This is a pretty good summary of life in the Navy

When I was in the Navy as an electronic tech I was run down so bad that I was basically suicidal. I was so out of it in my final days on the ship that I was told I became violent, I don't remember it, but I was also told the guy earned it. My first tour on a ship started with one of my pieces of equipment going down as we were leaving port, the other guy who was senior to me and supposed to be in charge of this equipment wasn't allowed to leave the country by an order of a judge. So all his responsibilities became mine. Another guy who I trained with received a medical discharge between the time we finished training and the days we were to report to the ship. Those responsibilities also became mine. The other rookie in the shop who reported the same day I did was temporarily assigned to the mess hall, as all shops provide some personnel to run things down there. Guess who got his responsibilities. So for those of you playing at home, including the guy I replaced, I took on the responsibilities of 4 people and all the old outdated equipment they were supposed to keep up and running... On the oldest ship still left in commision at the time. I made it about a month and a half before I lost it. By the end, I hadn't gotten off the ship in three weeks because I was in a never ending cycle of juggling equipment repairs with the maintenance I was also responsible for. I was getting about an hour sleep every couple of days, because in addition to my night watches, my equipment would also break in the middle of the night requiring my attention. And to top it all off, when we were in port, those were armed night watches. so in addition to slowly going mad I had to stare at an M14 in my hands for hours at a time. Realizing that me with a weapons in my hands in that state of mind is what led me to search for help from an understanding Radioman Senior Chief that ultimately got me an honorable discharge with a "pre-existing" personality disorder. Because obviously sleep deprivation based insanity is something they must've missed during the application process.

Needles to say, the military life is not something I recommend to people.

Sounds brutal.

Indeed, it wasn't fun. And of course, then you get out and apply for work and everyone wants to talk about your military experience which doesn't help, because they don't want honesty. Blah. I didn't recognize it at the time, but I was in a pretty bad place for a number of years afterwards. Still, I've known friends who saw combat that had it much worse. I consider myself lucky that I was able to grow past it and come out better on the other side. Even if it did take a while.

Another one?

When you have that many warships, obviously more than one is going to get in somebody's way.

First the war of 1812 and then the God damn Canadian lighthouses.

I guess radar isn't all it's cracked up to be.

Nor paying attention.

I was a Quartermaster in the Navy, which meant that I was responsible for plotting and tracking the ship's course, measuring the depth of the water, watching the RADAR screen for other ships, you name it. I mention this because I know what I'm talking about.

Almost invariably, collisions like this aren't from a RADAR operator "not paying attention." The closer you are to shipping lanes and ports, the more frequently you document your ship's position and the ships around you. I can guarantee you that there was an individual whose sole responsibility was to watch a RADAR screen and document what they saw, sometimes as frequently as every 90 seconds.

Most collisions occur from 2 main sources: faulty equipment, or the Officer Of the Deck (OOD). Faulty equipment is self explanatory. OODs are a bit more complicated. The Captain of the ship cannot be directing the ship's course 24/7, and in fact isn't expected to be. The vast majority of the time, control of "driving" is delegated to the OOD, who is not a specific individual, but rather an assignment. Officers on a ship will rotate being OOD.

Here's where the real risky business gets involved. Firstly, being OOD is a boring, tedious job. You've got no fewer than 4 or 5 enlisted sailors delivering their navigation updates every few minutes. It's a lot of information, and most of it doesn't change minute to minute. The shitty OODs get overloaded by the information, then realize that it doesn't change often, and then become complacent. Furthermore, OODs are usually the junior officers either trying to get qualified, or recently qualified and have gotten the shit job.

Here's what usually happens. Your RADAR operator calls out, "Tracking fishing vessel, approaching at 5 knots, ETA 15 minutes," and shitty OODs go, "Oh, that's plenty of time." 5 other updates come in rapid succession, so they put that to the side because 15 minutes of plenty of time to avoid an oncoming vessel. 3 Minutes later, "Tracking fishing vessel, approaching at 5 knots, ETA 12 minutes," and the shitty OOD says to himself, "I already know that, thank you" and files it away and starts ignoring the RADAR updates so he can analyze something else. 12 minutes is still plenty of time. This continues until the RADAR operator calls out, "Tracking fishing vessel at 5 knots, ETA 1 minute," the OOD does a double take and says, "OH FUCK" but it's too late to do anything.

Perhaps the RADAR operator should have the authority to tag reports, "YELLOW, ORANGE, FUCKING RED!", requiring specific acknowledgement from the OOD once the color codes start flying. Not that I have the slightest clue about military ship navigation protocols.

I'm surprised there aren't failsafe protocols to prevent random boats from even getting close, after the bombing of the Cole.

That's too bad.

You sound so presidential.

Somebody has to.