I just wanted to share my “war” story.

Its 1246 a.m. on Wednesday the 24th. A report is made of white smoke near the ships laundry room. Soon I am woken up, after I just laid down, and am told to evacuate. I get out of my rack, and immediately smell burning plastic. At this time im thinking oh crap…something’s on fire. We go to the messdecks, and a fire drill is called away. A little bit later, the messdecks have a haze of smoke seeping in, and my first real life General Quarters is called away. I go to my station in CIC. Standing there im hearing the fire reports over a radio, and its getting bad. Then one of the firemarshal officers comes running in and says we need some spare bodies to help fight this fire, its starting to get out of control. I volunteer and rush down to the messdecks. I get into a fire suit, strap my oxygen tank and mask on, and gather up my other supplies. Then a group of us walk out to the focsal (front of the ship), and am told to stand-by. Smoke is pouring out of the hatches and doors. I wait there for hours. In the end, (about 6am) they get the fire under control and put it out; unfortunately I never got to go in and fight the fire. I did sweat a waterfall…those suits are heavy! Around noon they let us back into our berthing, and everything was covered in soot. We had to strip every single rack, air out the mattresses, and now we are sleeping in some marine spaces (they went on land for some training). We got a lot cleaned up, but there’s a ton more to do…that soot doesn’t wipe off very easily.
Okay, so I take a look at the damage.
In our berthing, the bulkhead closest to the laundry room has all the paint peeling off.
Not TOO bad.
The laundry room, however, is completely destroyed. All the dryers, washers, press machines; everything inside the room is ruined. Platics melted, paint charred, and even metal is warped. Its unbelievable! I took some pictures.
so basically this means we have NO laundry service what-so-ever. We took all the sheets and blankets to the Iwo Jima (the accompaning ship with us) by helicopter to be washed, so at least we have clean linens now. But all uniforms or other clothing that was in the laundry room is now gone. The navy will reimburse anyone who lost clothes though. But that’s almost half the crew. Many now only have one or two uniforms left.
We are still investigating how the fire started, and what to do about the damage and how to clean our laundry. So for now, everything smells of burnt plastic and soot is still lingering in the air. But all we can do is suck it up for now.

Its unfortunate, but now i have a cool to story to tell!