Ep. 74: Life Inside a Nuclear Submarine | Casey Murphy

What does it actually feel like when the hatch seals shut… and a nuclear submarine disappears beneath the ocean?

In this episode of Interesting Humans, Jeff sits down with former Navy submarine officer Casey Murphy to pull back the curtain on one of the most secretive and psychologically demanding environments on Earth: life aboard a nuclear submarine.

Casey shares what it’s like living hundreds of feet underwater for months at a time, operating inside a machine where a single mistake can have catastrophic consequences. From terrifying fire drills and silent underwater navigation to hurricanes above the ocean and the stress of constant vigilance, this conversation reveals the reality behind America’s nuclear deterrence mission.

The discussion also dives into leadership, faith, pressure, human behavior in confined environments, and the surprising ways the U.S. military uses trained dolphins and sea lions to help protect submarines and ports.

This is a fascinating look into a world very few humans will ever experience.

🔑 Key Takeaways

•  What it feels like the first time a submarine dives underwater 
•  Why fire is one of the greatest fears aboard a submarine 
•  The psychological reality of living underwater for months 
•  How submarine crews handle extreme stress and sleep deprivation 
•  Why Casey says submariners are “the most professional men” he’s ever worked with 
•  The leadership lessons learned as a 25-year-old officer overseeing veteran sailors 
•  How nuclear submarines stay hidden beneath the ocean 
•  The shocking story of trained dolphins and sea lions protecting Navy assets 
•  Why “the competent shall be punished” became a Navy reality 
•  How faith and purpose shaped Casey’s military journey 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Folks, welcome back to another episode of Interesting Humans. I'm Jeff Hope, your host. I have Casey Murphy with me today. Most people never step foot inside of a nuclear submarine. They may not want to, they may not have the opportunity to, but either way, it's most likely never going to happen. In today's episode, I have Casey Murphy. We're going to talk about what it actually feels like when that hatch seals shut for the first time, and you know that you're about to journey out into water that's 600 plus feet in depth. Just truly remarkable. We're going to talk about the real danger of life underwater. What are the things that these guys just fear the most? Casey's going to talk about this thing called needs of the Navy, why the competent shall be punished. That's one of my favorite quotes, but he'll unpack that in the episode today. How he almost failed out of OCS school. This is really interesting. What not only what caused him to almost fail, but a key mentor in his life pushed back, and it's probably the most pivotal point in his life that they pushed back against the Navy, retested, and he was able to get back in. And then one of the wildest stories that I've ever heard is how the U.S. government trains marine life, so dolphins and sea lines, to help protect divers, seaports, the Navy, different missions that we have out and about. This story is unbelievable, and I've been around and have had a top secret clearance. I've never heard anything along these lines, so he's going to explain this one today. But this episode today, folks, pulls back the curtain on a world that very few humans will ever experience. Is it something you wanted to do as a kid?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

No, it wasn't even on my radar. In fact, this is the funniest part. I feel like the Lord was like knocking on my door with this for a while. The only place I got recruited to play college football was Merchant Marine Academy. And he he called me up and he was like, but hey, there's a really cool thing. You get to go to sea after you graduate. And I'm like, why would I ever want to do that? And then, second instance, this is crazy. So this isn't even the first one. Second instance, uh, so I got my math degree at University of Georgia, which everybody wonders why Georgia. I was like one of I think five of us, something like that. Yeah. Um but uh the they had uh the Navy recruiters came to UGA to to do a seminar for anybody in a technical major. Um and if you can handle, you know, calculus-based physics and if you can handle the math, then you can get through nuclear power school. You know, that's that's sort of their their bottom line method.

SPEAKER_02 2:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

Um, but they came in, you know, dressed in their whites, gave the pitch on aircraft carriers and submarines, and brought free pizza, and I walked out of the thing, I was like, hey, thanks for the free pizza. I'm never doing that, and I'm definitely never doing submarines. Oh my gosh. And that was junior year of college. After college, I'm looking around being like, man, I just I I I didn't really understand at the time. I didn't have a concept of why the economy mattered, why these sort of, you know, these jobs just going to make a profit to make a profit. Like that was my mindset around typical business. I just didn't understand how important it was until honestly, until I was working in the Pentagon. Um, but uh, you know, coming out of that, I went and played. I was a camp counselor, I was a brand new Christian, like trying to figure that out. Um, went and taught skiing for a year. Like I just I was trying to figure it out. I had no idea what I wanted to do. And as I was praying through, you know, after I finished that first season teaching skiing, I'm praying through, all right, like what is the next step? Because I have no idea, and everything is on the table. Like everything. Um, you know, initially wanted to be a doctor, actually. That was my, you know, I wanted to be a vet first, loved animals, wanted to be a doctor second, and then eventually I kind of realized like if you want to be a surgeon, you're really cranking on the same set procedures that have existed for forever. There's not much creativity. Sure. And once I saw that, I was like, oof, I don't think I want to do that anymore. Yeah. Um now, granted, that was my understanding of of what that meant. Um it's not necessarily true, could have gone into research, you name it, but I didn't. And coming out of that ski season, I was like, all right, I kind of need to get a big boy job, I don't know what. Um, it had always sort of been in the back of my mind that it'd be cool to serve. Um, you know, love this country, I love what America stands for.

SPEAKER_02 4:32

Yeah. And any family members serve?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Um, my dad did for a short while, but he and his best friend were stationed in Italy for like three years, so they just had a ball traveling around. They didn't do real work. Serving, but it's yeah, yeah. But the crazy thing is our our generations of my family are pretty far apart. So my my granddad actually served in World War I. And he passed away from heart issues when my dad was nine. Um, and so we've got, you know, and my uncle served, he was a C5 pilot. Yeah. So we've got some, but it really wasn't, it wasn't one of those things that was like ingrained. Yeah. Some of those military families you see there are really, you know, generations on generations. And for us, it was like, I was the only one to really consider it. And as I was praying through it, I'm sitting out there in in Colorado, um, you know, at a picnic table. I remember exactly where I was, sitting by the stream outside the Vale Library, and the Lord just hit me. You're going to the Navy, here's 15 reasons why.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

What age? Uh 23 at that point.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:32

So I was a year out of college. It was 2008. Sorry, 2009.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And it took me a year to get in, by the way. Yeah. Uh horribly efficient, inefficient process.

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

But I was commissioned in September 2010.

SPEAKER_02 5:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Um, and those 15 reasons, I mean, I've got them all written down, but it was things like, you know, the chance to serve my country, the, you know, the opportunity to learn leadership, the opportunity to put my technical skills to work. There's there's a whole bunch of them.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Every single one of them absolutely came true. Every single one of them.

SPEAKER_02 6:04

Incredible.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Um, and so the Lord delivered. I mean, he is faithful. When he tells me to go somewhere, it's it it makes it an easy call.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

You trusted, you followed, you walked. Exactly. Okay. So you you get com what was the word you use? You get com not commission. Commission. Okay. So you get commissioned. Yep. Do you are you commissioned saying, I can't wait to be on a sub? Or you still didn't want to do it at that time.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Getting commission was like, thank God that's over. You're not even thinking, and you're just beginning, right? There's a the the commissioning process, I think it was 12 weeks. It was basically the the summer of 2010.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Um, and it's just Marines playing mind games. Those guys are so good at what they do. It's it's ridiculous. But they're just putting you through the ringer, and they're doing it on purpose. I mean, there's a level of there are folks who wash out, and that's by design. And their whole their whole purpose is to raise your level of stress to make sure you can handle it and you can function when you're really getting beaten down, screamed at, you know, you name it, put under physical and mental stress.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

That's uh it's it's because you're not gonna have that backstop when you're out doing the job.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Um and once you get done with OCS, now you've got about a year and six weeks of training between power school, prototype, and subschool before you even set foot on a boat.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Do you did you start that right out of the gate? You start subschool right out of the gate, or do you have to like get in first and then decide?

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So what's interesting about that is you actually have to go, so in March of uh before I got in, even before I went to OCS, I had to go up to naval reactors. And this is this is a uh a Rickover principal. Uh Admiral Rickover is the father of the nuclear navy, and he basically said he made it a a rule that he will meet every single officer that sets foot on a submarine or on an aircraft, or any nuclear-powered entity. Um and now the four-star at naval reactors does a five-minute interview with every single one, and that's after you interview with two naval reactors engineers. So that whole physics and calculus thing, they test you, they'll put you through and make sure that you can do the math and you can do the physics, you know your stuff. Because at baseline, they don't want to shove you into that pipeline for you to just wash out and fail.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

Yeah. It's too expensive. So there's a low obviously a much lower, if any, washout rate. Yeah. It sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Now there still is. Yeah. And a lot of that is the stress, and some of that is they're just, you know, again, it's by design. Yeah. They want to, you know, they need this many, so they allow this many. Yeah. Um, and sometimes you got better than others. But uh, it's crazy. I mean, you had the funniest part is some of these academy guys that were voluntold to go in and they exhibited sufficient technical skill because they have to take engineering courses. Sure. But some of these guys were like political science and English majors, and they're in power school. What am I even doing here? Like, I never signed up for this. I want to be a pilot. Right. You know, uh, so those poor guys, like they had a dream and they they lived it out. For me, I chose submarines because I've I heard about the culture uh and I heard, you know, the intensity, the responsibility, the things you get to do.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

And I actually crossed out surface and wrote in submarines on my contract. You did. Um that was at the interview.

SPEAKER_02 9:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

And that was specifically because somebody started talking through it. I told you earlier, I I never wanted to do submarines. Right. And once I found out that like the uh it's a pressure cooker, right? And you have to be a solid leader. You don't you don't get to make excuses, and your enlisted guys will eat your lunch if you end up being a bad leader who tries to throw his rank around. And so all of that ends up being just better. You have more, you have more jobs to do, more responsibility. It's just to me, that sounded, I don't know why, but it sounded more attractive. Yeah, for sure. Um absolutely. And and so, you know, now granted, they brought back a clean copy and said, Well, we're not gonna turn you down for some reason, but you can't just cross it out. I'm sorry, sir. Um That's great. I signed that. Um That's great. But yeah, that's that's that was the story, and it was like the 11th hour that I signed up for subs. Yeah. And like I said, it ended up being the exact right move for me.

SPEAKER_02 10:09

What's so when they closed the top for the first time, try to get me there the first time they ever closed the top? What what does it sh was it the feeling you expected it to to feel, or did you was it a whole new feeling?

SPEAKER_01 10:24

It was a new feeling, it was interesting. It was uh I there's there's a level of intensity and focus. When the s when the hatch goes shut and and you go underneath it, I mean it's dead silent in control. Like everybody is is absolutely locked in, laser focused. Yeah. Um honestly it wasn't until you ask the question, it didn't really I never really thought about it. To me, it was again, it was just this is what we're doing, this is how we're doing it. But you you know, you get out, you get out to that point where you can dive and the hatches go shut and everybody knows it's it's game time.

SPEAKER_02 10:57

It's game time. Um for a while. Not for a couple hours. No. What what was the longest you've been out?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

So longest longest I did was about two and a half months. Uh there were some guys who did there was one boat that did four and a half months, and the CNO said don't do that again because it's a bad idea. Um but I mean two and a half, you know, that it's it's doable.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

So what happens what happens down there? You go you you go underwater, okay. You're you gotta, I guess, go out far. How far how far do you go? Is it steps? Do they step you down? Like take me through a mission.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

So you uh so I was on a I was on a boomer, um and our entire our entire mission was to be the guaranteed second nuclear strike. And so we were we were 100% into the deterrence mission. Um and our job was disappear and stay gone, poke holes in the ocean until you come back home.

SPEAKER_02 11:55

What is that? What's poke holes?

SPEAKER_01 11:56

It means you're going five knots to nowhere and it's boring, and you're training, and you're sometimes wondering why the heck am I out here.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Um how deep are you?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Uh we are so you start you actually the first thing you do is is you you test your systems, you pressure test everything. Yeah. And so um you go figure out and make sure that the boat doesn't have any holes in it, uh, you know, and and the systems are sound. Yeah. Um so you know, the the unclassified depth is is 700 feet. And so you're doing at least that.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

And there's a classified depth? Is that is that what is yep. Oh my goodness. Yep. I can only imagine what what it would be. So yeah. So you so on your first mission, so you go out, you when you're starting to go hundred, two hundred, three hundred feet. Is the thought ever, oh my gosh, what would happen if this screw pops off and what like what's going on in your mind?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

So it's funny because that's when I'm taking saying that everybody's laser focused, that's exactly in fact that cadence you just did, there's a guy in control that's calling it out. Uh just like you just did. No way. Yeah, so that's that's pretty appropriate. Um, and you know, and it's funny because like uh you know you see in some movies they do that thing where they put the string on either side of the hull, and as you're going deeper, you see it bow down, and that's real. Um that's true. Yeah, and and what they are doing to your point, the the whole purpose is you have all hands up awake at their stations, and they're looking for that screw to pop loose. Um, we're we're you're verifying everything. And and here's the thing, like I said, we've only we've only lost two submarines in the in the history of the nuclear navy, uh, the scorpion and the thresher.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

How many years is history navy? How many years are we talking?

SPEAKER_01 13:43

At this point, 70. Gosh, when did I I honestly don't remember when it was.

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Okay, so inside a hundred, but still that's that's that's still a long time.

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Yeah, like 50s, I think it was late 50s when Rickover started the nuclear navy, um, when the submarine went out. Um in fact that submarine's still in New York, you can go see it. That's incredible. Yeah, it was a that one was a a a trip. You s they literally had to like go at an up angle to launch out the front of the boat to put a cruise missile onto you know the enemy's on the enemy's forehead. It was bad design. Um but uh not the worst design. Yeah. Um the worst design, if you ever get a chance to look up the Davy Crockett. That's the worst nuclear design.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

The Davy Crockett.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

It was a uh I think it was a uh um it was the army had it, and it was a nuclear launched grenade. Or sorry, it was a nuclear grenade. And I'm pretty sure the guy launching it was in the blast radius, so they nixed that idea. Oh wow. Um it's a fun one. But um yeah, to your to your point, uh you know, you're you're looking for anything that's gonna come loose, shake, loose, and we we didn't have many concerns. Everything is redundant down there. I mean, they are so laser focused on safety. Yeah, and a lot of that came out of those submarines that went down. Uh, you know, there's amazing stories there, but they're they are phenomenal at maintaining those subs.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah. So in your so mission one, let's say we'll stay on mission one. Did anything happen that completely just blindsided you or blew you away or was different than than what you expected? Or is it pretty straightforward?

SPEAKER_01 15:20

It was exactly what you would expect. I mean, the first thing they want you to do is qualify. Faster you can get qualified, the faster you can support the crew. Um but there's nothing How do you qualify? So qualifying, you get this uh it's a basically a stack of sheets where every single topic that you can think of um for all of these various watchstanding you know things that you need to do, yeah. You've got to work through knowledge of every system on board. And that's that's eventually to get your fish, right? That's when you put on submarines, that's when you're qualified everything. But you start off in the engine room because that's where your training is. And interesting, you know, within six months or so you get engineering off the engineering off to the watch qualified. And as a 25-year-old, you're running a nuclear power plant. And you know, you're you're overseeing all this stuff. I think that was what really hit me is the the starting off, it's just academic. You're just studying and crushing your checkouts, and you're trying to get time, you're trying to train, you're trying to learn as much as you can as fast as you can, uh, and make sure you can support the crew because uh they don't use the term anymore, but uh they call you a nub, so you'll hear a lot of get qualified nub. Yeah. Oh non-useful body. Yeah, and so and these guys, until you get qualified, you're basically on board as a warm body that is not of any use on the watch bill. And those guys are getting crushed because they're just they're in either you know, port and starboard or three-section rotation, and it's it's hard.

SPEAKER_02 16:48

How many guys?

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Uh in the wardroom, there were 13 total. Uh the whole sub.

SPEAKER_02 16:53

How many on the whole sub?

SPEAKER_01 16:54

On the whole sub, 170.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

170. Yeah, 170 guys. Imagine it's like shift work. Exactly. Right. That's exactly what it is. At certain times, eating at certain times. Yep. Is it like what we see in the movies? Uh is it pretty similar? Do you got a place to eat?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah, I mean, the best analogy I've seen is down Periscope. Uh the whole thing is it's it's a lot of comedy. Yeah. Um but our mission was exactly like Crimson Tide, and that's actually pretty true to form what they did. Um not with the debate and all that stuff. I mean, you're just not gonna run into that issue.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Um this this whole notion it is funny to hear you you see the news stories of like, you know, what if what if their president orders a nuclear launch? He can't. He doesn't have the authority to. Yeah. I mean, yes, he can, but we actually have a say in the matter. And we're not, you know, really? Yeah, we're not we don't swear an oath to the president of the United States. We swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States of America. That's why I can get behind getting in the Navy. Uh I had to pray hard about whether or not it was the right thing to do, because you've got effectively a uh a secular government who gets to tell me whether or not I pull the trigger, and we're talking big weapons.

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Right. So big big weapons. Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

And so um, you know, when I'm when I'm looking at that, I'm like, man, I don't really want to sign up for doing something that's unjust or immoral. Right. And so when I saw, you know, what I was swearing the oath to and realized, you know, especially now reading through like how John Adams, who was an amazing Christian man, uh how he put together the Massachusetts Constitution that was the foundation for the US Constitution, you you read through all that stuff and you realize that this is something I can get behind. Because you understand human nature, you understand checks and balances, and you understand the corruption of power too. Um for me that led all the way down to if I'm on the boat and we've got to pull the trigger, am I gonna be okay doing that?

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Yeah. Yeah. Do you think there's any misconceptions out there uh uh of of submarines, sub-life?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

That's a big one. That one that I just mentioned. That's I'd say that's the number one thing that lands in the news all the time is you know, oh my gosh, the nuclear trigger. Um and it's because nuclear is sensationalized. It's like that word. The other interesting word. Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. And and uh and you know the other piece, and and this actually has civilian implications too, but um, you know, nuclear being inherently unsafe. Uh one of the most trippy things, there are a couple of things that were particularly trippy, like really kind of got in your head on the sub. Um one was when we had to send our torpedo men into the torpedo tube because the torpedo door, outer door, like the one that was between you and the sea, was fouled by the the tube that uh you know you used to launch a torpedo. So you're watching like seawater come in and like that's supposed to be outside. That's not supposed to be.

SPEAKER_02 19:45

Like at what rate?

SPEAKER_01 19:46

Uh not big enough to matter, but it's still But it's uh it's it it's supposed to be happening.

SPEAKER_02 19:51

Yeah. But it's still freaky.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

It's not supposed to be happening, but that is the right procedure. And it's not dangerous, but it's still weird because you're like, the whole point of these doors is supposed to keep the water out of the people tank. And I'm in the people tank and I'm looking at the water. Um so that was weird. That was one trippy thing.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:07

The other trippy thing was when you when you go off the continental shelf and you realize that uh as deep as we are, you're not even hitting a fraction of the depth of the ocean. You're sitting in 18,000 feet of water, and that was kind of a that's weird.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Um So explain that term real quick for uh I'm sure a lot of people won't know the the actual number, the continental shelf.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

What what is what has how many feet?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

About 600.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

It's right, it's it's it's a gradual slope as you come off of the Atlantic coast, and then there is just this massive.

SPEAKER_02 20:41

How far out off the coast is it, roughly?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I actually don't know. A few miles. Yeah. It's not it's not that far. It's closer than you think.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

It is?

SPEAKER_01 20:48

Yeah, it's closer than you think. Wow. So um it's not it's not that far.

SPEAKER_02 20:52

So you go you so you're going off of 600. Does anything feel differently when you get into the what is a non-continental shelf area called? Uh the deep area.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Is it off like a different flange? I mean, there's there's various, I guess there's various areas.

SPEAKER_02 21:06

Does anything feel differently? Pressure, I I don't know. Is it just business as usual? Probably going deeper.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

That's the thing. There's not it's funny because the job itself, you know, it's not that exciting. I mean, you're like I said, you're poking holes in the ocean, you're doing a mission that's being done for 75 years now. Yeah. The deterrence mission. It's it's fully baked. So you're out there operating, and it's stressful, and you got too many jobs to do not enough time to do it, and you're getting four hours of sleep at night. Yep. Um, oh, third trippy thing though, is this is one of the biggest misconceptions. That's sorry, I'd I'd totally get outside track. The um the third misconception is is that nuclear is inherently unsafe. And the trippy thing that I got to do was actually go in the in the reactor compartment and stand on top of the nuclear reactor when it was shut down.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

No way.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

And that was one of those like I'm I mean, it's right here. Like you can see how honestly how small it is.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

Just a small

SPEAKER_01 22:00

And you realize how much power's in there. I'd I read the stat yesterday. In one gram of uranium, you can get the equivalent of three tons of coal in terms of the power generation.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 22:12

Um anyway, so that was the that was the third trippy thing. But yeah, to your point, uh, you know, despite all those sort of trippy experiences, everything else is just business as usual. You don't even think about the fact that you're underwater, you're just doing the job because you have to. Yeah. Your biggest, your biggest choice is like, do I, you know, do I sleep, eat, and occasionally work out? And you're really trying to occasionally get those work out. So you got a gym. Uh gym's a strong word. You have you have stationary bikes and you have stationary bikes tucked between the missile tubes.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

You've got um between the missile tubes.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

Uh you got uh treadmills that are sitting in the back. And if you're in rough seas, you're like, you're kind of swerving trying to stay on the treadmill, and you've got a light that's sitting right here because there's just not much space. So me being a taller dude, I'm trying to run, stay on the treadmill and not hit my head on that. Not in your and so I just I I got I'd I was done with that quickly. So I went to the outboards, there was a uh a rowing machine. I'm like, all right, I'm strapped in and I'm on a track. I can at least do this.

SPEAKER_02 23:13

Beautiful. Yeah. Don't have to watch your head better.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah, exactly. And I had to watch my head everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

The whole sub, I would think. Oh, 100%. What's max like what's ma average max in a sub?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

So here's that's about it's about six. Like I was right at the max height, and there were guys that were taller than me. Oh my goodness. You know, my XO and my fellow JOs, they were 6'4, 6'5. Um But that was about as tall as you could be and still be even remotely comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 23:39

Hunching over all the time.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

And the hard part is not it's not even just vertical. It's actually when you're when you're getting into compartments, you're getting into tanks, you're doing all this stuff, you you make one wrong turn and you're gonna hit your head on something, and it's gonna clean your clock. Jeez. There's one time where I've, you know, I turned one way and hit my head on it, and I got frustrated and turned the other way, hit my head on something else. At that point, I was just like, just sit still. Just sit still. Because I was in a rage. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

So the I I know how massive the waves can be above.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

What is it like hundreds of feet under? So uh this was a really interesting experience. It's typically extremely quiet.

unknown 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

But one of the craziest things that we ran into when we were on mission is we actually we ended up uh that's a good question because we ended up underneath a hurricane. And what's what's wild, I just don't think I think folks have probably seen that Instagram Reel where you see the massive tanker just disappear into the wave. Yeah. And then come into the other side.

SPEAKER_00 24:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

Uh the power of the ocean is crazy. So we were sitting at 300 feet and we're taking 20 degree rolls because the hurricane over us is. Like left. You mean like left to right? Yep. Okay. Yeah, and you're doing your best to keep it steady. But um you think about you you think about 50 feet from from trough to peak on a wave. I mean, that's that is just massive.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

Massive.

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Yeah. So the power of a hurricane, like it's just you really can't wrap your mind around it. And at 300 feet, that's typically supposed to be steady going, period. If you're taking that big a roll as in a submarine as big as the one that we have. 300 with some serious movement.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

All right, give me this, give me the dimensions of the sub.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

So uh so keel to uh the uh turtle back, 44 feet, and that's about the length of a D5 missile. And that's they had to add a little bit on top of the actual hull to make sure that you could poke those things through. They had to adapt it.

SPEAKER_02 25:41

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Um that's to increase the range of the missile. It is um 534 feet long. I think that's correct. Uh basically, if you take the Washington monument, turn it sideways, that's the length of the submarine.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Of an SSBN. Uh the fast attacks are only 365 feet long, give or take. Yeah, I might be getting that number wrong, but that's about right.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

But range, yeah, range, right.

SPEAKER_01 26:06

Yeah. Oh, that's enormous. Yeah, it's it's floor-floor. So that was actually the the thing, is you don't realize how big they are. You know, most folks think it's claustrophobic, it's super cramped. And to some extent, yeah, but it's it's bigger than you think. You can walk around. Yeah. My captain used to do runs in missile compartment upper level. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Did you ever have did you ever have moments of claustrophobia?

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Doesn't bother you.

SPEAKER_02 26:30

It just doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

No, the I mean the closest I got, I almost I almost got seasick one time because we were taking rolls at Periscope Depth.

SPEAKER_00 26:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

And the issue, like if my eyes couldn't catch up with what the boat was doing. Yeah. And so I was feeling the boat rock in a certain way. I was looking at the horizon doing this, and I'm walking in circles on this on the periscope, and it was it was awful. I was like, I just I asked for relief to come and get me because I'm like, I gotta go way down.

SPEAKER_02 26:51

But that was, I mean, that's I think I'm seasick right here just listening to this shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Yeah, it was I mean that was the worst case scenario, but like I said, for the most part, it's it's kind of boring. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Did has a did you ever meet anybody that became claustrophobic during the job?

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Claustrophobia wasn't the issue, it was the stress. You you had guys who had been pushing themselves so hard for so long. Uh I'd say the biggest principle that you really gotta run into is you you have to be ruthless about prioritization, and you also, without saying no, you have to set the tone and set your own pace in a way where you can sus you can sustainably get qualified, add value, do the right things.

SPEAKER_02 27:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

Um you had some guys who, you know, that they're gonna no chief is ever gonna tell you that you can take your time, and no chief is ever gonna take their foot off the gas when they're telling you to get qualified. Or in my case, my you know, my department head or my captain, whoever's right. But everybody is pressuring you to no longer be that non-useful body. And uh as as such, you you don't necessarily push back, but you just do what you can in time. There are gates that you have to hit, you just hit the gates.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

You just hit them.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Um and so the thing that really washed some guys out, I I ran into one guy where we had to send him off board. Um it it's a kind of an ugly story, but he got uh he got really stressed out, was getting zero to two hours of sleep a night, and was pushing himself too hard because he really took that to heart and and started doing some self-harm things to stay awake. Uh and it was not, you know, just not good. So you you occasionally see that, but like I said, it's never you the guys who end up on the boat, you just you don't care that you're on a boat. You you care about the fact that you're getting no sleep and that you've got too much to do, not enough time to do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah. And you really like your brain gets to a point, you said, where you don't even really know you're on the boat.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Yeah, you're just doing the job. That's incredible. That's incredible. Yeah, and and there's some there's some cool moments though where like, you know, you know, like when you're going at at Periscope depth and you're about to come up, I mean, yeah, that that to me is one of the coolest experiences, being on the midwatch on the periscope. It's pitch black outside, you can't see anything in the ocean, and all you've got is your sonar readings to figure out where everybody is. Oh my gosh. And you're coming up and you're trying to figure out where the horizon is to make sure that whatever you're seeing is not a star and may actually be a surface ship. Um making that distinction is tough, but once you're up there, it's just so like quiet and peaceful. You're just doing your thing. You know, like I said, we're out in the middle of the Atlantic, not a lot of boats around.

SPEAKER_00 29:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:27

Um, and so it's it's pretty cool, and you can see every star in the sky at that point. That's kind of cool. Oh my gosh. But beyond that, yeah, I mean you just don't have any contact with the outside world. It's you're just doing the job. Yeah. You know?

SPEAKER_02 29:41

So when you when you surface, is it just at the beginning of the mission at the or and the end, or are there periods throughout it that you come up and down?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

You'll come up and down to to do um you'll you'll pick up, you know, food, right? Or or personnel.

SPEAKER_02 29:57

Where at? Like what somebody delivers it out to the ocean? Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

They'll bring it to you. And what it's it is kind of funny in that case, because uh if the seas are a little bit rough, I mean, they'll literally they'll take a prowl and they'll just drop it between the two ships and you're going side by side. It's pretty dangerous. Um and you've got a whole line of guys. There, there's nothing automated. You don't have a conveyor belt. You've just got an entire line of guys going all the way down the hatch where they're just passing stuff across. And it's uh and it's comical because once you finish up, you look down there and you see that there's just like eggs and heads of lettuce and all this stuff because guys dropped it, and it's just scattered all over the bottom of the uh, you know, below the LET. Yeah. Um stuff like that. But like, but yeah, I mean it's all it's all manual, and you're just passing that stuff across trying to get fresh stuff because you haven't had fresh food in you know weeks at that point.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

How do you stay safe around or does that not matter?

SPEAKER_01 30:50

No, that's that's the purpose of the the the you have an escort and they're they're the ones who keep you safe.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Okay. Is that a government kind of escort? Military escort? Absolutely of some sort? They're in the water or they're up in the air.

SPEAKER_01 31:02

Uh yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

And it and it depends on the situation, depends on where you are. There's different security protocols for different locations, all that stuff. You know, sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's not, but you basically come up, you get your stuff, you go back down as fast as possible. You're we're not meant to be on the surface.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Right. You are you you're detectable when you're on the surface? Exactly. And you're not what you're made to be under, because that's where you're undetected.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

You're a you're a big hard target. You want to put out a radar pin, you can find us.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

So so the th then you finish that mission, and when you get when you get back to um it's Kings Bay, right? Yep. And you s come up for the first time. Do you really get that like when you come outside of the the sub are you just can't wait to get up there? Glory. Or does it not even matter? Okay. Glorious. So tell me about that. What?

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 31:52

Uh what do you miss the most? Like what do you want to get up there for the most?

SPEAKER_01 31:56

Other than the excuse me. Other than the fresh air and just getting to be outside, seeing the sun, being in it, like there, there's a level of um satisfaction of driving on the surface. There's just nothing like it. Yeah. And especially when you're the only one up there with your with your lookout. I mean, it's you finally feel like the world is just kind of beneath you, right? Like that everything down there just doesn't matter, and all you're doing is just staying the course and keeping the boat safe. Yeah. But you just don't have as many factors to think of. When you're when you're submerged, you're thinking in 3D, constantly vigilant about everything. That stress level, it it's it's not even low grade stress the whole time. It's it's what's gonna hit me next, what's gonna break, which drill are we gonna have to pay attention to, which alarms are gonna go off, and you know, am I actually in the water I need to be in? So you're paying attention to navigation, communications, engineering systems, and everything on the boat is interconnected. And so you've got to know the thing front to back. The reason you have to do all those checkouts to be qualified, you've got to know how every single interdependency operates on the boat.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

Um, because it's one of the most comp it's one of the most complex machines on earth. Um, and you're you're learning everything from uh physics to chemistry to navigation to you know rules of the road. You've got to learn surfaced, submerged, import, out of port, all of it.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

How do you not hit something? Like what what what's what goes off if you have a huge sunken ship ahead of you? When does it go off? How does it go off? Is there a will the whole sub shut off if you're in danger of really truly hitting something? How does all that work so uh that stress is unbelievable?

SPEAKER_01 33:40

Thank God, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

In black water. We're in black water. Correct.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

And and you've got um, you know, and because we can't make noise, right? Like you can't be putting active out in the water to figure out what's in front of you. Um there's there's some some rough incidents that have occurred. I mean, you can see what happened to the USS San Francisco. Um what happened? It got it the entire the entire sonar dome got crushed because they hit an underwater mountain going flank. And it was uncharted. Um you know, you go back and every every post mortem reveals something that you could have used as an indicator. But in that case, I mean you're talking a huge ocean. Um the amount of time it's gonna take us to map the whole ocean is is crazy, even with today's technology. They're not even close. And so these guys were booking it to to get back to, I think San Diego, I can't remember. Um, and if you've got an underwater mountain, that thing just rose up. You you can't find that fast enough. So in some cases, you just don't.

SPEAKER_02 34:46

And what happened to the shi what happened to it?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Uh I mean, well, here's the crazy thing. This is how resilient these submarines are, is they were able to surface and get back home. They had tons of injuries, they had one sailor that passed away. Um, but for them to only have suffered that in that level of a catastrophic event was crazy. Um and so for us, you know, that goes into your chart preparation. The navigation, yeah, the navigator and the captain, they're certainly they are responsible for making sure that they mark out every single hazard. And so you know full well exactly where you can and can't go every time you go up there, and every time you turn over the watch, you're doing checks to make sure you know where you are, what's around you, and got it, all these other all these other sort of things that are in place to make sure you're staying safe.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

What are some things that are like crazy that are in the water on those charts? Is that like I I know like sunken vessels and stuff like that, but what what's crazy?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Is there any those are the honestly we stay away from anything that might even resemble a sunken vessel, right? Like, because we're operating in the depths that we're operating in, yeah. Um like I said, the crazy thing is looking down and realizing you're in 3,000 fathoms of water. That's 18,000 feet. That that is the craziest thing that we operate under. Now when you're talking about that's crazy. If you ever get a chance to talk to a fast attack sailor, those guys did those guys did the crazy missions. They were off the coast of Country X listening to communications from A to B.

SPEAKER_02 36:17

Um in crazy deep water.

SPEAKER_01 36:20

Or crazy shallow water, depending. Um they had to pay they had to pay attention. We as far as navigation goes, boomer sailors have it easy. Um, a lot of guys talk about being fast boat tough, and and they earned it. They really did. Yeah. Uh we had two crews, you know, we had a a fairly easy mission. Right. Um fairly simple and straightforward, I should say. I mean, it's still stressful, but a lot of times it's error. You know, you're you're playing for peacetime, you're not necessarily doing the hard work.

SPEAKER_02 36:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Uh, you know, those guys are like they're they're operating where there's 30 ships around you. You're trying not to get hit, you're in shallow water, and you're still trying to do the mission. And it's it's hard. That's hard. It sounds hard. So that's way more. You take our stress level, you take it up a notch, that's where those guys have to be.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

What's what's the thing when you're hundreds of feet underwater? The absolute biggest fear. Just one.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

A bad out-of-control fire. One that somebody doesn't catch in time. Um and you know, I wasn't even thinking about that. Yeah. Uh like you're you're operating on borrowed oxygen, right? You're making your own oxygen, you're clearing your own CO2, you've got, you know, AC units that are cooling everything down, which, you know, even for that, that's kind of funny. Like in the engine room, yeah, uh, if you shut down the AC with all that heat from all all the you know steam systems, it'll get to 110, 120 degrees.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Can anything shut the AC down or is there like backup after backup after backup after backup?

SPEAKER_01 37:54

There's a backup, but at some point you just kind of tolerate it until you can get it back up. Um it's it's weird. I told you about all those redundant systems and how interconnected everything is. The AC units are uh they're pretty dang important for everything else that's going on. Sure. You really don't realize how many things require it. Yeah. Uh electronics, you know, all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 38:14

Yeah. Um things you take for granted.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

Yeah, exactly. But uh but to the point about um, you know, worst case scenario, you have a very, very tiny window to put a fire out before it sucks up the oxygen and you are and all that heat rises up to basically you know boil whatever's there. Red. Uh so we we drilled we drilled that over and over and over and over again to make sure that that wasn't gonna happen.

SPEAKER_02 38:41

And is that just physically looking?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Like like how you've got watchstanders in every space. Um the the manning requirements on a submarine are well above and beyond what you would have on like a typical commercial surface ship nowadays. Sure. I mean those things are crazy. You can you can run a surface ship, a massive surface ship on a skeleton crew. On a submarine, you've got guys touring these spaces all the time. And we are constantly trained where uh like uh noticing what types of fire could occur, um, noticing if you smell an acrid odor to call it in immediately. Uh what's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 39:14

Do you ever smell anything? Yeah. Yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Yeah. And you and what's interesting is the f the first thing you do is not go address the fire. The first thing you do is get on the horn and tell everybody what's going on so that you can spread the word and get everybody involved. And you swarm the thing. You swarm the problem.

SPEAKER_02 39:30

What'd you smell?

SPEAKER_01 39:31

Uh it's it's like an acrid metallic, like it's a nasty odor. I don't know if you've ever smelled like a wire burning or insulation burning, but that's what it smells like.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Yeah. And did it turn out to be a fire?

SPEAKER_01 39:42

Yeah. Uh it was small and we caught it in time, thank God. And is it just now usually with electrical fires, all you have to do is just shut it off. Okay. You still, you just don't take chances because that thing can flare up. And what's what's interesting is every they kind of say like, um, you know, it's it's cool. On surface ships, they've got divisions that are dedicated to damage control. On submarines, every submariner is also a firefighter. Um, so we'd we'd suit up, get in the full fire gear, know how to man hoses, know exactly how to check for hot spots. Um it was like a trained firefighter.

SPEAKER_02 40:17

Wow. Things we would never know on the outside. I would never have known that.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Yeah, no, and it was it was interesting because we did it. We did coordinate with the fire department at one point to see if we could actually do it, and the comms were a mess. But um, but we did figure out how to work through that. And yeah, I mean you realize like it's it's important. You gotta you gotta know what's going on, and that's where that hypervigilance comes from. Because if you just if you're not on top of it, you can just really screw up not just not just you, but the whole boat.

SPEAKER_02 40:45

Right. Right. Now, for the craziest thing I've I've ever heard, and I've been around, I've been in the clearance world myself. Yeah, right. But this takes it up another notch, and it's not classified. We talked about this before. Yeah, the training of marine life to keep our Navy and I'm sure other branches of the military safe. What is this all about? This is crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

It's it's one of the coolest features. It it kind of shows you like God's design is superior every day. Yeah. Um port, uh, you know, one of the fears is that you've got a a diver who may swim in undetected. Um, you can't hear them. No matter how good you think the human systems are, you can't hear them. Yeah. And they they actually trained uh dolphins and I believe it's sea lions, dolphins and sea lions to detect the uh divers below the surface. Um incredible. And they're they are amazing. And they they literally have they have trainers who are taking care of these animals and they're phenomenal at what they do.

SPEAKER_02 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

Um, you know, some of them like you know, there was one that came in from Sea Sea World, and your animal's your animal. So yeah, she she trained it to do all kinds of tricks and fun stuff. Um but ultimately, yeah, you're you're training that animal to to mark the diver so that they can pull that diver up. And you know, the ones who really lose out in that situation are the Navy SEALs who have to train against it. Um they'll send in, they'll send guys in to uh to test them. And these animals are not gentle. So um, yeah, so they're but they're out there because their sonar, their ability to detect divers underwater is far superior to anything else we could do. So yeah, they they train them.

SPEAKER_02 42:31

So that so this is more of a question. So that a sea line, uh uh a dolphin, they can detect for the good, but we're also training them to detect for the bad. And that's a so we're doing both.

SPEAKER_01 42:47

That's their purpose, exactly. Yeah. That's they're they're looking out for anybody who wants to do something malicious to uh a submarine underwater.

SPEAKER_02 42:54

So and that could come in the form, and that's opened my eyes now. So that can come in the form of diverse King's Bay or let's just use King's Bay, coming through that channel, right, underwater with anything on them to cause harm.

SPEAKER_01 43:12

And you know. That animal's gonna detect that and then they'll mark them, they'll tell them where they are, and they'll they'll find a way to go get them. Um it's so awesome. But it's uh that's one of the that's one of the crazier things. When I learned about that, it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

What what is it like being a king, just in general, Kings Bay? So if anybody out there that's listening to this doesn't know Kings Bay, there's two nuclear submarine bases, did you tell me in the country?

SPEAKER_01 43:37

Oh, I'm sorry. Uh no, there's um there's multiple. So you've got you've got uh gr so you've got two boomer bases. And one of them is um out in Washington and Bremerton. Okay. Uh and then one of them is in Kings Bay. Kings Bay. So there are there are I want to say four other fast stack bases.

SPEAKER_02 43:55

Okay. Maybe Boomer being what's the what's Boomer?

SPEAKER_01 43:59

Boomer is an Ohio class, right now it's Ohio class, about to be Columbia class, they're turning them over soon.

SPEAKER_02 44:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 44:04

But those are the ones that that are uh capable of carrying nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

Okay. Capable of carrying. Okay, so what is Grant in Connecticut? What would that be considered? Fast attack.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

So those are the ones who are doing the you know the big sexy mission, you know, the only stuff I'm talking about. Not they're nuclear powered, not nuclear armed.

SPEAKER_02 44:24

Not nuclear armed. Correct. You were on nuclear powered and nuclear armed?

SPEAKER_01 44:28

Nuclear capable. Nuclear capable. We may or may not have had nuclear weapons. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

Got it. Makes sense. What is what's it like going on Kings Bay? The base itself.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

It's uh oh incredible. A lot of security.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Um from boating up and down those waters between there and Jekyll Island many, many times.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Yeah, you got signs up there that say deadly force is authorized.

SPEAKER_02 44:52

It's frightening when you look over and you see the gun the gunboats out there. Yeah, and they're gonna be able to do it. Because you know they're they'll use it.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

They're they're bored 19-year-old Marines, and the good news is these guys are uh they're extremely professional. You know, they know what they're doing, they also they know what they're about. Yeah. Um, and so you'll always have somebody who ignores the sign. They'll lock down the base and they'll you know, you gotta pull the hatches shut and all this stuff, but it's some kayaker who ended up on someplace they shouldn't. Yeah. Uh and that poor guy is in for a surprise because he's about to have, you know, a 50 caliber gunboat coming his way from the Coast Guard with a bunch of marines surrounding him.

SPEAKER_02 45:31

So how do you know? This is what always blew our mind going up and down. And I'm talking we've been up and down a hundred times, not once or twice.

SPEAKER_00 45:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

How I never able to figure this out. They have to know my vessel before I even get up there, right? From a distance. Let's call it a mile, a half mile. Okay. So let's just say they could see by binoculars and they can run my run my numbers. Okay, got it. But I would have to think with all the technology out there, they know even more than that. Do they know what?

SPEAKER_01 46:06

I don't know that.

SPEAKER_02 46:07

Like, so let's use the kayaker for a second.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:10

Looks harmless, but that's how they present. They look to fit in by right. That kayaker looks innocent coming in there, but who makes the final decision to go, okay, he has no bomb on board?

SPEAKER_01 46:22

So that's what's interesting. Um now that's gonna go up the chain to where they finally clear the area.

SPEAKER_00 46:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:28

But what's cool, and this is actually a submarine principle too, um, no matter how junior you are, it is your it's not uh on submarines we call it forceful watch team backup. And this is I I think this is one of the coolest things about it is um you empower your most junior person to speak up if they think something is wrong. If they're wrong, they learn, but if they're right, they're right and it matters. And in that case, you've got, you know, if somebody sees something, it's their duty to go out there and get it. So I th there's nothing complex. To my knowledge, there's nothing complex. They keep a perimeter, you come inside the perimeter, you can get in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Uh generally speaking, it's you know, not a big deal. Um but you know, they've there are some there's some interesting calls to where even with folks who are like protesting, um, there are some folks who have ended up in classified areas that should not be there. Not not classified areas, but uh restricted areas. Restricted, yeah, yeah, yeah. And these guys do have to make a judgment call, and then typically the judgment call is the right one. Yeah. Um, but you've got protesters who are out there just being crazy and irresponsible. Um and so they that's what they have to contend with. We don't. I mean, we're you know, we're we're on the boat, right? That's yeah, you know, but the the Marines and the guys who who and the Coast Guard who keep us safe, yeah, uh, they've got a hard job too, you know, and it's typically pretty dang boring. That's what's hard, is you've got to stay vigilant. 3 a.m. and you're looking at nothing. It's quiet, right? And that's all you're doing. It's boring duty, but if you don't do it well and you don't do it right, yeah, you it's it's you only have to fail once.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

I only have to fail once, that's right. Yeah. Then they've gotta only be right once, yeah. Exactly. The attacks. So Okay. What's something you learned about human behavior in confined spaces? With all men, I would guess, right? 100% male?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Ours was.

SPEAKER_02 48:26

And and ours was. Everybody's type A. Right. I mean It's a driven, it's a driven bunch. But everybody's mission focused.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

The most professional guys I've ever worked with. Okay. Incredible. You know. Um, you know, and I came through with the first female submarine officers, they were uh equally amazing. Yeah. Um but uh bottom line, they're the most they are the most professional men that I've ever worked with. They are phenomenally knowledgeable. When it's time to go heads down, they go heads down.

SPEAKER_02 49:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Uh you really realize that like I keep making this point about how you just don't think about where you are and what you're doing. And I think what you figure out about human nature is you're just extremely adaptable. Um you can handle way more than you think you can. Uh and when you've got a goal in mind, when you've got a mission set in mind, um you know, like to some extent, yeah, it's boring sometimes, but everybody knows the stakes. Yeah. And you you find pretty quickly that uh when you've got everybody marching in the same direction and everybody keyed in on what needs to happen, and more than anything, you realize uh this is actually one of the interesting lessons, is I realized um, you know, as an officer, I stepped on board and I'm like 25 years old, I know nothing, and they immediately give me a division that I'm responsible for uh not only holding accountable, making sure they're on schedule, all that stuff. They know more than I do, they can then walk circles around me. They're submarine qualified. Like, what are you giving me a division for?

SPEAKER_00 49:59

You're charging guys.

SPEAKER_01 50:01

And really, yeah, and what's interesting is you realize that our job as officer was never about power, it was about playing the role that we're given with the authority that we're given to make sure that we are empowering our guys to do the work that they need to and making sure that we are the conduit from you know top to bottom, whatever that looked like. Whatever. So communication was everything for us. Um the separation didn't matter, and eventually you get to know what to look for because they will always know more about their systems than you do, and they'll always be able to, you know, they're they'll just they can run circles around you from where they stand because they've been doing this for 10 years on the same systems. But you get a really good eye for what to ask and what to look for. And it's that sort of uh think like CEO discernment where you really got to key in on the right question to ask at the right time with the right tone to make sure that everybody's aligned and moving in the right direction. Right. You'll never be uh if you're a CEO, you'll never be as good as your best accountant, but you don't need to be. You don't need to be, right? You need to maintain the right perspective. So what I learned about authority, what I learned about being an officer is uh it was completely and totally about playing your role well. Because uh I was reticent at first to give orders. I thought that was like that's that's a little uppity of me, you know.

SPEAKER_02 51:25

To be sure, 25 years old.

SPEAKER_01 51:27

Yeah, exactly. Um and what I came to realize that was so key was these guys not only uh expected it from me, in fact, they would our chiefs, the best ones, would prompt me and say, Sir, I need you to give me an order. I need you to tell me where we need to go right now. They may even have the right answer, but until I said the word, they would not move. And it was specifically because in in that role where I was conduit, I had the big picture in mind. I understood what was going on more broadly. Yeah and these guys needed to know what they needed to do in that context uh and trust that I knew what I was doing, so that when they were working on their individual system, they were doing so with somebody else keeping Overwatch on the broader big picture. It was a cool lesson to learn. It was really cool because it taught me what that looks like. Where it's not about being more important. Their role was arguably more important than I was, you know, despite the fact that I was an officer in the big picture.

SPEAKER_02 52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Um but we all had to do exactly what we were put there to do. Right. Uh and obviously there's a there's an analogy as a Christian walking in your calling. Yeah, you you play your role, whether it's at the bottom or at the top, but you play it well and you play it to the glory of God, um, you realize like that that is your job in life, you know? It's not about reaching and it's not about grabbing for more power money, you name it.

SPEAKER_02 52:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

It's about walking in that calling and in that role you're designed for.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

So incredible. How how long is the is the station for the responsibility, the duty? Is it do you have to get out after a year, two years?

SPEAKER_01 53:04

Uh so you do a three-year tour. Um, to do three?

SPEAKER_02 53:07

Yeah. Okay. Can you do more than three?

SPEAKER_01 53:10

You can, but you don't, I mean you gotta get a break. There were there were guys where the you know, the phrase was the the competent shall be punished. Um and so if you were That's great, if you were good at your job, like you bar the door, you're staying around, sorry. Uh and because there are constantly personnel issues with like getting enough folks into the submarine community, yeah, finding a relief, it was really it was especially hard for the good engineers and the department head positions. Yeah um because those guys, like if you're good, you you'll stick around for four, eight months more. And a lot of times it's promises made, promises not kept, needs of the navy. And that is needs of the navy. Yeah, exactly. And so um, you know, if you don't if you don't understand your why and you don't understand that you and you haven't surrendered to the fact that you really don't have a say in that, um, I mean you you do, right? You have some say.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 54:03

But not uh ultimately it's up to them. Um if you haven't surrendered to that, you'll drive yourself crazy. Sure. Uh and so yeah, but 36 months is a typical sea tour.

SPEAKER_02 54:12

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And as far as emergencies, so can anything happen underwater that you would have to go up for? And what are those? Are there only one, two, three, or is it sort of there are there are a few.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Uh typically that's where you want to land this better. You know, I mentioned the fire, I mentioned some other some other situations.

SPEAKER_02 54:33

Did you go up for the fire, or you handle that down at down at a couple hundred feet? It depends. Okay. It totally depends. So if it's bad enough, you go up, or what what dictates going up, I guess?

SPEAKER_01 54:43

Uh the the severity, the timing, and whether or not you can get whatever the casualty is under control. There there are so many contingencies. So here's here's what's interesting is that you know, to to some extent, I'm not sure how much I can answer with that. But what I can tell you is um there has there are books upon books of uh casualties, emergencies, and every single sailor on board knows their role and their immediate actions. So first thing you do is understand, you've got to identify the casualty, notify everybody on board of what's going on, and then immediately you're on your immediate actions. And you don't open the book for that, you do them automatically. So if you don't have them memorized, then or if you misidentify the casualty and go down the wrong path, it can be pretty serious pretty fast.

SPEAKER_02 55:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

It just complicates everything, and it's already complicated.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 55:36

So what's cool about that is there are dozens of things that can go wrong with hundreds of of systems and things in place. Um and so it it's I mentioned that these guys are the most professional people I've ever worked with. They're just phenomenal. Um, you know those by heart. And looking back on how extensive, like you know, how extensively we knew the boat front to back and do all those immediate actions, it was it was a lot, you know, it's kind of a wonder we survived it.

SPEAKER_02 56:07

Yeah. Is there a doctor on board?

SPEAKER_01 56:10

Ish. Um you you have a uh a Navy corpsman. So we had an E7, uh a Navy chief. Um so he's a doctor-ish. Uh and this my mom finds this fascinating. I think it's hilarious. But if uh if you needed to do some kind of a surgery or whatever, typically you try and get that person off the boat. But if you're on mission and you can't do anything about it, he's trained to do essentially like I think like nurse practitioner.

SPEAKER_00 56:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:36

Um so knows as much as he needs to to kind of keep everybody safe. Uh, but the the piece about my mom, the the the thing she found most fascinating, there's nowhere to do an operation. So what you actually end up doing is you take the officer's um eating quarters, right? The the ward um the officer's wardroom, yeah, you pull off the Nog Hide cover and there's a stainless steel table, and you literally turn it into a surgery table. And those lights overhead are powerful enough that you can actually do it there. So if you need to do what you need to do, then that's that's how you do it.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

So stitches, all that stuff. They're doing all that there. Some things they'll take you up for. Yep. Um what about something major? Like uh hopefully it's never happened before. Anybody ever suffered like a heart attack down there?

SPEAKER_01 57:21

People have died underwater. Um I don't know about a heart attack. I haven't heard anything.

SPEAKER_02 57:25

Uh like dying from an injury from or or dying of a health uh both.

SPEAKER_01 57:31

It's bottom line is it's happened. Yeah. Um and it's weird, but you stick them in the freezer until you can get them home. Yeah. Um, you know, and it's uh because it's a it's a safety issue too, right? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 57:44

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

But yeah, you've got you've got one corpsman on board and they're taking care of everybody and whatever it is. And like you're extremely limited in what you can uh in pr prescribe too. And you can't give narcotics, right? You can't give any sort of uh painkillers, etc. etc. Like why is that? Uh because you've got to be able to operate the sub. I mean, there there are so many restricted medicines that you just can't do. Oh my gosh. And so you know, the you go through this whole questionnaire of what are your required meds, and certain things will wash you out just for medical purposes.

SPEAKER_02 58:11

Really? Yeah. I mean, what like what what what would be something that would wash you out?

SPEAKER_01 58:15

Oh gosh. I want to say, um, I can't remember. I want to say things like Adderall. I I I think Okay. But I, you know, I didn't have to deal with this, but I knew that there were some guys who that was just the nature of it.

SPEAKER_02 58:27

Let's just say you have blood pressure medication. Sure. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 58:30

So if you're if you have certain things that you're absolutely dependent on, like certain things I think you're okay with. And honestly, I think this list changes over time too. Sure. So I'm honestly not even the best person.

SPEAKER_02 58:38

What about like vision and stuff like that? You know, the the guys that are flying have to have I don't even know if that's verified. They gotta have 2020. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

They can now get LASIK. My understanding is they can actually get LASIK, and as long as they don't have to wear glasses, they're good.

SPEAKER_02 58:52

That's what it was for us. So we had to get LASIK, it'd be you had to be 2060 or better uncorrected. Did you have to do that? So phone number?

SPEAKER_01 59:00

This this is actually an interesting story. I almost washed out of OCS. And if it wasn't for my uncle uh coming back to me and telling me, like, they're full of crap, you need to go press them on this, and you need to get tested again. I actually failed. I I failed the dot test. Uh it's and then I also failed what's called the phalan test. Um I'm I am uh blue-green colorblind, but only in some shades. For like very, very limited, right? But you know, at OCS, under stress and with l no no sleep, you're you know, my eyes, I guess they just weren't working. I don't know what the deal was, I'll be honest. Um but a requirement for the Navy is you have to be able to see red and green because port and starboard. You need to see the aspect of a ship at sea.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

And if it all looks grey to you, you can't tell if the ship's going that way or that way is a huge safety of ship issue. So uh I almost washed out and I went back and got retested, passed, good to go.

SPEAKER_02 59:59

Um But you failed that.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

I failed it initially. They almost put me in an Intel shore-bound duty.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:06

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:07

And what so I don't understand your uncle helped with what part of it?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

I called him and he basically well, he kicked me in the tail and said, Go get them, go force them to retest you. And just a retest. Like don't let don't take it, is what he said. It was a false negative, did you say?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:20

Or false positive, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

It might have been a false positive at the time. Um to be honest. But I I knew I knew that I'm not red, green, colorblind. Yeah. And I'm sitting here looking at, you know, again, if the Navy has a say, you're just like, well, you know, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:35

Um, so that was that was actually a a gut check. I forgot about that until you just mentioned it. But it was kind of a gut check for me where I'm like, man, I was in this to do submarines and now I'm gonna be, I don't know, sitting behind a set of death, right? Um and so my uncle kicking me in the tail and saying, go tell them to test you again and make sure they do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Uh that was a game changer.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:55

What was he in your in your life? Was he um like a just a mentor or was he more?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

He commissioned me. He, I mean, I swore my my oath of office. He he committed he was a he's a C5 pilot. Or was a C Pi pilot. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:06

The galaxy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

So he was always doing that. He just he's somebody I just respect immensely. Yeah. Okay. Amazing man, high integrity.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Um So he knew being in and around the military to tell you to go, and I would think almost every human being on earth would have accepted a failed if it was just up to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

They would have thought, well, this is my fate.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:27

Well, that's a huge pivot point in your whole life.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

Yeah. Agency. What's a game changer? Turns out you have a say.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

What else did you have to get right to get on there or or or or pass? What other kind of physical did you were you able to have like metal in your body? What if you I have metal plate in my foot? Would they let me on there?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

So uh I believe you yeah, you'd be fine.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

So I had a uh a back injury when I was at 21 from water skiing of all the things. Yeah. Um hurting a rupture two discs in my lower back. And and I had to get a waiver to get into the Navy in the first place. And my, you know, it was a my orthopaedic surgeon, um you know, he gave me the waiver and basically said you're cleared for everything but seals. And I'm like, well, I wasn't gonna be a seal anyway, so um. But yeah, no, you I mean you can you can generally get through. I don't think it's that restrictive.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:18

Um but yeah, there are certain things you just can't tolerate. I mean, an interesting one is sleepwalking. You're not allowed to be, you know, if you sleepwalk, if you're known for sleepwalking, you can't be on a boat. Uh surface ship is more dangerous because you could go overboard. Go overboard. But um you know, on subs, if you're sleepwalking doing operations that you're not supposed to do, you know, I guess that's the danger. I had never met anybody that was sleepwalking, but that's one of the things they ask about.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Rough water, sleepwalking, sure, yeah, in your head, that's all steel and yeah. Okay. Incredible.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:49

Yeah, super cool stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:51

Thanks, man. Absolutely. You have a great story. Appreciate you coming on.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:55

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:56

You you will get people that want to ask you questions. Can I put your handle on here?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

Instagram or and everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:03

Actually, I'm not even on social media. So, um, but I'll, you know, I'll we'll have to drop it in the comments or I'll field them and get them over to you, especially with these niche government positions.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:13

I find um we'll I'll get tons of DMs and stuff like that. Hey, can you ask him this? Can you ask him that? My son wants to get in, but he has this. What do you suggest? All those kind of things, because man, your federal government time was awesome. So and thank you for your service.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

I appreciate it. Always always overlook that. We can't overlook the fact that you do the secret service for a while. It's uh it's a grind, it's totally worth it, but no, there's there's something to it. I got way more out of it than I gave.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:42

I can hear you miss a l in an area, you miss a part of it. Yeah, that structure, that leadership all that that just goes together.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

So yeah, it's it's the intensity and the mission. Yeah. You know, you know you know you're doing something very real. Uh and it's yeah, it there's a part of you that misses it, but right now the mission is, you know, take care of the family. Kids. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Raise 'em. Take care of the wife first, take care of the kids second. They need dads. But a hundred percent trying to make make that work and and do it in a God honoring way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

Yeah. Appreciate it, ma'am. Thanks.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:14

Nope, absolutely.