The Deadliest Catch

The family and I have a show that we enjoy watching and to my dismay it is actually a "reality" show of sorts. Generally speaking I do not like such shows. It turns out that I have a very different definition of the word "reality" than what is portrayed by the genre. But I digress...

The show in question is called "The Deadliest Catch" and it is about fishing on the Bering sea. There is something about the show that I can't put my finger on...something that doesn't let me look away. It might be the narration of Mike Rowe. That guy has the best vocals in the business. He really is a great story teller.

I guess the thing that sucks me in more than anything is that this show captures men doing one of the most difficult, back breaking, sleep deprived, dangerous jobs on the planet. And I get to grab a beer, recline in my Lazy-boy and watch them do it.

Most jobs, when I look at them, I think "yeah, I could do that". Doctor? Well, I don't really have any interest in that, and I'd have to go to school, but yeah...I think I could do it. Lawyer? Sure. Construction Worker? absolutely.

But fisherman in the Bering Sea? No way. Not only do I not have the desire to do it...I don't believe I'm actually capable of doing it.

Thinking on it a bit, the only thing I could possibly compare it to is the job I did for what turned out to be quite possibly the worst week of my life.

Back when I was in the Army, in about June or July of 1996, my unit deployed to the National Training Center (NTC) in Fort Irwin, California for a huge training exercise. The details are a little fuzzy in my head, but I remember boarding an aircraft on McChord AFB and flying down to meet the equipment and vehicles we had shipped by rail a week or so before.

We got there and unloaded the vehicles, and that was pretty difficult work, but we were getting 'three hots and a cot', even eating at the mess facility (rather than the 'portable' mess facility that we carried with us). In Army terms, this was the life of luxury on a field deployment.

Boy, how that was about to change...

At the time we deployed I was a team leader of a small three person team that set up what was essentially a repeater unit. My unit took the data in from a RAU, which was basically a self contained cell tower mounted on the back of a humvee, and relayed that data via UHF over to a telephone switch. This is so the good guys (us) could make phone calls from the gigantic cell phones that they had at the time.

Anyway, after a couple days, we got our orders to deploy, and the actual exercise was about to begin. The exercise itself was scheduled to last about a week. We were fighting against the local OpFor (opposing force), who trained constantly against every unit that travelled to the NTC every couple weeks. These guys trained all the time, we trained once a year. They were going to mop the floor with us. But they'd evaluate our tactics and execution, and the officers in charge would all figure out whose fault it was for losing and yell at them. Or something. I'm not sure.

What I was sure of, is that if I (or my team) made any mistakes, we were going to hear about it. And, more importantly, the higher up schmuckity schmucks were going to hear about it and make my life miserable.

So we had to be perfect. When we finally deployed, we were all kinds of pumped up. We got to our assigned location, erected our mast (radio antenna dammit, you have a dirty mind), setup our camoflage, and dug in our defensive positions (foxholes, air attack shelters, etc). It was perfect.

This all took about 4-5 hours to complete. Once we got it setup, we had less than 30 minutes rest before we were ordered to move to a new location. So we all collectively let off a string of profanity, broke camp, filled in the defensive positions, and moved to a new location...where we proceeded to setup, dig in, etc, etc, etc.

This time we didn't even get fully setup before we were told to move. This would be a recurring pattern over the entire week. Not once, in the entire week, did we stay in a single position for more than 5 hours. I was up for 20 hours, get 2 hours rest, then be up for 20 more. Several times the spot where we would deploy to seemed eerily familiar and we'd realize that we were digging up the same foxholes we had filled in a few hours earlier.

The stupid thing was that we had to setup a tent, despite never getting a chance to sleep in it. There is nothing more demoralizing than being up for 20-30 hours straight, and setting up a tent, complete with sleeping bags rolled out, despite the fact that you knew you would not get a chance to sleep in it.

It was the hardest I've ever worked, and from that week forward, I resolved I now hated camping, and would never again sleep in a tent by choice (to my wife's chagrin I assure you). I also made the decision to never again be in a job where I had to work outdoors. (Did I mention it was June...and that Fort Irwin sits only a couple miles away from DEATH VALLEY?

Shortly after the NTC I finally got out of the Army, but the memory of that field exercise will literally haunt me forever. And when I watch the Deadliest Catch...it looks even more difficult than what I did that week.

But I can't stop watching the show. That hard work is tough to look away from.

I need a new lazyboy though...this one is starting to get slightly uncomfortable...a little lumpy. :)