Wow, what a sacrifice. A nice bed each night, bathrooms and great hot meals. Poor baby! Life was tough!
Tell me again about all your sacrifices on-board a ship.
Living space on a US Navy ship ain't all that great. Your living space is 3 x 3 x 6, which is where your bunk is, and your locker is under your bunk, about 10 inches deep, 3 x 6 foot space. You share showers and bathrooms with a whole bunch of other people, and majority rules decides what channel the television is on.
The food, while plentiful and filling, is kinda plain and not all that fancy, except for once a month when the Captain lets the crew have surf and turf.
And then, there is the deployment, where the only contact with your family is via mail or phone, and that is infrequent at best.
Those are the highlights of being at sea. There are also the endless watches that cut into your sleep, the unending amounts of drills for GQ and fire parties, as well as the fact that on occasion, you get to float around in a war zone for a month or so at a time where you can be shot at.
But, even in spite of all the things that weren't fun in the military, it was still worth it, because I got to go to 26 different countries, 49 different states (only missing Alaska), and never needed a passport as well as got paid to visit there.
Sticking it out for 20 years has been a blessing as well. Why? Because I have a retirement check I can live on and free health care for the rest of my life.
