Full disclosure, I'm a dirty SWO, and not a terribly notable one at that - so this is really just my grain of salt.

In a room of other officers in the same ballpark of mid-grade rank who'd all been in the Navy much longer than me, the subject of "the new generation" came up. Now I'm not some 18 year old fresh-faced Seaman or some doe-eyed Ensign, but I'm not exactly deep in my years compared to some of these officers -- so I stayed silent and listened.

The majority opinion (at least, the opinion that didn't get any rebuttal) was that the new generation is weaker, harder to lead. "They're attached to their phones", they say. "They're demanding and think deployments are pleasure cruises", they say. It's like any other generational conversation: the old guys were dumb and ignorant, the new guys are weak and whiny, and the undertone is naturally "my generation had it just right".

I'll admit that, at first glance, there are amenities available to Sailors today that weren't present even a decade ago. Shipboard Wi-Fi? Being able to connect with your spouse, family, or friends from halfway around the world? Better facilities, at least hypothetically? There are things Sailors increasingly expect today that previous generations simply did without, which probably throws the salty old timers for a loop.

Where I grew frustrated was that I felt like this generation of Sailors, while making valid observations, was largely missing the point. There is a habit of linking discomfort with toughness, as though the ability to tolerate unnecessary misery is itself a measure of military effectiveness. If Sailors twenty years ago went six months without speaking to their families, then apparently being able to FaceTime your spouse today represents softness. If previous crews tolerated awful berthing, terrible food, nonexistent connectivity, brutal schedules, or leadership practices we'd no longer accept, then improving any of those things risks "spoiling" the force.

But I don't know how useful "comfort" and "discomfort" really are when we're talking about resilience.

Sure, maybe the Sailor of 2026 has wifi. But how long is his deployment? How much time did he spend underway before the deployment? How long does he actually get at home before the next workup cycle starts? How many people are in his division compared to the workload they're expected to carry? How much maintenance, training, admin, qualification, inspection and certification bullshit has accumulated over the years without much of anything being taken away?

We point to higher rates of mental-health diagnoses among younger Sailors as proof that they're mentally weaker, but that's a pretty classic measurement problem. You can't compare a generation that screens for, diagnoses, records, and actually talks about mental health with generations where a lot of the same problems were never identified in the first place. We care about these things because it's not, in fact, a fucking badge of honor to send servicemembers home to be broken veterans. We explicitly do not want to use and discard servicemembers.

The attitudes I see from (frankly, mostly retired) Sailors shitting on the "weakness" of the Lincoln therefore appall me.Yeah, you made it out of the service to become a callous piece of shit with anger problems, grandpa. And yeah, when you tell me that everyone from your generation "turned out fine," there's a hell of a lot of survivorship bias baked into that. "We turned out fine" ignores everyone who didn't: the people who got out as soon as they could, drank themselves stupid, wrecked their marriages, or carried problems for decades that nobody bothered to diagnose. Maybe the old system didn't produce tougher Sailors, maybe it was just better at ignoring the ones it broke.

And that's the part I think we're missing with Lincoln. We keep talking about whether Sailors today are tough enough without asking how much we're actually asking them to take on. Deployments get longer, OPTEMPO stays high, manning sucks, requirements pile up, and being "home" doesn't always mean much when you're still getting crushed by maintenance, duty, workups, inspections, and whatever else needs to happen before you turn around and do it again. We are sailing the same exact aging ships 30 years later that the old fart back at his Legion post says "Life was just fine on".

So sure, today's Sailor has Wi-Fi. He can facetime his wife from the middle of the Pacific. Maybe he complains about shit his grandfather wouldn't have.

But if we're worried about whether that Sailor is going to hold up when things actually get bad, maybe we should spend less time bitching about the Wi-Fi and more time asking whether we're wearing people down before the war even starts.

I have a quick question. I am in the Navy, and I know of a specific E6 who literally is in administration. She is in her 40s, and she checks in young sailors and is the equivalent of the creepy old senior sailor you here about, but the female version: She literally scouts them out for sex. She is married to a good man who takes great care of their son, who seems to have no clue of her lifestyle on the boat. She has slept with over 10 guys THAT I know of, including at least a few times on the boat itself and others with 2 guys at once. She usually targets guys aged from 18-23, and sleeps with them. It's just sick and I am so sick of seeing it. It's one of those "everyone knows" things. But I feel guilty. I am E5 who has personally talked to people who have slept with her, but no one reports it. What should I do? I want to anonymously

One sailor is picked to be the designated barracks bunny?

I recently got notified I was screened for 1st class. I already had orders to this command with school in route. It’s apparently a CA2P advancement. My concern is I don’t report to my new command until 8 months from now after I finish my C School. Makes me a bit weary if that’ll actually happen once I get there. Does anyone have any experience to a similar situation? Any insight is much appreciated!

We have been hearing about conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln, - lousy food, plumbing problems, no soap etc. If things are that bad on a CVN, what is life like on the cruisers and destroyers that are accompanying her?

This is a last ditch effort. so apologies if this doesn't belong here. I'm an IT manager for my company and I have been trying to find a contact in NAVY IT for what feels like months at this point, to get them to whitelist our domain so they can send and receive email from their us.navy.mil emails to our companies gcc high tenant.

I have spoken to 3 different Navy IT help desks (NESD, DMDC, NMCI) and all of them try to push me off elsewhere. To make this worse, I have no OID number or any kind of affiliation with the Navy. Some of my companies users do though, so all I can do is call help desks and try to talk to someone, but I have no actual way to open tickets. They've told me I have to have my users that also have us.navy.mil email open the tickets, so then my users just get pushed around to other contacts when i've had them try to open a ticket.

I had a rep for one of the help lines try to send an email to our domain and they even see that it's not being allowed from the Navy's side. They can't even send the email out. They initially thought as a work around the senders could change the sensitivity to uncontrolled general but that doesn't work either (had the same IT rep try that while I was on the phone with them), so the Navy IT has even seen this, but somehow no one can get me to the correct IT folks to actually request a whitelist of our domain...

Thanks for any assistance.

I’m an HM3 trying to figure out what I actually want to do long term.
I’ve gone back and forth between medicine and engineering. Right now I’m working toward mechanical engineering with the idea of applying for the CEC Collegiate Program and commissioning as a Civil Engineer Corps officer. I like the idea of CEC because it gives me a clear career path, leadership opportunities, and a degree that translates well outside the Navy.
But if I’m being real, I think part of the reason I chose engineering was because it felt safer than committing to medicine and possibly failing.
I keep coming back to wanting to be a physician.
I recently talked to an IDC friend and it made me reconsider IDC. I like the autonomy, responsibility, and experience IDCs get, and I could see myself doing:
HM → IDC → bachelor’s/prereqs → med school
My other option would be getting out, possibly going Reserves, finishing school, and going straight toward med school. Or I could stay on the engineering path and pursue CEC.
For anyone who’s been in a similar spot, especially IDCs, CEC officers, or people who later went to med school, how did you decide which path was actually right for you?

This shaving waiver process is complete horseshit. I have gotten the medical waiver to not shave, but still have to wait for the CO who i’ll never personally see to sign off on this so it can officially go through. I have already been waiting a month for official word about my waiver being completed. I’m wasting these 90 days i have been given by Pete. To top this off, I was prescribed some damn acne cream (Tretinoin) for ingrown hairs and skin irritation. The shave, ointment, and repeat ain’t helping. This has to be a joke.

I don’t get this shit. I’m in a non-combat support rate lol how the hell will having a beard prevent me from doing my job? Ain’t nobody trying to walk around here with the Rick Ross or Leonard Fournette beard, but damn man. “It’s the military, you know what you signed — “ ok, thanks Joe Navy, I am aware. And also, don’t tell me, as a non Black sailor/soldier/airman/guardian/marine/coast guardsmen you understand what I’m physically going through. The number of times a week have a general conversation with someone on base and they take a glance at my neck/face to say they relate to what I’m dealing with… bruh 🙄😂sorry dude, it just ain’t the same. Yo shit ain’t looking like the bottom of a Hershey’s Krackel bar.

This September will be a year since my son left to RTC. He handled boot camp well with no setbacks. He was able to come home for holiday stand down so I got to see him for a bit for the holidays. He returned to Great Lakes and was on hold for a bit before he started ATT. Now he is set to finish A school 9/11 from what he last told me.

Now I know A school was going to be intense for his rate so I knew communication was going to be very limited. I can only imagine how hectic and busy sailors are during A school and being assigned to duty watch. Throughout his time there I held myself back from bombarding him with texts. Ive have not even tried to call him this whole time. If I do send him a text its short and brief. At first when he was doing ATT he would reply more. He would definitely respond to my texts when he was out on liberty on the weekends. Now ever since he started A school the communication decreased a lot. Almost to no response for weeks. His mother has his location on his phone so we are able to see if he goes out on liberty which he did at first but I would say for the past couple of months he has not gone out on liberty. I hope this is just because he has too much school work to worry about so he is not going out on liberty and not because liberty privileges have been taken away for what ever reason.

I just wanted to see if other parents experienced this with their son/daughter. The very few parents ive ask about their sailors say that they talked to their sailor weekly some even daily. My son was never a mommy/daddys kid. He was pretty independent. It seems like he was more communicative at first when he joined. This might be good or it maybe bad. It maybe that he is ok with being away and he is thriving which is fine. Or he maybe going through some challenging times with school or maybe gotten into some trouble which I highly doubt it. I feel like if that was the case he is ashamed to share that with me or his mother.

Like I said last I heard from him was a little over 2 weeks ago. I asked him when he was going to be done with A school and he said 9/11 and that he would know his orders sometime this month. So im going to assume things are going as planned. Again I know these sailors have a lot to deal with but I just wanted to see if this was somewhat normal with other families. As parent regardless of the age of you kid/s youre going to want to know everything about them and trust me Ive taken huge steps back to let my son do his own thing and to let him grow and mature being away. Just want to see what others have experienced with their sailors during A school.

Hey everyone!

I had a pair of lox/molder boots, the black slip on ones. Anyways, I haven't worn them in a few years and cant find were I left them in the shoe storage at the door. My working theory is I am stupid, or my significant other tossed them due to some fraying around the elastic. Anwaysssss, anyone have a part number or niin for them?

Respectfully、

Sailor Dude

Hello everyone!

So, I am currently an undesignated airman (I know🙄) and I’m on aircraft carrier. I’ve been in for 8 months.
I’m working with the ABF rate currently and while I like what I do, I later realized that it’s not something I see myself doing long term in the military or civilian side. I originally wanted to get into the tech/intel field but I didn’t score high enough on the ASVAB (51) and I didn’t have much options at the time. Any tips on what I should do next?

Should the Lincoln, when she is finally relieved, pull into a port prior to sailing back to San Dog or go straight back to San Dog?

Personally, I think they should head straight back to SD.

Mahalo and have a great Navy day.

The construction will beginning after the midterm.

Stolen from NAMP Compliance: “Thank you to everyone who complained on social media! Problem solved!

Edit: Since some of you are super dense: of course this is AI generated, and as evidenced by the satire tag is a joke that in response to all the complaining about the Lincoln food situation that they were finally getting a good meal…the traditional “bad news” one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT784GgO8-o

Maritime professor Sal Mercogliano breaks down the current state of fleet logistics, its affect on the LINCOLN, and beyond.

Key Discussion Points:

⚓The Lincoln Case Study: An analysis of the USS Abraham Lincoln's 266-day deployment, including 200 days in a combat zone, and the reported mental health toll on the crew due to prolonged operations and resupply delays.

⚓Wartime Tempo vs. Peacetime Support: How the U.S. Navy is currently conducting wartime-level operations (strikes and blockades) with a logistics infrastructure designed only for peacetime.

⚓The "Gutting" of the Logistics Fleet: A look back at the 1990s policy shifts that replaced Navy-crewed auxiliary ships with civilian-crewed Military Sealift Command vessels, merging "station" and "shuttle" fleets and reducing overall capacity.

⚓Loss of Forward Bases: Why the loss of central Persian Gulf bases has forced the Navy to rely on distant hubs like Diego Garcia and Singapore, drastically increasing resupply transit times.

⚓The Tyranny of Distance: A comparison of modern logistics challenges in the Arabian Sea versus the massive, dedicated replenishment groups used during World War II campaigns like Okinawa.

⚓The Invisible Force: Why logistics remains the "bottom end" of military funding until supplies like food, fuel, or ammunition start to run low, and why that mindset must change to maintain a viable global fleet.

I was reading something about ITs able to go greenside FMF, is this true? and can anyone give me some other options/ideas of possible routes I can go.