Sailors Commit Sucide on Aircraft Carrier in Ship Yard overhaul in NN.

Navy, lawmakers investigate after suicides among crew at carrier in Newport News.
Navy, lawmakers investigate after suicides among crew at carrier in Newport News - Virginia Mercury

Sorry folks but my honest experience in such living conditions is a sign of the times of a pampered generation of mommies babies.

Sure the Admirals should have foreseen this as well as the CPOs.
They took a whole generation of wireless connected 24/7 kids and put them in one of the dirtiest, noisiest environments in the world, without food, loss of water, loss of heat etc and then failed to have any senior enlisted for direction and connectivity to Navy traditions and in conditions worse than the daily living accommodations to even a county jail.

Been there done that in the same shipyard on 3 new construction builds.

Most young sailors joined for an education, comradeship and a structured life, which we had for we had senior enlisted and officer daily "Quarters", as well as directed assigned training to learn the craft assigned to with daily levels of work accomplished and a dead line to meet or be sent back to the regular Navy.

Yup, lack of oversight by the Big Dogs and a loss to all.

So finally after 10 deaths the Gold Braid say they will do their job of giving direction and purpose to the crew.

 

Not your Dad's Navy for sure - not even mine (I'm one of the now despised Boomers)

" worse than the daily living conditions to even a county jail." Spot on.

 

Dumb as a brick, and getting worse.

 

Often say I was never in military, I was in USAF. But as a non NCO, got stuck with nights on flight line, 4 pm to 8 am, sometime a few hours sleep in a cot in a hanger, most of time not. Pay at time of discharge, 1960, was $134.30 a month as I remember it and they took a lot out. Still the unit had a lot of pride, worked on electronics on the evaluation of the F 101, the F102. the F104, the Sidewinder, Gar 3 and Gar 4, and MB1 nuke head. Sage was coming on line and were tying into the aircraft. To keep it fun, everything was still tubes and mostly analog as the modern computer hadn't been perfected yet. In 1956, 100 % of the NCO's had been in Korea or WW2 and war was not something that they had read about in books. In the USAF at that time the possibility of combat was not some exercise, they had fought in 2 recent wars and many would fight again in Vietnam.

Many of those who have recently entered and those promoted on the basis of other than ability have neither the qualities needed to lead or to create a feeling of pride and creating goals to strive for. Have had family members whose grand children have left the military after 6 to 10 years as it was obvious that they were the wrong color to make a career out of the military.

 

They need to find a better way for young Sailors you put a kid on a ship and have him or her clean 12 hours a day every day not the way to inspire youth
On a large ship as a corpsman, my only stand duty once a week its a sucky life when you are young and either you can deal or you can't
I never had such issues as I was not in the fleet navy

 

Of course the main thing was that nothing lasts forever and one day that ship would be on the high seas protecting the USA.

The next two hulls saw me keeping up with my scheduled advancement and I left as an E6 to hit yet another shipyard in PH (Pearl Harbor). I soon saw the exact problems I had been living with because I inherited a mess of incomplete job orders with a raw department with no direction and in a Holiday Port.

Actually the department was glad to have direction and after I went to ServMart and purchased a set of tools for each Kid they understood that they now had a job to do and started receiving daily PMs. (Preventive Maintenance work orders) The tools were new to that bunch as before the tools where in a work box and missing most of the time.
I was lucky to have a new E9 as department head and he backed me on any thing I wanted to do. The kicker was that I told each kid that they would be cleared to take the tools to their next assignment but had to have the complete set and would have to replace any missing tools at their expense. Suddenly tools and locked tool boxes in the shipyard was their first responabilty. Yup trust and responabilty for good work is a proven way to have a happy sailor.
"GSA ServMart Features Include: Thousands of Products - Including an expanded selection of office supplies, industrial supplies, tools and hardware. Enhanced Customer Service - Product experts are available in the store to help you quickly select or order the products you need."

Now understand I was a bit of an odd duck in this parade because I came from the newest craft to a near WW2 craft and some had doubts as to why I was transferred from a Nuke to a Diesel boat.

This was none of their business for we were as close to the Movie "Up Periscope" as you could get but with a confident Goat Locker and Officers.

Cut to the chase, we did the whole Nam thing in WestPac (Western Pacific} and to other BlackOps and all came home due to a crew that learned to work well together and follow directions yet have the ability to be independent and pickup the hard to learn ways of life of a US Navy man. All made rank over the next two years and avoided the Shore Patrol.

Yes some detailers were looking out for me and placed me where I could learn a skill set and do the best I could for the Navy and the USA.

"What is a detailer in the Navy?
“Detailers are the Sailors' advocate and we take in to consideration everything we can to ensure we are providing the right 'fit' for each billet advertised on CMS-ID. We evaluate each Sailor's professional milestones and take into consideration a Sailor's personal aspirations and stated preferences.Mar 26, 2014"

 

The crazy part being, there were only ~400 sailors still living on the ship. Normal ship's crew complement on a carrier is ~2500 to 3000.....so why would you leave just that small percentage on board, and have everyone else living off the ship?
Oh, that's right. Navy "logic"!!
Never did a long yard period, but got to spend ~5 month in dry dock, at Hunter's Point Shipyard (in San Francisco.....the part of the city that the politicians don't like to admit exists). Navy decided to replace about 2/3 of the "service steam" piping while we were there, so the only place you could get a hot meal, or a hot shower, was the forward 1/3 of the ship. Naturally, my berthing area was all the way aft!

 

Well for one short period I had the benefits of living on a APL at NN. All it had was bunks but it ended up in Nam before I did. That was the case of the Underwater Attack by unknowns. Seems some restless sailor chunked a few battle Lanterns in the water between the APL and the Flat Top USS America (CV-66) - Wikipedia
USS America (CV-66) - Wikipedia

Of course the hour was late, the water was dark and the lanterns were turned on before the launch.