ORSE - pt 1 Department: Rx Author: Mike Garnett Era: 1981 Date: 01/06/05 We were standing 4 + 8 watches for an ORSE board. I had the 8-12 CG Upper level watch. And like Pete, I was regularly being relieved late. After a while I had had enough of this, so I got my hands on a report chit. I filled it out accusing my relief of being “UA from his appointed place of duty”. I put a fair amount of time into it so this thing looked perfect. All it lacked was a signature by the Watch Supervisor. When 2400 rolled around and my relief was late again, I made the usual call back to berthing to roust him out of bed, then I proceeded to fill out the 0000 entry for the new days logsheet. When my relief arrived, I gave him a regular turnover on the watchstation and went to bed. When it came time to do the 0100 log readings, there were, as usual, Out Of Spec readings which were required to be circled in Red. The guy goes to the “Hear Here” booth drawer to get the red pen, and guess what he finds? He never relieved me late again.

Laundry Day Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1980 Date: 01/06/05 Twice a week the berthing PO's would bring back the crew's laundry and dump it on the floor (presumably after sweeping the floor) - Then everyone (except for the skate-sleazebags) would spend the next half hour grabbing clothes and tossing them on their owner's rack. We had one sailor (Mark Lindahl) who was a very "jumpy" sleeper. The sadists amongst us (ie. me) would take great pleasure in sneaking up to this poor bastard's rack while he was sleeping and aiming for his head when tossing in his laundry... He would spend the next 45 seconds "fighting" his laundry. It was more entertaining than watching WIKE TV - in fact I would dig through the laundry pile specifically looking for his laundry. Supposedly the reason he was so jumpy is that while he was in Nuke school, he had the top rack in his berthing. While he would be sleeping, his drunken roomates would come back from the bars, grab him by the hands and feet and fling him from the top rack down to the bottom rack.

"Underway" articles Department: Medical Author: John Era: 1982 Date: 01/08/05 Looking at the article announcing Khadaffi's threat to sink IKE brings back mnay memories of those days in the Med. I was onboard IKE at that time and remember this particular article very well. I still have in my possession some of the brochures listing upcoming ports of call during our Med cruises. I'll bet there aren't too many of these still lying around.

"James Stewart' visits IKE Department: Medical Author: John Era: 1982 Date: 01/08/05 Does anyone recall Jimmy Stewart's (the actor) visit to IKE in 1983? We were ported in Naples Italy and I believe he had been vacationing in Spain. He was invited to tour IKE during our stay in Naples. During our two week stay in Italy, I spent two weeks at the Naval Hospital learning how to prescribe eye glasses and carry out eye examinations. I came back to fleet landing one night to grab one of those famous IKE sliders, and was informed by a friend that Stewart had visited the ship that day. As he is my favorite actor, I thought my friend was simply yanking my chain. When learned that Stewart did in fact visit IKE, I was devastated. Several years later, when I got out of the Navy, I bought an 8 x 10 picture of Stewart and sent to his house with a letter explaining my story of how I had missed his visit to our ship. He was kind enough to autograph that picture for me. To this very day, It remains one of my most treasure possessions., John

Jigsaw Puzzles Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1982 Date: 01/08/05 3 guys in my division (Jeff, Robby, and ???) stayed up all night one time assembling a jigsaw puzzle - they were having great fun - laughing, carrying on, etc. They were in an office on the 02 level away from any berthing so weren't disturbing anyone's sleep. The reason they were having such a great time was that all 3 of them were tripping on acid. Now, the great thing about being on IKE was that you could pretty much avoid the senior officers - but for some reason that night the damn CO was out walking around at 3am. He decided to stop in and visit these guys since they were having such a great time - told them how much he enjoyed puzzles, etc. It was all these poor bastards could do to maintain - - -

Greenpeace Department: Rx Author: Mike Matthys Era: 1988 Date: 01/10/05 While on the 1988 Med Cruise, Greenpeace apparently had a problem with nuclear ships anchoring in med ports. We were headed into Palma, Majorca when Greenpeace decided that their little piece of crap boat would try to cut us off. This, of course, didn't work and Ike just kept steaming along. This didn't seem to deter the greenpeacers -- they decided that it would be a great idea to, once Ike anchored, climb the anchor chains and spray paint the side of the ship. The one thing that they didn't count on was the detachment of marines we had on board and some high pressure fire hoses. As the "activists" started climbing the anchor chain, they got about half way up before the marines blasted them off with the hoses. It sure was funny watching these guys go tumbling into the med. As the Navy likes to "name" everything, this was called "Operation Waterfall". When we heard "Operation Waterfall" announced, we all ran to the flight deck to watch the fun. The marines had a blast!

Collision at sea Department: Rx Author: Mike Matthys Era: 1988 Date: 01/10/05 The USS Eisenhower had completed the 1988 Med Cruise without an accident and was returning to Norfolk. We squids were manning the rails in celebration of this joyous day. The slugs from Rx department who were not on watch in the plants were manning the rails on the starboard side and, all of a sudden, the squids from the port side started running towards us. We had no idea what was going on but a few seconds later we heard a loud "Crunch" and Ike suddenly stopped. It felt like the ship had run aground. What actually happened was that whoever was "driving" the boat did not take into account the current conditions that day. As Ike started to turn to head towards the piers, the current pushed the ship right into a Spanish oiler that was anchored in the harbor. The bow of the Spanish ship opened up the side of Ike like a can opener -- doing about 3 million dollars of damage. This all happened in full view of the crew's family and friends. Our commanding officer, Capt. Gary Beck, was gone the next day. We never saw him again.

Incident Reports Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1983 Date: 01/10/05 The full incident report of IKE's collision is at: Report The basic cause was the CO wanted to arrive at a specific time... so the IKE was just crawling through the channel (Ahead 1/3 @ 15RPM) consequently very little manueverability. A stiff breeze coming athwart ships plowed IKE into that hapless freighter. I remember having to write up a few incident reports myself on IKE. In writing a report, the primary goals were: Make sure neither you nor any of your buds caught shit. If possible - blame another division, yard-birds, or the equipment itself for the incident. Fill out the section "Actions taken to prevent future incidents" as completely and imaginatively as possible. - this was to keep some meddlesome person from recommending their own set of actions... (ie. More training, punishment, complete overhauls etc.) - the last thing we needed was more training or more work!

Qualifying ESWS on IKE Department: Rx Author: Peter Era: 1983 Date: 01/10/05 As many of you remember - to qualify just about anything on IKE, one had to get a qual card signed off, take a test and then go through a board. And the qual card for ESWS was a pretty thick book (50 pages or so). Many sailors in my dept. had great intentions of quallifying ESWS and would start to get their qual cards signed off. Eventually they would lose interest and get discharged without ever having quallified. It was a shame to let those partially filled in qual books go to waste - so I would unstaple them and then reassemble the signed pages back into my qual card. - My qual card ended up being a motage of about 8 qual cards - It was much easier stapling pages than going out and getting the sigs! The board was a joke too. The other guy going through the board with me was a friend of the Cmdr presiding - so we were more or less waved through. - My appologies to all you folks who actually busted your asses to earn the pin... - but I just can't help being the sleazebag I am

Ramming Speed Department: Rx Author: Mike Greaney AKA Pit Beast Era: 1988 Date: 01/12/05 I remember the incident where we hit that Spanish ship. I had just gotten off of watch as the 2 plant RO and went up to forward berthing. Being a seasoned "Nuke" I knew not to hang out in berthing or I'd be manning the rails,( I never did man the rails) so I snuck two biscuits from the FWD mess decks and went to the portside XO sponson and watched the sub go by while chowing down. When I heard the collision alarm I went to the hangar bay and looked out and I remember not seeing Hampton so I knew we were in trouble. I wonder what happened to the Navigator and OOD? I stood many a watch with those guys as my GQ station was the 1JV Phone talker on the bridge. Anyone remember the workup cruises to the Carribbean? I remember trying to board the pig in Caracas, Ven. with rough seas and being piss-ass drunk. Not a good combo!