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.