Hi Everyone!
Well, 17 months to the day after I checked onboard, I had my SWO board. The board itself was only an hour but as you know, the weeks leading up to it after I got back to the ship were stressful with a lot of studying and walkthroughs and whatnot.
The board itself went fine and at the end, we always have to do a Damage Control Practical of some sort. Well, at the end of the board the CO was like “alright, there’s a fire down in Forward boatsun locker- go!” and we leave his stateroom and there’s two FFE’s (fire fighting ensembles) and hard hats & SCBAs (breathing apparatuses) and boots. So we dress ou
t like we’re going to fight a fire, but keep in mind that these outfits are for like 200 lb guys so I looked KINDA ridiculous. Then we got down to the space and there was all of this smoke from the smoke machine and we had to try & put it out. By this time, they assembled all officers down there to watch us and get a good laugh. Afterwards, the CO shut off the smoke machine & we got our pins, so that was really exciting. Hopefully Dan will be able to post these few pictures from that night.
I was taken off of the watch bill for the rest of the night & I ate a peanut butter chocolate chip cupcake (which was amazing!) while watching 27 Dresses while I was tuckered into my rack--- it was a blast; it was the first time I’d like ever watched a movie while out to sea so it felt pretty good.
I’m not going to lie, I felt a little different when I woke up this morning and I felt pretty legit
wearing my SWO pin around. On our coveralls, we normally sew a navy blue patch with an embroidered gold SWO pin to it, but because I haven’t gotten a chance to take my coveralls to the guy onboard that sews all of the patches (also, all of the advancement results just came out so most of the Enlisted guys have their uniforms with him to have them altered before the frocking ceremony so he’s pretty backed up right now) I have been wearing my actual bigger gold pin on my coveralls. It kinda sticks out b/c it’s not what you normally wear on your coveralls & it reeks (in a good way) of “I just got qualified” so I feel pretty cool right now.
After we pulled in this morning we had a stores onload of all of our food (thank GOODNESS for real fruit and BUTTER!!!) and afterwards I was sitting in my room in my pink stadium chair just sitting and staring up at the ceiling for lack of anything more productive to do for the time being and my department head was like “hey ORDO- what are you doing right now?” and I was like “ummm, nothing sir……just sitting….” and he was like “that’s cool, b/c now that you’re qualified you can get away with sitting around and doing nothing”… ummm AWESOME!!!
Well, I’d better get going now because liberty has gone down & I’m thinking about going out & about. We should be home for Christmas for some much needed maintenance on some systems so I am pretty excited about that possibility!
Hope everyone is doing well & I’ll write more after this port visit!
Well, 17 months to the day after I checked onboard, I had my SWO board. The board itself was only an hour but as you know, the weeks leading up to it after I got back to the ship were stressful with a lot of studying and walkthroughs and whatnot.
The board itself went fine and at the end, we always have to do a Damage Control Practical of some sort. Well, at the end of the board the CO was like “alright, there’s a fire down in Forward boatsun locker- go!” and we leave his stateroom and there’s two FFE’s (fire fighting ensembles) and hard hats & SCBAs (breathing apparatuses) and boots. So we dress ou
t like we’re going to fight a fire, but keep in mind that these outfits are for like 200 lb guys so I looked KINDA ridiculous. Then we got down to the space and there was all of this smoke from the smoke machine and we had to try & put it out. By this time, they assembled all officers down there to watch us and get a good laugh. Afterwards, the CO shut off the smoke machine & we got our pins, so that was really exciting. Hopefully Dan will be able to post these few pictures from that night.I was taken off of the watch bill for the rest of the night & I ate a peanut butter chocolate chip cupcake (which was amazing!) while watching 27 Dresses while I was tuckered into my rack--- it was a blast; it was the first time I’d like ever watched a movie while out to sea so it felt pretty good.
I’m not going to lie, I felt a little different when I woke up this morning and I felt pretty legit
wearing my SWO pin around. On our coveralls, we normally sew a navy blue patch with an embroidered gold SWO pin to it, but because I haven’t gotten a chance to take my coveralls to the guy onboard that sews all of the patches (also, all of the advancement results just came out so most of the Enlisted guys have their uniforms with him to have them altered before the frocking ceremony so he’s pretty backed up right now) I have been wearing my actual bigger gold pin on my coveralls. It kinda sticks out b/c it’s not what you normally wear on your coveralls & it reeks (in a good way) of “I just got qualified” so I feel pretty cool right now.After we pulled in this morning we had a stores onload of all of our food (thank GOODNESS for real fruit and BUTTER!!!) and afterwards I was sitting in my room in my pink stadium chair just sitting and staring up at the ceiling for lack of anything more productive to do for the time being and my department head was like “hey ORDO- what are you doing right now?” and I was like “ummm, nothing sir……just sitting….” and he was like “that’s cool, b/c now that you’re qualified you can get away with sitting around and doing nothing”… ummm AWESOME!!!
Well, I’d better get going now because liberty has gone down & I’m thinking about going out & about. We should be home for Christmas for some much needed maintenance on some systems so I am pretty excited about that possibility!
Hope everyone is doing well & I’ll write more after this port visit!
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