We were told at the time, that the Brits has a surface group in the area, and didn’t want a sub submerged in the same area. Neither we, nor our radar saw anything. But in 21 years spent in the navy, I’ve never seen seas like in that 1st deployment. Modern subs, with round hulls, are optimized for submerged steaming, only cruising on the surface when arriving/departing ports or when operationally necessary (i.e. shallow waters or transferring personnel).

I’ve probably been out in seas just as bad as that 1st deployment - when the boat is rocking at 600-800 feet submerged depth, it has to be really, really bad on the surface, but being submerged, I really didn’t get to see it on those occasions.

My first deployment in a fast-attack submarine, in the fall of 1991. We were working under British operational control, and they ordered us to cruise surfaced, in the North Sea. I was standing watch as a lookout, with another lookout and the Officer of the Deck (OOD), in the sail superstructure of the boat. We were wearing body harnesses and lanyards, clipped into the superstructure - normal procedure.

I was a sailor aboard USS SUNFISH (SSN549), a Sturgeon Class boat, where the sail superstructure was 25 feet tall. We were in 48 foot seas.

The 3 of us on watch that night were washed overboard more than 10 times each. Often all 3 of us at the same time… flung overboard, hanging by our lanyards, trying to roll around and grab onto the ladder rungs, or one another, to get back into the bridge pooka. None of us broke any bones or lost any teeth, but we were pretty battered and bruised by the end of it.

That was the first time I got to see the entire boat out of the water… at the top of the wave, I could see the stem planes, stabilizers, the end of the towed-array housing, and the propeller. At the bottom of each trough, we’d see just a tiny hole of sky, through the water, as it all crashed down upon us, and we all hold on, trying to stay inside the superstructure.

We pulled into the Navy Base at Rosyth Scotland the next afternoon. The windshield, booked in for surface operations, was completely missing, as well a the port running light. We sustained damage to our observation periscope and main communications antenna as well.

The experience was both scary and exhilarating.

The problem could be that, with all the advancements in technology just since 1970, all the medical advancements, all the added efficiencies at home and in the workplace, the immediate knowledge-availability of the internet, all the modern conveniences, and the ability to maintain distant relationships through social media, most of our lives haven’t really improved.

We are more rushed and harried than ever, life expectancy (in the US) has decreased, we’ve gone from 1 working adult in most families to 2 working adults (with more than 1 job each), income has gone down. Recreation has moved from wholesome outdoor activities to an obese population glued to various screens and gaming systems.

The “promise of the future” through technological advancement, has been a pretty big letdown. What’s AI going to bring? More loss of meaningful work? When will technology bring fewer working hours and more income - at the same time? When will technology solve hunger, famine, homelessness, mental health issues, and when will it start cleaning my freaking house and making me dinner?

When all the jobs are gone, how beneficial will our overlords be, when it comes to universal basic income? Most of the time, it seems that more bad comes from out advancements than good. It’s not that the advancements aren’t good, it’s that they’re immediately turned to wartime use considerations and profiteering for a very few.

Oh, you can set up a dual boot system, so you don’t have to completely jump ship. They also have setups that run entirely on a thumb drive now.

I did dual boot for a little bit when I want into business 14 years ago. While I liked Linux, I wasn’t sure I could run a business without Windows, but soon discovered that everything would be just fine without Windows, and got rid of it.

I’m in my mid-50s. I play Warzone 2100 and BOS wars on my computer. I’ve has Steam for several years, and have a game there…I think it’s “World of Goo.” I like to stick to games that serve as stress relievers, and take no more than about an hour. Between owning a business, 2 teens, 3 schools, 4 sports, a wife, a house that would love to fall apart if I’d only let it, a lawn to mow, and 2 antique cars I love to keep driving, I don’t have much more time to let myself be sucked in to some of the really cool stuff I see.

I recently bought a replacement PS2 though…the old one broke, and I’m still in love with GTA Vice City. I usually just steal a cop car and do vigilante mode until I’m killed though.

Oh, I don’t discourage them from using/learning Microsoft products at all - they just don’t happen to be in our home, because as consumers, my wife and I don’t spend our money in Microsofts direction. While I can’t say it with accuracy anymore, because it’s been 20 years since my switch, one of the selling points with the Linux distributions was that some of them looked and felt like either Mac or Windows. My Ubuntu distribution looks pretty similar to my wife’s Mac, and the initial installation of Linux Mint, several years ago was made to look and feel like Windows XP. Honestly, the last time I touched Windows was before retiring from the US Navy, where the Submarine LAN was run on Windown NT - but I retired in 2009.

If my kids came home with a Windows PC, or the cheaper option, wanted to turn one of my laptops into a dual-boot machine, I wouldn’t care…more exposure to (that bad word) diversity in operating systems. I don’t think they’re missing out on not having Microsoft in our home though. Microsoft Word in the Tux world is Open Office, Microsofts Excel is Calc, etc…if you know one, you’ll be able to work on the other.

My 1st desktop had Windows 95 on it. It worked OK. A few years later, I bought a laptop pc with WindowsME (Millennium Edition), and it became the last Windows product I’ve owned. A work colleague installed Windows 2000 on that laptop, and it worked for a couple months, until I got my “blue screen of death.”

At that time, they started selling the ePC notebooks, available with WindowsXP or Linux (the XanderOS) I stepped out of my comfort zone, and got the XanderOS variant, and have had Linux computers since. I’m currently using Mint on an old Panasonic CF-30, and Ubuntu on 2 laptops built by System 76.

My wife likes Mac, but I’m not a fan. My kids get a pretty rounded experience, between using their moms Mac, their dads 2 variants of Linux, and their Chromebooks at school.

The predicted Allied casualties for a mainland invasion of Japan were so high, especially with regard to the civilian fanaticism witnessed throughout the Island-hopping Campaign, the right choice was using the Atomic Bomb. After use of the first atomic bomb, when Japan failed to yield and refused to surrender, the return to consideration to a homeland invasion, along with running the numbers of anticipated Allied casualties, made using the second Atomic Bomb the correct choice. The best choice was made, with regard to the information on hand at the time.