Living on Destroyer

06, February 2012

Living on ship may be someone’s best dream. However, it is different story when you have to stay on the destroyer. There are a lot of rules and duties that you must follow but you will also get the best experience that you will never be able to receive from anywhere.

USS Howard was named after 1st Sergeant Jimmie E. Howard who was a multi awarded marines. He was a platoon leader and fight at hill 488 in Vietnam War, his most famous duty when he received the Medal of Honour. The USS Howard is an Arleigh Burke-class guide-missile destroyer with the AEGIS system. It’s a member of Ronald Regan Strike Group (Commander Carrier Group Strike 7). In 2008, USS Howard joined Maritime Security Operation in Somalia to fight against Somalia pirate.

If ask crews about how their lives on ship are, most crews will said it’s a long day. Generally, they will start they task since early morning and finish it at night. There are around 300 personal on this ship and each personal have different duties and shift, depend on what task they are assigned to. Task shift might change if the ship is in combat situation. Those tasks will always keep crews busy, engine crews will stick to engine room and keep checking and maintenance even though all engine are controlled by computer. Flight deck crews will prepare the lunching sequence, if there isn’t any flight that day crews will switch to working in hanger or other jobs.

Not only have their primary tasks, those crews also worked other job as well. Since there is limitation of work force and to ensure the ship working efficiency, all personal will assigned the second job that will helps other who already assigned that job as primary, for example, kitchen work or cleaning. Only higher rank and some crews with more responsible task crew will be exempted from secondary job.

After a long day of work crews will gathered in canteen where food is served. There are three meals each day and it’s self service. Canteen also works as an entertaining room where personals relax themselves by chatting, playing card, reading or watching HBO (Howard Box Office) movie. If they don’t join other here, they will just go back to headquarter or cabin where they could have more privately enjoy and take care of themselves.

All crews are most likely to travel with ship around 2 or more years. During their tour they will learn a lot of rare experience that is not possible to gain when travelling with other vessel. They will sometimes join in battle situation, sometimes co-exercise when they get a chance to get off and take a look at foreign country. They also get benefit from training and working systematically on board. Not only that, they also get a 24 hour close friend relationship which will follow them through the rest of their life.