Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy
oldsaltblog.com
oldsaltblog.com
It was a brutal endeavor. They did not have ice cream.
In my 4 years we never had a single sailor show up to work drunk at my command, even once. They would be reprimanded. They might showup hungover sure, but not drunk. I did hear stories from other ships about a few high ranking officers showing up to base drunk but those were isolated incidents.
I never talked to anyone who had ever snuck alcohol on the ship and I was cool with everyone. I was on a destroyer so maybe on a larger ship this is easier to get away with.
I myself had my Liberty removed for 6 months because some kid who was not invited to our party stole 2 bottles of alcohol from us and got blackout. We found him in the beach bathroom passed out on the ground and had to physically carry him for a 45 minute walk back to base. He was in the hospital for 3 days. We lost our privilege to leave the ship for 6 months.
Let's be honest. Being in the Navy is terrible, alcohol is the way the culture copes with how terrible it is. You experience so much bullshit that the only thing that keeps you going is the idea that one day you'll get back to land and be able to get wasted. The problem is you can't drink or celebrate at sea so people go overboard once they get back on land. Yeah people get too drunk and drink too much, but so do college kids, which are the same age as many of these sailors.
I dealt with things ranging from exactly what the parent said (see my sibling comment to yours), to having to do a medical call away for someone non-responsive being brought across the quarterdeck at 2357 (in 2015; that individual had to get their stomach pumped and an AED administered twice on the way to the hospital in Okinawa). I dealt with any number of drunk at work issues as both a Chief and as a Security Manager (surprise, that's one that will get your clearance impacted). The number of DUI's I dealt with was far down, but the amount of alcohol driven domestic violence that came across my desk was... well that was the main reason I didn't take the civilian position I was offered (as the Security Manager at my final command).
Yeah, this sounds 100% true. I could have typed this, and at one point I was one of those bringing a bottle underway (though I was never drunk on watch; it was due to our ports having no alcohol). Honestly given how alcoholic half the crew was if there wasn't alcohol onboard (just to stop the withdrawals) the boat probably would have had to cancel the underway.
I can say that by the time I retired (2023) it was nothing like that. The ERB's in the 2011 timeframe wiped out an absolute TON of manpower but it did have the desired effect of destroying that culture almost immediately. Anyone with even a hint of alcohol issues in their record was sent packing with no recourse.
Prior to those ERB's the running joke was you had to have a DUI to be promoted to Chief. After that a DUI was not technically disqualifying, but was in reality a career ending event. Overnight things went to a culture of being afraid of doing anything that could get you caught out by a future ERB if you escaped that one.
It also caused the manpower issues we see now though, resulting in the manning shortfalls that are most critical in 7th Fleet. That fleet sees the worst shortfalls because it is the one that requires people to live overseas (Japan and Guam), which can be a hard sell. On top of that the deployment cycle has a far higher optempo; generally I spent 60-70% of a given tour on deployments. The rest of the Navy sees between 35% and 40% (outside of SOCOM commands). There's an ongoing impression that you have 7th Fleet Sailor's, then the rest of the Navy, as the Sailor's who like 7th Fleet don't want to go elsewhere and the rest of the Navy has no desire to join them.
Note: I was a 7th Fleet Sailor for most of my career; that stint in Pearl Harbor was the only Sea Duty I did outside of there.
Kind of wish I was a sentient intergalactic probe some days though.
Encouraging alcholism so they can manage it - that is really bad.
A battle rifle fired bullet is a delivery; working back from that bullet as to how it got fired reveals a "tyranny of the rocket equation" kind of logistics.
If your opposition has something as basic as food while you don't. Well,
logistics is broken == "ability to make an impact" is broken
Imagine you are 21 and unable to spend money, have free housing (the ship) and free food, then you land in a foreign country where you can finally drink after 8 months at sea with all the money you saved.
It's high high's and low low's
Officers make good many anyway, but that's pretty funny imagining execs yelling at you to pay your bill.
Ground troops in Iraq and Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror were under General Order #1, which prohibited alcohol in theater, but elsewhere like Djibouti and Qatar were authorized three beers a day maximum.
Ships usually pull into port somewhere in the world more often than every 45 days outside of large-scale combat.
Could be different now
Good God!
In the Royal Navy its 3 beers per man per day, every day. (Coke tin sized or 2 beers if the tins are larger, depends what the NAAFI ordered in). There are usually a few extra tins going spare if you want it and a blind eye turned, though getting drunk on board (let alone on duty) is a serious offence. Frankly, its rare for anyone to act like a knob.
Mate, two beers is 45 days is mad. No way are us British going to sign up for that!
The same reasoning applies for daily consumption of high amounts of calories from sweet drinks and snacks.
There is a large spectrum between this and rabbit food.
Ah, so that's what this is about. Your objection to universal healthcare and a desire to regulate other peoples personal lives based on your own morals.
But if to want society’s resources, seems fair for society to want something from you.
People don’t seem to have a problem with dangerous drivers paying more for auto liability insurance. In the US, we subsidize healthcare costs from alcohol use and overeating, but we explicitly charge people more for healthcare costs due to tobacco use.
It’s all just various political tribes flexing on who can get away with what.
Oh, and Max Miller of 'Tasting History' fame has a very entertaining video on this very topic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qiyo8D0nH70
That said, ice cream is aa highly underrated dessert and I have a hard time thinking of a better item to have available on un-air conditioned ships in a tropical environment, absolutely on par with a cold beer.
You see this in the data for smoking as well, as smoking decreases, you tend to see caloric intake and obesity rise at the population level.
Nicotine is an appetite suppressor so that relationship is probably pretty direct.
I think there's an individual rate. I highly doubt there is a "base rate" for groups overall. I also think environmental factors play a huge part in prevalence.
There is zero self control because out in the wild, self control means you don't survive. You eat all the calories that show up in front of you. You can't afford to be choosy. The idea of abundance comes at direct odds with how we are wired in survival settings, and it's no surprise we struggle with obesity as a result. Selection has not factored in the availability of a gas station on every corner full of dopamine hits for a few dollars.
It talks about substitutability of pleasures, among other things. The most interesting idea that I took from it was the idea of "blending" and "intensifying" of pleasures over time.
For example, with alcohol. Initially humans had fermented fruits, then beer and wine, then distilled alcohol. The pleasurable substance was refined over time and the pleasure was intensified. In parallel, humans blended together multiple pleasures at once, for example combining alcohol with milkshakes or making sugary cocktails.
The book makes a strong case that this process of refining, intensifying, trading, and blending pleasures has been a constant force throughout civilization, and it applies the same argument to the internet and social media.
if you want ice cream youd better hope its being served at the chow line (it absolutely isnt, unless youre on a submarine) or youre going to the Nexcom ship store to pick up a knock-off magnum bar in exchange for quite a lot of your real money.
We just eat the better stuff.
Sugar-free ice creams seem to have largely disappeared in the Pacific Northwest. Dreyers or Haagen-Daaz (don't remember which) used to have one or two varieties regularly, but not anymore. Most others are in expensive pint sizes (Ben & Jerry's sized, but even more expensive).
I'm picky about my ice cream though - I pretty much only eat Braum's premium ice cream.
When it ended, the industry rapidly consolidated around the large-scale industrial breweries which have dominated the market ever since.
This is a big reason why the beer industry in America is weird. You have large mass-market brewers on the hand one, and small craft brewers making more creative beers on the other hand, but you don't have many medium-sized brewers making high-quality traditional beers.
It's pretty hard to compete with Europe in that segment.
Same for wine production. Beringer, Mondavi...these were families who secured sacramental wine contracts from the Church.
Outside of that though, I don't think prohibition has too much of the blame as consolidation is the natural conclusion under capitalism. Breweries that get to a certain level get bought out by multinational corporations. I was in Asheville, NC a few years ago. It was kinda funny to me that one mark of fancy restaurants was to boast about their pre-ABInBev Wicked Weed bottle lists (I'm more a fan of Burial Beer either way).
In the 70s and early 80s, you probably had a half dozen SKUs account for 90% of volume. My grandfather ran a busy bar in Brooklyn and had like 4 beers on tap. The other thing was post prohibition ABC laws usually gave distributors a lot of power. They had exclusivity agreements and would stuff the channel or segment the market as they saw fit. Grandpa’s bar was Reingold and Schaeffer.
Microbrews went crazy in the 90s, and the big brewers bought and created brands to regain share. Then cheap capital led to M&A by bigger fish.
I don't think I've noticed much difference in Australia or New Zealand (admittedly I don't know the markets). As far as I know there's always been a few big brewery companies in both countries (and smaller ones have got bought out).
Farmers love distilling grain alcohol. Because it can take their crops and make the product easy to transport. If you're trying to ship lots of corn, barley, rye, or potatoes, etc., overland, you're looking at a large volume and mass. It is cumbersome to load and unload. It spoils easily, and pests can make lots of problems in storage.
So [historically,] if you're a farmer in Kentucky or Western Pennsylvania and you grow plenty grain to feed your townspeople and livestock, and there's anything left over, it's only logical to distill it and ship it out to an urban market.
But on the market side, it's feeding into vices, so what's an honest farmer to do? Contract for torpedo juice?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sen-Sen
It was much later that I learned that it was one of the powerful breath mints which people often used to cover-up after drinking booze.
[Grandma didn't drink! I don't think that Grandpa did, either. Their house never had alcoholic drinks or anything else related.]
I remember hearing a lot of stories about "the good old days" when people would drink and smoke weed or opium on ships. When I was in, alcohol and drugs had been replaced by Monster energy drinks.
I don't remember getting ice cream while deployed.
US does this in roundabout way. Medical officers have various Special Pay along with Flight Pay, Flight Deck pay and so forth. Not to mention various bonuses for various ratings that have come and gone.
It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
Everyone gets various special pay depending on their command and those don't compare to the Australians varying pay largely by role.
>It makes sense from manning standpoint since certain ratings will have siren call of civilian jobs compared to others. (ITS, CTN vs YN, RS)
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
What special pay? Sea Pay or Hazardous Duty pay? That's obviously location based incentives and not rating based compared to Flight Duty pay, though that's consider "Hazard Pay"
>I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you are deployed on a ship then everyone has "siren calls". All 4 of those rates earn the same money and get additional pay for command based increases unrelated to their rate specifically.
Siren call of much higher job prospects with a ton more money for ITS/CTN compared to YN or RS.
What does job prospects have to do with anything? I'm not trying to be rude, I truly don't understand what you're talking about. The Australian Navy pays their sailors COMPLETELY different per role even if they are the same rank. I have no idea what flight duty pay is and it is irrelevant to my point since it clearly didn't affect me or anyone at my command, making your general statement that the US Navy does it in roundabout ways confusing and incorrect. My buddy was an RN, I was an IT, we made the same money, it's that simple.
For the most part ITS, CTN, YN, RS all make the same amount of money if they are the same rank in the US Navy.
You get paid from the Rank Table, you can look up how much each rank makes. When I was in, I made E-5 in 4 years and was paid the same as other E-5's despite what their job was, or how long it took them to make E-5. This is not a roundabout way to pay someone differently based on their role/rate.
It could be different now as they might want to incentivize growth of specific roles but in my time that was with enlistment bonuses, not rate specific pay (which I have never heard of).
In any case, Navy still gives out enlisted bonuses for certain rates, https://www.navy.com/careers-benefits/pay/enlistment-bonus and they have changed over the years. I also know certain rates were eligible for higher reenlistment bonuses when I dealt with it. So it’s kind of like rating pay in roundabout way that’s really messy.
That aside, paying by rate makes sense if you want to keep certain rates and had trouble doing it. Again, when I was in that world as nasty civilian, almost every CTN was gone as soon as they ETS because E-4/5 pay was laughable compared to what they were being offered outside the military. I don’t know what current manning looks like now.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/2024/12/15/torpedo-juice-the...
The nutritionists who have tried to prove that evident theory have all admitted that the health benefits of the ice cream are akin to those of the yogurt.
Edit: even though, I’m avoiding emulsifiers like e-471, e-472 and so on.
That doesn't sound like they "admitted" to anything. It can at the same time have the health benefits of yogurt, and be bad for you.
In the particular case of ice cream, what makes you think it's healthy despite the high calorie and sugar content? All I could find was a study from 2018 [0], which specifically investigated diabetes 2 patients (who are very conscious about their sugar intake) and didn't control for the rest of their diet. Any claim that the amounts of sugar in ice cream are net beneficial for you will need extraordinary amounts of evidence.
[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/05/ice-cre...
AFAIK, the leading theory is also that this is because fruits have other ingredients that help process the sugar — whereas ultra-processed food like ice cream doesn't, especially if there are added sugars.
You can't just freeze a soda, eat it, and then expect it to be healthy.
The main theory around why ice cream doesn't show the negative effects is that the sugar is mostly trapped in a fat matrix that takes a long time to break apart and therefore to digest and release the sugars. So there's very little harmful sugar spike in the blood, and the carb intake surprisingly becomes more akin to e.g. slow-digesting unprocessed whole grains (obviously without benefits of fiber or other whole-grain nutrients).
Of course it's also very different if we're talking about plain chocolate ice cream, vs filled with ribbons of caramel and chocolate-coated candy pieces, which will produce sugar spikes. And of course it's also not accounting for overeating, ice cream or not. If you eat calories you don't need, it's going to make you fat no matter whether it's ice cream or something else.
A 12oz can of Dr. Pepper soda has 40 grams of sugar. Divided by my aforementioned mass per cube, it yields 11 sugar cubes.
Either I messed up the math or soda is crazy; i can't imagine munching down 11 sugar cubes in one sitting.
TLDR:
12oz coffee: 10.8 g sugar, 3 cubes
12oz soda: 40g sugar, 11 cubes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_ration
along (one perhaps hopes) with "sodomy and the lash".
TIL...