This podcast episode explores the life of a submariner during the Cold War, sharing insights into the challenges of isolation, situational awareness, and the importance of teamwork aboard a submarine. The conversation unveils personal stories that highlight the unique mental and physical demands of serving in the Silent Service, creating a vivid depiction of life beneath the waves.
• Life transitions from aspiring doctor to submariner
• Experiencing isolation during extended underwater missions
• Maintaining morale through meals and movies aboard
• Navigational challenges in the Arctic
• Importance of situational awareness and mental maps
• Teamwork and protocols that ensure safety
• Reflections on military experiences and writing
Make sure to check out Henry's book "Submerged: Life on a Fast Attack Submarine in the Last Days of the Cold War" available on Amazon!
Make sure to check out Jason on IG @drjasonpiccolo
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
hey, welcome back to the protectors podcast.
Excellent guest today.
Excellent good to talk aboutsubmarines.
Henry, welcome to the showthank you very much you know
that is one aspect of the navy,the army, the marines.
Anything I've never got into islike the waterborne operations
and specifically submarines.
(00:37):
So where did this come from?
Like was this one of your firstchoices when you, when you um,
when you were branching?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, so it's.
It's not surprising that youdon't know a lot, because our
motto was, and still is, asilent service.
And even today I, you know, Italk to veterans groups and
they're like oh, I didn't knowyou could say that and you know
we're really instilled tobasically keep our mouth shut.
It's kind of an ethos with asubmarine force in specific.
So it's not surprising at all.
(01:07):
You'd say that to answer yourquestion.
No, I had no plan whatsoever togo into the service at all.
I was a, I was a Navy brat, mydad was a chief in the Navy, um,
but I, I, I had, uh, I workedhard, I wanted to be a doctor
since I was about in fourthgrade and, uh, about in fourth
grade and I worked very hard andgot a full scholarship to
(01:28):
Stanford University and I was inthe pre-med program and I just
planned on being a doctor.
And one of the good thingsabout Stanford is you get a lot
of opportunities and I was able.
I worked in the hospital andworked for a OBGYN, I did data
crunching for him and this weirdnew thing called ultrasound
which had just been invented.
And, long story short, Ifigured I would be a lousy
(01:50):
doctor and I didn't want to doit and I'd run into other people
.
I think we're just saying theyshouldn't have been doctors.
You know they got their MD butthen they end up, you know,
doing research because they andI realized I didn't want to go
that route.
So basically I was kind ofstuck.
I had a very high GPA becauseyou have to keep one for pre-med
in chemistry, which is verytechnical, and this was in the
(02:11):
early 80s when, you know, ronaldReagan and John Layman were
building up the 600 ship Navyand they're expanding a lot and
they had a program normally togo, you know, become an officer
in the Navy and all services.
You know you go throughmilitary academy or at least you
go to the ROTC.
This is a program wherebasically they took you out of
(02:32):
college and sent you to officercandidate school and then,
through the nuclear pipeline,there's a new training in
Orlando, then there's running aprototype reactor in Idaho and
then a submarine school abouttwo years' worth and then in
recompense for that you'd spendthree years on a boat.
So why did I do it?
I don't know.
It seemed like a good idea atthe time, it seemed exciting,
(02:56):
something different than goingto grad school.
So that's the long answer toyour short question.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Now it's different when you branch out and you
actually find what yourspecialty is going to be and
then you have to focus in on it.
Now imagine you go, you'regoing through ocs and then you
go you get assigned to a massivevehicle that goes underwater
and not many people know exactlywhat goes into it because it's
obviously all top secret,especially back then.
How do you prepare your mindsetfor that?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, I tell people, um, basically, you know, first
of all that's the first questionI get you know, aren't you
claustrophobic?
And the truth is there's noreal test, but if you were, you
just wouldn't volunteer for it.
So it's volunteer service and,um, I tell people, it's, it's
much closer to being the spaceflight than space flight is.
It's, it's much, much moreisolating than, say, for example
(03:45):
, space flight.
We would go on these missions,we would be submerged, usually
about 85 days that was about thelimit because we'd run out of
food.
After that we could carry about90 days worth of food and to do
that we loaded the food, kindof like the Phoenicians did it
back in the 1400 BC.
We loaded can by can through ahatch and until, basically, we
(04:09):
only had about four feet of awalking room to spare because we
ate our way down through thefood, basically until we could
walk upright.
And by doing that we would haveabout 90 days worth of food.
And it would be a veryisolating experience.
We would not transmit anythingwhen we were on our mission
because that would give ourposition away, because the
(04:33):
Soviets had we credited themwith very good DF ability, so
even a little burst, they wouldknow it and it would have
brought a lot of bad attentionto us.
Noaa brought a lot of badattention to us and we wouldn't
receive any real information.
While on the submarine, where weoperated was way north.
(04:54):
The communication satellitesdidn't work that far north
because they're geosynchronous.
We couldn't receive them.
So our only inbound informationwas something called the VLF
broadcast.
It's around 10 or 15 kilohertz,which is, put that in
perspective, it's a lot lowerthan your AM radio or anything.
It's way lower than HF even,but it goes through the earth
(05:15):
and that's why it's used forsubmarines.
But the bad part about it isthe data rate is very low.
It's like slowly typing on atypewriter and we get a couple
pages broadcast, maybe a dozenpages.
That was it.
So there's no room for anythingbut operational traffic.
So you know, basically it'simagine I tell people it's like
going into a coma for threemonths and coming back after
(05:38):
three months.
So you know, oh, you know whowon the Superbowl, who's, who's
our president?
Now what happened?
You know all the news that youtake for granted.
You're completely cut off.
You know not saying anythingbad about astronauts, but
they're.
You know, they're talking onthe radio, they're talking on
the HF, they're getting email,they're talking to mission
control, they're making YouTubevideos.
(05:59):
You know they're very connected, but we were completely
isolated.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I'm glad you brought up the analogy of the space,
because to me the ocean is like,to me it is the next frontier.
There is so much to the oceanthat is undiscovered and you got
a glimpse of it.
You got to experience the oceanlike nobody else has.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Experience, yes, glimpse no, cause we don't have
windows on submarines, obviouslybut, sorry for interrupting,
yeah well, that's what I.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, there's.
There's no, um, there's nowindows on subs, but there's
other ways to experience that.
I'm thinking like sonar andother ways.
You actually have to knowwhat's going on around you, and
what I meant by that is like,hey, you know what you have to
you experience something thatnot many people have.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
That's one thing I talk aboutin the book is that you know,
submarine is very much a mentalactivity.
It's very different than whatyou see in kind of the movies,
where they have a picture ofsomething happening.
They see the otherouts, thereare lines on a screen, kind of
monochromatic lines, and youbuild a picture of what the
(07:14):
battle space looks like in yourhead.
And a lot about becoming asubmarine officer is getting
proficient at doing that andbeing able to take a periscope
sighting or interpolate betweensome lines of frequencies that
you see and get a picture of.
You know where the submarinesare around you and it's not snap
your fingers.
It takes a while to developthat skill.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
How do you know what's going on around you, Like
when enemies because obviouslythe enemy situation is they're
going to have the samecapabilities as us.
Some men may have more thanwhat vessel you're in.
How do you deal?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
with that?
How do you work?
Yeah, so situational awareness.
So we had passive sonar.
We wouldn't transmit activelybecause that would give our
position away and, to be honest,with the exception of some
front line again, I'm datingmyself, this is in the 1980s
With the exception of somefrontline submarine Soviets, we
basically had what's called anacoustic advantage where we
(08:15):
could hear them before theycould hear us.
And you know, thank the Lord wedidn't get in a shooting war,
but if we had, it influenced ourtactics a lot.
We were basically snipers andthey were basically in a bar
fight.
So basically, we would, youknow, our tactics were designed
to, you know, slowly or notslowly, but to to track at a
distance and then engage youknow when, when, when the time
(08:38):
came, without you know God, godwilling, without the enemy ever
knowing, and we had weapons thatwere designed to do that long
range and, could you know, hadthose capabilities, whereas, you
know, the other guys, you know,knew they were at acoustic
disadvantage and knew that ifthey heard us we would have been
hearing them for a while.
So their tactics evolved.
(08:59):
They were basically just like ashotgun just wheel around and
get weapons out within 45seconds.
It was very different tacticsbecause they knew they had an
acoustic disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Now, morale wise this is one thing that's always been
in the back of my head too isif you're in such a small vessel
and do you call vesselssubmarines, or Subs yeah, or
boats usually Boats yeah.
Let's say you're in a boat andyou're eating your way to space.
You're getting enough space toactually move around and to
function out there.
But how do you keep the moraleup?
Especially as an officer, youhave to keep your troops, like
(09:32):
any solid officer is going tokeep their troop morale up.
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, so the two biggest things from my
experience that affected moralewere, you know, food.
You know the submariners eatreally well.
It's kind of a tradition thatwe get good food, and mealtimes
were the one time you could sitand relax and chat.
Both, you know, officers andenlisted.
We ate the same food, by theway, it wasn't a separate mess,
(09:57):
we ate in the wardroom,obviously, but it was the same
food.
And then, you know, we hadmovies, and you know there were.
So those were kind of the twohighlights of the day.
You know mealt times and movies.
Um, a lot of hijinks went on onthe boat.
You know people playingpractical tricks.
I, I talked about that in theuh, don't give too much away,
but I mean I talk about, uh,there's a lot of funny stuff we
(10:18):
used to do, you know, like asteel, uh, one of our exes, uh,
his son, to give him a poundpuppy, which is a puppy back
then a doll, um, you know, dogdoll, whatever, and and
basically the crew kidnapped it,dognapped it and gave him a
ransom note on.
You know magazine papers thathad cut out just like you see in
the movies, and they had listeddemands.
(10:40):
You know they wanted, you knowextra ice cream at dinner and
two movies.
You know after Med Rats andeverything.
You know after med rats andeverything.
So, to answer your question,you know playing hijinks and
stuff and just you know takingadvantage of the time you know,
like movies and meals when wehad it.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You know you might not have had a problem with
claustrophobia, but have youever had anybody you worked with
?
You know an officer enlisted.
All of a sudden they just freakout and do you have any?
What's the parameters fortaking care of that situation?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I never saw that on the two submarines that I served
on.
I have heard stories of wherethat happened and you know it's
very sad and you know there's acorpsman on board that assesses
the.
You know the fitness ofeveryone on board to do their
duty and the corpsman getsinvolved.
(11:33):
You know, thank the Lord, wewere never in an environment
where we had to maybe come offstation because there was a
medical emergency, eitherphysical or mental, like that.
But that would happen.
I suppose you'd have to.
You know, counterbalance thatwith the.
You know the value of themission you were on and take
(11:54):
measures.
But you know, thank the Lord, Iwas never in that, in that
situation.
And tell you the truth, by thetime you get to that point,
people are pretty well screenedand if they can't cut it, you
know they're not going on therun with you and you know like
there's no secrets.
You know they're literallythere's a hundred men on board.
Back then it was all men, notbeing sexist, but now now we
(12:17):
have women in submarines buteveryone knows each other's
secrets and nobody.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
There's no secrets on a submarine whatsoever yes,
think of how do you screenpeople.
Do you have to, like, see ashrink is there?
Like I mean, obviously you knowit's just it's got to be
different screening than anyother vessel, boat or anything
else it's got there.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
If there was.
To be honest, if there was, Ican't recall it.
I don't recall any specifictest being taken or anything.
I think part of it's just thenature of the screening process
to determine whether or not youhave the intellectual skills to
go on the submarines.
(12:57):
The officers every singleofficer on a US nuclear
submarine is nuclear qualified,with the exception as fly
officer.
We call them the CHOP.
And in order to get into theprogram to begin with, you go
back to the naval reactors andinterview with the director of
naval reactors.
Back then it was Rickover.
I missed Rickover by two monthsand I was interviewed by
(13:20):
Admiral McKee.
There's, you know, kind ofhorror stories about the
interviews Admiral Rickoverwould give you know prospective
officers.
But that screening process isvery rigorous.
It's probably one notch belowbeing screened for becoming an
astronaut.
Between tours on my submarinesI was teaching at ROTC Naval
(13:43):
ROTC in UCLA and my main job wasto get people to volunteer for
the submarine force andeverybody I would put up failed
the interview, with theexception of one person.
So it's very difficult, so it'sa very high.
Screening to begin with is partof the answer.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Now I'm reading the description of your book, and
the book's out now.
It's called Submerged Life on aFast Attack Submarine in the
Last Days of the Cold War andyou talk about traveling under
ice.
Now, talk about now.
This is one thing.
It's like, hey, even if youfreaked out or anything, there
was a massive emergency.
It's not like you could justpop to the surface.
So that must have been aninteresting time.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, and that that's really that's one of the two
big differences with just normalsubmarine ops operations is
that you don't have that luxuryto to go up to periscope depth
and run the diesel if somethinghappens to the reactor.
The other is the nature ofnavigation up there is really
(14:37):
really different than it is, youknow, down at lower latitudes.
That's one thing.
Well, I know people like kindof surprised when I tell them
about that.
You know, for one thing, gyrocompasses don't work beyond
about 88 degrees north becausethey need the earth to spin and
the earth doesn't spin enoughabove 88 degrees north.
(14:58):
And the other thing isdirections.
If you think about it like yousaid, I'm heading west.
You know I'm heading northeastor whatever.
When you say that that's anangle to a meridian and that
makes sense when you're downhere I live about thirty nine
degrees north, whatever.
You know they're roughlyparallel, right.
But when you get close to thepole you know you head west and
(15:21):
you take a step off the meridianyou're on and you're not
heading west anymore because theangle you make with the
meridian you're on, then whenyou take a step off of it is
different, it's somethingsouthwest.
So consequently, we had tocreate an artificial, basically
coordinate system.
(15:41):
We would slide the North Poledown the international dayline
down to the equator and callthat the North Pole.
So when we're at the North Pole, our system thought we were at
the equator and the computershandled that.
And I talk about in the book.
One time I was involved, youknow, tangentially with actually
damaging that inertialnavigation system.
And then we went to the NorthPole so it was like, oh geez, I
(16:01):
hope we didn't break it, that wewon't get back.
There was a boat actually thatthat happened to.
They lost their inertialnavigation system and you think
you know just something, likeyou know heading in a direction.
Well, you're submerged, there'sno star to steer by.
So basically they just kept therudder midships and just went
(16:24):
in a flank bill a high rate for30 hours or something and ended
up on the right latitude, but140 degrees off in longitude.
That's how serious it is if youlose your inertial navigation
system.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, talk about ending up in the wrong place at
the wrong time in the wrong partof the world.
You know, especially with,you're always being hunted.
That's one thing aboutsubmarines.
You're always being hunted.
So you always wonder like whatcould?
It's a Cold War, but peopledon't realize that the tension
in the Cold War was incredible.
We never knew Like I rememberthe 1980s, we never knew when
(16:55):
there was going to be.
You know the next thing thenuclear war was always on its
back.
So when you're in a submarineand you end up in the wrong
place at the wrong time in thewrong part of the world, it may
spark something.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, I talk about that in the book Asha on on the
on the ice run.
Um, there was one time I'llnever know this day what it was
Um, and let me preface myremarks saying that my book was.
I had because I had a securityclearance.
I had submitted to the DODofficer office a pre-publication
security review and it wasvetted and approved with some
(17:29):
redactions, mostly dealing withthe operation of nuclear reactor
.
So everything I'm saying hasbeen cleared.
There was one time when, comingback from the poll that you
know, we got some very strangesonar signals and to this day I
don't know what that was.
You can read about in the book,but it really kind of bugs me.
You know who's to say what itwas.
But you're absolutely right, wehad a kind of sense that we're
(17:53):
at the wool store the entiretime.
It was, it was not a game, itwasn't training, it was kind of
the real deal.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's one of those realizations and I think a lot
of people get this when you'rein a service and you're in some
sort of conflict or you're nearit that if it's your time, it's
your time and there's reallynothing you can do about it.
And I'd imagine if a sub gothit it would be over pretty
quick.
I can't imagine, you know,taking on water and getting hit
would be devastating impactright away.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
That's actually kind of a saving grace.
Now, obviously, you know not tobe too morbid, but basically,
like you're familiar with adiesel engine, right, diesel
engines work.
They don't have spark plugs tofire the cylinders, they just
work by compression.
Basically, if there wereflooding on a submarine at depth
, it would basically be like acylinder in a diesel engine.
(18:42):
There's enough, you know,flammable fumes in there with
diesel and whatever, that thesudden compression would heat it
.
You just explode and, just, youknow, die instantly.
I'm not saying that's good, butI'm saying, you know, it's
probably better than drowning.
I don't know, but the largerpoint we generally don't think I
don't know, but the largerpoint we generally don't don't
think I mean, obviously the mainthing is it's very rigorous
(19:04):
life being a submariner.
For one thing I talk about inthe book, you know you don't
just say hey, bob, would you dothis?
Whatever, it's very strict.
You know.
Repeat backs.
You say you know, take manualcontrol of steam generator level
.
You know, maintain levelbetween X and Y.
You know, and he repeats itback to you verbatim, nothing
(19:25):
happens on a submarine without.
You know, verbatim, repeatbacks.
You know, just because youcan't afford to make a mistake
and misunderstand somebody.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You know, that's the thing is about the protocols,
the SOPs it's there.
Protocols, the SOPs, it's there.
So everybody can actually falldown on someone else's job if
they really really needed to,because there is a standard
operating procedure available.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And the other thing to follow up on that.
You know there's a processcalled qualification on
submarines.
You know it's very kind of anethical moment in a submarine's
life when you know it takes.
It took me 18 months, it took,takes some people much longer.
For officers, a list of guysusually takes a year to be
qualified.
(20:06):
Submarines that wear the youknow what we call the fish, the
dolphins, and that you knowyou're you're, you're really
kind of cross-trained.
I'm not saying you could justwalk into somebody else's shoes
or watch station and take over,but you definitely know how to
rig every compartment on boardthat submarine, for you know
different events.
(20:26):
That's one of the things.
You know where all the majordamage control positions are and
you got a very good idea of howeverything works and how
everything connects.
So it's not that everyone couldlike do everyone else's job,
it's not to that level, but it'sto the level that, um, you know
you, you and, and we're kind ofa brotherhood, you know
everyone trusts each other.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You know, by virtue of having that qualification,
Now, when you get out of theservice, when you jump into the
pilot seat, you know, that's onething I was reading about.
Your bio is now you're aprivate pilot.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You know, I don't think that's a coincidence.
So basically my career path, II did two tours, one as a junior
officer on uh, one fast techsubmarine.
Then I taught at ucla, uh atthe rotc.
I taught weapons andengineering there but my main
job was to get people tovolunteer for a subservice.
And then then I served as aweapons officer on another
submarine and then about thehalfway point, right when I was
(21:24):
teaching at UCLA, the Cold Waror the Berlin Wall fell.
And then subsequently, soonthereafter, the Soviet Union
fell and we had staffed up tobuild a force of about 100 SSNs
and we dropped that to abouthalf.
And so the chance of you know,I didn't want to wait around,
(21:45):
you know they didn't really needme anymore.
So I got out at the kind of thehalfway mark in my career and
served the rest of time in thereserves and ended up retiring
as a commander.
But I've often reflected uponthis commander.
But, um, I've often reflectedupon this that I don't think
it's coincidence that I bought aplane right after I got out,
because the two disciplines arevery similar.
(22:05):
You know you cannot have oh Ithought.
You know I thought does notexist.
You know the people have a.
Oh, I thought you know, I youknow, I assumed whatever.
You know there's a pyramid ofpeople.
They're not on that pyramid.
You know they fell off thepyramid.
You know because you have to.
It's very similar rigorousdiscipline flying a plane as it
is driving a submarine.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, I thought about it.
There I go.
I thought now you haven't beenstuck in my head, but it's like
you know, you can't make aminimal mistake in either one of
those responsibilities.
So, it's definitely interestingresponsibilities.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So it's definitely interesting.
Yeah, so my my career path.
Like I said I, the book talksabout a month through the whole
training pipeline and it startsout in there's a we had they
call them prototype reactors.
Where they're?
They're nuclear reactors out inthe Idaho desert that we used
to train both officers andenlisted in the engineering
(23:04):
spaces and you qualify as anengineering officer.
Watch there and one of thethings talk about the
seriousness of adhering toprotocol and what you're about.
Every day we would drive by, thebus would take us.
It was about 50 miles away fromtown and the bus would take us
in every day.
It was about 50 miles away fromtown and the bus would take us
in every day.
(23:24):
It's about an hour and a halfto get out there and it would
take us by this reactor that hadblown up in the early 60s that
you know it's kind of a designflaw.
The operator had pulled thehead, was manually fitting the
control rod and pulled it outand was leading over at the time
and it caused the reactor todevelop like 6,000 times rated
(23:46):
power in less than a second andflashed all the water in the
steam and impaled him on thecontainment enclosure building
75 feet above the ground.
It just stuck right throughthem and killed everyone else as
well.
So that really gets yourattention.
And we saw, you know, movies ofthe aftermath, that in the in
(24:06):
the nuclear power school, thatit's serious as a heart attack.
You know it's real life, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Well, you know, to turn on to a lighter note, man,
I can't even imagine.
Now you've gotten the writingbook You've been writing for a
while now, do you have anotherbook planned in you?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I do, I, I I wrote another book actually about my,
you know, flying misadventures.
Uh, I call it the how tohotwire an airplane, and it's uh
about, uh, a guy who's kind ofuh, he's a Vietnam vet, you know
, and it's kind of based on mydad was a Vietnam vet and a lot
of the people I grew up with,you know the, the, the men that
(24:45):
you know, kind of I would growup with it, you know they're all
had, I would say, not notsaying any way, but had some
level of PTSD to, to, to onelevel or another.
You know you, you don't, youdon't go to war and come back.
You know 100%.
And it's about a guy who youknow, is kind of haunted by his
experiences.
He kind of redeems himself byflying, you know, undocumented
(25:09):
immigrants across the bordercheckpoints in Texas, and
hilarity ensues.
It's kind of a funny book.
But we'll see.
But to answer your question,yeah, I'm working on that right
now.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well, everybody Submerged Life on a Fast Attack
Submarine and the Last Days ofthe Cold War is out now on
Amazon.
Make sure you check it out,henry.
I appreciate you coming on theshow.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity.
hey, welcome back to the protectors podcast.
Excellent guest today.
Excellent good to talk aboutsubmarines.
Henry, welcome to the showthank you very much you know
that is one aspect of the navy,the army, the marines.
Anything I've never got into islike the waterborne operations
and specifically submarines.
(00:37):
So where did this come from?
Like was this one of your firstchoices when you, when you um,
when you were branching?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Yeah, so it's.
It's not surprising that youdon't know a lot, because our
motto was, and still is, asilent service.
And even today I, you know, Italk to veterans groups and
they're like oh, I didn't knowyou could say that and you know
we're really instilled tobasically keep our mouth shut.
It's kind of an ethos with asubmarine force in specific.
So it's not surprising at all.
(01:07):
You'd say that to answer yourquestion.
No, I had no plan whatsoever togo into the service at all.
I was a, I was a Navy brat, mydad was a chief in the Navy, um,
but I, I, I had, uh, I workedhard, I wanted to be a doctor
since I was about in fourthgrade and, uh, about in fourth
grade and I worked very hard andgot a full scholarship to
(01:28):
Stanford University and I was inthe pre-med program and I just
planned on being a doctor.
And one of the good thingsabout Stanford is you get a lot
of opportunities and I was able.
I worked in the hospital andworked for a OBGYN, I did data
crunching for him and this weirdnew thing called ultrasound
which had just been invented.
And, long story short, Ifigured I would be a lousy
(01:50):
doctor and I didn't want to doit and I'd run into other people
.
I think we're just saying theyshouldn't have been doctors.
You know they got their MD butthen they end up, you know,
doing research because they andI realized I didn't want to go
that route.
So basically I was kind ofstuck.
I had a very high GPA becauseyou have to keep one for pre-med
in chemistry, which is verytechnical, and this was in the
(02:11):
early 80s when, you know, ronaldReagan and John Layman were
building up the 600 ship Navyand they're expanding a lot and
they had a program normally togo, you know, become an officer
in the Navy and all services.
You know you go throughmilitary academy or at least you
go to the ROTC.
This is a program wherebasically they took you out of
(02:32):
college and sent you to officercandidate school and then,
through the nuclear pipeline,there's a new training in
Orlando, then there's running aprototype reactor in Idaho and
then a submarine school abouttwo years' worth and then in
recompense for that you'd spendthree years on a boat.
So why did I do it?
I don't know.
It seemed like a good idea atthe time, it seemed exciting,
(02:56):
something different than goingto grad school.
So that's the long answer toyour short question.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Now it's different when you branch out and you
actually find what yourspecialty is going to be and
then you have to focus in on it.
Now imagine you go, you'regoing through ocs and then you
go you get assigned to a massivevehicle that goes underwater
and not many people know exactlywhat goes into it because it's
obviously all top secret,especially back then.
How do you prepare your mindsetfor that?
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Well, I tell people, um, basically, you know, first
of all that's the first questionI get you know, aren't you
claustrophobic?
And the truth is there's noreal test, but if you were, you
just wouldn't volunteer for it.
So it's volunteer service and,um, I tell people, it's, it's
much closer to being the spaceflight than space flight is.
It's, it's much, much moreisolating than, say, for example
(03:45):
, space flight.
We would go on these missions,we would be submerged, usually
about 85 days that was about thelimit because we'd run out of
food.
After that we could carry about90 days worth of food and to do
that we loaded the food, kindof like the Phoenicians did it
back in the 1400 BC.
We loaded can by can through ahatch and until, basically, we
(04:09):
only had about four feet of awalking room to spare because we
ate our way down through thefood, basically until we could
walk upright.
And by doing that we would haveabout 90 days worth of food.
And it would be a veryisolating experience.
We would not transmit anythingwhen we were on our mission
because that would give ourposition away, because the
(04:33):
Soviets had we credited themwith very good DF ability, so
even a little burst, they wouldknow it and it would have
brought a lot of bad attentionto us.
Noaa brought a lot of badattention to us and we wouldn't
receive any real information.
While on the submarine, where weoperated was way north.
(04:54):
The communication satellitesdidn't work that far north
because they're geosynchronous.
We couldn't receive them.
So our only inbound informationwas something called the VLF
broadcast.
It's around 10 or 15 kilohertz,which is, put that in
perspective, it's a lot lowerthan your AM radio or anything.
It's way lower than HF even,but it goes through the earth
(05:15):
and that's why it's used forsubmarines.
But the bad part about it isthe data rate is very low.
It's like slowly typing on atypewriter and we get a couple
pages broadcast, maybe a dozenpages.
That was it.
So there's no room for anythingbut operational traffic.
So you know, basically it'simagine I tell people it's like
going into a coma for threemonths and coming back after
(05:38):
three months.
So you know, oh, you know whowon the Superbowl, who's, who's
our president?
Now what happened?
You know all the news that youtake for granted.
You're completely cut off.
You know not saying anythingbad about astronauts, but
they're.
You know, they're talking onthe radio, they're talking on
the HF, they're getting email,they're talking to mission
control, they're making YouTubevideos.
(05:59):
You know they're very connected, but we were completely
isolated.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I'm glad you brought up the analogy of the space,
because to me the ocean is like,to me it is the next frontier.
There is so much to the oceanthat is undiscovered and you got
a glimpse of it.
You got to experience the oceanlike nobody else has.
Yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Experience, yes, glimpse no, cause we don't have
windows on submarines, obviouslybut, sorry for interrupting,
yeah well, that's what I.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Yeah, there's.
There's no, um, there's nowindows on subs, but there's
other ways to experience that.
I'm thinking like sonar andother ways.
You actually have to knowwhat's going on around you, and
what I meant by that is like,hey, you know what you have to
you experience something thatnot many people have.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
That's one thing I talk aboutin the book is that you know,
submarine is very much a mentalactivity.
It's very different than whatyou see in kind of the movies,
where they have a picture ofsomething happening.
They see the otherouts, thereare lines on a screen, kind of
monochromatic lines, and youbuild a picture of what the
(07:14):
battle space looks like in yourhead.
And a lot about becoming asubmarine officer is getting
proficient at doing that andbeing able to take a periscope
sighting or interpolate betweensome lines of frequencies that
you see and get a picture of.
You know where the submarinesare around you and it's not snap
your fingers.
It takes a while to developthat skill.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
How do you know what's going on around you, Like
when enemies because obviouslythe enemy situation is they're
going to have the samecapabilities as us.
Some men may have more thanwhat vessel you're in.
How do you deal?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
with that?
How do you work?
Yeah, so situational awareness.
So we had passive sonar.
We wouldn't transmit activelybecause that would give our
position away and, to be honest,with the exception of some
front line again, I'm datingmyself, this is in the 1980s
With the exception of somefrontline submarine Soviets, we
basically had what's called anacoustic advantage where we
(08:15):
could hear them before theycould hear us.
And you know, thank the Lord wedidn't get in a shooting war,
but if we had, it influenced ourtactics a lot.
We were basically snipers andthey were basically in a bar
fight.
So basically, we would, youknow, our tactics were designed
to, you know, slowly or notslowly, but to to track at a
distance and then engage youknow when, when, when the time
(08:38):
came, without you know God, godwilling, without the enemy ever
knowing, and we had weapons thatwere designed to do that long
range and, could you know, hadthose capabilities, whereas, you
know, the other guys, you know,knew they were at acoustic
disadvantage and knew that ifthey heard us we would have been
hearing them for a while.
So their tactics evolved.
(08:59):
They were basically just like ashotgun just wheel around and
get weapons out within 45seconds.
It was very different tacticsbecause they knew they had an
acoustic disadvantage.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Now, morale wise this is one thing that's always been
in the back of my head too isif you're in such a small vessel
and do you call vesselssubmarines, or Subs yeah, or
boats usually Boats yeah.
Let's say you're in a boat andyou're eating your way to space.
You're getting enough space toactually move around and to
function out there.
But how do you keep the moraleup?
Especially as an officer, youhave to keep your troops, like
(09:32):
any solid officer is going tokeep their troop morale up.
How did you do that?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, so the two biggest things from my
experience that affected moralewere, you know, food.
You know the submariners eatreally well.
It's kind of a tradition thatwe get good food, and mealtimes
were the one time you could sitand relax and chat.
Both, you know, officers andenlisted.
We ate the same food, by theway, it wasn't a separate mess,
(09:57):
we ate in the wardroom,obviously, but it was the same
food.
And then, you know, we hadmovies, and you know there were.
So those were kind of the twohighlights of the day.
You know mealt times and movies.
Um, a lot of hijinks went on onthe boat.
You know people playingpractical tricks.
I, I talked about that in theuh, don't give too much away,
but I mean I talk about, uh,there's a lot of funny stuff we
(10:18):
used to do, you know, like asteel, uh, one of our exes, uh,
his son, to give him a poundpuppy, which is a puppy back
then a doll, um, you know, dogdoll, whatever, and and
basically the crew kidnapped it,dognapped it and gave him a
ransom note on.
You know magazine papers thathad cut out just like you see in
the movies, and they had listeddemands.
(10:40):
You know they wanted, you knowextra ice cream at dinner and
two movies.
You know after Med Rats andeverything.
You know after med rats andeverything.
So, to answer your question,you know playing hijinks and
stuff and just you know takingadvantage of the time you know,
like movies and meals when wehad it.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
You know you might not have had a problem with
claustrophobia, but have youever had anybody you worked with
?
You know an officer enlisted.
All of a sudden they just freakout and do you have any?
What's the parameters fortaking care of that situation?
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I never saw that on the two submarines that I served
on.
I have heard stories of wherethat happened and you know it's
very sad and you know there's acorpsman on board that assesses
the.
You know the fitness ofeveryone on board to do their
duty and the corpsman getsinvolved.
(11:33):
You know, thank the Lord, wewere never in an environment
where we had to maybe come offstation because there was a
medical emergency, eitherphysical or mental, like that.
But that would happen.
I suppose you'd have to.
You know, counterbalance thatwith the.
You know the value of themission you were on and take
(11:54):
measures.
But you know, thank the Lord, Iwas never in that, in that
situation.
And tell you the truth, by thetime you get to that point,
people are pretty well screenedand if they can't cut it, you
know they're not going on therun with you and you know like
there's no secrets.
You know they're literallythere's a hundred men on board.
Back then it was all men, notbeing sexist, but now now we
(12:17):
have women in submarines buteveryone knows each other's
secrets and nobody.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
There's no secrets on a submarine whatsoever yes,
think of how do you screenpeople.
Do you have to, like, see ashrink is there?
Like I mean, obviously you knowit's just it's got to be
different screening than anyother vessel, boat or anything
else it's got there.
Speaker 2 (12:37):
If there was.
To be honest, if there was, Ican't recall it.
I don't recall any specifictest being taken or anything.
I think part of it's just thenature of the screening process
to determine whether or not youhave the intellectual skills to
go on the submarines.
(12:57):
The officers every singleofficer on a US nuclear
submarine is nuclear qualified,with the exception as fly
officer.
We call them the CHOP.
And in order to get into theprogram to begin with, you go
back to the naval reactors andinterview with the director of
naval reactors.
Back then it was Rickover.
I missed Rickover by two monthsand I was interviewed by
(13:20):
Admiral McKee.
There's, you know, kind ofhorror stories about the
interviews Admiral Rickoverwould give you know prospective
officers.
But that screening process isvery rigorous.
It's probably one notch belowbeing screened for becoming an
astronaut.
Between tours on my submarinesI was teaching at ROTC Naval
(13:43):
ROTC in UCLA and my main job wasto get people to volunteer for
the submarine force andeverybody I would put up failed
the interview, with theexception of one person.
So it's very difficult, so it'sa very high.
Screening to begin with is partof the answer.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Now I'm reading the description of your book, and
the book's out now.
It's called Submerged Life on aFast Attack Submarine in the
Last Days of the Cold War andyou talk about traveling under
ice.
Now, talk about now.
This is one thing.
It's like, hey, even if youfreaked out or anything, there
was a massive emergency.
It's not like you could justpop to the surface.
So that must have been aninteresting time.
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Yeah, and that that's really that's one of the two
big differences with just normalsubmarine ops operations is
that you don't have that luxuryto to go up to periscope depth
and run the diesel if somethinghappens to the reactor.
The other is the nature ofnavigation up there is really
(14:37):
really different than it is, youknow, down at lower latitudes.
That's one thing.
Well, I know people like kindof surprised when I tell them
about that.
You know, for one thing, gyrocompasses don't work beyond
about 88 degrees north becausethey need the earth to spin and
the earth doesn't spin enoughabove 88 degrees north.
(14:58):
And the other thing isdirections.
If you think about it like yousaid, I'm heading west.
You know I'm heading northeastor whatever.
When you say that that's anangle to a meridian and that
makes sense when you're downhere I live about thirty nine
degrees north, whatever.
You know they're roughlyparallel, right.
But when you get close to thepole you know you head west and
(15:21):
you take a step off the meridianyou're on and you're not
heading west anymore because theangle you make with the
meridian you're on, then whenyou take a step off of it is
different, it's somethingsouthwest.
So consequently, we had tocreate an artificial, basically
coordinate system.
(15:41):
We would slide the North Poledown the international dayline
down to the equator and callthat the North Pole.
So when we're at the North Pole, our system thought we were at
the equator and the computershandled that.
And I talk about in the book.
One time I was involved, youknow, tangentially with actually
damaging that inertialnavigation system.
And then we went to the NorthPole so it was like, oh geez, I
(16:01):
hope we didn't break it, that wewon't get back.
There was a boat actually thatthat happened to.
They lost their inertialnavigation system and you think
you know just something, likeyou know heading in a direction.
Well, you're submerged, there'sno star to steer by.
So basically they just kept therudder midships and just went
(16:24):
in a flank bill a high rate for30 hours or something and ended
up on the right latitude, but140 degrees off in longitude.
That's how serious it is if youlose your inertial navigation
system.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, talk about ending up in the wrong place at
the wrong time in the wrong partof the world.
You know, especially with,you're always being hunted.
That's one thing aboutsubmarines.
You're always being hunted.
So you always wonder like whatcould?
It's a Cold War, but peopledon't realize that the tension
in the Cold War was incredible.
We never knew Like I rememberthe 1980s, we never knew when
(16:55):
there was going to be.
You know the next thing thenuclear war was always on its
back.
So when you're in a submarineand you end up in the wrong
place at the wrong time in thewrong part of the world, it may
spark something.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, I talk about that in the book Asha on on the
on the ice run.
Um, there was one time I'llnever know this day what it was
Um, and let me preface myremarks saying that my book was.
I had because I had a securityclearance.
I had submitted to the DODofficer office a pre-publication
security review and it wasvetted and approved with some
(17:29):
redactions, mostly dealing withthe operation of nuclear reactor
.
So everything I'm saying hasbeen cleared.
There was one time when, comingback from the poll that you
know, we got some very strangesonar signals and to this day I
don't know what that was.
You can read about in the book,but it really kind of bugs me.
You know who's to say what itwas.
But you're absolutely right, wehad a kind of sense that we're
(17:53):
at the wool store the entiretime.
It was, it was not a game, itwasn't training, it was kind of
the real deal.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
It's one of those realizations and I think a lot
of people get this when you'rein a service and you're in some
sort of conflict or you're nearit that if it's your time, it's
your time and there's reallynothing you can do about it.
And I'd imagine if a sub gothit it would be over pretty
quick.
I can't imagine, you know,taking on water and getting hit
would be devastating impactright away.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
That's actually kind of a saving grace.
Now, obviously, you know not tobe too morbid, but basically,
like you're familiar with adiesel engine, right, diesel
engines work.
They don't have spark plugs tofire the cylinders, they just
work by compression.
Basically, if there wereflooding on a submarine at depth
, it would basically be like acylinder in a diesel engine.
(18:42):
There's enough, you know,flammable fumes in there with
diesel and whatever, that thesudden compression would heat it
.
You just explode and, just, youknow, die instantly.
I'm not saying that's good, butI'm saying, you know, it's
probably better than drowning.
I don't know, but the largerpoint we generally don't think I
don't know, but the largerpoint we generally don't don't
think I mean, obviously the mainthing is it's very rigorous
(19:04):
life being a submariner.
For one thing I talk about inthe book, you know you don't
just say hey, bob, would you dothis?
Whatever, it's very strict.
You know.
Repeat backs.
You say you know, take manualcontrol of steam generator level
.
You know, maintain levelbetween X and Y.
You know, and he repeats itback to you verbatim, nothing
(19:25):
happens on a submarine without.
You know, verbatim, repeatbacks.
You know, just because youcan't afford to make a mistake
and misunderstand somebody.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You know, that's the thing is about the protocols,
the SOPs it's there.
Protocols, the SOPs, it's there.
So everybody can actually falldown on someone else's job if
they really really needed to,because there is a standard
operating procedure available.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
And the other thing to follow up on that.
You know there's a processcalled qualification on
submarines.
You know it's very kind of anethical moment in a submarine's
life when you know it takes.
It took me 18 months, it took,takes some people much longer.
For officers, a list of guysusually takes a year to be
qualified.
(20:06):
Submarines that wear the youknow what we call the fish, the
dolphins, and that you knowyou're you're, you're really
kind of cross-trained.
I'm not saying you could justwalk into somebody else's shoes
or watch station and take over,but you definitely know how to
rig every compartment on boardthat submarine, for you know
different events.
(20:26):
That's one of the things.
You know where all the majordamage control positions are and
you got a very good idea of howeverything works and how
everything connects.
So it's not that everyone couldlike do everyone else's job,
it's not to that level, but it'sto the level that, um, you know
you, you and, and we're kind ofa brotherhood, you know
everyone trusts each other.
Speaker 1 (20:46):
You know, by virtue of having that qualification,
Now, when you get out of theservice, when you jump into the
pilot seat, you know, that's onething I was reading about.
Your bio is now you're aprivate pilot.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
You know, I don't think that's a coincidence.
So basically my career path, II did two tours, one as a junior
officer on uh, one fast techsubmarine.
Then I taught at ucla, uh atthe rotc.
I taught weapons andengineering there but my main
job was to get people tovolunteer for a subservice.
And then then I served as aweapons officer on another
submarine and then about thehalfway point, right when I was
(21:24):
teaching at UCLA, the Cold Waror the Berlin Wall fell.
And then subsequently, soonthereafter, the Soviet Union
fell and we had staffed up tobuild a force of about 100 SSNs
and we dropped that to abouthalf.
And so the chance of you know,I didn't want to wait around,
(21:45):
you know they didn't really needme anymore.
So I got out at the kind of thehalfway mark in my career and
served the rest of time in thereserves and ended up retiring
as a commander.
But I've often reflected uponthis commander.
But, um, I've often reflectedupon this that I don't think
it's coincidence that I bought aplane right after I got out,
because the two disciplines arevery similar.
(22:05):
You know you cannot have oh Ithought.
You know I thought does notexist.
You know the people have a.
Oh, I thought you know, I youknow, I assumed whatever.
You know there's a pyramid ofpeople.
They're not on that pyramid.
You know they fell off thepyramid.
You know because you have to.
It's very similar rigorousdiscipline flying a plane as it
is driving a submarine.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Yeah, I thought about it.
There I go.
I thought now you haven't beenstuck in my head, but it's like
you know, you can't make aminimal mistake in either one of
those responsibilities.
So, it's definitely interestingresponsibilities.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
So it's definitely interesting.
Yeah, so my my career path.
Like I said I, the book talksabout a month through the whole
training pipeline and it startsout in there's a we had they
call them prototype reactors.
Where they're?
They're nuclear reactors out inthe Idaho desert that we used
to train both officers andenlisted in the engineering
(23:04):
spaces and you qualify as anengineering officer.
Watch there and one of thethings talk about the
seriousness of adhering toprotocol and what you're about.
Every day we would drive by, thebus would take us.
It was about 50 miles away fromtown and the bus would take us
in every day.
It was about 50 miles away fromtown and the bus would take us
in every day.
(23:24):
It's about an hour and a halfto get out there and it would
take us by this reactor that hadblown up in the early 60s that
you know it's kind of a designflaw.
The operator had pulled thehead, was manually fitting the
control rod and pulled it outand was leading over at the time
and it caused the reactor todevelop like 6,000 times rated
(23:46):
power in less than a second andflashed all the water in the
steam and impaled him on thecontainment enclosure building
75 feet above the ground.
It just stuck right throughthem and killed everyone else as
well.
So that really gets yourattention.
And we saw, you know, movies ofthe aftermath, that in the in
(24:06):
the nuclear power school, thatit's serious as a heart attack.
You know it's real life, yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
Well, you know, to turn on to a lighter note, man,
I can't even imagine.
Now you've gotten the writingbook You've been writing for a
while now, do you have anotherbook planned in you?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I do, I, I I wrote another book actually about my,
you know, flying misadventures.
Uh, I call it the how tohotwire an airplane, and it's uh
about, uh, a guy who's kind ofuh, he's a Vietnam vet, you know
, and it's kind of based on mydad was a Vietnam vet and a lot
of the people I grew up with,you know the, the, the men that
(24:45):
you know, kind of I would growup with it, you know they're all
had, I would say, not notsaying any way, but had some
level of PTSD to, to, to onelevel or another.
You know you, you don't, youdon't go to war and come back.
You know 100%.
And it's about a guy who youknow, is kind of haunted by his
experiences.
He kind of redeems himself byflying, you know, undocumented
(25:09):
immigrants across the bordercheckpoints in Texas, and
hilarity ensues.
It's kind of a funny book.
But we'll see.
But to answer your question,yeah, I'm working on that right
now.
That's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well, everybody Submerged Life on a Fast Attack
Submarine and the Last Days ofthe Cold War is out now on
Amazon.
Make sure you check it out,henry.
I appreciate you coming on theshow.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity.
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