My Worst Day in the Military

by Steven Bartholomew | May 27, 2022 | 1 Comment

Steven here -I'm positive anybody who has ever served in the military has a plethora of "this is the worst day of my life" moments. It's quite common, I would even go as far as saying it's inevitable with that line of work. The shitstorm isn't prejudice, no rank can save you from "one of those days". I had my fair share of shitty days, but one, without a doubt, stands above the rest. 

August 27th, 2017: It was a beautiful, sunny day in Norfolk, Virginia. But this story starts the day before, on Saturday. It was the night of the Conor Mcgregor v Floyd Mayweather fight. I had the entire day off, so me and a few other immobile E-nothings (none of us had cars and were pretty new to the whole Navy thing) were trying to make plans to watch the fight. We decided we'd get a taxi to Hooters, since we all still lived on the ship, and we'd pregame in the parking lot before going in. Absolutely fool proof. So, after a few parking lot tall boys we made our way in and got a table. The rest of the night consisted of wings, nachos, and pitchers. 

We got shitfaced. Afterward, we had to taxi back to our humble, iron abode. About 30 minutes goes by, and I start to feel sick. But it wasn't a “I had too much to drink kind of sick”, it was a “my stomach is about to explode kind of sick”. Not long after that, I'm on all fours, inside the base vomiting in the bushes. I had a double whammy of Food Poisoning and enough Beer in my system to keep a couple Nascar fans happy for a couple hours. It was atrocious. 

The next day, Sunday, I had fucking Duty. I had to be alert, clean shaven, and presentable by 6:30am for Duty Muster. After a night of sitting in a head stall trying to make negotiations with God to end this suffering, presentable I was not. I was hungover as all hell, dealing with a "double dragon" situation, and we were going out to sea on Monday for a couple weeks in which I had not packed anything for. I tried to explain my situation to the chain, but they refused to believe my story and accused me of just being hungover, not their first rodeo. So those assholes gave me a 1200-1600 quarterdeck watch, in dress whites, during the hottest part of the day. Brutal isn't the half of it. Luckily, the LTJG on watch had some sympathy and excused me for all my emergency trips to the head. 

The rest of my day consisted of firefighting drills in full ensemble, musters, and painting pad-eyes on the flight deck. By the end of the night, I'd have taken a dishonorable discharge to never have to see that boat again. Without a doubt, none of the other bullshit we put up with can even compare to what that 24 hours was like. Now it's just a funny story I tell people when I need some recognition.

-Shipmate Steven

1 Comment

Add a Comment

Name * Email * Comment