My name is Chris. I was born in a "small town" in California named Santa Rosa. This event happened on February 3rd, 1981, at about 7:27 pm. My mother went through 36 total hours of labor with me. 12 hours of contractions, and 24 hours of hard labor. The doctors had to use a vacuum extractor to get me out, because my head was too big. I was always a rough kid, but that was just the beginning.
I started playing the bass guitar during sophmore year of high school. Teaching myself, and taking pointers from friends, was the way that I learned. I never learned how to read music, just tablature. This is when I first heard Slayer's album called, "Divine Intervention". I was also introduced to bands like Dream Theater by fellow guitarists/bassists. Now, I pick it up every once and a while, and try to learn as much as I listen to. Limited to what music they have on the internet to choose from.

I joined the US Navy in July 20, 1999. After graduating high school, the June before, I ended up at boot camp. I was too subtle to tell the recruiters to stop calling me. Better luck next time. I spent 9 weeks at boot camp. I was then transferred to a holding unit, because the dummies lost my damn medical record. About 3 days after I graduated with my division, I went off to Naval Submarine School.
I went to Basic Enlisted Submarine School for about 6-7 weeks. I went through the Electronics Technician Core "A" School for about 9 weeks. After completion of this school, I was designated as a radioman. Then, I went to "Electronic Surveillance Measurement (ESM)" School, for 3 months. This was the first time I got to set my eyes on secret material. After completion, I went to "External Communications Systems (ECS)" School. This was the core of my job.
On October 20, 2000, I was scheduled to check onboard my first submarine. I had orders to the USS Philadelphia (SSN 690). I checked into squadron, and they gave me some bad news. They asked, "Are you ready to see the world?" I thought they were saying that the boat was going on a 6 month deployment to the Mediterranean Area. I was right. They switched my orders to the USS Alexandria (SSN 757).
A month later, on November 28, 2000 (just made thanksgiving), I went on a 6 month deployment. 4 1/2 months of them were spent in the Arabian/ Persian Gulfs. I saw 3 foreign ports altogether. We went to La Maddelena, Sardenia (little island off of Italy), Manama, Bahrain (little island off of Saudi Arabia), and Crete (little island off of Greece).
In La Maddelena, we were tied up to a submarine tender called Emory S. Land. For Christmas, we spent it anchored at the mouth of the Suez Canal. New Year's Eve, the Chief of the Watch sounded all of the ship's casualty alarms. I just wanted to go to sleep.
I went through many months of being pushed around, being called "NUB" (Non-Usable-Body), because I wasn't qualified any watchstations within my division, or have my ship's qualifications (for my dolphins) done. I couldn't watch movies, eat desserts, or anything good.
Finally, I qualified RMOW (Radioman of the Watch), which is the senior watch in my division. I was able to stand watch by myself in the radio shack. I helped out the watchbill considerably. They were "port and starboard" (alternating every 12 hours) at first. I made them go "three section" (watch for 6 hours in a day) An underway submarine day is 18 hours. I always though it was evil. It is 6 hours "on watch", 6 hours "off-going", and 6 hours "on-coming".
I was given the job of Repair Parts Petty Officer (RPPO). This is the person in charge of ordering parts if they break, unusable, or unsatisfactory during an inspection. I am closely in communications with the Supply Division.
On September 11th, we were out to sea, hoping to pull in the next day. We came up to periscope depth to copy the radio broadcast for our message traffic, about 4 hours after the World Trade center event. I was on watch, and we received an urgent message about the event. At first, we thought it was a hoax, or an exercise. Then, we got a message saying that all the in-port boats had to immediately go out to sea. The ones that were already out to sea (us at the time), had to stay. They sent out a schedule saying that we weren't going to pull in for another week.
On September 26th, 2001, I finally got the coveted Submarine Warfare (Dolphins) pin. I wore them around proud as I could be. Once you get "qualified" you had 30 days to complete another in-port watchstation called "Below Decks Watch". This consists of walking around the submarine, in the forward compartment "below decks", checking for satisfactory meter reading, pumping bilge pockets, and high pressure air charges/equalizing air banks. This watch is important, for many reasons. Water that isn't equalized throughout the boat will make it have an abnormal list or trim angle. Having high pressure air in the air banks is inmportant, in case of possible flooding, we can blow water out of the main ballast tanks to rise back above the waterline, survive, and fight the casualty.
We moved from homeport in Groton, Connecticut to Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine during January of 2002. We were to go through a Depot Maintenance Period (DMP). This is a time where different companies will update current systems we were outfitted with. We were put in a dry-dock (basically, the boat sits on blocks, and all the water is taken from underneath it), and the shipyard workers made "hull cuts", to take out equipment, and welded them back into their respective places. After we were done in the dry-dock, they flooded it back down, and put us in the water. Going in and out of the dry-dock is an all day evolution, because of setting the boat on blocks (docking), and possible flooding (undocking), from hull cuts. The radio room that I once knew like the back of my hand got so much new stuff, that even my Radio Chief didn't even know what it does. DMP is a time to update publications and procedures within the divisions of the boat. Basically the way the Captain put it, "We want to look better, than when we came here, and leave with all of our fingers and toes"
Sometimes, it requires long days to keep up with work, and ordering parts, to satisfy a good inspection grade. At the beginning of 2003, we returned to homeport, Groton, CT. We did sea trials, which was basically making sure the boat didnt leak, after all the holes were welded back. From June to July of 2003, we went to the Northern Atlantic, for multi-national exercises. We went to Faslane, Scotland a couple of times, for about 4 days at a time. For the 4th of July, we were above the Arctic Circle. We did an initiation called Bluenose. This consisted of a whole lot of cold initiations. It was everything from getting sprayed with a water hose, while yelling a paragraph, on the shower wall, to sitting in a big bath tub of ice, with people pouring cold salty, sea water over your head, while rubbing yourself with a big ice cube, like you are lathering yourself up in the shower.

   

   

   

   

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