Vic Smith wrote in
:

AFAIK it's a better Navy today. Smarter.

Very smart. My last cruise was as a guest aboard the USS Pennsylvania
SSBN-735 out of Kings Bay, GA. What a great 16 hour tour with the Navy
elite. Too bad they had to suspend Friends and Family Cruises after that
jerk politician surfaced under the Japanese fishing trawler showing off.

I never quite got over how CLEAN the big Trident boomer was, especially
the air. There were 400 extra bodies eating up the O2 and not a hint of
oil or diesel (of course) or any kind of odd odors as the scrubbers did
their thing. We were at sea the day Kim Il Sung of N Korea died. I tell
my friends it was because he had a spy aboard and got a report that I was
sitting at the main missile firing console sorting through some keys....
(c;

I even took a nap between missile tubes 9 and 11 in my buddy Mark's
rack....very comfortable with multichannel stereo sound, sound proofing
curtain, thick foam mattress and a reading light. A far cry from my
canvas and cotton strung aluminum frame rack stacked 5 high on 2 flimsy
chains that broke injuring 5 guys in the stack of 5 when it collapsed.
The Repair Dept crew quarters was right over the engine room on AD-24 and
I've slept with 200 sweaty sailors at 102 degrees F with only 3 little
portholes for ventilation because the damned AC power failed,
again....PU!

They'd stand there making sure you didn't use much fresh water in the
showers, while at the same time the evaporators designed to power AD-24
and EIGHT destroyers under overhaul was POURING fresh water out the huge
vent pipes over the side into the Atlantic. How stupid!

We were just prisoners....volunteer prisoners avoiding the Vietnam Army
draft.