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Aviation Uniforms and Customs for the new ENS
- Thread starter jointhelocalizer
- Start date
For my first deployment I had 3 greens and one tan. The ship would wash "coveralls" twice a week but you usually wouldn't get them back for 6 days, so you had to manage the funk long enough to time the returns, which basically meant only once a week. I can't imagine trying to do that with just 2 or even three flight suits.
Personal laundry was never a thing on that ship (two deployments) because the machines were secured underway (and we were usually low on water).
I will say that even the absolute crap air conditioning we had in O-country, it still had magical healing powers when it came to funk. You could eek out an extra day that you couldn't get away with back home.
If there was any rule that said you couldn't wash bags in the pile of commercial self-serve laundry machines they had back aft, I'm pretty sure I violated the shit out of it and never got caught.
Any ship or command that is requiring people to walk around in their own funk outside of a combat situation or other serious material casualty is one whose leadership is failing. This isn't the infantry, and we're not expected to man a freaking foxhole for days on end. As the late Neptunus Lex once wrote, the difference between the Navy and the Army is that in the Army, you may die like a gentleman, but you live like a rat. In the Navy, you may die like a rat, but you live like a gentleman.
Any ship or command that is requiring people to walk around in their own funk outside of a combat situation or other serious material casualty is one whose leadership is failing. This isn't the infantry, and we're not expected to man a freaking foxhole for days on end. As the late Neptunus Lex once wrote, the difference between the Navy and the Army is that in the Army, you may die like a gentleman, but you live like a rat. In the Navy, you may die like a rat, but you live like a gentleman.
Never followed that rule. Once. Ever. Ridiculous.
That's a great sentiment when your experience is only with ships that have water. Things are a little different when you're constantly under 30% at the end of the day and the two things that get priority are the ship's engines and the aircraft.
That said, I have taken a quick shower on the flight deck (just out of view of the camera) after getting back from a legit SAR and after they just finished rinsing the bird before stuffing it.
What percent of HSL/HSM pilots have pooped in a bag in a bucket because both fwd and aft vcht were down for a good long while? If it ever happens again, I’m going to take a dump off the bow by the SAR davit a la old old wooden ships.
Bring back the Poop Deck!
I didn't even know "self laundry" was a thing on any warship until I was on my dissociated tour, and I cruised on a destroyer. At least on a DD there is two of everything... not like a frigate with two of some things and only one of a lot of things (kinda what makes a frigate a frigate).
You high falutin' carrier aviators and your tales of laundry machines, you're some funny guys! Probably tell me I should "just go to midrats" and eat a full meal then instead of complaining that I had to pay for another dinner I missed because I was flying.
You high falutin' carrier aviators and your tales of laundry machines, you're some funny guys! Probably tell me I should "just go to midrats" and eat a full meal then instead of complaining that I had to pay for another dinner I missed because I was flying.
Some of y'all have never had to deal with water hours and it shows. The funk gets real for us to tin can Sailors. Though, as modern reverse osmosis systems get better and have become standard on ships, we now have the opposite problem as we can't use the water fast enough some days which means we shut off the ROs and the gremlins in the machines don't like that one bit.
This made my day
On my first CVN deployment, the ship would post random watches throughout the day at self-serve laundry, snag uniforms and turn them into Big XO. After seeing a few squadronmates with tails between their legs, I have yet to put a uniform in self serve again.
Luckily we didn't have this fuckery on HST, but considering laundry pickup for O4 and below was once a week and turnaround was ~5 days, turning flight suits in to ship's laundry was untenable when most of us had only 2-3 tan flight suits.
Glad TW-5 came back from the stupidness of "No Tan Flight Suits" of 2017. It's a fucking uniform. Wear it in the proper manner and who gives a shit.
We had no self serve laundry. All laundry, civ, zoom bag and uniforms were picked up, cleaned and returned to our stateroom folded wrapped and tied in brown paper. Think dry cleaning was once a week. Laundry once or twice. Bedding once a week.
I am truly saddened and angry reading about current messing and laundry service and standards. Small things make a difference.
We routinely used showers to wash flight suits - with detergent and a pale. Ships laundry was altogether poor - wash khakis came back hard as cardboard, underwear yellowed, and flight deck jerseys shrunk. The only decent laundry service was provided to the goat locker.