I did eight deployments. Our OEF deployment was pretty busy, we were dropping bombs every day in Afghanistan for 16 hours 7 days a week for 4 months straight, but it wasn't bad because 1)we were there for a purpose and everyone there felt the same way, 2)we were busy as hell, if we weren't launching/recovering planes we were doing maintenance, and 3) in the words of the PACFLT commander when we arrived in Hawaii on our way home, "You killed a lot of people who needed to be killed". We went from Singapore in early Sept until we hit Singapore again for Christmas without seeing land, but again, it wasn't bad for the reasons I stated above.
Our 2003 OIF deployment was different. We left Jan 13 I think for what was supposed to be 2 weeks underway workup, but were told anything can change, so bring stuff to be prepared for the long haul, and that's what happened. We came back September 19, but we covered the entire Western Pacific while all of the other operational carrier strike groups were either in OEF or OIF theaters. We hit port like every 2 weeks... Australia, Japan, Singapore, Guam (3 times), Korea, (twice), Hawaii, Hong Kong, I might be missing a few. We had people that deployment who went nuts, but they were few and far between. We didn't feel that we had the same purpose as we did on the OEF deployment, that probably affected some, I don't know.
I know how those guys feel, although not to that extent. Going 5-6 months without a portcall is unreal. Hell after 3 months we were calling the ship "cellblock 70". Getting stores (food/supplies) was never an issue for us, but it is with them because the support activity in Manama, Bahrain was pretty much disabled the first few days of this conflict. The fact that they are outside the gulf still puts them over 2,000 miles from the next closest supply facility, and everything has to be shipped out to the boat which can take weeks, and those supply lines aren't robust enough to keep up.
Now there's the USS Benfold, who goes dead in the water for 4 days due to an engineering casualty, no food, water, lights in the South China Sea. I've been DIW for a few hours, I can't even imagine 4 days.
Fact is, yes, everyone did sign up for it, some people just don't realize it can get almost unbearably miserable out there. Yes, there is email and phone calls that make things better, but looking at the same people every fucking day wears on you. Some people don't realize until it's too late that they can't handle it. My first 4 deployments, (1990, 1993, 1995, and 1996/97) we didn't have email. We had the INMARSAT phone (3 lines for the entire ship that cost $6.25 a minute in 1993, then dropped to $1 a minute after that) but that only works for a short time.
It's easy for me to say I understand what those guys are going through, but I can also say suck it up, Sailor.
