ship life

Meet my adopted brother, Sgt Chad Rix. Along with people putting it together that my mom is here, I get questioned all the time, 'Is that vet guy your husband or your brother?' Neither, but I'll gladly take him as a brother, he is super cool and hooks us up with pineapple and other good stuff from his adventures out with the animals.

My dad has been asking for more photos of my mom. Here you go dad.

It has become tradition to go fishing as the ministry team when the army chaplain leaves after his 3 week rotation. We've had two come and go now and expect a new arrival in Columbia. We haven't caught anything yet, but we have a good time. I am reading a book on U.S. Denominations to keep up with all the religions I'm being exposed to.

I haven't shared photos from the interior of the ship because, honestly, the inside is dark and not aesthetically pleasing. A designer's nightmare. But like everything else about the experience, I love it for what it is, {utilitarian at its finest} Since it is a pretty unique way of life I thought you guys might like to see some of it.

The days are predictable, but not in a bad way.

0600 - 'Reveille Reveille. All hands turn out and trice up. Breakfast for the crew.'

This is how we are woken up. If you can sleep through the 'call aways' that while we are in port start as early as 0445 and continue throughout the day. Call aways are the announcements made an hour before a boat departs and goes something like this, 'Call away, call away, now mustering Alpha Bravo 27 in CAS REC' which means boat 27 for Antigua is meeting in Casualty Receiving to call off the names on the manifest and you better be there or Gunny will be an angry marine.

The next announcement will be at 0730 'Quarters for muster. Submit muster reports to Admin by 0830' which means you'd better be where you muster because they are calling roll and then reading the POD {plan of the day}

I'm usually a little late to everything in the morning in real life, but walking in a little late to muster is like asking for a good stare down. So my morning exercise is running from the mess deck to Admin at around 0728 to slide in right as this announcement is being made.

This is the 3 aft level of the ship. This is where the Chaplain's office, chapel, self serve laundry, officer's lounge, barber shop and MSC berthing can be found. After muster in Admin I come downstairs with RP2, RP3 and we sweep and swab the decks and vacuum the Officer Lounge.

At 0800 and 1500 every day an announcement is made:

Sweepers, Sweepers man your brooms

Give this ship a clean sweep down

For and Aft

Sweep down all the lower decks, ladder wells and passage ways

Hold all trash on stations

Now sweepers

We are usually done with our cleaning before they call this out, but if you are traveling around the ship during this time you'll see people everywhere cleaning. Very motivational.

After we are done cleaning we hang around the office and chat until Chaps is done with his 0730 meeting then we have our morning ministry meeting. Chaps lets us know what is coming up, they plan the worship services and we talk about the day. It is a nice way to start the day with a prayer and some laughs.

Next time, I'll show you berthing, chow, and a plethora of scenes from day to day life on board the USNS Comfort T-AH-20