CARPE DIEM - Seize the Day - naval training aboard the USS Roosevelt

All Hands, Sept, 2001 by Jim Watson

At Naval Training Center (NTC) Mayport, Fla., members of USS Roosevelt (DDG 80) are doing for more than just seizing the day. They're seizing the opportunity for camaraderie, teamwork and some fun while learning to take control of a ship during a simulated In the blink of an eye, everything can go wrong. One minute the practice-boarding is running smoothly, the ship's "captain" is complying and the boarding team has successfully checked most of the ship for contraband. Suddenly, everything goes wrong. A paintball travelling at 300 feet-per-second hits your shipmate. A decision has to be made. Do you abandon him, or do you try to return fire, drag him out and run for the boat?

"Every scenario is different, gentlemen," bellows VBSS Instructor Gunner's Mate 1st Class Monty Lane, holding his paintball rifle and standing over a Sailor covered in paint. "You are not SEAL teams going in with guns blazing. You are there as diplomats doing a peaceful mission, and if all hell breaks loose, you leave. Of course, if you can get to your team member safely, and he is still alive, you do it."

"While it is well known that a member of your team could get injured while boarding a ship in hostile territory, 99 percent of all ship boardings run smoothly," adds VBSS Instructor Sonar Technician (Guided Missile) 1st Class (SW) Cecil Bazley. "This class should show all of you that there is the potential for hazards, but more than that, it should prepare you to see [hazards] before they occur, and as a team stop them from ever happening."

"Is this really what it would be like?" is a question many of the students ask themselves during the five-day course that would introduce them to the basics of shipboarding. Adding to the realism are instructors who look the part, complete with "squared away" uniforms, well-prepared lesson plans, and exceptional military bearing.

Students are taught to rapell down three stories worth of shipping containers, to search those containers safely and thoroughly, and to take down and secure an individual who is a potential threat. But nothing could prepare them for the last two days of training where the instructors disappeared and resurfaced with a new look.

"Oh, hello my friend' says one of the ship's crew in a foreign accent. "What you do here?"

"Hello, we are just here to check out the ship," says Mess Management Specialist 1st Class Duanne Spears, staring at what used to be his instructor, who is now dressed out in civilian clothes, long hair and a set of those glasses with the oversized fake nose. "Um, could you please move to this side of the ship."

"For what for," questions another of the ship's screw in broken English as the others s pretend not to understand the American Sailors and wander around the bow.

"Shake hands," the crew member says as he and his shipmates move closer to the boarding team.

"Please, step back," Spears says after shaking hands with the crew members. He adds little more emphasis to his voice, and look to his team for support. Yet, this training is over as quickly as it began, because the ship's crew has positioned themselves to have the upper hand over the boarding team.

"OK. Training time out," exclaims VBSS Safety Instructor Operations Specialist 1st Class (SW) William Walker, who was watching the whole scene from afar. "This becomes a potential threat when you don't show force; you didn't even ask if they had weapons on them. You don't know this man; why would you shake his hand and let the others get out of control? And your team members -- what are they doing? Just standing around not helping you? Letting them get close enough in case anything happens?"

Walker runs through various mistakes, like the handshake, which he explains, is OK once they are sure there is no threat posed by the ship's crew. Scenarios are repeated several times, allowing the students to consider many possible hazards, and so that situations can be created that are increasingly difficult to control. The first scenario might start off with a crewmember that needs to use the head. That might lead to another where two crewmembers get into a brawl, or to one where a crewmember draws a weapon. "It's little things that will catch you off guard," an instructor reminds the students before moving into the next phase, where it will get all too real once everyone is armed with paint ball rifles.

The scenario goes just as the instructors expected it would. The boarding team walked into a dark room resembling an engineering space where they were immediately ambushed. Each member of the six-man team was hit, the paint indicating simulated wounds, their faces showing their hurt pride.

The opportunity for a Sailor to become a member of a boarding team, and to attend classes such as this puts extra excitement and education into what might otherwise be just be another day at sea.

Chief Electronic Technician (SW)Charles Horns, the assistant boarding officer during the course and on the Roosevelt, said, "With this class, I'm able to go back and train junior personnel one day, and board a ship the next, looking for contraband. I just doesn't get any better than this."