destroyer sailors are definitely Iron men with steel balls!
At times in the north Atlantic the seas were so rough the boat rolled at 300 feet. It was fun to watch some newbie walking around with a garbage bag tired around their neck to puke into.
At a previous job, I used to sit in the cafeteria at lunch with a bunch of the shop guys to listen them bullshit and tell stories... older fellas mostly.
There were 2 younger guys there about my age and one day were yapping about their Navy life. They were both deployed on carriers; one a fireman the other did ordinance. They sat there and told stories of the rough life, how much it sucked doing x, y or z... this went on for a while.
There was this older black guy sitting with us who never said a lot but mentioned the years he was in to the younger guys. One asked him what he did, and all he said was "F#$% frigate".
Almost as if they had choreographed the thing, the two younger guys both looked at him and without missing a step and perfectly in sync, all they said was "you poor bastard". I got a good laugh out of that. They were pretty much dead serious.
He went on to tell us how funny it was the first few minutes walking on solid ground when they got off the thing. He was claiming in rough seas, that thing would roll 30-40 degrees sometimes. It wasn't a place where you left loose anything just laying around, because if you did, it was broken or never seen again.
I just can't imagine living like that for weeks or months at a time.