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Interviewer:
Veteran
Interviewer:
Veteran:
What exactly did you do at submarine school?
They taught you all about how submarines work and the theory behind why they
would just sink and float; the different compartments on them; the propulsion
systems and stuff. They taught the basic diesel submarine theory, and then they
taught nuclear power theory, which was basic-not anything serious, just basic.
They did a lot of swimming with you, and you had to do this escape tower. You
would get in a tall tower that was filled with water, and you'd practice coming up
from the bottom using different floating devices to practice escaping from the
submarine in case it ever sank on you.
At what point did they actually put you out there in a submarine?
When I left basic submarine school, I went down to Charleston, South Carolina. I
was assigned to a submarine called the USS George Washington. It was in dry
dock, and they were doing a refit on it. I forget the exact timing on it, but it
seemed like every five or six years they would bring in a submarine, and they
would change out reactor components and all kind of equipment that's onboard
the submarine. This submarine had big holes cut in it from stem to stern. It was
mounted up on little wood blocks in this dry dock, and it was completely out of
the water. I was assigned to this submarine that was in dry dock, so we lived in a
barracks and worked on the submarine during the day. Since I had no formal
skills, I was assigned to the deck crew. What I did was I chipped and painted, I
worked as a mess cook and did dishes, served people dinner, scrubbed up the
tables, mopped the place out. The dining hall on the submarine was in service
even though everything else on it was out. They still fed the people that was
assigned to the thing, because they kept a minimum skeleton crew onboard, and
you took watches, so every now and then you were assigned to do it. When I was
assigned to it, I did it for like six or eight weeks straight. I was a mess cook down
there, and basically did all the dirty work. You'd get up at four in the morning
and go back to bed about eleven o'clock at night, and this was every day1-7 days
a week.
Interviewer: So there was no rest really on the submarines?
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