Week 3

There isn't much to be said about Week 3. Just the usual PT, folding clothes, and preparing for two key inspections coming up in week 4. This whole week was spent practicing Weapons Turnover and Drill and one event called Marlinespike. We would practice with a 9mm pistol that had the firing pin removed and would have to go over the proper procedures for turning it over to the oncoming watch stander. That brings me to a little introduction to watch standing. There is at least one watch for the compartment 24/7 unless it is secured because of inspections or specific instructions. Watches in our compartment are usually 2 hours long, but in the fleet they can go up to 12 or maybe even more! The watch stander is responsible for the safety and integrity of his or her shipmates. Everything important done in the compartment, whether it was go for a roving tour around the compartment, logging it off spot (messy or not right) due to instruction or training, or even checking temperature) had to be written in the log. Official logs can be used in Captain's Mast cases where disobedient sailors are punished for being ignorant or reckless. An improper watch stand can even result in punishment because it is that person who is supposed to make sure everything is in order. That's about all I will delve into on watch standing; I may make a page about it later if anyone seems interested. Now that all of that watch standing is out of the way, our next task was practicing for our first drill inspection. They would play a tape and we would have to execute all of the commands swiftly and efficiently. This tape was basically what is on the graduation schedule so it truly is very important to understand it sooner than later. The final task of the week was Marlinespike. This is basically preparation for getting the ship underway and mooring it to the pier. In civilian terms it is untieing the lines from the ship so it can go out to sea and tieing it back up to the pier. There was even a short exercise of a man overboard drill in which I was the lucky one to be the man overboard (I got to hide in the back of the ship). Our division had listening problems all around so we didn't do exceptionally well, but at least it was done with. By this time everything is getting very repetitive with only a couple events each week that are different. Pretty easy stuff...