Haze Gray and Underway…

Sorry to all that I haven’t written in a week; I promise my goal for this week is to write once between now and Sunday but we’ll see if that actually happens. I lucked out AGAIN this week and had the noon to 6pm watch on today’s holiday routine which meant that I got to sleep for 9 and a half hours last night before getting up for a workout and pancakes before watch and now am enjoying a few hours off and a real night’s sleep again before watch. Today the weather sort of held out for us and we were able to have our steel beach picnic out on the flight deck, complete with burgers, dogs, potato salad and chips--- it was really good! The sea state was a little rough and choppy so we had to cancel our swim call (when we stop the engines and let the crew jump off the flight deck to swim in the ocean), which was ok with me because I was going to be on watch anyways and while it wasn’t sunny, for once it wasn’t like 95 degrees on the bridge (there’s a pathetic excuse for an air conditioner, but we keep both bridge wing doors open so it’s really hot) and you could actually stand outside and enjoy the breeze. We could have been off the coast of Maine for all I knew because the weather wasn’t the bright cerulean color blue it normally is, instead the ocean, the sky and the ship were all the same shade of gray. However, we did see dolphins today; they like to swim along the front of the ship in the wake we create, the dolphins were small but so pretty to see them jump out of the water.

In keeping with this deployment, as soon as I wrote that last post and we pulled into GTMO, we learned that Hurricane Dean didn’t hit as bad as expected so we were no longer needed for HADR efforts. We stayed Monday afternoon through Wednesday morning in GTMO, which was AWESOME because I didn’t have duty at all and was able to enjoy some time off the ship once work was done around 1700 both days. On Monday we went to the NEX to restock on some goods and then went to the only source of entertainment on base: the bowling alley. I never thought I could be so happy with pizza hut, beer and bowling (well let’s be honest, I can get excited about pretty much anything) but it was great enjoying a few hours off! I was also able to restock my magazine collection. It was disappointing however, as the magazine section at the NEX was like 90% about cars, sports, and half nude women… I could figure out what audience they were catering to! But I was able to get Gourmet, Bon Appetite, Rachael Ray, and Foreign Affairs, to satiate my food and current event cravings.

The next night, we had a Hail & Farewell for the MPA who was leaving and his replacement at a little grill/restaurant on the base, which was fun to hang out with everyone. The pier at GTMO also has a little pay phone shack with cheap phone cards so I able to call home, it was great to finally hear people’s voices!

Today is an exciting day, because it is August 26th, which means exactly ONE month til home (a little less… because as I write this, I will probably be enjoying a GREAT meal and a glass of wine in exactly one month)… also this half of the deployment will be more predictable: we have the big PANAMAX exercise and then a trip to Cozumel and the big ship-wide inspection and then the tiger cruise which means we will be SO busy and there will be so many ways to break up the next few weeks. I am looking forward to getting to Colon, Panama, although I recently learned that it’s pretty sketchy there so we aren’t allowed to leave the pier. They have like pay phones and a little convenience store and “beer on the pier” to satiate sailor’s needs, but we can’t go anywhere else. However, I don’t really mind because being in port means no ridiculous 6 hour watches every 12 hours… in port you only stand watches every third day when you have duty and the watches are only 4 hours--- its amazing how fast 4 hours goes by when you’re used to 6 hour ones!

I will probably be really busy while underway for PANAMAX- we will be doing lots of exercises and tactical maneuvering and stuff which should make the watches go by quickly but definitely add on to all the stuff we do on a normal underway day such as training and meetings and maintenance. Hopefully I will be able to keep you all updated on it, but if not, at the end of the exercise, we pull back into Panama for a few days for a big “debrief” so I will be able to catch everyone up on exactly what we were doing (since I’m still a little confused) However, the schedule does include a reception on a Chilean ship for our wardroom, so Caroline, if you’re reading this, I am looking forward to it after hearing your stories of crazy parties with the Chileans! (they have a tap in their wardroom… the US navy is definitely lacking!)

I am definitely getting a little homesick, I am SO sick of being around like 300 guys all the time! There are only 3 other girls, and I only ever see one of them—I need me some serious Chi Omega in my life right now!!! I miss my roommates a lot and think about them a lot (they got into the Gulf at the beginning of the month so keep them in your prayers!) and also sad thinking about everyone going back to school right now: if you’re reading this and at UVa- I miss you all and ENJOY your time there--- there are so many days when I haven’t slept in like 2 days and I say to myself “I wouldn’t think twice about staying up most of the night writing papers and studying right now!” just to be back! My feet are constantly killing me from standing 12 hours a day and I can’t wait to get a pedicure when I come home- every night or morning when I take off my boots I just look at my swollen and calloused feet and cannot wait to be back! Ok sorry that’s gross- I’ll stop writing about my feet right now.

So for the last exciting part of my story, since all of that was just a bunch of random babbling…

Last week when we were in GTMO, the Wardroom got a tour of JTF (joint task force) detainee camp. Our CO is apparently friends with the Admiral in charge of the camp and so he arranged for us to get a tour of the detention facility, including 5 of the 6 camps in Guantanamo. It was hands down, one of the coolest things I’ve ever done and something I could have only done in the Navy. It was almost creepy, driving up to the camps that were surrounded by like 30 foot tall heavily barbed wire fences, and not just one fence, but like ten of them, surrounding every layer of the facility. We saw the maximum security camps for detainees of high intelligence value, camps5 & 6 which were like modern, state of the art facilities; everything was computerized and all the doors and alarms and security systems were controlled by computers in the rotunda area of the building. Then we saw camps 1 & 2, one being for the detainees who were the most poorly behaved, the ones who try to break the guards wrists when they are shackling them through the little holes in their doors… those two camps were like long walk through “trailers” with cells on either side… while their were no detainees in those camps, you could tell their had been, you could smell the sweat and urine still lingering in the air. We were given a tour of the cells and they had laying out all of the things issued to detainees: a small toothbrush, small bar of soap, bottled water, shoes, pants and shirts, a copy of the Koran, playing cards, etc. inside every cell had a little painted arrow which pointed to Mecca, as most of the detainees would pray five times a day. The cells we saw were the vacant ones used for tours- the guy who was leading us said pretty much any media or important person who comes to the camps gets this same tour: he said pretty much any president, senator or congressman, you name it, they’ve taken a tour of the camps at GTMO. We learned about the hierarchy inside the camps: the political leaders, the military leaders, the religious leaders, the soldiers, etc. what was most interesting was talking to the guards: they do 1 year tours in GTMO where they work 15 hour days, 5 days a week: they are on their feet the whole time, and there’s a “3 minute rule” which says that a detainee has to be looked at every 3rd minute, so the guards just have to walk, and stare at them all the time. The guards also have to walk them to their mandatory 2 hours of recreation a day… we saw the Geneva Convention rules and the Islamic calendar that would hang in the rec areas, they also had little treadmills and checkers and soccer balls and stuff. We learned about the cells where the detainees were on hunger strikes for like 2 years and had to be fed via tubes through their noses. We learned that Osama’s bodyguard were there, as was the “20th hijacker” from 9/11.

Then we saw Camp 3, which was for the most cooperative of the detainees- they lived in little pods, 10 per pod, 4 pods per bay, where they were allowed out in a big courtyard all but 4 hours a day- they were given Tide to do their own laundry and they take classes in Arabic and have movies and TVs. What was interesting was just to see them walking around. They couldn’t be in the courtyard when we were there, but the courtyard is surrounded by plain fences (not barbed) and you could see them there, walking around on the other side of the fence, just looking at us. Our tour took us through the camps during “prayer call,” one of the 5 times a day, and many of the men were singing, chanting and praying loudly--- still now I can close my eyes and hear the singing of the detainees… it was almost eerie. Definitely that sound will be one that I will never forget; that and their faces, how they looked.

All in all, it was an incredibly moving experience, a little haunting, but DEFINITELY really interesting and I was so glad that I was able to do that.

I guess that’s all I have for now! I am going to go watch an episode of The Office that I borrowed from my friend and make a paper link chain for how many days we have left of deployment for the electric shop and get a good nights sleep! For all who have emailed me- THANK YOU and I am doing my best to respond personally to them all!