SSBN. ETV. Will not respond to questions about sensitive or classified subjects. My views are my own and I do not represent anyone.
Hi there!
Edit: since this has been asked several times:
SSBN stands for “submersible ship, ballistic missile, nuclear powered”. That is, the same overall type of ship as the Red October.
ETV stands for “Electronics Technican, Navigation”, because N was already taken by Nuclear Electronics Technicians. I work with everything from interior communications and announcing circuits to Electronics, shipwide atmospheric monitoring, navigational inertial gyroscopes, strategic nuclear missile navigation, and tank level indicators to basic underwater submarine navigation using the voyage management system and even helming the ship itself.
Have you ever dove with someone you couldn’t stand? How’d you deal with it? Are there precautions taken to ensure crew comparability before getting underway?
Also, how’s the food? During ww2 I heard that submarine crew got the best food in the fleet for moral, is that still the case?
Professionally. No, there’s no screening, so we have to deal with one another professionally. In a submarine there is no time for petty squabbles. The mission is your life. Dissent is literally death, because every moment of every day, the sea and the ship wants to kill you. So if you can’t stand a person, deal with the sailor in a professional manner. Procedures are procedures. Regs are regs.
Food really depends on the cook, but in the whole, from what I’ve heard from surface sailors, yes, our food is still the best!