Nukes, nubs and coners: The unique social hierarchy aboard a nuclear submarine
Former submariner here (on the officer side). This article is fun and largely true, but also only scratches the surface of the weird culture of US submariners. Some other things to consider:<p>* submarines deploy for 3-6 months at a time, often-times rarely pulling into ports. Imagine being stuck with 130-150 of your closest friends for that period of time in close quarters. It gets weird.<p>* Law of Conservation of Happiness: Once you're submerged, happiness can be neither created nor destroyed, it can only be taken from others. Easy for the CO/XO to be happy: they run drills & have cleaning days for the crew. But everyone learns other crew members' weaknesses and ruthlessly exploits them if necessary.<p>* Fatigue.  I understand it's changed but when I was a submariner the boat operated on an 18-hour cycle: 3 sections of 6-hour watches. Humans aren't meant to operate on an 18-hour day, and so within a day or two of getting underway you just get into this permanent semi-fatigued state.<p>As for me, looking back on my time I enjoyed it and learned a lot. (Maybe more importantly, I learned a lot about myself.) That said, while I was on board it was a lot more difficult experience - it's a challenging life.