SSBN. ETV. Will not respond to questions about sensitive or classified subjects. My views are my own and I do not represent anyone.
Hi there!
Edit: since this has been asked several times:
SSBN stands for “submersible ship, ballistic missile, nuclear powered”. That is, the same overall type of ship as the Red October.
ETV stands for “Electronics Technican, Navigation”, because N was already taken by Nuclear Electronics Technicians. I work with everything from interior communications and announcing circuits to Electronics, shipwide atmospheric monitoring, navigational inertial gyroscopes, strategic nuclear missile navigation, and tank level indicators to basic underwater submarine navigation using the voyage management system and even helming the ship itself.
No brig, no space for one; if we need to confine someone, we just have them stay in their bunkroom in their rack, watched by an armed sentry, until we can schedule a BSP (brief stop for personnel) to get them off the ship and into the custody of the Fleet.
Yes, we can get a little kooky in the head after a particularly long underway, and there were times where a passageway of submariners waiting for lunch suddenly burst into nonstop hysterical laughter for no reason and couldn’t stop for almost ten minutes. We also had someone snap one time and get into a physical altercation which resulted in one submariner unconscious and the other BSP’d off the ship under armed guard.
Normally, however, we handle things at the lowest possible level first before escalating using the chain of command, and usually by the time it gets to a petty officer to petty officer discussion, the issue is resolved. Sometimes it has to get to a Chief first, which nobody wants. Worst case, the two are brought to a Disciplinary Review Board, and if necessary, the Captain’s Mast for Non-Judicial Punishment, whether that might be getting demoted in rank, confined to quarters, or given extra military duty for a month or two.