I’ll never forget my first day on the carrier USS Enterprise. Two weeks after I was married, I was on a marathon flight from Norfolk, Virginia to the tiny island of Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean to join my first ship, the Enterprise. Upon arrival in Diego Garcia, we were put on the supply ship Niagara Falls which was en route to replenish the Enterprise battle group in the North Arabian Sea. A day later, I was put on a CH-46 helicopter and transported to the Enterprise and my first view of the ship was as we passed over her bow right before landing.
That’s when the real fun began. A carrier is literally a floating city and it can take you weeks to get oriented to your surroundings. I did not have that luxury.  Instead, after finally finding the Reactor Training Office and being introduced to the Reactor Training Assistant who was in charge of my initial training onboard, I was handed a summons to appear before the Royal High Court of the Raging Main. In other words, the Enterprise was going to cross the equator the next day and I, being a slimy pollywog, was about to be initiated as a shellback.
The next morning, we assembled on the messdecks on our hands and knees to enjoy our breakfast of green eggs and ham. We then proceeded through a gauntlet of shellbacks through the hangar bay. Far be it from me to reveal the secrets of this initiation lest I incur the wrath of Davey Jones, but lets just say that by the time I reached the other side of the hangar bay, I was literally a wet and slimy wog. We then proceeded to crawl on an aircraft elevator which took us to the flight deck to meet King Neptune and his court. Our present condition not worthy of his majesty, we were sprayed down with firehoses as we proceeded upward.  Once on the flight deck, we continued through the initiation and were paraded in front of King Neptune and his court. At the end of this initiation, I literally threw my uniform over the fantail since it was beyond being in any serviceable condition.
I spent two tours on carriers, finally leaving active duty in 2000 after serving as the Reactor Training Assistant on the USS Nimitz during her refueling overhaul in Newport News Shipyard. From there I joined the Navy Reserve and am now about to retire as a Commander after a wonderful 20 year career.  The photo is of a much younger Ensign Carlisle, on liberty call in Rio de Janeiro from the Enterprise as she made her way from the North Arabian Sea to Norfolk VA. This photo was taken in February 1990, just a few months before Saddam Hussein would invade Kuwait. And the rest, they say, is history…
Best regards,
Rob Carlisle