Today we passed Iwo Jima. Iwo Jima is a small island on which the US forces claimed during WW2. Over 25,000 lives were lost in the month long battle and the history and stories that come from the island are amazing. It would be really cool to visit unfortunately it is closed to outsiders. The captain sounded three blasts on the ships whistle in remembrance of the lives lost, as we watched the island slowly go by us while it was pouring rain. For the past few days I have been doing day work, which is general ship maintenance and includes everything from painting to stocking and fixing small items. Yesterday the job was to take the used SCBA's (self contained breathing apparatus) bottles from the damage control lockers to the very top deck to refill them. It was a long and hard day up lots of stairs with heavy bottles but felt good to be out in the sun and doing some hard work. Today as the rain plagued us my job was to put my hands on and inspect every fire extinguisher on board, we had a list to go off of and at the end of the day we spent 5 hours walking the ship and finding the extinguishers. The food was pretty bad today, poorly cooked pork chops and awful clam fettuccine. Tonight I worked on my sea bag and watched Sherlock Holmes (pretty good.) Tomorrow is our last day work day and we move into watch rotation. We will be in Guam on Saturday morning and not a moment too soon. The weather is rainy like I said but hot and sticky...very humid outside thank god for our air conditioning. Good Night and TTYL!
Enjoy some more pictures from Japan!
V/R,
CDT Jonathan Anderson
Squad Leader, Division 6 MT
Corps of Cadets
California Maritime Academy
No comments:
Post a Comment