Anyone catch this last night? Pretty sweet flight deck stuff on the hi-def channel.

Shows what the Navy is really like...good and bad.

link

I'm bummed that I missed it. Already had tickets to a good rock show. I'm sure it will come on again, or I'l be able to rent it.

What would be some examples of the "bad"?

No Tomcats...?

Excellent point!

yes, an excellent show that the military channel can never meet in terms of showing the U.S. Navy warts and all. I found their candid view of the Nimitz crew refreshing and well done - this only serves to increase my respect for military personnel.

I was only able to catch the first two episodes so I hope to see the remaining shows this week if they are to be rerun in my area.

I saw Mel Gibson's name on the screen as one of the show's producers(?) - I assume it is the Mel Gibson of hollywood fame?

I was quite surprised at how informal things were. The Master Chief acted like "one of the guys"

Besides no tomcats (it saddens me to see the deck with inferior super bugs), a lot of the crew talked about the "high school" atomosphere of the ship. a lot of 18-21 year olds that are shall we say "not the valedictorians" (words of the command master cheif) and you get a lot of drama.

don't get me wrong, i respect what they are doing 100% but i find it kind of ironic that such a valuable asset is opperated by mostly kids that would otherwise be in a remedial job. the other think that amazes me is that when s hits the fan, they are up to the task. it also says something for those kids because most of them recognized that if they didn't join the navy they would be working at mcdonands or selling drugs or worse.

as far as the rest of the episode, i thought it was pretty good. very cool to see what life is like in the navy. i wanted to be a naval aviator since 7th grade but i knew all long that my eyes would never let me. it was sort of hard so "see what I missed" in a way.

i was also surprised to hear from some of the enlisted men about how they got their jobs assigned without any input and how difficult it was to get reassigned. the one girl was a cook. she wanted to do culinary and the recuiter told her the navy had great culinary program. i think she could have gotten the same experience at a school cafeteria. she did not seem to thrilled about the navy's "culinary program". another dude worked on arresting gear and was showing his rashes from exposure to all the gease. he tried to transfer but they wouldn't get him because he got an underage drinking citation 2 years prior. it seemed like the only ones really happy where the pilots. they had pretty good commeritory, not to mention the sweetiest job on earth (IMO)

I am looking forward to seeing the rest tonight. if you miss it it looks like PBS is replying it during the day. i think it was on at 10 am CST this morning.

Was it really that much different though with US aircraft carrier crews of WWII and the 1950's? The vast majority of the ships crew also consisted of 18-21 year olds and most of them were blue collar. However, due to the big cultural changes that the US has undergone since WWII, I would be so bold to say that discipline back then was probably a bit better.

i don't disagree with you PM. I am sure it was different back then. just like things were different in the 70's when the navy had a drug problem on many ships. the navy is not exclusive of the US culture. i think women definately add to the mix (not to meaning to be sexist). there is more dating drama on board now and all the ususal problems that come with coed anything. i would be willing to bet though there was still drama on board ships in WW2 and in the 50's. i am sure there has been ever since men have been going to sea. it is just sort of enlightening to know that the armed forces are not always the galent warrors shown in the movies and on commericals.

I was afraid someone would think I was being critical of the Navy when I said good and bad, but I also respect the military as much as anyone else. I served 3 years in the Army, my nephew is serving in Iraq with the marines, so I think they are awesome. But the Navy is like any gov't service, to some extent...

the recruiters show you all the cool stuff, but not the cleaning toilets part, or my favorite...when I was going through teletype school, the second shift students would come in every night at 1am, drunk and making noise in the bay...I still wish I had coldcocked that dumb SOB who screwed up my sleep every night...

when I went through basic, they had drafted all these puerto ricans whose constant refrain was "no comprende"...drove the DIs nuts and they took it out on us...

let's face it, the military does a lot of stupid crap but I support them 100% and this show does illustrate how tough a job it is.

i don't think anyone here (at least me) thinks you were being critial of the navy. i liked the fact that it was truthful. i give them a lot of credit for the crap they have to do. i don't think that stateing the facts is being critial. even if those facts don't pertray the navy (or military)as all glamor. i think PBS does a good job of showing both sides (AFAIK). there was one part where the ordie was in the lunch line and referenced a video he saw on youtube. it showed a recruiting video of a guy jumping out of a helo and then it showed "what the navy is really like" the same guy washing the windows on the helo.

anyways i think it is a good all around honest look at life abourd a carrier.

My girlfriend and I went to see a movie last night and they had a preview for this. We had seen a preview on a Hi-def tv at Best Buy a couple of weeks earlier so I turned around and was like oh remind me when that comes on. Thats when she pointed out it was on while we were in the movie. Hope I catch it in a re-run.

They have the first 2 episodes up to watch at the link in the original post...

It is well known that recruiters from all services will go to great lengths to meet their recruiting quotas. I had a friend in college who wanted to go to USMC OCS after he graduated but a recruiter at his local recruiting station told him that he had to join first as an enlisted man! Even I knew that was bs.

I saw part of it.

The man overboard drill was interesting in that it was triggered by someone spotting a chem light in the ship's wake which would indicate a member of the deck crew had gone over since they all wore one for that reason.

The part I found interesting was that the XO started going on about this happening too often and that he felt someone was intentionally tossing chem lights overboard as a prank.

This drill gets all 5000 crew members involved in that everyone must be accounted for in addition to the members who are at their stations to launch rescue operations in the event someone turns up missing.

As said by others in this thread, when you have that many people on a ship there are bound to be a few who don't take it all seriously. That is a lot of disruption caused by one person out of 5000.

And what data do you have to backup such outlandish statements? As far as I'm concerned this is an insult to every enlisted person in our military services.

Vince

Funny as hell when the XO in one of the Squadrons was making funny of the Air Force. They got complaining about having to pay for their meals at sea (officers) and the one guy said the Air Force didn't have too. So the XO looks at him and says "You couldn't be in the Air Force...You know who your parents are..." and went on from there. It was pretty funny.

watch the series. most of the enlisted said similiar things. look i am not knocking military service, but lets be honest most enlisted are not the honor roll students with college scholarships. the CMC said pretty much exactly that. i think the miltary takes a lot of people that maybe going down the wrong path and shapes them to go down the right path. that is not an insult it is the truth.

graves_09:

I don't need to watch the series. I gave 10 years of my life in service to my country. I am speaking from firsthand experience. You watch too much TV fella. And If I were you, I would not go on any night patrols with these enlisted personnel you choose to degrade and humiliate.

BTW I wonder how Patrick Daniel Tillman would feel about this.

Vince

Did you see the JHMS that some of the pilots were wearing?

I don't think graves was being degrading or humiliating service members...

most of the enlisted have high school educations, and while they are probably better educated than in the past, you still have a hard time getting a decent job with only a HS education...

a lot of them probably would be in menial jobs, not all of them, but many...

one thing is sure...after their experience, everything else will be easier and the great majority have excellent futures because of their military service and what they learn from it...

Unpainted Arizona:

You are obviously of the same mold as graves_09. I don't take kindly to people putting other people down. No matter how you say it. It is still a put down. These men and women who serve our country in an enlisted capacity are the military. You take them away and we are in deep kemchi. And to try to qualify this by saying "not all of them, but many" is still wrong. And to imply that since these same soldiers do not have a college education that they would be mediocre at best out of the military, turns my stomach. You do not have the right to judge these men and women.

BTW when was the last time you strapped on kevlar and humped the desert?

Vince

just started watching it

Fine, Vince, we get it. Each and every enlisted man would have been a huge success in non-military life. None of them would have gone on to minimum wage jobs or a life of crime; in fact, they all had offers to be a CEO right out of high school, but decided to go military as a public service. Somehow, being enlisted makes them fundamentally different from the civilian population with similar background and education.

zmike6:

Fundamentally, you don't get it.

Vince

Vince
Yes, I was citing examples that I had seen on a PBS documentary but i do not live in a box. i have good friends, relatives and others that i know the enlisted. All are good people and all joined because it was the best option available at the time. Some joined to get money for college, some for guidance and some to avoid family or other parts of their current life. Would they turned out all right without the military?, who knows but the path they were headed on was not the best. but they had the character to recognize that and enlist to better themselves. the military has a tough roll of shaping young men and women at the same time defend our country. to pretend everyone enlists only to fight terrorists and for patriotism is naive. that maybe a factor for some but not all. that is not to say they are unpatriotic, it just may not be the main reason for enlisted as it is sometimes preceived.


I am not sure what you mean by this but I'll ignore it.

That is my explanation and my thoughts, sorry if they offend, but i stand by them.

Anyway, that was another good installment last night. What was with the racist kid though? it sounded like he joined the navy not knowing he would be on a ship so he decided to misbehave and get kicked off? his defense of racism "that's how i was raised" is BS. it sounds like the navy is better off without him. did anyone else think it was weird that they would send him ashore on a helo? i would have thought that they would wait until port then boot him.

the relationship thing reminded me of living on a coed college dorm. don't date floor mates was the policy but their was no way to stop it. when love is in the air, rules go out the window.

also i couldn't believe how fast you career can go in the toilet. the man (petty officer 1st class i think) went from being recognized as battle group sailor of the month, recommended as officer material to being black listed and probably never again promoted. I realize he made a mistake but ruining your career by making one drunken episode... damn. i guess that happens in civilian life too.

I haven't seen any Vikings either, I guess they're gone from CVW-11 too? Awesome show though, no military stuff's cooler than Carrier Aviation IMHO.

Vince,

I understand your defensive reaction to the statements about enlisted men, but really, this is the impression the PBS documentary gives its watchers. It's not subtle, either; for example, one girl said if she wasn't in the Navy, she'd "probably be dead or in jail". PBS is showing us that, while the Navy's enlisted are not the best and brightest, they are trained very well to do their jobs and they are looked after by the senior enlisted. I have no doubt that they support each other and watch each other's backs when the going gets rough. But this is one of the major benefits of the military - giving structure, support, and mentorship to so many people out of high school.

Please don't take offense; no one was intending it. It's just what we've seen from watching the show.

Well said Joe. I haven't seen the show myself, yet, but I get the premise.

I don't think anyone here is denigrating military service, but probably more responding to the show.

And Vince, I do understand getting your dander up, let's just keep it civil in here.

I don't get it...


A guy "Gave" 10 years of his life serving? No, you were employed by Uncle Sam for 10 years.

I get these emails from friends and family. As soon as they come I check Snopes to see if they're real. This General said this, this Marine did that, this sailor saw this. As soon as I see they're fake, I can hear my father in law go "But the message is what's important." I disagree. You label something as truth when it's not...THEN IT'S NOT REAL!!! I'm tired of half truths being wrapped in the flag, covered in yellow ribbon.

And I seen the first 4 episodes of Carrier by the way.

I was Army for 5 years. I've worn a Kevlar. I've humped a ruck. I did my time. And I served with some of the biggest retards on the planet.

Sorry fellas. I just don't agree. So, for the sake of harmony, I digress.

Vince

I don't see why the Navy lets a documentary be made that shows some of it's personnel and especially a carrier crew in less than a totally favorable light.

It serves no purpose at this time and creates controversy about a highly trained crew whose collective primary function is the defense of our country. I'm sure families of the 99.9% of upstanding young men and women don't like seeing them lumped in with those few who feel this was the alternative to jail or drugs, I'm sure there are better spokesmen or women out of the 5000 people on board.

This sends the wrong message.

wth are you talking about? it's real...if people cant take reality then they don't need to be in the military. you're basically saying that the opinions of the people who do 90% of the work dont matter? that the 'bad' people shouldn't have any input, and they should only talk to officers and chiefs or people with awards for good conduct? sorry man, but that's bs. thats what the recruiters do and this isn't a show to recruit people.
if they didn't show any of the 'bad' then you'd have a lot more kids like the racist guy there because they "didn't know" that there's zero tolerance for racism, or that having relationships on a boat is a bad idea; or that being out to sea for 6+ months SUCKS when you see the same people every day. im sorry; but lying to people (oh sorry; not telling the whole truth) isn't the way you get them to support something.

this show shows what was pretty much EXACTLY what my experience in the navy was. f**k sugar coating it. people need to know what they're going to be dealing with BEFORE they sign 4 years of their life away. i didn't know when i did it...yeah i had an idea but it was still beyond my comprehension; but i could still deal with it. some people cant. we had females fraternizing with other guys just so they'd get pregnant and get shore duty. we had guys purposely get busted for drugs so they'd get kicked out. people that were married would come home after six months and find that their spouse/significant other was cheating on them. there were people getting in trouble in almost every port because of alcohol. we had officers who snuck alcohol on board and had a party in their stateroom and got busted. what'd they get? 15 days of light restriction (they could still go on liberty but they had a curfew like the enlisted did). on the same deployment an enlisted came back to the ship too intoxicated (he had to be helped up the brow by his friends) and he got 15 days full restriction (cant leave the boat) and 15 days extra duty. so the double standard IS there.

and this was a DD with ~300 people...i could only imagine what goes on a carrier with 6000+ people.

i know i reflect on the bad; but there was also lots of good, and the show still shows that. but im just saying that filling people with a bunch of BS and propaganda isn't the right way to get them to support your country.

Make the next episode in the brig if you want reality.

whatever man. you just go on thinking that those guys are living the dream and everything will be all right huh

I guess noone saw that guy was using a JHMS

I saw it...he called it a "mercedes on your head" because it cost $60k...

I'm not looking to sugar coat it, put it on 60 Minutes as a one hour expose or present it is a special about the problems in all the services, don't put it on PBS as if this was a look at what life in the Navy is all about, that's not fair to all the good people who don't fall into the small percentage of trouble makers.

Maybe this would have been better if it was about a smaller ship. 5000 people is like a city and cities do have more social problems than small towns.

but they DO show the good in the show...but that episode last night was titled "hidden secrets" (or something like that); and it was pretty much about the drama that goes on. but in the other episodes they show how they have fun and the professionalism that they have despite the bad things that happen.

i agree having a 2 hour show about the 'bad' maybe isn't the way to go; but it still shows people what these guys (and girls...gotta be PC lol) go through on deployment. either being the one causing trouble or dealing/working with the ones causing trouble; and putting all that aside when the s**t hits the fan and still run the ship.

I saw about 1.5 hours of this last night when I got home. Trying to decide if it is worth the $27 at amazon.com for the dvd? What I saw was interesting...maybe I can catch more of it in re-runs.

YOU CAN WATCH IT ON THE PBS SITE......SERIOUSLY.....FULL EPISODES...

So far so good. I just viewed the first episode and I think the writers and producers are doing a good job of showing the various "characters" which represent the themes of military life.

I retired last summer after 22 years in the Army and some of the themes cross branch of service boundaries; they are constants of military life and with that as a segue.....

The people they are depicting from lower to lower middle, to middle class are exactly the demographics you get in the military. Notice no representative from the upper class. Might be one or two from the upper middle, I've known one or two but they are rare. Are there "knuckleheads" here? you betcha, but they are trying to do something with their life when they in all likelihood have been dealt a bad hand by life.

You want to talk about knuckleheads, how about those on Wall Street who are likely going to cost you (the US tax payer) a good piece of change as we spin through the fall out from the easy money induced credit crisis. Whose the bigger knucklehead? That black female 18 year old whose mother was a prostitute and speculates that her father was a pimp (she never knew him) and decided at 18 after fighting off the pressures (unlike her peers not already pregnant) where she grew up that she had to do something now and decided to join the Navy?

Or pick any one of those Wall Street CEO's who got multi-million dollar year end bonuses as their firms reported record write down losses which share holders sucked up. And they have defended their actions before congress as standard industry practice.

Which one of these people is more "real"? Which one is a better representative of the best in humanity?

SB

Vince, you need to reread my post.

I don't think you understand what I am saying at all.

By the way, I wore kevlar for 22 years.

I insulted no one.

Those guys may have shady backgrounds and troubled passed - but once 'sh$t hits the fan' and 'game is on', they are hardest working people. In short 4 years, they grew up, received education and gained a life that they wouldn't had without military. I'm glad that they got my back.

Ah, i was wondering what that goofing looking helmet thing was. i noticed it on the squadron CO mostly, i think others had it too, but it makes sense that the CO would get it first.

Every organization throughout all of history has it's 10% whether that is kindergarten or the SAS (Of course the 10% is relative to the organization). The majority of cool stuff is not actually fun when you doing it (25 years experience here). It's only fun to talk about afterwards.

Los

the pilots in last nights episode reminded me of owen wilson's character is Behind Enemy Lines. I think the pilots where frustrated that they were there to help but they really weren't doing much. It showed the even the coolest job on earth (IMO) can be pretty dull. Granted, they (and I) recognize that dull is a good thing in war. If modern combat flight sims were like reality in terms of action seen in the theatre, they would never sell a single copy. (well maybe a few to the microscoft flight sim fans.).

i wish they would show some of the other squardons. They have not shown any E-2s or EA-6s. it would cool to see their role in the flight ops as well. they are sort of the forgotten aviators.