I spent my 2 weeks in Panama with PANAMAX06. I spent 4 days on the beach supporting transportation logisitics, basically a fancy term meaning the 0-5's and the 0-6's had cars ready for their every whim. Let me tell, there is no whining like and 0-5/0-6 whine. I then rode a bus up to Colon and rode the USS Kearsarge for 7 days work for operational logistic in direct support of the exercises. It had been over 16 years since I last was at sea on a US Navy ship. Boy, have times changed.
40% or there abouts of the crew was female. The galley served 5 entres and about 7 sides. They didn't use trays with indentations as the serving holders, they had regular cafeteria trays with plates! When I put my plate out to the FSA for a salisbury steak she asked me how many I wanted. How many I wanted???? Fer crissake, I had a choice? When I was on my ship it was "ya get what we serve". The beverage line was a mix of milk, water, soda, bug juice, capuccino machine, slush machine, and coffee urn. Funny enough, unlike my last ship where we had the coffee urn going 24/7, this one was only run once per meal serving and never reset until the next meal. Navy ships no longer use cash, they issue you a "navy pay" card, you go to dispersing and pay cash or use a card for the issue of a pay card. That was cool. All the geedunk machines were digital. Use your card, punch in your pin code and out comes your pogey bait. Sweet. I thought the chow onboard was far superior to what I had when I was active and the ship I was on was a cargo ship, we had first pick at the fresh stuff. Of course, I still heard complaintes. We had the USS Halyburton come along side for an unrep of fuel. I hadn't seen that since I was last at sea, it was to just be able to watch it and not have to stage cargo for the deck department to send over the side. Also, smoking on weather decks in designated areas at night is allowed now. I remember that was strictly forbidden back during the days of the Cold War. Of course, back then you could smoke in berthing areas. Anyway, after 7 days of this and 18 hour duty days, I was ready to head back in.
I spent the last 3 days back in transportation logistics but never really did much as the guys who stayed behind had it running like a fine tuned machine.
Anyway, here's a pic of the of division I worked for. That's me on the far left.
