Nuclear submarine FAQ's Crews Health

Submarine Sanitation

With all of those people in such tight quarters, how do you maintain submarine sanitation? In a simple answer: it is hard to keep the submarine properly sanitized. Frequently people develop atomic toe rot while underway. For your own safety you should wear shower shoes. Many people do not actively set personal hygiene as any sort of priority. Half way through an underway, you will frequently find yourself instinctively reminded to take a deep breath in the bathroom (gross) before you walk into aft berthing. If they could take the scent of that but crack and foot funk and invert it, it would be the most amazing cologne on earth.

It is not just an issue of their own safety, but dirty people spread germs, especially while you hot rack with them. One time I had to hot rack with the stinkiest kid on the boat. I am by no means a clean freak, but some of these kids were so bad that the submarines doctor had to personally observe them shower. Imagine the embarrassment, these kids were treated as such; even worse, they had to shower.

Ok so lets say you never sleep and never have to go wake anybody up. Lets ignore the fact that some shipmates crapped in the urinal and shower. Surely then submarine sanitation must not be much of an issue. That is not true. In fact, it could not be any more false. The systems that are designed to get rid of the human waste and other submarine waste have to be aligned to do this properly. One kid alone managed to align the bathroom to receive instead of give around a half dozen times that I can remember. He was never punished though, because submarine sanitation is not an important issue.

Sometimes things go one step further, and come out of areas other than the bathroom. There is waste made from the meals, and the same place that we wash dishes in is where they prepare meals. If things are done improperly, bathroom can meet the meal. I have seen this before, and the thought alone is gross. Of course, the person at fault was not punished because little is expected of him and submarine sanitation was not a priority aboard the USS Dallas (SSN 700).

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