough to have a few drinks with them, we have clearly failed to create the work environment required to survive in a warzone.

These are the actions of risk adverse bureaucrats, not a warfighting force.

I thought @dapaterson 's point was that it was on board.

 

[Navy_Pete]

@Eaglelord17 if you think it wasn't abused at sea previously, I don't know what to tell you. I don't have as many sea days as some here, but still just shy of two years, and definitely saw people drunk off their face enough that it wasn't an exception. Some of them smartened up after a middle of the night emergency stations anyway, but the whole drinking culture of the RCN really needed a reset, and that was part of it.

I saw enough people abuse it that it was an issue, and there were a few emergency stations where people weren't useful, and also meant that functional alcoholics could carry on. A lot of that was balanced out by much larger crews as well. Now that we're down to skeleton crews on ships in worse shape then they've ever been, I'm glad in retrospect it was banned back when operational effectiveness and safety didn't trump QoL.

Things are bad enough and our fire/flood incident rate is worse than commercial ships by several orders of magnitude, so there is no room for additional complications.

If we were a warfighting force, we wouldn't have the messes decked out in wood, with arcade machines 'secured' with straps, fire doors replaced with wooden ones, plastic rock facing on bulkheads and all kinds of other things that wouldn't be allowed on a fishing boat, let alone a warship. Or any other number of things that would affect actual operations like CBRN, or survivability.

 

[dimsum]

with arcade machines 'secured' with straps

Supply Officer: We want $50000 in quarters.

Cashier: ....uh what?

Supply Officer: You heard what I said.

 

[dapaterson]

Actually, it's called professionalism. In any other heavy industry, drinking at the workplace during working hours would result in termination.

 

[Navy_Pete]

Supply Officer: We want $50000 in quarters.

Cashier: ....uh what?

Supply Officer: You heard what I said.

I honestly couldn't believe that one in particular, and thought they were taking the piss, but they were serious and it stayed as is. So whenever someone talks about the CPFs just being warfighters I just try not to belly laugh in their face. (Assume it's set up for home use though so you just press play)

Leadership priorities are a joke, and engineering changes like wifi and gyms take priority over combat upgrades or obsolescence updates on critical equipment. Sure that stuff is important for morale, but so is a functioning black water system, air conditioning or not getting hit by missiles.

It's sad, because the crews are doing miracles, and probably doing some effective operational things, but if push comes to shove we are foxed, and the chances of another Kootenay, Protecteur etc for a catastrophe from just normal sailing are there and growing daily.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

The CDS was removed from office because, as a senior naval officer, in a drunken party on board, he sexually assaulted a female subordinate by ramming a male subordinates face into her breasts.

But sure, drinking on board wasn't a problem.

I would suggest the individual in question was the problem, not the venue.

But go ahead and blame ”the demon rum”, if it makes you feel better…

 

[dapaterson]

I would suggest the individual in question was the problem, not the venue.

But go ahead and blame ”the demon rum”, if it makes you feel better…

Not either / or.

 

[Oldgateboatdriver]

I have no prblem with you blaming PROTECTEUR's situation on the way we do things these days.

But KOOTENAY's explosion had nothing to do with the way we do things today. At that time the maintenance of ships was taken seriously and properly done, not to mention we had stable crews and knowledgeable engineers. The explosion was caused by a refit where parts inside one of the gear boxes had been put back in improper order by the civilians carrying out the refit. Nothing could be blamed on the way the NAVY operated or its priorities.