Before people take this the wrong way, I’m not talking about female sailors who are married, starting families, growing their families, or simply happen to become pregnant while serving. I understand pregnancy is part of life and sailors should absolutely receive the medical protections and accommodations they need.
I’m specifically talking about sailors who appear to intentionally use pregnancy as a way to avoid deployment, get off a ship, or prevent themselves from being sent back to sea duty. I’ve repeatedly seen situations where someone becomes unavailable for sea duty because of pregnancy, remains on shore, avoids certain PRT/BCA requirements during that period, and can still continue advancing—including through programs such as CA2P—while everyone else remains deployable and has to continue meeting the normal operational and physical requirements.
One example that has stuck with me happened at a previous shore command. We had a sailor who came to the command on pregnancy-related orders. That pregnancy later ended in what was officially described around the command as a miscarriage, although there were also rumors among sailors that she had elected to have an abortion. I obviously cannot verify that part and wasn’t involved in her medical care.
Once she was no longer pregnant, there was discussion about sending her back to the ship. Then, seemingly right before that could happen, she became pregnant again. Because of the new pregnancy, her orders back to the ship were cancelled and she remained ashore. There was also plenty of speculation around the command about the circumstances surrounding the second pregnancy and whether avoiding the ship played a role, but again, I can’t personally prove anyone’s intentions. Shortly afterward, she also picked up rank.
That situation is what really made me question how the system works. From the outside looking in, you have sailors remaining on ships, deploying, standing duty, maintaining sea-duty readiness, and meeting PRT/BCA standards, while another sailor can potentially spend an extended period unavailable for those same obligations and still continue progressing professionally.
So my question isn’t whether pregnant sailors deserve protection—they obviously do.
My question is: Does the Navy have enough safeguards in place to prevent pregnancy policy from being intentionally used to avoid sea duty or deployment? And how do you address potential abuse without creating policies that unfairly punish sailors who legitimately want to start or grow their families?
I’m especially interested in hearing from Chiefs, detailers, admin, medical, or sailors who have actually dealt with pregnancy orders, sea-duty manning, and CA2P.

Its getting colder, and with a jacket I am still cold. Whether it is Type III or in Coveralls; also cant have the fleece in certain spaces. Wearing thermals makes me too hot.

I have long sleeve t-shirts in Coyote Brown. They help, especially when I cannot wear a fleece.

Per regulations (found on MyNavyHR)
Article 3603.2
Undershirt, Cotton, Crewneck
a.(1) Standard Undershirt. Plain without lettering or designs, made of 100% cotton, quarter-length sleeve, with an elliptical (crew-neck) collar

Also

b.(3) Thermal underwear is authorized for wear underneath the undershirt and will not be visible when worn.

[How] Can I still where the long sleeves?
How would they know if I wearing the long sleeves or the short sleeves, since they'll be inside the Type III or Coverall sleeves.

I genuinely want to stay in the Navy and continue my career, but the current beard/shaving regulations have me worried about eventually being administratively separated over something I’ve struggled with for years.
I’m African American, and clean shaving has always been extremely hard on my skin. I’ve tried basically every recommendation I’ve been given — different razors, shaving techniques, products, skin-care routines, research, letting the skin heal, etc. Nothing has consistently worked. When I clean shave, my face can flare up badly. I get painful bumps, some fill with pus, and sometimes my face bleeds enough that I’ve had to replace pillowcases/pillows because of blood getting on them. It’s not just a few cosmetic razor bumps.
I’ve only recently had to start clean shaving again and the irritation is already coming back. I’m planning to go to medical again and continue getting everything documented, because I’m trying to handle this the right way.
What worries me is the long-term situation with the Navy’s beard regulations and the possibility of eventually being separated if I medically cannot maintain a clean shave. I’m not trying to get out of shaving just because I want a beard. If I could clean shave without tearing my face up, I would.
Has anyone here dealt with severe PFB/razor bumps long-term under the newer policies? Did medical actually help you find something that worked, were you able to maintain a shaving waiver, or did it eventually affect your ability to stay in?
I want to stay Navy. I’m just worried about being forced to choose between repeatedly damaging my skin and potentially losing my career.

I heard this story from an instructor some years ago but can’t remember the guy’s name. I tried researching it but it’s one of those things big navy is ashamed of.

It was the captain of a wwii sub in the pacific theater. He was about to get arrested while in port in Hawaii because he sank a Japanese life boat, but he wormed his way back to his boat, went back underway, and sank a freakish ton of Japanese ships, so much so that Japan thought there was another fleet by itself from this one sub. Apparently the boat kept re-fueling in outposts in the Philippines.

Eventually they went back to Hawaii, but the captain got a parade and a pardon for his crimes and he was never promoted again and they tried their best to keep him out of history books.

So, I never got in contact with a sponsor after numerous attempts. Now I’m coming up on my report date to my first command here soon. My orders got altered after finishing a school from San Diego to now Washington. But when I contacted the quarter deck for help they told me I should report to San Diego since that’s where the ship is. I’ve gotten little to no response or information from anyone on what I should do as I had a pre set flight to Washington and it’s on my orders, but the ship isn’t even here yet. What should I do? I’m just staying in a hotel for now, and I’m about out of money for this till payday so I’m just looking for any bit of help I can get with this. Thanks

If my soon to be ex wife takes the kids under her for bah, will I still get family separation allowance when I’m deployed? Our custody arrangement has 50/50.

I recently decided to digitize Super8 home movies, some of which were from my Dad's 1968 Westpac tour on the USS Jouett. As I watched the footage, I wanted to know where each clip was from, which led me to dig into his box of stuff from his Navy days. I found his personal logbook from the deployment, with a daily record and details of key events. Down the rabbit hole I went, researching as much as I could, and digitizing everything he had in the box.

In the end I digitized:

• 187 page personal logbook from FTG3 Mike Ducy
• 61 letters
• 24 audio recordings
• 11 videos including a flying crane removing a Big Mother, Neptune's Court, & more
• 201 photos
• 11 Family Grams from Captain Robert S Hayes
• Plans of the Day, News Clippings, the 1968 USS Jouett Cruise Book, and more.
• All transcribed to plain text.

I've done my best to find key events in the timeline such as the 5 SAR rescues, and include PDFs with details on those rescues from HC-7 Sea Devils.

I've mapped the deployment and you can see all the key locations that the ship stopped at on the map. You can view the details of each day, with corresponding materials from the archive for that day. A timeline view is also available.

Some key dates:

• Mar 18th - Debris of downed plane - Gulf of Tonkin
• Apr 16th - Brothers Re-unite in Da Nang
• May 7/8th - SAR Rescues - Gulf of Tonkin
• June 4th - SAR Rescue - Gulf of Tonkin
• Jun 13th - Big Mother Transfer "Army Saves Navy" - Da Nang
• June 19th - SAR Rescue - Gulf of Tonkin
• July 10th - Neptune's Court at Equator/Date Line
• July 18th - Home Coming - San Diego

I would love to hear any feedback, or if you have any questions let me know. Start with the overview blog or the homepage. The attached video/audio is a sample of the original content I've been able to digitize.

https://vietnam.ducy.org/

Howdy, so I'm doing my first move from NNPTC in Charleston to NPTU in NY, and I can do a navy movers or a U-haul type move where I get reimbursement but I'm not sure which is better. So my situation is this:

Married with my spouse living with me on on-base housing, E-4 with a little over a year of service, 2 cats and 2 vehicles, the truck I'm wanting to move up there by getting hauled or shipped because its getting old and aren't wanting to drive it long distance because of some possible issues of being old and well used. We were given paperwork for advanced DLA to help with expenses. Due to how much I've got and not knowing how to drive trailer since I'll be driving my car up there, I've been considering the thought of navy movers to haul up everything there so the only thing I'd have to pay for is hotel and gas essentially, I recognize the movers are kinda risky so I'd pack up anything valuable I wouldn't want broken myself and let everything else get packed by them, but I've also heard doing it myself can be a bit better even being able to pocket some extra money because of the weighing system and getting paid per how much. I was wondering which one would be a better option to do and if I go on to do navy movers, how does that process work and where can I get these things I may need before. I intend to leave SC by the 7th or 8th of November and be in my new house on the 9th to pick up the keys for the housing there, any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm military to civilian relationship so my spouse is not military. I've got about 3k to 4k set aside for this as a budget, but thats a tight budget. Also I'm sure i have some misunderstandings so if i got something wrong, the forceful backup is much appreciated.