Almost At Sea!

Today is July 1st. I am sitting in a hotel room in Mobile, Alabama as I took a couple days leave (vacation). I haven't taking any time off since December. And now we are about to set sail to go around South America to bring this great ship to her homeport in San Diego.

To recap:
- I started to apply to the Navy in Feb 2012. Resume, applications, references,multiple interviews and then a final interview at the Pentagon in December, culminating in being accepted into the Naval Chaplaincy.
- February 17, 2013 - I was commissioned as a Naval Officer Lieutenant Junior Grade after 12noon mass at St. Joseph Church, Toms River, NJ
- I waited until the diocese released me to go to the Navy. In the meantime, I prepared. I started physical training, getting my things in order and packing up my stuff.
- I received my orders in the beginning of August and then headed off to Officer Development School in Newport Road Island for 5 weeks of officer training. I was with doctors, lawyers, nurses, dentists, chaplains and nukes (nuclear engineering instructors). I was the only priest. We learned the basics of how to be officers in the Navy. I graduated ODS on September 20.
- I drove to Fort Jackson, South Carolina for 8 weeks of Chaplain School. We learned not different religions, but the particulars of being chaplains in the Navy. We went over the instructions, policies, programs and potential pitfalls. Mostly we got a sense of the attitude needed to be successful: having a heart for the people we serve. I graduated Chaplain school on November 15.
- Then I drove to NJ to pack up a trailer full of stuff (thanks to Bob, Cat and Mike for the help!) and I drove cross country to my first assignment in San Diego. I spend six weeks there getting my feet wet (lots of training, paperwork and meeting people.)
- In January I drove to Pascagoula, MS to join the PCU America and see the ship for the first time. I met the rest of the CRMD ministries department team. We worked hard to get the ship ready to receive the crew in April.
- ON April 10th, we marched onboard to take possession of the ship. USS America delivered to the Navy




Since then we have been setting up our respective departments and going through all kinds of qualifications of certifications. Flight deck and Hangar bay fire drills. Ship wide fire drills, General Quarters drills, Anti-Terrorism Force Protection drills occurred daily.

It has been quite something to get used to. 6am wake up calls, 10pm lights out. Sleeping in racks (mine is the top bunk of 2-high bunkbeds.)

Getting to know the 1100 sailors and a few Marines has been a challenge, but I have enjoyed meeting them and getting to know their jobs a bit. I watched the Deck department training on their mooring lines and anchors. This week I watch them use a crane to pull up the 7 meter RHIB boat on to its shipboard cradle. I have watch the Air department do their fire drills and I get to watch them carry injured crew to the Flight Deck Battle Dressing Station, where I am stationed during General Quarters. I have visiting engineering spaces and checked out the huge diesel generators (supply power to the whole ship), the Main Reduction Gear, the propeller shafts and the Turbine Engines (basically a jet engine that makes our ship go really fast.) I got to do a maintenance spot check on the SLQ-32 Electronic Warfare system sensor. That was cool. I visited aft steering, way down in the back end of the ship where we can steer the ship manually if all else fails. I almost broke my head on a battle lantern (it is a very tight space.)

Routinely, big chaps and I walk around the ship, just chatting with sailors and observing their daily routine. Our office is right off the mess decks, so I frequently, pop my head out and talk to the FSAs (those temporarily assigned to help setup and  clean up meals and the CSs, the cooks.

I have been doing a lot of counseling, sailors, mostly juniors, come to talk about whatever is going on in their life: marriage, work, stresses and occasionally something spiritual. All those conversations are confidential. It is a privilege to be someone they know they can talk to about anything. Occasionally, I refer them to medical or some other service for some further assistance.

I have been saying daily mass at 11:30am and Sunday mass at 830. We have been very happy to have music each week by our choir. I enjoy working with them each week. I will add a Saturday evening mass probably at 7pm when we get underway.

We have been working 6 days a week for a number of weeks. This Saturday was mostly a free day, however many Engineers were working hard on repairs and of course 1/3 of the crew was on duty. This phase is almost complete.

Next Stop: South America

Now the fun begins. We pack up and set sail soon. Final preparations are being made to get underway. We will sail south to Colombia, Brazil, the Straits of Magellan, Chile and Peru. And in about 2 months we will pull into San Diego. After that we will head to San Francisco to be Commissioned in October.

In each port we will meet with dignitaries, do some service projects, some trips, some liberty. Along the way, the many new folks (about 700 first time on ship) will experience real Navy sea life. Very exciting (he says with a little trepidation.)


Please continue to pray for us on the USS America!

Life in Pascagoula

(I wrote this back in March, but never posted it....)

Well, I have been down here in Pascagoula, Mississippi for two months. Living in the barracks. Pascagoula has many, many fast food restaurants and a Walmart. There are some other restaurants here that are pretty good. New York Pizza is actually pretty good. But to get to "civilization" as I like to call it, or an area that looks similar to my Metropolitan mind, I have to drive over to Biloxi which is 25 miles away.

CRMD

I work in a Pre Commission office building in Ingalls Shipbuild yards where our Ship is. We have been busy getting ready to move aboard next month. My department, CRMD - Command Religious Ministries Department - has been busy getting the chapel ready and also the other spaces we own: our office, the library (which is the other half of the chapel compartment) and a Recreation Room (and also 2 Fan rooms and 2 ladderwells). We will have to do maintenance on all these spaces since they have valves and gauges and other things that need maintenance.

Our department has four people: Commander Tim Johns (Big Chaps), two RPs (Religious Program Specialist enlisted) and myself (Little Chaps, Baby Chaps). RP1 (first class petty officer) has been in Pascagoula getting things together for months before I arrived here. RPSN (seaman) is learning the ropes. It is a great team and we await the arrival of Big Chaps so our team will be all together.

The Chapel

The chapel is one half of the shared space with the Library. It is not what you think about when you hear the word "chapel." Rather, it is a plain compartment, with a drop ceiling (which hides pipes and valves), two storage closets (one doubles as the sacristy) and some cabinets. There is also a huge network switch where the altar should go. Our job is to give the space a chapel feel. It will take a long time to get there, but we are thankful that we have a dedicated space.

Last month, we received our first load of items for the chapel. Hymnals, candles, prayer books, folding chairs, a portable altar (it we have services on the flight deck or hangar bay) and various items for various faiths. We have a lot more things to get to make it functional. We recently received a wood altar, which is still in the warehouse and we will bring it to the ship in a few weeks.

First Mass!

I had the honor of celebrating the first mass for the crew 9am last Sunday, 9 March (and the second today!). Currently, we have mass in a conference room in the barracks up until we move aboard. What a privilege! Doing those masses in the high school chapel was good preparation! When we get aboard we will have 830 Mass and a 10am Protestant service to start. We will probably (hopefully!) need to add services.

Move Aboard

The next big step is Move Aboard. Next month, the remaining crew will arrive (another 600 people) and we will begin living on the ship while it is here in the shipyards. This will give us a chance to get the last things ready for Sail Around, where we take the ship to our Homeport in San Diego. Then we will be Commissioned in San Francisco. It is a very exciting time to be getting close to Move Aboard, although this is the first time for many of us, so there is apprehension. The berthing areas are being prepared - the crew moved 3200 mattresses onto the ship recently.



Please continue to pray for the crew of the PCU America, LHA-6

Cross Country Trip to Homeport San Diego!

After RMTEX field training, we finished off chaplain school with TEAMS week, some final information and preparation for our first assignment as a Navy Chaplain. I also attended my first Marine Corps Ball.

Me, Dan, Rafi, Gunny, Ryan, Jamil at the Marine Corps Ball

We graduated on November 15th. My Cheerleading squad, my Mom and sister Jill, showed up for graduation.

My Cheerleaders

After Chapschool, I stopped in Toms River for the weekend to pack. I loaded up my trailer with the help of Cat and Mike and Pat (awesome friends!)

On Sunday, I baptized my niece, Morgan Grace, Kelly and Andy's baby. It was a great experience! How cool to be a brother/uncle/priest!!

Cross Country Trip #1 -- San Diego!

That Monday I started my 2700 mile journey to the West Coast. The farthest I had been by car or bike was Illinois. So this was pretty cool. It was long days of 400-500 miles. Driving, stopping to eat, or get gas, take a photo, etc. My trip was to take me through Columbus, Ohio, St Louis, Missouri, Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Phoenix, Arizona.

 

I'll post a couple cool photos from the trip. The first day I tried to put on some good miles to Ohio. Then I got into the swing of things by stopping at something interesting on Day Two. Here I found the World's Largest Wind Chime and, at the golf course, the World's Tallest Golf Tee in Casey, Illinois.

It had a scripture quote on it.

I didn't see the golf ball though....

A 55 foot Wind Chime. Cool Christian fish and Star of David symbols.

I stayed with Navy Chaplain, Fr. Joe Coffey, at the Cathedral in St. Louis. I was able to concelebrate mass there in the morning. It is a beautiful church, looks kinda like ones from France.

Pentecost

How about this altar. Nice!

Mary's altar

Fr. Joe took me to the St. Louis Arch at night. It is big!!

This thing is huge.

Like something from outer space....

Day 3

In the morning I took the tram up inside the Arch! Driving up to it...

Once inside you are up very high. That's my blue pickup and trailer down there....

630 feet high. There's room inside with windows to look around (obviously).

After this things got pretty flat. I visited a Chaplain friend, Episcopal priest, Kenneth Orsbourne in Tulsa, Ok. I stayed outside of Oklahoma city that night. The next morning I headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico. I passed through the panhandle of Texas and stopped at Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo.

Just some cars stuck in the dirt.

It was so cool that day. 40 something degrees and windy. But I am enjoying it!

Covered with years of graffiti. Pretty cool.

I stayed in Albuquerque, which is a pretty big city. I got up and went to St. Therese Church. It was small but pretty. There was a nice daily mass community. It is enjoyable to stop in and see local churches and the fact that they celebrate the same mass everywhere gives a sense of Universality of the Church.

After Albuquerque, I started to see some cool mountains and desert. There are the cool plateaus in the desert, we talked about in grade school.

Then I hit Arizona. It got colder and rainy. By the time I hit Flagstaff, it was 31 degrees. It seemed like a Pocono or New England ski town.

I drove up steep hills and was glad I recently had bought a pickup with a V6 engine. My Escape would not have pulled the trailer up the highways into Phoenix. Phoenix is a pretty busy city, too. Lots of shopping centers off the main highway.

The next day was more desert as I entered California. Luckily I was listening to a book on tape that keep me occupied (It was boring). Although I enjoyed the difference in scenery.

I headed west on Interstate 8, I came very close to the Mexican border. I crossed over some more mountains and entered San Diego. I arrived at the Naval Base at 32nd street, which would be my home area for the next six weeks.

The first ships I saw in San Diego were Arleigh Burke destroyers....the type I worked on at Lockheed back in my previous life!!

A few days in the area and I moved into the rectory at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Rancho Penasquitos - about 20 miles north of base. I had asked the diocese if they could find a rectory for me to stay in and luckily Fr. Anthony Saroki invited me there. A beautiful, new church and a lovely congregation. I really enjoyed my short time there and look forward to returning with LHA-6, the America, to our Homeport later this year!

Field Training - Chap school week 6

After the academic first four weeks of Chaplain school, we began phase II, preparation for RMTEX -- four days of field training to get us ready to serve with Marines. We said goodbye to two Chaplain Candidates and welcomed three Rabbis. We were issued packs, camping equipment and a gas mask.

On Monday, October 28th we headed to another part of Fort Jackson in the forest. We setup our bivouac (camping site). There was a warehouse, which we didn’t use much, we set up a command tent and 15 two-person tents. We had one porta-potty for all the guys, and Ms. Short had one all to herself. :)  We also setup a male hygiene area for shaving, brushing teeth, changing and the liberal use of baby wipes (no showers in the field!)

Home sweet Home for 4 days

MREs - we ate pre-packaged "Meals Ready to Eat." My favorite was Maple Sausage, which came with coffee, peanut butter and crackers and of course the water activated heater element!

Obstacles to Overcome

The first three days, we engaged in various team building events and Confidence courses. Here's some pics...

The first morning, we had a series of obstacles that we had to figure out and conquer as a team.

 

This one we had to climb a straight wall using a board and then lower teammates to a "bridge." We could touch any of the white parts and had to use wooden boards to make the bridge span. Also the black rubber around it was like "hot lava" -- you touch you die!

 

 

Here's Jamil again trying to reach a pillar with a board in the next challenge.

 

 

Here's Jason and Rabbi Baumann in an interfaith board hugging committee, I think :)

 

 

In this scenario, using wood boards and balance, we had to get everyone plus the injured "Corporal Green" from one side to the other over the two framed obstacles....without touching any white parts!

 

 

Next we had some training on how to use our IFAKs (Individual First Aid Kits) in a battle situation. After being shown how to use it, a team of four entered a simulated battle space to locate, pull to safety and apply first aid to a mannequin whose legs were blown off. 

 

 

Here is our bad ass Gunny!

 

 

 

I think it was the second day, we arrived at this structure. It was a 35 foot high series of (slippery) wooden beams that we had to climb up...

 

...and then flip ourselves over...

 

and climb back down!

\\

 

Later, we climbed up a tower and then climbed down underneath a rope.

 

Here was a race. Inclined rope climb up an obstacle and down a rope on the other side. I got some serious rope burn on this one!

Maruszewski and Hoeppel go head to head!

 

 

Nice face, Ryan!

Fisher and Commander Moore race!

One of the events was called the "5 Walls." we were split into teams of 4. Our task was to get our team over 5 walls. The first wall most people were able to climb over. The second wall was harder. by the third wall the team had to start planning how to get everyone over. Two people would be helped up and sit on top of the wall to pull people over.

Holly gets a little boost from teammates

Orthodox priest Father Chris and Ryan Krause prepare to pull a teammate up the wall. 

Dave and Francisco help up Tony

Some used ropes to get over the higher walls

 

Ryan Krause gets a step up.

Rabbi Cosmov walking up the last wall!

 



 

 Other obstacles were like being at a playground...

This one we had to rope climb over a wall...

 

 

...then climb across a metal pole to a rope and climb down.

 

\

 

This one was easy...

 

We then wiggled under barbed wire in a sand pit

 

 

Here's Jon aka Zeus (my roommate from ODS) hurdling over obstacles followed by Jamil (my roommate from Chap school)

 

This next one looked easy...

 

We had to swing on a rope and land on top of a wooden beam without falling off....

 

And then....the "Weaver!"

 

 

Oh boy. This one we had to climb over one beam, and underneath the next and then over the next all the way up and all the way down....

 

 

Day 3 -- Repel Tower! 

Before sunrise we headed to the repel tower. We ate some MREs for breakfast and waited for the sun. Then we were instructed to tie on a "Swiss Seat" rope harness. We trained briefly to repel down a small inclined wall.

 

 

 

Then, we climbed up the 40 foot repel tower! 

 

 

First we were clipped in and had to lean over an Say "Repel on Lane 4", to which our belay replied "Belay on Lane 4"

 

Then we climbed over the edge onto a ledge and had to lower ourselves into a "sit" position with our legs perpendicular to the wall. It was scary the first time.

 

Then the idea was to push off the wall as you release the brake hand and hop down the wall.  Very cool. I repelled three times.

 

Next we headed to some rope obstacles,  Climb a rope bridge...

 

 

..head first climb on TOP of a rope...

 

...unless off course you can't stay on top....

 

Rabbi "KB" Kaiserblueth making it look easy!

 

After the "two rope bridge" we had to climb down a 40 foot cargo net.

 




The Rabbis prayed hard for us that day! 

  

After a lovely afternoon in the gas chamber we got to meet a marine General Simmons, who gave us a talk about what he needs from a chaplain.

 

Day 4 - Land Navigation

 

The last day was a day of land navigation. We were given a map and coordinates and had to plot the points and calculate azimuth (angle) and distance to travel to each point. My team found 4 of 5 points after walking 9 miles. We packed up camp and got our 60-70 lb packs ready for the evening "hump" home from the Night Nav site.

 

In the evening, after a shared MRE dinner, we did Night Navigation. We had to maintain "light and noise discipline" -- limited use of flash lights with red lens and virtually no conversation. The target coordinates were a lot closer but it was night. It was amazing how well you can see at night once your eyes get used to it. My team located all five points after about 4 miles of walking. We used the "fire roads" to our advantage which made it easier.

 

After all teams reported back we donned our large packs with our "assault" packs (little day packs) and marched 2.5 miles back to base camp. It was a grueling end to a 17 hour day. The amazing thing was that we all made it back. I would have bet that many of us would have fallen out and not be able to go any further after a mile. But working together and encouraging each other, we were able to keep going. As the Gunny said, "The mind will fail before the body does."

 

 

--- Next blog -- will be about the end of Chap school and my cross country trip! Stay tuned! ---