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Friday, February 14, 2014

Once a Dig-it, always a Dig-it

Image of Dig-It multi-purpose tool

Every submarine, cruiser or carrier has a nuke on board who, for whatever reason, no matter how often they get screwed (a typical example would be defined as steaming for coner liberty) or are awake for 30 hours straight doing drills preparing for ORSE or the long stressful hours or the significant time away from your family, etc. Yet deep down they still “dig-it”. In other words, they enjoy what would make most other people miserable. 

The reality is, in many ways, why would anyone other than a masochist “dig” a life like this? The fact is, after their first sea command half of the nukes leave the Navy for better opportunities in the civilian word.
I cannot judge a person for digging something I would not, we all are familiar with the term,”One person's trash is another person's treasure”.  Nonetheless, I am unsure as to how this occurs.

Here are some of my theories which come to immediately to mind:  1) you tell yourself you enjoy the misery in order to get yourself through it 2) you believe there is nothing better for you in the civilian world 3) you are trying to get into an officer program and realize your time as an enlisted nuke is limited 4) you have physiological issues which were not caught during the nuclear training pipeline.

In light of the possible reasons if you are still on or used to be on a boat how can you tell if your fellow nuke is a digit?

1) Expressing no apparent desire to get off the boat and enjoy a decent quality of life 2) discussing the occurrences of the engine room while they are on liberty. In my case, being stationed in Hawaii there were so many other things which might be discussed other than the latest engine room incident with your engineering officer 3) Life after the Nuclear Navy is not a discussion.  Furthermore, a digit would stay in for 40 years if the Navy would allow them to and had billets to fill. 4) Telling nuke jokes to the civilian community and not being able to figure out why you get blank stares in return.

Do you remember any one on you past commands you could describe as a “dig-it”. Anyone care to provide some insight as to why?

P.S. And what was with the Leatherman or Gerber multi-tool every “dig-it” seemed to carry?


Image courtesy of www.leatherman.com