Heather Hall:  

r that to Charleston, SC, a great place to live. I went to Nuclear Power School for a couple of years there. I met my wife and was shipped to Portsmouth, NH to be on board the USS Norfolk, fast attack submarine. Way not cool. It is nothing like the movies. In fact the movies suck. They don't even get close to the type of action that happens on a submarine. The most exciting thing that happened on the USS Norfolk was when the dryer caught fire. Followed closely in second place was the halfway night XBox Football game when a couple of guys got in a fight. There was one time that we did go to some place that I am not allowed to say, actually I can but I won't. The water was 7000 feet deep and we had a swim call. We had someone perched in the sail with an M-16 to shoot any sharks that might come. I actually took the boat through an overhaul. It took a while, 714 days to be exact. Which is scary because that is the hull number. After that we became a sea going vessel. At times I forgot what being sane was like. I would sit in the same place and take logs for hours at a time, followed by a brief break to eat watch one of the movies that we had for the billionth time. We actually got movies earlier than anybody else. Food was all right, except when the cooks run out. They are pretty creative what they can do with rice and jello though. It made me feel at home, like I was at a ward function or something. I was a 2nd Class Petty Officer. That means leader of the peons. I still had to hot rack(swap racks with other guys). We shared three racks between two guys. Oh yes and some people never showered, yep gross. The racks themselves were nicknamed coffins. Why might you ask? I am 5'9" and I could touch my feet and my head to the two ends at the same time. You couldn't just roll over either. Your shoulder would hit the top part of the rack. I had a lot of fun on watch though at times. The Engineering Officer of the Watch would come down and we would run experiments a lot. I tried to explain that we tried to build an electrical wind powered generator once. We stopped though because someone got shocked. I blew up a Low Pressure Air Compressor, which still at a 125 pounds that is freaking scary. I made smoke bombs, which really isn't smart on submarines, lost a lot of sleep. I remember one night I had been up for 36 hours. Weird things happen. I was walking around on watch trying to keep myself awake and would wake up in random places around my watch station. Remember I was operating a Nuclear Reactor, funny concept. We were really safe. Once in a while something serious would happen though, and we would have to shape up for a couple of hours. I was in the Navy for a total of six whole years, if you can believe that. I weighed the options about making it a career or have a life. I chose life. I am now a Veteran. And am loving every moment of it. I am happy to have done something for the country, I felt I owed my service in some respect. And in the end, I did my part. I have to right to speak for what it is like to be separated from family members for long periods of time. So don't speak bad about the country until you have done something to try and make it better. The military was the hardest thing I ever did, and I am glad that I did it. But there is nothing that makes me more mad to hear some pansy try and tell me about their view on what is best for the troops when they never did anything