“I’m not a SEAL; I’m an Army Green Beret!” I protested, “But…thanks…man….”
The climb up to the escape trunk was nuts. We had to stepladder our way up three levels of bunk beds with sailors sleeping in them to get to the escape hatch. There are only enough bunks for roughly half of the crew on a submarine, so half of the crew works while the other half sleeps, a practice called hot-bunking. We pipe-hitters slept on torpedoes under the pining gaze of the pasty-faced torpedo hands.
The trunk was crowded…my God, it was so crowded. At least I thought ahead enough to say, “It’s crowded” before I got in there. Thankfully, everyone was fully-clothed, which was of personal comfort to me. I mean, I appreciate a nice physique as much as the next person, just not from less than two millimeters away.
The trunk was flooded with seawater to just below the level of our noses. One by one we took deep breaths, submerged to pass through the escape hatch, and ascended to the sea surface. At the surface was a small inflatable boat tethered to the submarine. We floated in the water, clinging to the inflatable. I reveled in the glory of the view of the massive boat some 50 feet below us. It was majestic and imposing; I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of it.
Suddenly an object came into view. One of the divers’ weight belts had come loose and it sank toward the boat. It was a wide nylon strap with a quick-release buckle and lead weights attached. “Bummer,” I thought for the man; it would be difficult for him to sink back to the escape hatch.
I shook my head at the glaring fact that the diver’s dive knife and emergency smoke/flare was attached to the belt. That was a safety violation, as nothing is allowed to be attached to the weight belt: It is the first piece of gear that is to be jettisoned in the event of an emergency. Now the diver had lost his most important emergency equipment to boot—his dive knife and signaling device.
CRACK
The ensemble struck the hull of the boat. Oh, the captain of the ship was not happy about that and might scrub our dive operations for the day. Ship captains already hated this sort of lock-in/lock-out maneuver because a procedural error could, no shit, sink a boat. The belt scraped along as it slowly slipped down the curved contour of the sub until it fell away to Davy Jone’s Locker.
I knew the poor brother would get a double helping of grief because he had committed a grand blunder and because he had done it in front of an Army puke. I took it with a grain because, even though the team was driven by seasoned leadership, it was jammed with fresh recruits from the most recent graduation of the Navy SEAL’s BUD/S class—junior operators. That element would manifest itself again in mere moments.
All the men were taken back down to the escape trunk one at a time by a safety diver with a twin breathing hose (regulator) attached to SCUBA tanks. He could breathe from one and his passenger could breathe from the other. Our procedure called for each man entering the trunk to hold a regulator outside of the trunk for the next diver to transition to before he crowded into the trunk.
The safety diver passed me the regulator, which I clenched in my teeth. I saw that a hook had come undone on my life vest and struggled to redo it. Without giving a signal to submerge, the safety diver dove down toward the trunk. As both my hands were busy hooking my vest, I was dragged to the trunk by the regulator clasped in my teeth, my ears threatening to explode from the inability to equalize sinus pressure.
Again, without a signal, the diver pulled the regulator from my mouth and left. I was beginning to drift a little south of pleased by now, and furthermore, the last diver had failed to hold out a regulator of the ship’s air for me to breathe. I peered into the hatch to see a forest of thrashing legs. I couldn’t hold my breath any longer and bulldozed my way into the trunk.
When I broke into the air bubble there was loud panicked screaming from the men. The water line had risen too high and the trunk operator’s attempt to blow the water level back down revealed that the air blow pipe was submerged and creating a hurricane of wind, noise, and water spray in the small air space that remained.
Quickly, though, the water line blew down to the normal depth and the trunk operator, a well-seasoned senior SEAL, immediately grabbed control of the junior men. He got them to calm down and regain composure. I was just a spectator in awe. I cast zero judgments on these men. It was my first time too, but I had by that time been through enough insane situations that very little nudged me over the edge.
With the trunk drained and equalized in pressure with the boat, the inner hatch was thrown open and the men filed out. I was the last out before the trunk operator, who always remained behind to close out operations with the con over 31MC. In silence, I reached out my hand to George, the trunk operator. He smiled definitively and shook his head slowly as he rendered a spirited handshake.
Day one of high-risk operations with America’s elite was not at all a waste. I was pleased with how it all worked out, with all I did and did not do. After a stint in the restroom, I learned that the valve sequence instructions for flushing waste down the boat’s head was an even more cheek-clenching (no pun intended) experience than the escape trunk had been that day. And, speaking of cheek clenching, it was back to the torpedo room for more ass worship from the pasty-face deckhands.
United States Navy SEALs: when it absolutely, positively has to have its ass kicked overnight!
By almighty God and with honor,
Geo sends
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