So a couple of us are a dinner last night, and one of the guys daughter calls from college…
She’s bitching about the size of the room, and the fact she has a roommate that’s “spreading out everywhere”.
He’s rolling his eyes and listening, and Snap starts digging on his phone, then holds it up with a picture. He shows it to Avon and Avon says send it.
He puts his phone on speaker, and we get to listen to the whining, as he resends the picture to his daughter…
Then tells her to check the message…
And we hear, “Oh daddy you are such an asshole!” And a click as she hangs up.
Oh yeah, the picture?
If I remember right, this was a 30 man bunk room… With four sinks, toilets, and shower heads… And this was on USS Midway AFTER the billeting upgrade…
I’m betting Avon is going to be sleeping on the couch when he gets home…LOL
Edit- Thanks to WSF- OLD SCHOOL berthing-
Forwarded to Belladonna! Thanks for sharing.
LOL i love it
That actually is a billeting upgrade. The old racks were much worse.
“Kids today … they don’t know how good they’ve got it.”
quote from my father 😉
That looks like The Ritz compared to a Tin Can’s berthing. And we had 2 showers, 4 toilets, one trough, and 4 sinks for two divisions of around 60 men. And RHIP was the rule of the day.
That’s a fact, right there. We didn’t have beds with mattresses, either: just a 1 1/2″ foam rubber pad in a fart sack, on canvas sling with a tubular frame. 60 guys, 4 showers, three stools, three sinks, and a trough … up a ladder and forward 30 feet down the midship passageway.
Coffin racks And lockers? I’m envious! Carriers have oodles of space, that’s for sure. Have you explained to Precious what hot-racking is?
3 men/2 racks or Port and Starboard?
Sounds like Buttercup needs to suck it up and move along
That’s funny. Tour #2, as a second lieutenant, I had a very nice CHU that I shared with my Troop XO.
Much bigger than my room in ye olde fraternity haus.
THAT right there is why my family has been Army since 1775.
ERJ- Oh good, now ‘I’ will be on her s**t list… 🙂
Randy- 🙂
LL- That it is! I couldn’t find a good pic of the old berthing to contrast to this one.
Tim- Still true!
CP/Rev- Yep, luxury compared to a tin can!
Tweell- LOL, I’ll suggest that to him, he’s already in trouble, so what’s a little more… 🙂
Rick- Oh yeah!
SPE- LOL
Stretch- Yeah, but y’all have to WALK to work… 😛
Those look identical to the enlisted men’s “upgraded” berthing on the Iowa.
The 1940’s “pipe rack” bunks were much cruder, and were stacked 5 high, not three.
They should rename this Monty Python skit Four Old Sailors
‘E was right. I was happier then and I had NOTHIN’. We used to live in this tiiiny old house, with greaaaaat big holes in the roof.
GC: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! We used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!
TJ: You were lucky to have a ROOM! *We* used to have to live in a corridor!
MP: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of livin’ in a corridor! Woulda’ been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woken up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House!? Hmph.
EI: Well when I say ‘house’ it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpolin, but it was a house to US.
GC: We were evicted from *our* hole in the ground; we had to go and live in a lake!
TJ: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.
MP: Cardboard box?
TJ: Aye.
MP: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o’clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down mill for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, our Dad would thrash us to sleep with his belt!
GC: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o’clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of hot gravel, go to work at the mill every day for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would beat us around the head and neck with a broken bottle, if we were LUCKY!
TJ: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o’clock at night, and LICK the road clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of freezing cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at the mill for fourpence every six years, and when we got home, our Dad would slice us in two with a bread knife.
EI: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o’clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, (pause for laughter), drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us, and dance about on our graves singing ‘Hallelujah.’
MP: But you try and tell the young people today that… and they won’t believe ya’.
ALL: Nope, nope..
We did not have it as tough as Gerry, M division berthing on both the DD-873 and the DD-714 was under the after heads and showers. And I was lucky enough to serve post FRAM when crew berthing mostly had AC. The racks were as describes, canvas laced into aluminum frames with a thin mattress covered in a fart sack.
And let’s not forget about tricing up the racks in rough weather so as not to fall out during heavy rolls.
Forestal had hollywood racks, quite the luxury except for living under the after scullery.
I noticed the racks in the photo are lacking curtains.
After eight years of active duty I went reserves. We were doing two weeks in Norfolk on the Emory S. Land, and I may not have been very sympathetic when one of my sailors complained that the individual AC vent in his rack was not quite working right.
Every ship I was on had broken bunk locks, etc. Nothing was safe. That pic is the lap of luxury!
Well I was lucky so to speak. I could live up forward in the goat locker on the good old HAROLD D ELLISON. DD-864. This was a 2250 class tin can,Or as I chose to do, live in the DASH hangar with my birds and five troops. Racks were five or six high up the side of the hangar. Did NOT want to be the guy in the top rack in shitty weather. We were all belted into the bunk’s with three of those restraint belts. Could NOT turn over or onto your side.
That forward head for the regular guys was two thrones facing aft and three facing forward in a small closet! When it was fully occupied, your knees were right between the guys opposite you, and you were virtually nose to nose. T’was amazing how you could “tune out” all the goings on around you in such a small space.
That is mainly the reason why I was always up at 0500 and well done with the “FACILITIES” when the rest of the guys got up at 0600.
Most all my khaki’s were laid out under the mattress, a 1 1/2″ thick piece of junk.
Over there in the Red Sea in the summer time and no such thing as A/C for anybody but the O’s. Temp on the deck outside was 140 and right below that 1/2″ steel deck were guys trying to sleep in 140+ temps with their noses about 8-10 inches from that deck /overhead plate. Virtually every one dragged their mattress’s up the hangar deck or the 01 level ASROC DECK! Good times! HAH! I hated that GD pig boat being an airdale!!!
Can’t “out story” all you squidly types but will ask if any of you ever visited the berthing areas of a troopship?
Hmmm.
All I remember is off base quarters except the time I was at Lejeune.
Unless on base in our two man barracks room.
Oh my god, yeah, try getting up in the morning and everyone is trying to get dresses in that area. Lived it and love the pic.
What is amazing is that when the Messenger comes around and says “you up?” to and you and the other oncoming watchstanders. Then all those get up and get dressed without waking (most of the time) any that are not supposed to be woken up.
All- Thanks for the comments!
Posted from my iPhone.
One big difference…
The Navy was paying you; she’s paying the college.
If you paid $100/night in a hotel and found they were jamming you in a broom closet with five other paying customers, I’ll bet you’d bitch to the front desk, too. 😉
That’s a good one!
I managed to get a good gig for my oldest one in school…taking care of her 94-year-old grandmother in an old farmhouse in central Texas while Grandma pays her tuition, fees, books, food. Grandma stays out of the nursing home, and I save some money for the next (five!) that I have to educate. ‘Course the accommodations aren’t too swank, but the roof doesn’t leak!
Knew a guy serving on a fast attack nuclear sub years ago. I have a thing about sheets – can’t stand the idea of using sheets someone else has slept in that haven’t been laundered. I was horrified when I learned that 2 guys shared each bunk and when one climbed in it might still be warm from the guy who climbed out.
I just think back to the old Soviet barracks in Hungary or the GP whatever I spent a lot of time in at one point in my life and smile.
After her freshman year, my daughter did the math of sharing a house vs. dorm and presented her mother and me with a proposal, complete with signed-on house-mates. When all was considered (room and board, laundry, etc.), it was slightly less for the house. I still remembered how much I hated dorm life after almost 40 years, so I was all for it. Don’t whine about a problem. Fix it. My daughter is now on her own (paying rent on a nice house) with only one house-mate, a good guy (former Army Ranger) IMO. Still good at seeing and grabbing hold of advantages when they present themselves.