A Very Navy Christmas

By Luther Ray Abel

Sunday, December 25, 2022

 

Christmastime in the armed forces is . . . massive; it generates emotional gravity beyond that of anything else on the calendar. While workups and inspections will tread upon other holidays without pause, Christmas stand-down is the lone pacific stretch — so long as one isn’t deployed. Part of the reason for the offered quietude is selfish, I imagine: A captain’s wife doesn’t want him out at sea for Christmas any more than the wife of a seaman apprentice does.

 

But it’s more than that: Christmas is the one time a year when sailors have a time carved out for leave-taking and going home for a visit. Meddling with Petty Officer Timmy’s opportunity to fly home to Baton Rouge and eat as much gumbo as his grandmama can press upon him is inadvisable for a good officer, and denying Timmy leave would irrevocably damage the officer’s reputation among the crew. But even while the Navy prioritizes time off, as Santa is making his way down chimneys, there remain sailors checking the smokestacks on watch and those deployed dreaming of home.

 

Here’s what I learned from my time in the Navy about how the holiday-scheduling works: Half the crew takes a two-week period of leave from about mid December to just after Christmas — but you don’t know if you’re in this group until a week or two before, which, if you are, makes for an expensive revelation. When group A returns, well-fed and bleary, to relieve the second half, group B (everyone else) scoots off homeward for New Year’s Eve fun and the early part of January. If you’re a junior sailor, I’m sorry, bud: Prepare to receive the option you least desire.

 

Day-to-day on the ship during stand-down is mostly left to duty sections — a fraction of the crew who ensure that the ship isn’t burning, sinking, or sinking while burning. While we’re opening gifts on Christmas morning, sailors are standing watch on piers and quarterdecks, and within engine rooms — probably pumping down the bilges. Some maintenance might happen during the four weeks, but because Supply seemingly has only one guy who can access the paint or hazmat locker, you can’t get at either because he’s somehow managed to be on leave the entire month.

 

On carriers, the electrician’s mates will swap out light bulbs on the superstructure for a more festive green-and-red look. Hanging Christmas lights within the ship is frowned upon and prohibitively expensive, as anything that plugs into an outlet must be safety tagged. To get such a tag, an A-gang sailor would have to provide Monster energy drinks to the electrician on duty as a gift to those who control the black magic of current and amperes — provided he’s not busy hanging from the superstructure with light bulbs in his pants. So, what with the economic realities of legal lighting, outside of the odd Santa hat, there isn’t much to denote the Yuletide within the skin of the ship.

 

The saddest of all creatures are the guys who don’t have anywhere to be, no home to return to. Because the closest thing they have to a family is the Navy, they may not take leave at all. Instead, you can find them at the base’s bowling alley, lined up along the bar. None of them is named Davey.

 

When it comes to being deployed on Christmas, I can only say that the day is best ignored. Major holidays afloat are a bitter reminder that time is passing on the other side of the world in a way in which it isn’t aboard — where every day is the day before and after. At sea, the only difference between days is whether the smoke deck has been secured for rough waters.

 

Speaking of choppy seas, returning from my first deployment aboard the U.S.S. Rodney M. Davis (FFG-60), we were waylaid by a nasty storm that squatted between us in Honolulu and our home port of Everett, Wash. Because of the ship’s delicate condition (dangerously thin hull and weak keel) we couldn’t manage waves over twelve feet. The original plan would have had us pulling into port on December 15, but, because of the storm, we had to shelter near the western coast of Mexico and wait out the weather.

 

As the days bobbed along, you could feel the tension on the ship. With my E-4 pay of $26,000 per year, I had, months before, purchased non-refundable tickets home. Their date came and went. I bought another set for over $1,000 and a Southwest pair for $600; rather dear, but making it home was worth any price. Rumors (scuttlebutt) sprang up that we might spend Christmas in Mexico. Blessedly, the seas cleared enough for us to shoot north, and on December 19 we pulled into home port.

 

As soon as we were tied up alongside and the shore power was established, the brow was opened and those of us who had leave surged off to cars that would take us to the airport. However, after six months at sea, almost all of their batteries were dead. With the sort of jittery anxiety one would experience were a tyrannosaurus bearing down on one’s stricken vehicle, the guys with diesel trucks managed to get everyone else’s car juiced and turning over. I missed the first possible flight but nabbed the second after a fraught run through the greater-Seattle highway system.

 

For young sailors especially, Christmas is often their first chance to go home and tell everyone of all they’ve done and seen. But simultaneously, there are many who aren’t making it due to the needs of the Navy, their own lack of family, or the vagaries of personnel requirements.

 

To all of you reading this, seated in Central Engineering on the second deck with only gauges, draft reports, and alarms for company — we’re grateful for what you’re doing: needful work that has you away from where you wish to be.

 

Merry Christmas, and thank you for your service.