The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families. Through the perspective of a community of former graduates and Naval Academy insiders, this podcast will help you learn about life at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. Through our shared experiences, Academy Insider guides families through the anxiety and frustration caused by lack of understanding, misinformation, and confusion. This platform is designed to better relationships between midshipmen and their loved ones. This podcast is not affiliated with the United States Naval Academy, the United States Navy or Department of Defense. The thoughts and opinions are exclusively those of your host and his guests.
The Academy Insider Podcast - Your Guide to The Naval Academy Experience
#068 Semper Deep: Insight into Life as a Navy Submarine Officer
Ever wondered what life is truly like beneath the ocean's waves? Join us as we feature Andrea Howard, an esteemed submarine officer and influential member of the Academy Insider Advisory Board. From her beginnings in Atlanta to her double major in political science and Arabic at the Naval Academy, and her advanced studies in the UK, Andrea's journey is nothing short of inspiring. She offers a firsthand account of her experiences aboard different types of submarines, including the USS OHIO and her current role on a fast attack submarine. This episode is packed with invaluable insights into the terminology, classifications, and unique aspects of submarine service, making it essential listening for midshipmen, prospective students, and their families.
Andrea gives us a rare glimpse into the distinct challenges and rewards associated with both ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) and fast attack submarines (SSNs). We discuss the evolving integration of women into the submarine fleet, highlighting the strides made and the road ahead for greater inclusion. Andrea’s personal anecdotes bring to life the quality of life aboard these underwater vessels, providing a balanced perspective on the pros and cons of this demanding career path. From rigorous training exercises to the unique mission sets of each submarine type, the conversation is a comprehensive guide to understanding what it means to be part of this elite underwater community.
Beyond the technical and tactical aspects, this episode delves into the deeply human experience of submarine life. Andrea emphasizes the importance of maintaining personal identities and relationships while serving. We explore the strong bonds formed in the close quarters of a submarine, the leadership opportunities available to officers, and the significance of supportive communities. The discussion highlights the sacrifices and rewards of being a submariner, offering listeners a realistic view of this unique and fascinating career.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Grant Vermeer your host is the person who started it all. He is the founder of Academy Insider and the host of The Academy Insider podcast and the USNA Property Network Podcast. He was a recruited athlete which brought him to Annapolis where he was a four year member of the varsity basketball team. He was a cyber operations major and commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community. He was stationed at Fort Meade and supported the Subsurface Direct Support mission.
He separated from the Navy in 2023 and now owns The Vermeer Group, a boutique residential real estate company that specializes in serving the United States Naval Academy community PCSing to California & Texas.
We are here to be your guide through the USNA experience.
Connect with Grant on Linkedin
Academy Insider Website
Academy Insider Facebook Page
If you are interested in sponsoring the podcast, have an idea, question or topic you would like to see covered, reach out: podcast@academyinsider.com.
Welcome to Season 2 of the Academy Insider Podcast. Academy Insider is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that serves midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. At its core, this podcast is designed to bring together a community of Naval Academy graduates and those affiliated with the United States Naval Academy in order to tell stories and provide a little bit of insight into what life at the Naval Academy is really like. I hope you enjoy it. Thank you so much for listening and reach out if you ever have any questions. Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast.
Speaker 1:In today's episode I'm joined by Andrea Howard, who's a dear friend of mine, a member of the Academy Insider Advisory Board and just a genuine, incredible human being. She served as selected submarines. She's been a submarine junior officer on the USS Ohio, which is a SSGN submarine, and if you're interested in what that term means, listen to the episode and we'll do a full breakdown of some of the submarine terminology that you may hear. And then there's now currently a department head on a fast attack submarine out on the East coast, and so this episode really is going to be a high level overview of submarines. If you're interested in learning about the different types of submarines and what they do, some of the pros and cons of the lifestyle versus the mission and then get a good understanding of what makes being a submariner incredible, what are some of the amazing things and why people should consider it, but also, with radical transparency, some of the difficulties of the life as a submarine officer. And so if you're interested in hearing all of these different things as you're trying to learn about what your son or daughter may be doing, or if you're a prospective student about what you want to do in the future, then check this out. I think this episode is also great for midshipmen, specifically about the lifestyle and what things are important and what things are difficult and great about being a submarine junior officer. So if you know someone who may benefit from this information or think could you know, really appreciate this discussion, make sure to send it to them. Otherwise, I hope you have a great day. Thank you so much and I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker 1:The Academy Insider podcast is sponsored by the Vermeer Group, a residential real estate company that serves the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele in both California and Texas. If I can ever answer a real estate related question for you or connect you with a trusted Academy affiliated agent in the market which you're in. Please reach out to me directly at grant at the Vermeer groupcom. You can also reach out to me on my LinkedIn page, grant Vermeer, and I'd be happy to respond to you there. Thank you so much, and now let's get back to the episode.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone and welcome back to the Academy Insider Podcast, andrea. Thank you so much for joining us again. For anyone who's not familiar again, andrea is a part of the advisory board on Academy Insider, one of my extremely close personal friends and just an absolute incredible human being and incredible submarine officer. So if anyone is not familiar with you or hasn't heard you on the Academy Insider podcast or seen you kind of separate from this as well, do you mind just giving a quick background and introduction about where you're from, how you ended up at the Naval Academy and now currently what you're doing in your life in the fleet?
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. Chief among the titles that I hold is number one grant Vermeer and Academy insider fan. So it is such a treat to get to be back on the show with you and to elevate this platform that you created many years ago and continues to thrive. But I am a proud Atlantan and I've found that coming from the super diverse background that was presented to me in Atlanta has been one of the greatest assets of my Naval career. From Atlanta I went directly to the Naval Academy.
Speaker 2:From high school I was a political science and Arabic double major and since then I've had the opportunity to really travel the world both above the sea and underneath it.
Speaker 2:From the above the sea perspective, I had the opportunity to study for two years for graduate school in the United Kingdom, first at King's College London and then at the University of Oxford. I came back to the United States, did about a year and a half of the nuclear training pipeline and went on to my first submarine, the USS Ohio SSGN 726, the oldest operating submarine in the fleet. You and I, grant, had a little bit of time under the sea together for that boat for deployment certifications. I then took the opportunity to do a direct to department head option. So I forewent my shore duty for a number of reasons, partly because some may say I'm a little bit crazy and submarine gung-ho, but with that opportunity I was able to then go to the department head school in Groton, connecticut, for six months and reported to my first department head submarine tour on the PCU New Jersey soon to be USS New Jersey and I just split toward up to Groton, connecticut and I'm now the navigator and operations officer on South Dakota SSN 790.
Speaker 1:I love it. And just quick admin question for people who may be listening PCU this term you use PCU. Can you break it out for them?
Speaker 2:Yes, that is a pre-commissioning unit, so a naval vessel that has not yet been commissioned. Spoken alternatively, it has not been certified by the powers that be the Secretary of the Navy to serve in the fleet in a more permanent fashion. So it is not the first time that the New Jersey SSN 796 will be out and about on the water and under the sea. We actually completed sea trials it's first underway back in the March timeframe, but since then, with a number of follow-on certifications under its belt, new Jersey is now ready to permanently join the fleet.
Speaker 1:I love it. And again, if you're listening to Andrea and you're like holy smokes, that's an incredible resume, which it is I highly encourage you to go back and listen to episode 14 of the Academy Insider Podcast where we do a deep dive into Andrea's experience again in graduate school actually service selecting submarines and going through the nuke interview, talking to admirals going to the nuclear power school pipeline living in Charleston and then going out to our boat from there. So if you're interested in some of the more minutiae of the submarine selection process and making your way to the fleet again, I highly encourage you to check out episode 14. But today is going to be all about kind of just this submarine fleet.
Speaker 1:I really want this episode to be an opportunity for prospective high school students who may be considering the Naval Academy or again an ROTC or even enlisting, to learn a little bit about the fleet and then just have a little bit of perspective of not only being a submarine junior officer but now time as a department head, which is a slight, which is a distinction, especially in the fleet when it comes to roles and responsibilities.
Speaker 1:And so this episode is going to be a breakdown of that and we're going to start with a conversation because you use multiple terms. If someone has no idea about submarines, they probably have no idea what it means when you say SSGN versus an SSN and the numbers associated with it. And so I do want to just kind of talk about the three different types of submarines that we have currently in the fleet, between an SSGN, an SSN and an SSBN, and I just want to turn it to you of like, what's the difference? What are their different missions? What can it mean? And then, specifically for the life of an individual, the life of a junior officer, how does lifestyle change between these three platforms?
Speaker 2:The lifestyle ultimately is about having fun while doing cool things. So I'll throw that out there to begin with. You know that's why we were able to get you know. You, grant, for me, are underway on the submarines in a supporting fashion from really the intelligence and singles collection side. But I'll break it down into our three groups here. So we'll start with the oldest you know in the fleet, which is the SSGNs, the guided missile submarines, and it gets a little bit confusing the G again standing for guided missile, because they're a conversion from the SSBNs, the ballistic missile submarines. So G for guided, b for ballistic. But the four SSGNs Ohio, michigan, florida and Georgia originally, like I said, started as ballistic missile submarines, but around the early 2010s they were converted into platforms that carried the most cruise missiles of any naval platform that's in existence in the fleet. So their primary missions now are strike and then they also have an ability to field two dry deck shelters to carry special warfare personnel and Navy divers to covertly deploy those forces onto places and you know, on the sea, under the sea, where they support national security missions. So again, strike and naval special warfare.
Speaker 2:People will describe SSGNs as the best of both worlds and I'll dig into that a little bit, but they do sort of a combination based on the size of the conventional ballistic missile platform or what historically you know with these massive 560 foot submarines. They combine that size with some of the stealth and forward leaning presence of the SSNs, the fast boats. So SSGNs think hybrid, older submarines. We don't know exactly what their future looks like. They keep getting extended from a whole life perspective. But that's where I started my submarine tour. You'll hear about the fast attack life with those SSNs, but I like to think of SSGNs as slow attack, tough. So you know a little bit of a mix of the Ohio size with the SSN stealth. So then we'll go over to the SSBNs.
Speaker 2:There are 14 SSBNs in the fleet. The breakdown at the moment is six on the East Coast in Kings Bay, georgia, and eight on the West Coast out of Bangor, washington. They are the number one DOD priority and that's just not my opinion. That is the actual reflection of the role that they play within the Navy. Ssbns carry 24 Trident D5 missiles which are equipped with nuclear warheads, and they are the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad. Our Air Force brethren have the two other legs in the form of silos and bombers, but when it comes to having a covert location for nuclear-equipped missiles, your SSBNs are the meat and potatoes of strategic deterrence. So you'll hear the phrase in popular culture okay, boomer, we've kind of co-opted that and applied that to the SSBN life. So SSBNs, if they complain about schedules and things, they're two crew submarines with pretty consistent schedules. So if you ever hear an SSBN sailor complain about their ship schedule and their quality of life, I think an appropriate response is okay, boomer, exactly Then.
Speaker 2:Lastly, we have SSNs, which comprise the majority of the roughly 70 boat fleet that we have. So if you can do public math, you're talking about in the realm of about 50 of those submarines. There are different variants of them. We don't have to go into that. I think if you're interested in submarines you can do a little bit of Googling. And we actually think talked about that in episode 14 as well. But SSNs are one crew submarines. So again, whereas SSGNs and SSBNs have two crews that rotate in a semi-consistent fashion, ssns it's one crew, one hull and you are in and out all the time. However, given the size and the speed of these assets, you're able to go places more quickly and maybe get a little bit closer to some of these locations that the Ohio class submarines, be it SSGNs or SSBNs, might not be able to reach.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And when you mentioned these two crews, when one crew is actually out on the submarine conducting the mission, what's the second crew doing at home? Are they just hanging out or what? Again, when we talk about the two crew cycle, what do you do when you're at home?
Speaker 2:You are not just hanging out. So there are trainers ashore you know, whether you are a one crew submarine or two crew submarine that allow you to hone different submarine warfare domains. So you know we have attack centers, we call them, that simulate what a control room is like in a submarine wherein you would be driving, ingesting inputs into sonar, which is kind of our eyes and ears, to operate Submerge. You still have your fire control technicians who are analyzing that sonar data and making solutions, as we call them, so that we are able to have a three-dimensional picture, xyz access, of anything that's in the water column. And you have your navigation electronics technicians, who I am particularly fond of as the navigator on board, who make sure that we can drive again, not just in two dimensions but three-dimensionally, with a safe buffer to the bottom and anything laterally that could compromise the safety of the submarine. So we're able to exercise the attack centers.
Speaker 2:If you're an SSBN, that ballistic missile sailor, there are ways that you can practice breaking the nuclear codes. I've never done that personally, but it's a pretty intense exercise that has a lot of rigidity to the command and control. And there are also trainers where we can practice driving on the surface. So you might think I'm a submariner. I can just submerge by the pier where usually the water depth doesn't support that. Best place to pilot out of historically is Guam, because you drive out of the harbor and then you're right off the continental shelf and going down to the Marianas Trench. But for other locations we really do actually spend quite a bit of time driving on the surface. So if you're a junior officer who's on board, you'll have plenty of time to hone those skills, whether it's driving on the surface, driving submerged. We have trainers that simulate radio communications or the electronic warfare spectrum. There are plenty of opportunities for you to kind of get your feet wet in an environment where the whole of the submarine can't be endangered, and make some mistakes and get better because of it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely and kind of the thing that I want to talk about as someone who's not a submariner but has spent a lot of time on submarines, kind of the biggest differential from an outside perspective we're talking about between these different platforms is exactly kind of what you mentioned earlier is quite literally the size of the platform, and so it can make a really interesting perspective, because these SSBNs and SSGNs are massive, whereas the SS, the fast attack submarines, are really tight and really crammed quarters. It was really interesting because, again, when I showed up on Ohio with Andrew on board, I literally walked down that hatch and I was like what have I been missing? So much room for activities, so much room for activities? I was like this is crazy, this is like I'm on a cruise ship here, like this is crazy, because I spent all my time deploying on fast attacks and so to kind of switch over to that, there's a ton more space, right, there's a ton more space, which, again, from a perspective of just the quality of life or just again being on board a submarine, just the quality of life or just again being on board a submarine, on the SSGN there was quite literally a Smith machine Like you could, you could do bench press, you can squat, you can lift weights and again, whereas on the SSN I was lucky if I was doing pull-ups between the ladder wells, right, and maybe some dumbbells and a bike and hopefully the treadmill works, but it's possible that it doesn't Right and so it is it's.
Speaker 1:It's quite a distinction but at the same time, like you're saying, that that SSN life, the mission set associated with it, is really cool and it's really high speed and like it really gives you that sense of adventure, excitement, mission and purpose in the day-to-day life. And again, on the SSBN side, you definitely have that mission and purpose, right, like you're saying, it's quite literally the most important factor towards our national security posture. But your day-to-day life can probably get a little boring, right. Sometimes you're just kind of driving circles, right, you're driving circles in the ocean and just you know, standing by, stand by to stand, standby, and so what I do want to talk a little bit about again with these sizes, there were multiple crews when I was going on the fastboats.
Speaker 1:That were all men. In my last deployment I deployed on the John Warner and we had three women. On board was a woman and then two other female officers, and so with that is is that the same Again? For me, we're approaching four or five years ago, so what is the opportunity that exists for women in the submarine fleet in terms of like actually being assigned to a submarine, and does it differ between the enlisted side and the officer side? And what's kind of the current layout?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it definitely is different on the officer and enlisted side, but I'm happy to report that great progress is being made and in an accelerated fashion. So to peek behind the curtain of the Wizard of Oz, you know, or at least the wizard of what is the Women in Submarines plan? That is a real plan. There's a Women in Submarines plan with an assigned junior officer who is the Women in Submarines coordinator and with the turnover that they just recently underwent and really the inertia of women's success on board these platforms, we're seeing the opportunities for women open up in an accelerated fashion. So where are we at right now?
Speaker 2:The rough numbers I usually have these in front of me, but there are, of the 70 boats, over 20 now that are open to officers for opportunities to go underway. So if you're looking at crews, it's really more in the 30s because of those two crew submarines. So all of the SSGNs are integrated for officers. There's a handful of SSBNs. I know that one of my good buddies just became the eng on another SSBN out on the West Coast, the Pennsylvania, and so again there are, as we're speaking, you know, and over this next year I anticipate probably three or four more of those SSBNs will get integrated with officers.
Speaker 2:And then from the fast attack side, this past year the 688 class. So an additional class of the fast attacks just became open. So we're at a point where all three of the Seawolves and other class in the SSNs are fully integrated to include the Jimmy Carter, which is pretty notorious for doing a special mission set. A handful now of the 688s and the Virginias, all the newer boats, all future Virginias, will be built to include officers and actually enlisted women. But so you'll get to a point here where probably by 2035, at least half, if not more, of the submarines will be integrated with officers, with increased opportunities for at least rides for the enlisted women.
Speaker 1:Sure.
Speaker 2:The enlisted women integration began in earnest. I think the announcement came in 2015 or 16. And then there's always about a two year follow on to get those first sailors to the boat. So when Michigan became the first boat I believe it was in 2016 or 17 it's been a little bit of a slower, slower roll but now again starting to accelerate for the enlisted gals. So all four of the ssgns are integrated.
Speaker 2:I believe there are three ssbn crews that are integrated and then every fast attack that is now built will include those enlisted women. So New Jersey, the PCU that's about to commission that I was on, was the first fully integrated Virginia class fast attack submarine, which was, you know, a really exciting milestone then to do sea trials with the first integrated fast attack crew from, you know, the most junior ranks up to myself, the female senior leader who was on board. So we're making strides. But again, if I kind of holistically capture into numbers, about 20 boats, 30 crews for the officers and then on the enlisted side, you're probably in the ballpark now of about 15 crews or so that are fully integrated, given that the majority of the enlisted sailors for now are on those SSBNs and GNs, with increased opportunities in the future for them to be on the fast attacks.
Speaker 1:I love it. I think that's a really cool again transition. It was awesome Again. All I talk about is from my personal anecdote and experience because again I deployed on but you're saying I was a 688 guy for a long time. I deployed on a lot of the old boats right, I was Providence, newport, news, albany, which is an I boat, but still and then I finally got to go on John Warner right and to have that was again. It was an incredible. It was an incredible experience, right, and I mean for anyone who's not aware, during that time they had literally dubbed it was the funniest because Will Wiley is like he's an incredible guy and super humble, but like the submarine force, loved them too.
Speaker 1:And so they were Captain of John Warner. Just to throw that out, thank you, he was the, he was the CEO of John Warner and like, literally there are people calling him submarine Jesus, that man could do, that. Man could do no wrong and it was just like. It was a really cool experience, because we'll kind of talk about, I think, a little bit more in this and some of the experiences of actually being on a submarine and doing the work. Is that interesting? You're going to have different experiences on different boats. It's very similar to what we talk about on Academy Insider.
Speaker 1:A lot about the company that you're in can completely change the experience you have. There's a lot of input and culture that's associated with it and that's the same thing. When you hit the fleet right. Different submarines will perform at different levels, different submarines will have different cultures, and so to kind of get on that platform at the end where the USS John Warner was, just like it was unbelievable. They were an extremely high performing submarine and like that stuff is that stuff is really cool.
Speaker 1:And so I do want to just tailor and shift the discussion a tiny bit here to the experience of being on a submarine and now having your J JO tour, complete a lot of time in on your department head tour and time on now fast attack the SSN and time on an SSGN and saying kind of two similar but but different mission sets. What are some of the amazing things about being a submarine officer? Like what? What to you has been like so incredible and really cool and keeps you going and may like led you to make the decision to stay in right and like short or not even stay in, but like get rid of your short tour and fast tour to to be a department head and stay out to sea and stay conducting the mission. Like what? What, in your opinion, are some of the incredible aspects of being a submarine officer?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is a highly technical enterprise where you have to take monthly exams on nuclear propulsion, you have to take consistent qualification tests and continuous improvement metrics to validate that you are safe to operate not only a reactor plant and steam systems back aft to turn the screw and keep the ship going, but to also validate on what, in my opinion, is the more fun side. Again, I'm a navigator driving this vessel while doing these missions that are vital to national security. But in that paradigm where you're like it's got to be so technical and there's so much engineering focus and tactical studying, it really is just a people business. I say it's kind of ironic that I think you lock 130 plus souls underneath the sea in a tin can and, while it seems super inhumane and in fact like a really tough environment where the ocean we always kind of say is trying to get you is trying to best you and your crew, you put people in this really unnatural set of conditions and you end up finding the best parts of humanity. You in fact learn what makes you human, what makes you joyous, what makes you tick, what irritates you, and you find out the same about 130 different people on board and it gets to the point where you can hear people moving down the passageway or just hear their voice, and not only do you recognize who it is by their voice and their movements, but you can tell their mood. You get to know these people so intimately because you're in this almost like NASA-esque experience where it's you're living like like folks going to populate Mars together, right. So I mean that that really is the most fascinating part of the job and the thing that is consistent across the cruise job and the thing that is consistent across the crews.
Speaker 2:One thing I want to highlight for any of the gals who may be listening, who are intrigued in joining, is that you might be like, oh, my goodness, you're going to like lock me under the sea with all these guys. How many, how many women are there per boat? We talked about kind of the overarching scheme. You know we're at a point now where we're on the officer side, so anybody who'd be going through the Naval Academy by the time that they get to a wardroom, unless they are one of the first folks to integrate a boat. We're in the usually Senate department head and two junior officers, so there'd be a set of three women, and it's not because three is a lucky number. That's typically the size of a stateroom. So the three of you can live together very easily when you're doing that initial transition. But outside of the context of being an integrator of a boat, if you're on one of these boats that's had women for probably two or three years, you'll find that at least half of your wardroom so seven to eight personnel out of 15, are probably going to be women. And then on the enlisted side there's less crews but still a high number of women. So what it breaks down to is that you typically have about 20 to 30 women on each of these crews on the enlisted side, to give you a total population breakdown of probably like 25% of the crew is women between the officers and the enlisted. So it's not like you're totally alone.
Speaker 2:What makes being a submariner the essence of submarining, I guess, is, like I said, it really is a people business. And so, you know, folks will always, you know, allude to the great missions that were done in places that can't be spoken of. But what really is very special is that, you know, I've gone to weddings, I've met the kids, I've gotten the opportunity to reenlist people from all different creeds. You know the best of the patchwork quilt that is our nation, and to have the opportunity to work with them is really special. You know I'm kind of droning on because it's hard to capture the essence of what makes this community so great.
Speaker 2:But I will say this my mom was a high school public educator and I saw the way that she so directly impacted the lives of, you know, the diaspora of folks from Atlanta who passed through her classroom doors and that's the thing that kept me as a department head, moving on from a junior officer level, from that first tour, to want to commit to a second tour.
Speaker 2:You know there is truly nothing greater as an officer in the United States Navy than getting to work with a demographic of like 18 to 24 year olds who come from all parts of the country, of all different backgrounds, and to get to make the decision based on your attitude. You know your level of direct mentorship and ultimately you make a change in their lives, whether they stay in the Navy or beyond. And I think that comes to bear very clearly in the submarine force by some of these other communities where you might not be directing leading sailors if you're an aviator or a naval flight officer until well within the nine or 10 year mark of your career, well within the nine or 10 year mark of your career. Your attitude, like directly, directly makes the days and therefore makes the whole experience of submarining for your sailors either superlatively positive or something that they want to leave.
Speaker 1:Sure, I think that's a really interesting point. And in the proximity, quite literally, the physical space I think does contribute to that, right, I think it's really interesting because, again, as a midshipman, for literally, the physical space I think does contribute to that. I think it's really interesting because, again, as a midshipman, for what it's worth, like going on summer cruise on an LSD there was plenty of times where you can get away and just be by yourself, right, you sit out on the deck, whatever, like you can just like stare out into the vast ocean and hang out. You can find space to be private and by yourself On a submarine. It's just not the case, especially a fast attack, right, like you are with those people 24-7, right. And so I joke, it's almost similar, as a TV buff and fan that I am, it's almost similar to the Big Brother house. You really get to know someone really fast because you have no other option but to communicate with them, to be a part of their life and to impact them just by your attitude, just by your demeanor, the way that you're interacting with them. It's going to be day in and day out for an extended period of time and the beauty of that is you can build some really incredible relationships in what others may consider a short amount of time. But again, if you're stuck on a submarine together for 90 days straight under the ocean, no popping up and breathing fresh air, right, like, you're going to build a really special relationship with those people, and I think that's a really cool aspect and it was something that I really enjoyed.
Speaker 1:In taking my detachment of, you know, sailors onto the different submarines is like I had a.
Speaker 1:I knew I was going to have a 45 to like 80 day period where I could invest in in sailors lives, right, and help them achieve what they wanted to achieve, whether that was in the Navy, like help them get their fish, help them qualify IW, qualify their senior watch positions as a part of our elements. Or if it was, hey, I know like sir, I joined the Navy because I wanted to get free college, right, and so it's like all right, well, let's take care of our job, we're going to work with chief, we're going to get you qualified, but in your downtime let's sit down and talk about college, let's work on SAT problems, let's do these things and again, you don't have another option, right, like you don't get to run away from the leadership on submarines. It's going to approach you and hit you every single day in the face, right and and I think that's a really cool, interesting and unique aspect of the submarine force and the proximity quite literally makes a serious impact in that Right, and so I think that's really cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I have a hot take, because I know where this conversation is going, which is going to be. You know, in the realm of how you can succeed as a junior officer in the submarine community If you're a student who's looking to join the Navy and you're like dang. You know I really love Top Gun, I want to be an aviator or, like I've seen Battleship, and I want to be like Rihanna and go drive on a destroyer, whatever you know surface platform it is. I think that it makes sense that a lot of the folks who are now of the age where they'd be applying for the academy might not find submarines appealing. You know you can't make in TikToks and post it in real time when you're on your submarine or trying to push out. You know you can't make in TikToks and post it in real time when you're on your submarine or trying to push out. You know content on Instagram to garner all the followers, and so I can see how folks might be daunted by the prospect of living months under the sea and really an alternate reality while the world moves on. But my hot take is this there is no better way to spend your young adulthood than in the leadership laboratory. That is the environment we have described.
Speaker 2:You go to the academy because it is a hard thing to do, but it is a place where you develop yourself under pressure to become a better version of yourself. Diamonds take pressure to form, and the same thing can be said of midshipmen who become officers and then officers who become submarine warfare qualified. It is not a relaxing environment, but if you're that type of person where you run towards the hardest things because you know it will make you better, that's what submarining is all about. So, in terms of, then, how you thrive once you make that commitment to be a junior officer in that environment, all I can say is this Folks are going to tell you within a submarine community that it's about qualifying rapidly, that it's about standing watch, it's about becoming a technical expert, knowing your references and all those things are true, but I like to phrase it in a little bit of a different fashion, which is that your job is to lead teams, and there is no more effective weapon at leading teams than an awesome junior officer aboard a submarine. Yes, we want you to be as much of a technical expert as you can. You know. Yes, we want you to be as much of a technical expert as you can. Yes, we want you to learn from your chief and work with your sailors to get to a point that you know the books and know how to operate the most complex machines in the world. You know how to operate that submarine safely.
Speaker 2:But what I really need you to do is, while you're going through qualifications, is to take the extra two minutes to ask the sailor who's giving you a checkout. We do a lot of oral interviews. Give the sailor who's asking you a checkout the opportunity to tell you about what makes them tick, where they're from, what their goals are. Eight hour cycles back in the engine room for you to understand that person's family. And when they come in and they give you a technical brief and you're about to exercise maintenance or whatever the case may be, if you can have that touch point with them hey, how's your wife, how's your kids? How's your husband? How's your niece, who you always love to talk about? That is the thing that will make them realize that you care. It'll make their heart sing.
Speaker 2:Personally and professionally. I guarantee you that when they go to do that evolution out in the space, they're going to do it right and have the integrity to do it correctly and want to do the best job possible, because they don't want to let you down, because they know that you have their back and they're going to have your back. So that's really like I said. My little hot take is that your job as a JO is to get to know those sailors and to get to know what it's going to take to make them the best versions of themselves, both professionally and personally, because they're going to put out so much harder for you and the team. The mission is just going to come naturally. I think there's a lot of emphasis right now in the Navy on mission first, mission completeness. That'll follow we take care of our people first, and then you'll be hard pressed to find a team that fails, where the people feel cared for and want to care for their leaders.
Speaker 1:That's straight. I think we see that a lot in some of the voices that are coming out. Like Captain Hill right Chowda, the CEO of the Ike right, has been really big about that, about taking care and loving his people radically right For sure. The mission will happen to do that. You have Captain Jervie Jervie Alota right Like. He's very big on that as well. It's led to a lot of success and it's really cool to see that.
Speaker 1:And again, like you mentioned being a submarine JO and for me, being a cryptologic officer, right Like it's all about leading teams. The more junior you are, the smaller your team's gonna be, right, but as you get higher up, you just you start leading teams of teams right, and I think that's a really interesting perspective because, again, when you show up, like you're saying, whether you're the engineering officer of the watch, whether you're the contact manager, whether you're standing a watch, whether you're the officer of the deck, all you are doing, quite literally, is leading your team right, and you're going to have sailors that are going to be doing technical, tactical jobs. You're going to be using those data points to make recommendations to the officer of the deck and as the officer of the deck, you have to make sure that all of your individual walk sessions that are keeping the ship safe from sonar to fire control, to radio and ESM to everyone back after you are just leading those teams of teams and everything just comes down to exactly that to people, right, and again, the not fun part of the job is at some point you are going to have to correct people, you are going to have to hold people accountable. But if it's been made very clear that you genuinely care about them, you're invested in their life. Doing that becomes a lot simpler, right, it becomes a lot simpler because they don't feel like you're holding a grudge out for them.
Speaker 1:Right, they're not coming like, you're not trying to get after them, it's just. Again, it comes down to we're an elite team trying to do a good job and if you're not doing what you're supposed to be doing, then, like, we need to adjust that. And it's never personal, right, the only personal between us is a care for your life and what you got going on, right, and so-.
Speaker 2:I I'll tell a story that is new from this last underway that I just had. That, I think, again underscores why submarines are so special and people who might be privy to this conversation between us are like well, these folks are like skilled leaders, you know they make, they've learned a bunch and they make no mistakes. Submarining is a community where backup is very much so desired and required. So I was off to the deck you mentioned this term acquired. So I was off to the deck you mentioned this term. So I am physically given the orders that allow us to drive the boat and give permission items for any evolution that's going on board and we were transitioning from a submerged posture to being surfaced, so surfacing the ship and I have very exacting standards for surfacing the ship because it's an evolution where I mean you are opening up what we call the people space in the submarine to the atmosphere, to the potentially water, if done incorrectly. But you know we have a very rigorous program by which we certify the team in order to validate that when we open the hatch, that we are on the surface, staying on the surface, and are only bringing in air and not water. We did this brief and I was with a new team, on this new crew to me at least, on South Dakota and my oncoming lookout. So a guy who stands watch up on the surface in the bridge and is the 360 degree cognizance he was stumbling over, briefing his part, and it's the most important transition in my mind, because you're physically sending people up to the surface for the first time and we need to validate the conditions are correct and that he knows the actions, both from a contact management perspective so make sure we're not getting hit by somebody we didn't see on our sensors as we were coming up and then, furthermore, just to validate, like as the pressures from the ship to atmosphere is equalizing, that he's going to be safe.
Speaker 2:And I and it was the last of a series of frustrations that I had during that brief for this lookout to not be 100% accurate on his part when I also had officers, junior officers, who had shown up a little bit late or not prepared for their parts of the evolution as well so I kind of go on this, this spiel, with a little bit of heightened sauce, we'll say behind my voice, and I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky person as it goes on the boat, because I think it's important to be that for your people when appropriate. But I put a little bit of sauce behind this one. It was correcting my team but because of the way that it sequentially evolved, it looked like I was just ripping into this one relatively junior sailor who was going to be fulfilling the role of lookout and he didn't know that I had kind of been sassy with some of the JOs who weren't ready for their parts previous to his. And so, you know, we get through and upgrade the folks that are part of the brief. I give permission for folks to take station, and my senior enlisted leader on the watch, the pilot who drives the Virginia class submarine, it's like, hey, ma'am, request you alongside. And I'm like, oh, they all. They only do that when they're about to give you some feedback, right.
Speaker 2:And so my senior chief and chief, who are standing pilot and co-pilot, were like, ma'am, the way that that list looked to the watch team, who's not privy to everything that was happening to the officers that you just destroyed, this junior sailor and so they were like, you know, while it's not necessarily appropriate for you to like readdress all of them, you know they were like you can do something that's sort of visible to all of them to make that sailor like know that you set your expectation, but still kind of pump him up. So they like gave a pre-brief to the sailor and were like hey, do you understand what the expectation is and where you're wrong. They were like he's like yes, chief, yes, senior. And then, same thing, I call him over to the con and the whole watch team then sees me say like hey, shit, mate, like I just I care about you and I want you to be safe during this evolution and you understand the standard. Like I'm not mad at you, I just want you to be good. Are you good, are we good? And he's like, yes, ma'am, I understand safely. And like I'm proud of you for bouncing back and, you know, having a positive attitude as we complete this evolution.
Speaker 2:So the team saw that right and all was right in the world. But that's, I think, the beautiful thing about submariners that I'm a very you know, squarely mid grade, bordering on becoming one of the more senior people in the community, and I, as a lieutenant commander in 04, with almost 10 years of commission service under my belt, had a chief on my watch team who was able to provide me the backup to do the right thing by my sailors, that is, submarining, and while I'm sure that forms of that exist across the Navy, it will not be to the same extent that exists in my community. So again, if you're the person who runs towards the danger, who runs towards the hardest opportunities, who wants to be made better every day from a leadership and technical lens, it's the community for you, hands down.
Speaker 1:I don't even know that we need to continue the episode I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, another episode Cut. It is an incredible community. There is a lot of incredible things that happen, you're going to be surrounded by amazing people and there's a lot of good associated with a career in submarining. But I also believe in radical transparency to make sure that people always know what they're getting themselves into and that, quite literally, at the pros outweigh the cons for their specific life situation, their personality and how they are Correct. I do want to shift a little bit to the less glamorous aspects of submarineing Because, for anyone who doesn't know, this is a moment that's really honestly special in my life is while I was underway with Andrea on the Ohio this was post my tackle seas tour.
Speaker 1:I was done deploying. My tactical tour. I was done deploying.
Speaker 1:At this point I was an evaluator for some of the direct support officers, which is the billet and the name they give for the cryptologic officer on board the submarine, and we were in this compartment upper level on the USS Ohio and we had a really deep, in-depth conversation about some of the difficulties of being on a submarine for that long and some of the battles of not only the Navy but being away from home for so long, some of the, again, the difficulties of a sporadic like fast attack, submarine life and the amount of mission periods, things that change, the constant shifts in schedule and this real idea of being like Semper Gumby right, it's something we hear a lot in the military, but just always being flexible to the amount of change that happens.
Speaker 1:And so on the flip side now is I want to turn it over to you and see, in your opinion, what are some of the less glamorous aspects of being a submariner. What have some of the real difficult aspects been in your life and what have you witnessed, from other people as well, that come along with all of the good that is being a submariner?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean. The number one hardship hands down is that there's not enough room to hoop underway. We don't play basketball.
Speaker 1:Ain't nobody getting buckets on the submarine? This is crazy Nobody getting buckets.
Speaker 2:Correct, correct Grant. We got to give the listeners some context that you and I are loving basketball. You know. We love the game, but it is really difficult though, to have the world move on and for me to not be able to keep up with the WNBA standings. You know as the season transpires, but it's like that across all facets of your life. Right, you have to have a super supportive tribe of friends if you want to maintain those relationships, and those people know that when you pop up and are able to be present, that they appreciate that but have a lot of understanding when it's not the case.
Speaker 2:Family is family for life. You know for a lot of us, and if you're blessed to be in that situation where you have those close relationships with family, I'd say that is. One of the larger strains is just seeing folks age or missing life events and births and birthdays and holidays. You know those are the sacrifices that sometimes are warranted within this community and seem to hit a little bit harder in this community than others. I see friends who are surface warfare officers on carriers and now even some of the smaller vessels, like the destroyers and cruisers, who are able to FaceTime home. You don't do that on a submarine right. You're able to be on email, you're able to occasionally call. If there's a big family occasion, we're able to establish comms and get on the satellite phones, but for the most part you know you're really out of reach from your family in a consistent fashion, and so that definitely, I think, is the number one cost that you pay. I'll give the advice, if you are a submariner, to choose wisely when it comes to spouses.
Speaker 2:You know I married an incredible, highly independent woman who loves kind of both chapters of our lives as they exist in the present moment. We always have two chapters while we're in sea duty. It's the time together and time apart, and she's able to thrive in both. We actually like that. When we're together, we kind of maximize the time, it almost feels like a vacation. And then on the other side, she's the type of person who will do her hobbies whether it's gardening or CrossFit or name your X, y, z activity and she thrives in those different components and silos of our lives. But it is very difficult to merge lives together and then break them apart and then re-merge them, but it does create something that's very transformative and beautiful as you age together. We're in our young 30s, so maybe aging together isn't the exact verb that we're going for, but I feel like we've had a number of really beautiful chapters of our lives together in different places, like Washington State, hawaii, guam I was by myself but back to the East Coast for some time in DC, groton, connecticut, hampton Roads, virginia. So I mean, it's the adventure of a lifetime, and if you can bring another person through that with you, then that's an awesome treat.
Speaker 2:But you know, I think I think that's just the reality is is having those balances in your relationships. We'll break and talk about mental health, because that is such a focus, not just from the deck plate, but the Navy leadership as it translates down to the deck plate. You know you, you have to find the things, as a submariner, that give you balance, and it probably is some of the notionally toughest work-life balance in the military because, again, you are living where you work, with no ability at times to have an outlet to the outer world. You have to have red lines though. So, like you know for myself, I, when I'm in port, I will make sure that I carve out time to work out. When I'm underway, I will also find time to work out. You know, my wife and I have merged our workout time ashore as long as we're together, to make that be a joint activity where we're building our relationship and building our physical and mental health. You know, underway Some people watch TV, some people play video games, some people, you know, write or color, or whatever the case may be, there are, there are ways that you have to maintain your identity and not let it get all consuming.
Speaker 2:So, you know, if I were to summarize all of those stressors, I think the biggest danger of being a submariner, from a personal perspective, is that you let it become all consuming. You need to always strive to be a submariner and a spouse, a submariner and a daughter, a submariner and a good friend, a submariner and a guitarist or a basketball player, whatever it is that makes you tick. And I've very much so, said that the people who thrive best in this community it's sort of ironic are those that are able to maintain those identities and maintain their authenticity and that genuine part of their personality, because it makes people want to be like you someday. If all you have is work, then work isn't going to work for you, right? You have to have that holistic personhood that's brought into submarining. And so you know, define those red lines and communicate to your chain of command so that they can help back you up on that too and give you the time and space to be that whole person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I struggled with that a lot, right, and that was part of the conversation that we had together on board that submarine. And I think that's really difficult because for me, with the sporadic nature of being a cryptologic direct support element and hopping from boat to boat and, you know, not having a set schedule and being all these things, I never established any rhythms, I never established any routines. I kind of kind of got rid of everything that brought me joy and made me who. I was Right and and it was. It was extremely difficult and the easiest way to do that was kind of just to become numb, right, numb to it, just be like, yep, all right, I'm not going to like try and get too high and excited while I'm home because I know I'm about to flip and go back onto the boat, right, so I just kind of stayed in this, this neutral state, right, and so, again, as we have these conversations, those are the challenges that you can fall into right, like those are the challenges that you will face and, like Andrea is saying, there are ways to solve it and make not even solve it, but make the most of it right and face it head on and do the things that you need to do to maintain that status of being healthy mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, right, and so those things do exist, but it is difficult and you know it's. It's really funny that you mentioned the connectivity aspect, right, like that piece was weird.
Speaker 1:I was on deployment in 2020, basically the entirety of, well, I guess, right, yeah, 2020, covid-19. So COVID year was 20, right, and we're on board this submarine and all you're reading because, again, we're on mission, right, it's not like we're coming up, we're not. So, for anyone who's listening, like submarines, your ability to receive and send off communication is very dependent on, currently, what you are actively doing in your mission, right, and so we're in a place where we're not coming up to the surface of the submarine and sticking out a big antenna to get a satellite download. You're like floating a little wire right and copying very minimal amounts of broadcasts, and so we're receiving updates about COVID and we don't know anything. That's going on. I got underway on March 13th Never heard of her Never heard of her.
Speaker 1:I don't know what this thing is. March 13th, 2020, we get underway, and so end of March, early April, we're seeing headlines, right Like 70,000th person dies in Italy from COVID. Right, like COVID cases exceed 1 million worldwide. You start getting into these things and you start worrying. You start worrying about your family, you start worrying about all these things that are going on and that continued into the year, because that was an election year. Right, like we have found out who the president of the united states was, like three days late. Right, and, and it's just a headline. Right and you have no additional information. You're just like you just get the thing right, like Biden wins elections. Like that's it, right, and so it's just like it's a. It's a really I don't want to use the word weird, but, like you kind of mentioned, it's its own unique, it's weird, right, it's weird.
Speaker 1:You're in your own little fairy land down there, Right, Like it's, it's almost like it's it's its own world, and so you know, it's like one of those things that you just have to get used to and you have to adjust and you have to train that muscle of, again, like you're saying, when you're on the submarine, being this like being the submariner, but still being able to separate yourself and not be stuck in focus and have that be completely, totally encompassing when your life is outside of it. Right, and so, yeah, it's one of those really weird things. When I reflect back on my time on a submarine, I'm like I missed COVID right, I was just on a submarine getting updates. Right, I missed the election. There are a lot of things that you just miss the birth of my niece, right, Miss birthdays, holidays, like you're saying.
Speaker 1:Those are things that, again, for me, added up, right, and I was like I knew I wanted to kind of prioritize something else, but, like you mentioned, sometimes those are the sacrifices that you just need to be aware of. And so, with that conversation about again, some of the costs of being a submariner as well and the impacts it makes on your life, I do just want to turn it over to you for one last question, which is what's your best recruiting pitch for? Why someone should consider one a service academy, but then two selecting the submarine community, as you know what they do in the military?
Speaker 2:I'll give you two quick stories that come from both inspiring the next generation and connecting with those who've come before you. So there I was at the Foxwoods Casino in Groton, connecticut, with my wife for one of the submarine birthday balls. This would have been in 2022, when I was a student at the Submarine Officer Advanced Course, which is your ticket to become a department head, and we were just dancing on the dance floor and I had this awesome 17-year-old gal come up to us said I didn't think that there was anybody in this community who was like me and who I want to be like. Simple moment, right, just just us being ourselves on the dance floor goofing around, and it was an inspirational and pretty pivotal moment for a junior sailor. It's an all volunteervolunteer force for submarining and we need people to feel motivated and inspired to join the community, and so anybody has the ability to be that leader who makes a young person raise their right hand, support and defend the Constitution and join in what is the most vital area for potential future conflict. You know we didn't touch on that, but submarines are going to be the first line of offense or defense in any major conflict. That's what we're constantly practicing for. So again, you want to have the knife in your teeth and inspire this next generation of people who's going to potentially save the nation I'm not being exaggeratory potentially save the nation and defend freedom of the seas abroad. You know that's submarines. But again, folks who've been privy to this conversation might say that's all, that's all well and fine, I can do that in another warfare domain. You know what are you really getting out of being part of this community. It is so hard to convey the meaning behind wearing those dolphins, that submarine warfare insignia.
Speaker 2:But my wife and I went to a Hampton Roads Naval Submarine League event and again, my wife is a great balance to this crazy lifestyle and is always challenging me and making sure that if I continue to commit to this community, that it's really what I want to do.
Speaker 2:But we went to this event and we met some awesome served, you know, admirals and Navy captains who had been part of this community and by the time we left, you know admirals and Navy captains who had been part of this community and by the time we left, you know having interacted with them and their spouses, and my wife was like, hey, andrea, you really got to stay and try for command, because there is just such a buzz of pride amongst this community and those of us and those who support us who really know what it means to be at the forefront of this national security imperative.
Speaker 2:And I'll tell you that it is the hardest thing that I will ever do in my life submarining and this is from the lens of somebody who went to school internationally and I'm applying to potentially get a PhD. There will be nothing harder than being a submariner with submarine warfare qualifications and there is truly nothing, you know, probably short of being, hopefully, a future parent and trying to be an awesome wife, you know. Third, in line to that, I would say that the proudest thing that I will have as part of my identity is having served under the sea with some of the smartest and most motivated sailors in the entire world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. Well, thank you so much. Thank you for the recruiting pitch and I think this episode at large was a massive just again, insight and positive thing. Again, I share my stories of some of the difficulties. Going on all the submarine deployments to this day was probably the coolest thing I've ever done and gave me a ton of purpose and gave me a ton of mission and it's incredible. So thank you so much for taking the time to join us today, sharing your insight and wisdom and again, hopefully inspiring the next wave of midshipmen, or even potential you know prospective high school students to consider the submarine force and all the incredible things that are going on there. So we appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2:We appreciate you. Go Academy Insider Beat Army.
Speaker 1:I love it. Beat Army. All right everyone. Thank you so much. I hope you enjoyed the episode and let me know if you ever have any questions. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Academy Insider Podcast. I really hope you liked it, enjoyed it and learned something during this time. If you did, please feel free to like and subscribe or leave a comment about the episode. We really appreciate to hear your feedback about everything and continue to make Academy Insider an amazing service that guides, serves and supports midshipmen, future midshipmen and their families. Thank you.
