I will be interviewing Bruce Monroe. Bruce is a U.S. Navy veteran.

He joined the Navy when he was

twenty and left when he was twenty-six. During that time he was working as a nuclear engineer
on a submarine. Because of the number of deployments and experience he has, I believe he is a
great subject to interview. Within this interview, Bruce will tell us about his experience of living
in a submarine and what was life like living in a submarine.

Sarah: Alright, so, let’s start off with you introducing yourself. Like kind of telling me a little bit
about yourself.

Bruce: Alright. So, my name is Bruce Monroe, I’m forty. I lived in Tucson most of my life. I have
lived in a couple of other cities, but mostly when I was in the Navy. That’s when I was in
different places. Yeah, I like mountain biking. I do stuff with guns once in a while, but I’m not a
crazy person. I got a dog named Lelu, who you’ll hear her running by once in a while. Yeah, I
don’t know. College grad went to the U of A.

Sarah: Okay, so tell me about the story of how you joined the Navy. Because I’ve heard stories that,
that it’s wasn’t like the traditional “I’m gonna be in the Navy.” It was kind of like in the moment
kind of thing, is that true?

Bruce: Not quite in the moment. Like I’m not nuts, like that would be crazy to make a commitment
like that quickly. So, I get out of high school, I was sixteen at the beginning on my senior year.

Sarah: Oh, wow.

Bruce: So, I get out of high school and you know I’m just like, this isn’t, I’m not gonna do college
right now. If, ever, so, I was like, I’m just taking a year off. So I took a year off, I tried going
back to school. I was doing Pima, and I was working as a waiter and I was doing classes but I
couldn’t. If I took more classes, I couldn’t afford to pay for them. Because I had to also work
less. So, it was like I was between two and three classes a semester at community college. I’m
like, I’m gonna be, you know, thirty-five by the time I get my bachelors out of the way, this is
nuts. Something's gotta give. So, while I was going back and forth with that. My best friend,
whose name is Jason, was talking to a Navy recruiter. I didn’t really know. He’s talking to a
Navy recruiter, and then like one day I go over to his house. Because I was over at his house all
the time, and I see like the Navy paperwork sitting on the dining room table. I was like, what is
that all about. I thought, he was crazy. He started telling me, and I was like, man have fun
because you’re out of your mind. He’s like whatever, okay. A couple of weeks go by, and he
calls me for a ride. He’s stuck somewhere. So I go pick him up, right after work. He’s like, oh
hey can we stop at, in over here, I have an errand to run. I’m like whatever, I’m like tired, I think
 I was like hungover. I’m like alright whatever. So we go into this office. This innocuous office
on Broadway and it's his recruiter's office.

Sarah: Oh, boy.

Bruce: They stuck me in there. I’m talking to his recruiter and the other two lower-ranking guys.
They were just throwing their normal sales pitch at me, and, they were not, it was not landing.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: Frankly that was meant for dumb-er people and I was like no, no this is not-. The main
recruiter, the guy that recruited my buddy. He meets me and in five minutes he knew how to
push my buttons. He appealed to my ego. Which especially, the twenty-year-old me, was pretty
ridiculous. So, he could tell I was recently appealed, and he appealed to my ego. He said, why
don’t you just take the practice test, he said, I’m sure you could blow the doors off. Don’t you
wanna at least see what you get on the ASVAB? I was like, whatever. So, my buddy told me,
he'd be there for a while because he had to fill out some paperwork anyways. I was like okay.
While he’s doing his paperwork, I’m gonna go blow the doors off this test. Now I’m
remembering more clearly, I was actually, definitely hungover for this and got very little sleep.
So I go in there and I’m doing this test, I finish it in like fifteen minutes and I got like a, I think
an 89 or something out of a 100. And the recruiters like, yeah, if that's the actual score you go on
the test. He’s like, you could do anything you want in the Navy. And that, anything you want,
catch my ear, because, I was feeling trapped. I was like, you know, I’m trying to go to school, I
can’t afford to take enough number of classes to advance at a decent rate. And if I take more
classes, I can’t afford even less because I’m working less. And just that balance was killing me.
And they're like, well you know you can do the GI bill, but also the, anything you want. You’re
in the Navy, if you get that score, you can have a job you want in the Navy.

Sarah: What’s like the average score? Like was it-

Bruce: You need a 35 to get in.

Sarah: Oh.

Bruce: Yeah, ASVAB is armed services verbal aptitude battery. It’s kind of like the SAT, but for the
military.

Sarah: Yeah.
Bruce: And so, it’s universal for all branches. So, and this changes yearly, depending on their
Mannings. So this isn’t particularly accurate today. But at the time, it was like a 30 to get into the
army, a 35 to get in the navy, 35 or 40 to get in the air force, and the only, something weird like a
31 for the marines. And then the good jobs start at 50. And then the toughest jobs are locked
behind like a 75 and up score. So at an 89, if I could get that, I could do anything I wanted. So-

Sarah: That's crazy.

Bruce: I started talking to him, he started talking about going to the navy as a way to build skills to
work on the outside. And just a quick way to get your GI bill so you could go to school on the
government. And all a sudden, I was like man this is starting to sound like a better idea. Cause
like I’m not gonna make a career out of it, I just wanna get in, get my stuff, get my college, get a
little experience and beat it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: So all a sudden, there I am and I decided to join. I did the late entry program which is, you
sign up and basically promises to join. The promise sounds way more solemn than what is
actually legally enforceable. Like you raise your hand and swear and everything. But literally
until the day you ship off, you can walk away and it doesn’t mean anything. But, they don’t
really let you know that you have that option. I think they are still doing the late entry, too. But
they take you, you meet at the park. And you go with a recruiter and you do like laps and
jumping jacks. And honestly, if I hadn’t have done that, I probably wouldn’t have been able to
make it through boot camp. My buddy, Jason and I at the time, you probably don’t know this me,
we smoked. Like a lot, and we couldn’t run. I mean, I was in worst shape at 20 than I am now.
You know, I was skinny cause I was young but my lungs were terrible. So, like we stopped
smoking, we made a pact to stop smoking. We started running, we went and did the depth crew
exercise and then separately we would go and run around McDonald Park on the East side. And
just try to like get ready to go, so the late entry actually helps. It wasn’t just like sign the papers
and you get on the bus. So, anyone that is trying to be enlisted in the military, do the late entry. I
actually joined on my birthday.

Sarah: Oh, gosh

Bruce: I disappeared, mom was like where are you, it’s your birthday. And I was like I’m in Phoenix
and the bus station. So, I join on my birthday, and then I left the following February, so February
18th, 1999.

Sarah: Why the navy? Was it just because that was what your friend was, like kind of aiming
towards, or did you have a preference?
Bruce: Well, yes and no. Like that ultimately, again I’m not a dummy, so, you know. I wouldn’t just
be like oh, my friends doing it so I’m gonna do it.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: That’s just crazy, it’s like I said, it’s a commitment. Same thing like with making a snap
decision. It would be nuts to do it. But I joined for the same reasons he joined. As far as, which
branch. At the time, and again this changes over time, so this may not be a 100% accurate. But at
the time, it’s kind of how it worked. The army is always needing personal, so you get in, you can
get a decent bonus, depending on what job you qualify for. They make rank pretty quickly
because people tend to leave the army, more quickly cause it kind of is taught. So, the jobs
you’re trained for like infantry, motor pool, things that like, it really trains you to be an army
guy. It’s not a lot that applies to the outside. So, if you’re gonna go life, yeah you’re gonna do
army. I mean, certainly gonna get shot at more, so that’s a consideration also. I mean not, this is
pre 9/11. This is, you know like, it’s a different world. But still, you’re more likely to get shot at
in the army. So, I was like okay, the army is out. On the other hand, the air force. Tons of highly
technical programs, lots of things that apply to good jobs on the outside. A little bit, cushy
experience. Like they have better barracks, I mean, your chances of working in an air-
conditioned room was a lot higher. I mean just the reality of it. You know, there are taught air
force jobs too. These guys will be like “Oh, it’s not all that” but no, really. And then the biggest
indicator of why, like that proves that, is that nobody leaves. The advancements super slow in the
air force cause nobody leaves. There are guys that are in the E4 rank for ten years. In the navy, if
you’re still at E4 at ten years, they kick you out. In the air force-

Sarah: Oh wow!

Bruce: Yeah, cause you haven’t been motivated to move up. In the air force, you can be a ten year E4,
and they’re like well we’ll move you up as soon as somebody leaves the next rank above you,
but right now it’s full. Because everyone is staying until retirement. You know. When air force
people came to stay on a navy base, in our barracks. They actually got an allowance in their
check for a substandard living. So the difference between air force standard living vs. navy was
enough to get like 3 or 4 hundred dollars a month extra. Just to have to live in our barracks.

Sarah: Wow!

Bruce: YEAH! So the air force is like on the other end. And there's, they didn’t have that many
problems with Mannings so there’s not as much room for like a son on bonus there either, even
though they had some that were decent. Marines are like nuts, they want you. They almost want
to keep you out of the marines. They don’t want anyone being a marine that doesn’t absolutely
 want to be a marine. So, it’s no sign-up bonus, they almost- I swear it’s like purposeful that they
do not have jobs that have skills that transfer to the outside. They want you to join not for
money, not for the cash sign out bonus, but because you want to be a marine and they want you
to stay forever.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: This is speculation about it. But it’s kind of based on my observations about marine recruiters
and marines in general at that time.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: What am I missing? Oh, so the navy was kind of like, you’re less likely to get shot at, people
move in and out of it pretty quickly, so there’s lots of room for advancement. And they afford
some of the best sign-on bonuses in all the armed forces. The top job in the navy, which is
ultimately what I signed up for, was being a nuclear engineer. So, my job had a 12,000 dollar
sign up bonus.

Sarah: Wow.

Bruce: So sign the paper, here’s 12 grand.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: And then you get push-button automatic advancement to E3, so in boot camp, I out-ranked
everyone else in my division. Except for the other nukes.

Sarah: Oh my gosh.

Bruce: So, E 1-9 is a progression through the enlisted ranks. And so I started day one as an E3. And
then in six months after my- boot camp and my first school was done. I got a - what they call it, a
push-button to E4. All from being a nuke. And so it’s like yeah you get automatically
advancement, you get a sign on bonus, you get started at a higher rank than any other job. So,
you know, and I don’t think anyone else offered anything like that, so I was like “yup navy, here
we go”

Sarah: Yeah. So, for your title, you said you were a nuclear engineer. So like, what exactly do you
do? Like, what is our main priority job to do?
Bruce: So, the nuclear engineer is like inaccurate what to kind of, or an inaccurate title to kind of at
least let a civilian know kind of what it’s about, what you’re doing. But, everyone that worked in
the engine room, they’re in an engineering department. Right? And it’s a nuclear power plant,
that operates all U.S. submarines. All but two carriers, I think. Maybe all carriers now. It’s been
a while seen I’ve been in. So, you’re in engineering but you’re not an engineer. There’s actually
one guy that is called the engineer. And he’s actually the guy in charge of the entire engineering
department. The officer, he’s like third in command in the ship, too. Like Scotty on star trek.

Sarah: Okay.

Bruce: I don’t know what kids watch these days. So, within engineering, there are four departments.
There are reactor controls, which actually run the reactor plant itself. There’s E division,
electrical division, they handled all the electronics in the engineering room. Mechanical division,
M division which handles all the mechanical parts like pumps, motors, the steam engines, the
actual like, all the steam pipings that comes from the nuclear reactors to power everything, nuke
oil systems. And then the reactor laboratory, which is what I do. Reactor laboratory is super
weird because your title is machinist mate and you’re kind of in M division but you’re not.
You’re in RL division. So you’re a machinist mate by title but you, what you actually do for
work is an engineering laboratory technician. It makes sense if you had gone through it but they
train you as a mechanic and then turn you around and train you as a chemist. And you’re like that
seems like it’s not related, but in the navy it actually is. So, yeah you go through schools as a
mechanic and then you are in the top 10% of your class, you get picked up for 1 or 2 other
classes. You either learn how to be an emergency welder or a chemist. So I got picked up for
chemistry.

Sarah: Oh wow.

Bruce: So I was-, my rank, military rank was petty officer 1st class. Now, in the navy they call you by
your rate with your- it’s kind of like the job oriented version of your rank. So, I was a machinist
mate 1st class. And then what I actually did was, I was an engineering laboratory technician. For
my job by training, Now on the ship you also have other jobs that you do. You have a watch
station, and the watch station I stood was a mechanical watch station because again I was trained
as a mechanic. So I was the engine class supervisor. So I ran all the mechanical parts of the
entire power plant. Basically everything outside of the small room where they operated on the
reactor. My collateral duty, I was the engineering department training admin. So I wrote all the
tests and basically ran the continued training program that kept everyone train up on all the
nuclear stuff.

Sarah: wow.
Bruce: Yeah. So yeah, especially on submarines you have a lot of different things that you do.

Sarah: Yeah. So speaking of tests, did you guy have to take any specific tests? Like I can imagine
psychological or emotional like stability to be like in submarine for that, like, I imagine people
going crazy

Bruce: You would think that, but no, not at all.

Sarah: Really?

Bruce: So you have the ASVAB, you gotta get a 35 to get in. You gotta have a 50 to get to be
submarines. And submarines are also the only all-volunteer service. Even through WW2, they
were all volunteer the whole time. So you have to volunteer, you cannot be assigned to
submarines and you have to have a 50. So the guy cleaning the toilets on a submarine has a 50.
But outside of that, you’re in. There’s no psychological exam, there’s one extra physical exam.
Where they check your-, its an x-ray. I don’t remember what they’re looking for. Lung formation
or like, how strong your rib cage is? I don’t remember exactly what it was they’re-, They didn’t
really tell us. It happened during boot camp and they’re like yeah don’t ask, just here’s the test.
You passed or you didn’t. They do check if your ears can equalize underwater, like to a certain
depth. Because there are pressure changes in the ship to some degree. I had failed the test. The
doctor that was examining me said are you a nuke? I said yeah, and he’s like do you wanna be on
a submarine? I said yeah, and he said alright and he throws out the paper. Yeah, cause nuke is a
critical manned rate, they can’t get enough people in there. So they’re willing to let more things
slide.

Sarah: Yeah, it’s kind of like the only good, what is it? Like the only bright bulbs in the bunch and
you’re like, you only have so many so let’s not get rid of them.

Bruce: Yeah. I mean I hope that this interview doesn't turn into like a federal investigation. Recruiting
practices-

Sarah: No, no no.

Bruce: Cause there are other shady things that happened. I failed the swim test too.

Sarah: Oh gosh

Bruce: Yeah. But anyway. So that's it though. A couple of extra physical tests. But you just get a
slightly higher score on the ASVAB, is it? No psychological, nothing.
Sarah: Isn’t there any like, so sort of a simulation? Kind of, like they put you in a room?

Bruce: Yeah, everybody but nukes actually has to. Nukes, it’s part of their school. It’s like a bit
different. But no matter what other ratings you have, outside of nuke. When you are done with
your schooling, you have to go to BESS, the basic enlisted submarine school. It’s submarine
stuff, so they put you in the bottom of a tank. I don’t remember how deep it is, like 30 or 40 feet
deep of water, and you have to swim to the top. Wearing this thing called a stinky hood, which is
like the escape hood you’d wear on a submarine to get out when you’re stuck on the bottom. You
have to do that, you know, without drowning. They put you in a room full of pipes and steel
bulkheads and everything, and then they just flood it with water and you're supposed to talk all
of the patching kits and stop the leaks. Before it gets over your head, yeah.

Sarah: That’s not scary at all. Or like every single fear and anxiety that you have while you go into a
submarine, oh yeah let’s simulate that.

Bruce: Yeah! Yeah, so they lock you in this room and then they just start filling it with 40-degree
water and you’re not like in swim trunks. You’re like in your uniform and they just start filling it
with water and you either patch all the hole before it gets above your neck. Then, of course, the
water is actually coming in through the simulated leaks. So, you patch all the holes appropriately,
with the right material. Before it gets above your head or it goes above your head, you tread
water for a bit and you fail the test.

Sarah: Wow!

Bruce: Yeah. Couple other things like that. I know, like, actually it’s apart of boot camp, we had to
do- we had to put on a gas mask and then we got tear gassed and then they take the masks off
you. You have to sing “anchors away” while you’re choking on gas. They do that so you know
what it’s like to be tear gassed. Yeah, that's general. That’s not just submarines, so, that’s
everybody. There are other things like that in submarine school, I just don’t really remember.
Oh! You had to put out a fire, like a real fire. It’s a simulator, it’s controlled but like it’s not an
orange piece of cardboard. It is a fire, it’s hot. In a smoking room and all kinds of stuff like that,
too. Because you have to be able to do everything on a submarine. You have to be able to fix and
be able to do medical evac, you have to be able to, you know.

Sarah: You need to be well versed, so it’s not like if there is an emergency, “I wasn’t trained for that”.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah, there are 6000 people on a carrier and there’s almost the same amount of
responsibility as far as jobs on a submarine. There’s 150 on a submarine, so you got to do
everything.
Sarah: So 150 people on a, or like a 150?

Bruce: Yeah, 110 of a fast attack. I was on a bigger sub. So like a 110 to 120 on a fast attack, about
140 to 150 on a missile sub.

Sarah: So are they kind of like trained you on everything except for like being claustrophobic?

Bruce: Again, they don’t really, it’s volunteer only. Like if you’re claustrophobic, you’re not gonna
volunteer.

Sarah: Yeah, and if you do, why?

Bruce: Or you’ll probably wash out when they put you in a leaky room.

Sarah: Yeah, how many deployments did you do?

Bruce: Well, let's see. I have a gold star, silver star, and a pin. So it must be seven.

Sarah: Wow.

Bruce: If I can remember where I put it, I should show you. I have a pin that actually shows you. You
get a star for every deployment you do.

Sarah: Oh wow.

Bruce: It’s specific, it’s a boomer pin, they call it because it’s for missile subs. So it has a picture of a
sub with a missile coming out of the back and a helium atom. Then on the bottom, there’s a
ribbon with stars along with it. You get a different star for each deployment and once you get to
five, the silver stars turn into gold and you start over again.

Sarah: Wow.

Bruce: So I have a gold star and a silver star and you get one for the pin. So I think I did seven. Boy,
that sounds high, but yeah.

Sarah: Wow, do you know where they all were? Or were some of them classified?

Bruce: Kind of a mix, like some of them I knew exactly where I was and I could tell you. Some, I
didn’t know where I was and I couldn’t tell you. Some, I knew where I was and couldn’t tell you.
But missile subs have about a 6000-mile range. So you really don’t need to be close. Like you
 don’t have to go park off of North Korea, you know. Or in the freak'n golfs. You can go hang out
and like, you know, 200 miles off San Diego. It’s not much that you can’t hit.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: So there’s no reason to go that far into international waters and put unnecessary risk onto the
ship. The whole point is to hide. Our general operating area was if you were to draw a triangle
between Alaska, Hawaii and San Diego. We’d be somewhere in there doing slow figure eight’s.
But as far as places I traversed, like I went- well. I gotta figure out what I can tell you. We went
through the Panama Canal, I can’t tell you how many times or which direction. We rounded the
cape horn which was super scary. I have been under the ice shelf around Antarctica and I’ve
been under the North pole.

Sarah: Oh wow!

Bruce: We surfaced crossing the equator and we brought some weber barbeques up through the hatch.
We had what we call a steel beach picnic. So you go up there and grill some steaks, smoke some
cigars and layout on some towels on top of the sub.

Sarah: That was really fun, imagine taking a pics like “hey guys”

Bruce: These are guys that have not seen the sun in like months. So your eyes can’t adjust and
everyone’s like super pasty white. You burn instantly. You know, no one brought sunscreen
cause why would you take sunscreen to go underwater

Sarah: Yeah, who brings that?

Bruce: Yeah! So surfacing in Prince Williams was pretty cool, steel beach picnic was pretty cool.
Swim calls don’t happen as often as you think. Our last captain- my middle captain that I had for
the longest period was kind of- he was afraid of his own shadow. So he didn’t want the liability
of having his sailors go swimming. The captain I had right after that was this huge, crazy, bald
dude, who just didn’t care about anything. So, he’s like yeah go swim. Swim calls can be
dangerous though, because like you’re just in the middle of the ocean. These things are not
pleasure yachts, they don’t have like steps to get on them.

Sarah: It’s like you could possibly not be able to get up and it’s like well-.

Bruce: Well, and waves can come out of nowhere and they’re huge cause it’s the middle of the ocean.
It’s not the beach, the middle of the ocean. There’s no harbor, you know.
Sarah: So it’s pretty rough water.

Bruce: Swim calls are pretty weird. Because you get up and you go out there. Everyone’s like oh
we’re gonna go swimming, but then you look up and there’s a guy in the crow's nest with an
M60. You’re like what is that all about? Oh yeah, it’s shark lookout. So if they see a shark, they
shot the shark so they can’t eat any sailors.

Sarah: Oh my gosh

Bruce: Yeah, cause again you’re not in the harbor. You’re in the middle of the ocean.

Sarah: That’s kind of cool. What were the average lengths of how long you were deployed? Within
those times how many times did you go without seeing sunlight?

Bruce: Six to nine months each. My longest without sunlight was 158 days, hatch to hatch. So zero
hatch openings for 158 days. That was part of a nine-month curse.

Sarah: Wow, does it ever get kind of gloomy? Or like depressed in the boat?

Bruce: Oh yeah, it’s nuts in there. It’s 68 degrees in fluorescent everywhere you go. There’s no
weather, nothing's further than that far away from your face, you know. You're actually not
supposed to drive when you get back because you have no depth perception because you never
looked at anything more than a few feet away.

Sarah: Oh gosh.

Bruce: Yeah and everything's the same thing colored in fluorescent light everywhere you go. Yeah,
it’s weird.

Sarah: That’s really weird, I would have never thought about that.

Bruce: Machinery humming, doesn’t matter where you are. Because again this is not a cursed ship.
Imagine trying to find a place to sleep in your jeep, like under the hood. Imagine if that was
where you had to ride, just next to the engine or by the muffler. Or you know, next to the drive
shaft, that’s what it was on the submarine. Doesn’t matter where you were, you were part of the
equipment. You were just there to operate the sub. It was not there to carry you around.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: Some of the junior guys literally slept in the torpedo room, between the torpedos.
Sarah: Wow. Yeah, I read somewhere -.

Bruce: I slept between the missiles, I had a good rank. I was between the missile tubes. That was like
coveted.

Sarah: Wow, I read somewhere that like there is no designated sleeping areas. Most of the time
you’re kind of- like most rooms are multi-rooms. So like you’re workout room could be working
area missiles.

Bruce: There is, like the wardroom where the officers eat dinner. The table is spring loaded and it
flips around into an operating table. Like operating lights and tools come out of the ceiling. The
mess hall, where the enlist guys eat, is actually our main control station when we’re doing
maneuvering watch or battle stations. It’s just like the main place where all the reserve forces
lineup, in the cafeteria basically.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: The bunk rooms mostly were bunk rooms. But again, only about a half to ⅔’s max of the crew
actually slept in bunk rooms. Everyone else was just kind of tucked in wherever.

Sarah: Wow, that actually kind of brings me into another question, how many like, I researched and
heard about this thing called hot-bunking or hot-bedding or hot-rack-

Bruce: Hot-racking.

Sarah: Is that as an actual a thing, that is like common?

Bruce: Oh yeah totally. It’s hot because a dude gets up and goes watch, you get off watch and get into
the bed he was just in.

Sarah; That’s kind of gross.

Bruce: It’s totally gross, yeah.

Sarah: What if like he’s sweating, oh my gosh. With my luck, I’d get a sweating guy.

Bruce: Oh yeah, some stinky sweaty dude.

Sarah: Yeah.
Bruce: Hygiene is a pretty well-regarded standard. A well in forced standard on submarines because
of the close proximity. The doctor will do weekly wellness checks, where he goes in and expects
all the beds. Make sure there are clean sheets on them, make sure that there is evidence that guys
have been showering. He investigates any report of anyone being stinky. The guys, themselves
will handle it, too. We had a guy that didn’t wanna wash his sheets, didn’t wanna wash, he kept
saying he was too tired after he was done qualifying being done on watch. So he’d just get in
from the watch, where you get really filthy on watch, and he’d just climb into bed. Sometimes in
his uniform. So he wouldn’t watch his uniform, wouldn’t wash, wouldn’t wash his sheets. So one
night we sewed him into his sheets, sewed his sheets to his mattress. So he was stuck in his bed
and then we took the whole mattress with him and his uniform and sheets and throw it into the
shower. We throw soap on him and scrubbed him with a deck brush.

Sarah: Oh my gosh. Were there a lot of bathrooms and showers?

Bruce: “A lot”, no. Enlisted had 2 bathrooms, 4 showers. Officers had 1 bathroom and two showers.
The captain had one bathroom and zero showers that he shared with the XO. So he used the other
officer shower. It’s not like he just didn’t shower. That’s all you got. 150 dudes and you got 5 or
6 showers and a couple of toilets, like eight sinks.

Sarah: The sub has like, where they can regenerate and clean water.

Bruce: Yeah. You have to make the water on the ship. That’s one of the things I did actually.

Sarah: Is there like a limit to how long you can take a shower because it is kind of like, it takes time
for it?

Bruce: Not a hard limit, but it’s a courtesy thing. Again if someone is taking a long shower, guys are
gonna get on him. To the point where they will come in and grab your soapy ass out of the
shower and throw you out on the deck. So usually you only make that mistake once.

Sarah: Oh gosh. So what was your daily routine?

Bruce: So it’s an 18 hour day, cause there’s no sun, so why bother? You’re on Zulu time anyway.
Zulu, by the way, is if I’m not mistaken, is Greenwich mean time. So Zulu time is the military
version of Greenwich mean time. So as soon as you got to sea you are on Zulu, first thing. Then
there’s no sun or anything and they found that an 18 hour day makes more sense. So that’s what
everything is built around. There is no midnight, it’s just, you know, time becomes real arbitrary
at that point. So let me start it off with what that’s supposed to look like. Because everything
revolves around your watch. So you stand to watch for six hours. It’s a six-hour block, no breaks,
 no interruptions, can’t go to the bathroom. You get six hours of armed watch. You can not leave
your watch station and if you do, it’s a legal problem, like you will go to court marshall. You do
not mess around with a watch. So you got six hours of watch. In between each six-hour block,
there’s a meal. What’s weird is you know, the days are 18 hours, but the meals still go on a
normal 24-hour schedule. So you have breakfast, lunch, dinner and then midnight serves on what
they call mid-rats. Which is like an unholy concoction of leftovers and crap from the rest of the
day. So anyway, you start watch usually with the meal you just scarved down in about 15
minutes, it’s about the time you get. So you do your meal, watch, get off watch, do a meal, go
back, clean up a little bit of your watch station. Then this is the time that everyone misinterpreted
as free time. It's off watching but in the off watch. All the training that you have to do happens in
the off watch. All the qualifications you have to do happens on your off watch. All the
maintenance you have to do happens on your off watch. Then if they want to run drills, if
something breaks in a drill in the engine room, off going watch team is the one that has to
respond to it. So you can go days without sleeping, easily. In the course of one patrol, you
absolutely will at least will have one 24 hour period where you don’t sleep. There’s no way
around it.

Sarah: Oh my gosh.

Bruce: You have your training maintenance, you know. The nukes did a lot of training because of its
very high standard of ongoing knowledge. If you don’t continue to pass the test, you actually get
de-nuked. You’re no longer a nuke anymore if you can’t stay up with the continued training. If
the department as a whole doesn’t pass their operational rights for safeguard exam, the captain
gets his keys taken away. Yeah, it’s a big deal. The training is extremely important and they do a
lot of it.

Sarah: So like, on your deployment you mentioned 150 on the sub, is that kind of like an average.

Bruce: Yeah, yeah give or take a few.

Sarah: Alright, and then since, I can imagine the submarines are pretty big. But inside, there are so
many people. It’s mainly designed to run not host/house people. Did you have a select or specific
space for you, like your own personal?

Bruce: Yeah, I was more senior. When I went out to sea on my first time I was already an E5, so I
didn’t have to hot-rack or anything. So I had the most amount of space you can get, which was
still pretty rough. So you get your rack which is 72 inches long, 24 inches across, and 18 inches
deep. So I’m not a big dude and I had to get to turn over if I’m gonna sleep on my stomach or my
back. For some of the bigger guys were even rougher. So that’s your bed, it’s like the little coffin
you sleep in. Then under your mattress, you have the same measurements of 24 by 72, 4 inches
 deep to put your stuff. So six to nine months of clothes, snacks, shampoo, whatever has to go in
that little rack under your bed.

Sarah: Wow!

Bruce: Then you got as a bonus, cause we were missile sub and we were luxurious. You got a box
about the size of one good filing cabinet drawer to put everything else. Like an average filing
cabinet, pull out one drawer, we had about that much space to put your extra stuff.

Sarah: Wow, what other stuff would you bring? Other than like your uniform.

Bruce: I was pretty crafty. Well like all the nukes brought their own coffee cause we did not wanna
drink that millspeck crap coffee. So we brought like Guatemalan antic wood, toll bean, yeah
beautiful lovely coffee.

Sarah: Yeah, you gotta live it up just a little bit.

Bruce: Yeah, I brought, I can’t remember. You weren’t old enough to sell them yet, I used to buy
whole cases of girl scout cookies, thin mints. I would take them away with me and they would go
for between 20 and 40 dollars a box. Once we are about three months in.

Sarah: Oh wow!

Bruce: Yeah, I’d eat a couple. But then I’d used the rest for bartering.

Sarah: Dang!

Bruce: I could get, there’s this guy called Jimmy the shank. He could get anything I wanted and all I
gotta do is pay him in girl scout cookies.

Sarah: It’s like corrupted!

Bruce: Yeah, it’s like a prison.

Sarah: So you mentioned before, the food. The quality of the food changes very quickly.

Bruce: Yeah. So I remember loading boxes of food up. I remember they say like “such and such state
penitentiary rejected, not fit for human consumption.” I’m like loading it in on board, that’s what
we’re gonna eat on this trip. So we got a lot of stuff that was rejected by other institutions and it
was all like institutionalized bulk meals. We got things that were rejected, things that were
 cheap, ungraded meat. It was the first time in my life I knew that was a thing. There was not
grade A, it was literally ungraded meat, like circus animals or something.

Sarah: A little bit of pigeon.

Bruce: Yeah. The sad thing is that submarine is still some of the best eating in the military, of all
branches. When we had a good supply officer, we eat better. When we had a bad supply officer,
we eat worse. A better supply officer knew how to stretch his dollar further. We had a really bad
officer when I went to sea for the first time. He was not on top of his stocking or inventory. So if
the chop, by the way, that’s what they called him, “the chop” because the supply officers rank
looks like a pork chop. So the chop, if the chop was good you had a better run. One chop was
literally so bad, we ran out of food before we got back.

Sarah: Oh my gosh

Bruce: We had two weeks of no food. Yeah, we were going and raiding the little mixed nuts snack
packs in the officer lounge.

Sarah: They were probably going crazy over your girl scout cookies

Bruce: Oh we were like throwing them into a blender and making makeshift peanut butter, to make
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to stretch the food.

Sarah: Oh my gosh

Bruce: We had a, for whatever reason, we ran out of like meat but we had cases and cases of those
stupid goldfish crackers. So I would literally for lunch go and take a bowl and fill it with goldfish
crackers and eat that for a meal.

Sarah: Oh my-.

Bruce: Because if you eat enough of them, that’s calories. We’d have a couple of good meals there,
here and there. On Sunday night, Sunday was usually the better meal. I can’t tell you what they
called it, it’s not an appropriate name. But it’s the type of thing that you would imply to a group
of men eating with each other over candlelight. We would dim the lights in the mess hall every
Sunday night. Put out better food, we’d have candles out on the tables and tablecloths. We would
eat a fancy meal once a week so we would kind of feel better about ourselves.

Sarah: Oh my gosh, that mixed in with the weevil infested cheerios really-
Bruce: Yeah. Yeah, of course, the opportunity for that got less and less as we went through the patrol.
Only the food that could last longer.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: Like eggs, we couldn’t refrigerate them so we just set them against the hall. Hope they stay
cold enough. So if we were going to Alaska, we were fine. But a Hawaii run, you’re out of eggs
a couple of weeks into it. Because the water temperature is 80 degrees, so things go rotten.

Sarah: Yeah, my gosh.

Bruce: I mean there’s literally no place to put them in the freezer/ walk in. So yeah, you start with
eggs and fresh cereal, and all this stuff and milk. How long does a gallon of milk last for when
you buy it. A week? So then you switch to UHT, which tastes almost like milk, but weird,
different consistency. Then when you run out of UHT, you go to the plastic cow. Which is this
powder milk nastiness. It looks like the rain sheen when you put gasoline on a puddle of water.
It’s like milk white with the rainbow sheen over the top and it tastes like sour milk with Windex
in it. Yeah, so then you’re eating that for the rest of the patrol.

Sarah: That’s supposed to be the good class of food

Bruce: So you switched to powdered eggs at about a month in, about two weeks in you switch to
UHT. About three months in you switch to the plastic cow. The cereal never gets replenished and
weevils are always a thing. So at the end of the patrol, you’re eating cereal with weevils in it.
You just eat them because it’s protein, you’re too tired to sit there and pick them out. You just
eat them, it’s not like its gonna make the plastic cow tastes any worse. So you just eat it. Mid-rats
comes out, and mid-rats is when you get all the weird stuff. The pillows of death were these
nasty little quick make microwave ravioli. That I don’t know where they were developed but
they were a form of torture. They were disgusting. Usually, they take all the leftovers from the
rest of the day and mix it into something they call a casserole. They serve that along with the
pillows of death and chicken wheels. Chicken wheels is a whole other thing.

Sarah: I feel like I wouldn’t be eating

Bruce: I saw one guy break down. He literally started screaming, “this is not food” and threw his
plate on the ground and stormed out.

Sarah: That’s perfect because that leads to my next question. I was about to ask has anyone like gone
crazy or just kind of just lose it, or just like “I’m done”?
Bruce: Yeah, we had a guy threaten to blow up the ship. We had like four guys attend suicide. We
had some alterations of violence between various crew members and things going wrong that
way. The doctor carriers a straight jacket on board in case it’s needed. The laundry room locks
from the outside, so it’s the laundry room brig if necessary. If somebody goes nuts, you put them
in a straight jacket and throw them in the laundry room, lock the door.

Sarah: Oh my gosh.m Is that like common? Like “oh this happens all the time”.

Bruce: Kind of, yeah. The suicide thing is more common. The guy that threatened to blow up the ship
was kind of a one-off. Actually, in the shipyard, we had a guy snip a lot, about 1.7 million dollars
worth electrical cables. To try and prevent the ship from going out to sea and they determined
whatever the system he cut would have caused the ship to sink after it submerged. Not like, I
mean submerging and sinking are the same thing but what I mean is sink like not come back up
after it submerges.

Sarah: Yeah, like Titanic. It’s not coming back.

Bruce: Since missile subs have two crews. A golden and a blue, 150 each, they charged him with 300
counts of attended murder.

Sarah: Ooh. My gosh.

Bruce: That’s separate from the guy that tried to blow up the ship. Or threatened to blow up the ship.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: So we had that guy in the shipyard, and when we went out to sea. We had this other guy who
threatened to blow up the ship and then we had like three or four suicides. I don’t remember if
they were threats or attends or somewhere in between. But the big thing is divorced, which isn’t
necessarily something that happens on the ship but it's kind of like a mental problem that comes
because of the ship. The divorce rate in submarines force is like something like 95%.

Sarah: Divorce like marriage divorce?

Bruce: Yeah, so we get like four or five per patrol.

Sarah: Is it just like because of the time away?

Bruce: Yeah, yeah. It’s pretty rough. We don’t have communication.

Sarah: You don’t?

Bruce: Yeah, you get two family grams per patrol. A family gram is a hundred words one way.

Sarah: Yeah.

Bruce: The problem with being a nuke is that your school is so long, all a sudden it becomes a six-
year engagement instead of a four. Oh and by the way, on my practice test I got an 89. On my
real ASVAB, to actually qualify me, I got a perfect score.

Sarah: You got 100%?

Bruce: Yeah.

Sarah: How many people get that?

Bruce: I don’t know, but I had three people shake my hand afterward. They said they haven’t seen
one out of that met station.

Sarah: Really?

Bruce: Yeah.

Sarah: Thank you so much for doing this for me and taking time out of your day.

Bruce: Of course.

That concludes this interview