It’s that time of year again. The days are getting longer and the weather has started getting warmer. It’s time for barbeques, bathing suits, and boating. Maybe take some leave and visit some of the exotic places the Navy promised to send you, before they sent you to the Persian Gulf repeatedly. But most importantly, it’s time for the command safety stand-down.

The command safety stand-down is a Naval tradition dating back to the founding of the nation when John Paul Jones ordered the first-ever command safety brief to the crew of the USS Serapis on their port visit to the Netherlands in 1779. It was rudimentary at best (the Power Point presentation had only one slide) and it pretty much just gave directions back to the ship from the nearest bar (which was at the end of the pier, so it hardly seemed worth it). While it wasn’t quite as robust a brief as we have today, it was a start.

To this day the safety stand-down is an important part of Navy life. It serves the purpose of identifying various hazards and providing helpful safety tips. At the same time it achieves the more important function of ensuring the captain is safeguarded when someone ignores these tips and burns down their neighborhood while making flaming Dr. Peppers.

This is necessary because in the modern Navy the captain of the ship is 100% responsible for everything. If something goes wrong during his command tour, the captain will be blamed and, if there is even a shred of evidence that it could be prevented, fired. The stress can be overwhelming. If you watch closely during a deployment you can actually see the captain aging.

Current regulations requires all commands to conduct at least one safety stand-down annually, but most units conduct more. The start of the summer season and prior to the Christmas holidays are the norm, but anytime there is a long weekend you will probably attend one as well.

If you are assigned the task of coordinating a safety stand-down follow these tips. First thing to do is to figure out who is going to be speaking (it will be you). Next you should reach out to the command safety officer, DAPA, motorcycle/traffic safety coordinator, training officer, and medical officer who will all be happy to volunteer to assist you. This will be the last time you ever see them, some actually vanishing in front of you like the Avengers in Infinity War (the movie’s been out for over a month, if you cared about spoilers you’d have seen it already).

Choosing the venue for the presentation is extremely important. Ideally you want a location that can comfortably fit less than 1/3 of the command. Make sure it is well ventilated too. An air conditioner (don’t worry if it’s loud; it just adds to the ambiance) capable of keeping the room at a comfortable 85 degrees is ideal.

The presentation should begin with a short introduction, lasting no longer than 15 minutes, describing everything that has happened to you since birth. This lets everyone know where you are coming from. Next start reading your power point brief. You want to have approximately 437 slides describing every adverse event that could possibly be encountered. Face the screen and read each slide verbatim in the same tone as Ben Stein in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Every two minutes, at a minimum, remind everyone not to drink and drive.

At the end ask if there are any questions. This should be stated in a slightly accusatory tone to give the impression that if you need to ask a question then you obviously haven’t been paying attention. If someone does ask a question, it is your responsibility to ensure that the answer (no matter how simple the question is) drags on for at least 10 minutes. If anyone tries to ask a follow-up question they will be beaten to death by their shipmates.

That’s all there is to it. With a little hard work the whole command will have spent only 2 hours bettering themselves. Don’t worry if some of your shipmates glare at you through perspiration as they leave; the realization that they are not indestructible can be distressing. You will done your part to make the Navy more safety conscious and earned yourself a nice bullet to add come eval time. I hope you enjoy this opportunity because you will probably get to do this again (once you have a collateral duty, you will have it for life).

Now get out there and have a fun and safe summer while you still can. Chances are, you will be deploying early.

Recently the Navy Times reported that paternity leave (AKA baby leave) might be increasing from 10 to 21 days. This means that soon I’m going to be getting three whole weeks of free leave when my wife gives birth to my next child. That’s right, three weeks of relaxation away from the ship. Three weeks without duty days, sleeping in and just having fun. Hey, stop laughing, at least let me enjoy the thought.

This is the secret they never tell you: baby leave is not really leave. It’s work, a lot of very hard work. It turns out that raising children is hard, and paternity leave is not so much leave as it is me filling in at a job I am not qualified to do. Would this happen in any other situation? If my wife was a brain surgeon would they have me fill in for three weeks while she rests? Of course not, a brain surgeon is far too intelligent to be married to a career sailor. But you know what I’m saying, in the Navy you can’t change a light bulb without 100 signatures on a 12 page qualification standard, and yet somehow I am qualified to take care of young human lives because I am their father.

When my oldest child was born, the Navy gave me seven days of baby leave. It was great. Sure, it wasn’t all fun. I was routinely interrupted from playing video games by my wife wanting to eat meals (turns out she needs at least three a day). But after eating, my wife and daughter spent most of the day sleeping and I spent the day doing whatever I wanted: watching TV, playing Grand Theft Auto V, drinking beer, etc. It was the magic of childbirth.

A few years later when my second child was born, paternity leave had increased to 10 days, but instead of three more days of beer and video games, I had work to do. It turns out that while mommy and the new baby are sleeping all day, the other child needs to be fed, changed, and (this is very important) kept alive.

This last part is the hardest. For some reason children, just gravitate toward the most dangerous things around. I have sailed ships through war zones. I have conducted interdiction boardings on suspicious boats in the Middle East. I have guarded millions of dollars’ worth of weapons and government property. None of that was as difficult as keeping my daughter safe for those 10 days. While sailing into hostile waters you may encounter enemy action; while standing a sentry watch you could be required to use deadly force. All of that is possible, but it is also very likely that nothing will happen at all. When you are watching a 2-year-old, however, she will try to get herself killed… a lot.

During my 10 days “off,” I saved her from falling down the stairs, electrocuting herself, getting into the kitchen knives (which were in safely locked drawers that even I couldn’t figure out how to open), drinking household cleaner, and from the pets, who had reached the limit of tolerance at having their tails pulled. All this I accomplished daily about 475 times, before breakfast (which also turns out to be more complicated than giving her a box of cereal).

During baby leave I also did my Christmas shopping. This is my advice to anyone going Christmas shopping with a 2-year-old: don’t. You would be far better off getting divorced for not getting your wife a Christmas gift, than having her kill you when you lose your child at the mall. Just for the record, I didn’t lose my child in a busy mall during Christmas time, and I will swear to that fact in a court of law.

So I’m a bit skeptical of having 21 days of baby leave. I’m not sure I can handle it. After 10 days with a 2-year-old, I needed a six-month deployment to recover. Now I have three children. The oldest has gotten a bit better. On the upside, I don’t have to save her life every five minutes. On the downside, she is more than willing to help my 1-year-old daughter as she discovers which metal objects fit into the electric sockets (it turns out car keys fit perfectly). Maybe instead of 21 days of baby leave the Navy can give me 21 days of babysitter leave, where they send a babysitter to my house and send me TAD to something easier like cleaning up nuclear waste or mess cranking.

Languishing in the supply office hoping to place an order, I can’t help but wonder why my chief hates me so much.

Nothing in Navy life is quite as bad as trying to figure out how to get supplies out of a logistic specialist. It’s like panhandling, except far less likely to succeed and far more humiliating. Just try it. If you are really lucky the LSs will send you away with a solid “No, we are never going to order this for you, so just give up now,” then you can go on with your life. This only happens in dreams. In real life you have to figure out how to acquire the needed supplies.

A sailor navigating the naval supply system is like a 3-year-old assembling a 1,000 piece puzzle of the night sky with 50 pieces swapped out from a different puzzle. Actually, it’s worse since eventually the child will just give up but you, as the division RPPO (i.e. the poor soul who in charge of ordering supplies), do not have that option.

At this point, you will be tempted (and you would by no means be the first one to give into this temptation) to just go to the store and buy whatever it is you need. There are Navy ships in commission supplied primarily from the wallets of the sailors serving on them.

This problem is not the fault of the Navy’s logistic specialists, who are fantastic people when you meet them out of their office (and I’m not just saying this because I am a little scared of them). The problem is that due to massive funding cuts over the years, the Navy is pretty much broke. Unless you are SEAL Team Six, you won’t receive supplies before the Earth crashes into the Sun.

Since the Navy is in a bit of a financial crunch, we have to think outside the box. And I think I have the solution.

Have you ever watched a NASCAR race? It’s kind of like a sport, but instead of athletes engaging in athletics, drivers sit in cars for five hours and crash into each other at high speed, just like Los Angeles commuters. Every week, they demolish their cars in fantastic wrecks and the next week they have brand new cars again!

How do they afford this? NASCAR has corporate sponsors. A lot of them, in fact. Literally everything in one of those races is an advertisement.

This is what the Navy needs. Think about it. Can you imagine, ships painted red with the Coca Cola logo on the side or blue ships endorsed by Miller Lite? The Marines could get in on it, too, with their tanks, armored vehicles, trucks or whatever they have, sponsored by large corporations.

Just think of the funding. Do you think Coca Cola wants the ship with their logo to have rust on it? You would just call up Coke and ask for some red paint and it would be there. The best ships in the fleet would get better sponsors, too ― third year with the Battle E and now you’re getting better funding and a better paid crew.

Now I know what you are thinking: how could this actually benefit the companies sponsoring us? Who would see these advertisements? The enemy? Sure, I bet they’d love a Coke, but since we’re killing them, when would they get a chance to make a purchase? That’s a fair point. They’d have to televise operations a bit more. Just imagine the war coverage:

“Well, Bill, the invasion is going pretty slow here, the Bud Light ship just launched a couple of the Good Year LCACs, but I’m just not seeing the commitment.”

“Wait a second, Earl … It looks like the Dunkin Donuts ship and Taco Bell ship just launched a couple dozen Snickers Tomahawk Missiles. Snickers, ‘when you’re not going anywhere for a while.’ And, Earl, I don’t think those guys they’re shooting at will be going anywhere for a while either.”

“Heck no, Bill. I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that attack. Those Snickers Tomahawks are carrying…”

“Whoa there, Earl, that’s classified information. Let’s just say that they’re really powerful. Let’s go to Joe Mitchell with our pilot house coverage on the number 77 Lowes ship. Thanks for tuning in; this war is brought to you by Red Bull. Red Bull gives you wings.”

Wouldn’t that be great? I bet we could even bring Task Force Uniform in on it, too. Instead of spending five years designing a ridiculous-looking uniform that melts to your body, we could have a ridiculous-looking fireproof jumpsuit provided by your ship’s sponsors and adorned with their logos.

I haven’t even got to the physical fitness benefits, yet: if we approached it like a sport, we could even count a deployment as command PT. Congress should look into this.

I realize that I have been a little hard on the supply program, and particularly the logistic specialists in this column. So I’d like to say that if I have offended anyone, then, from the bottom of my heart, they can write their own column.

I have some other great ideas that I would love to share but I have to run. We get underway tomorrow and the hardware store closes in an hour.