Prohibition and ice cream in the US Navy
132 comments
·May 28, 2025former_navy_843
yamazakiwi
While everything you said does happen, it is not everyone, nor is it every command.
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.
CobaltFire
I'm not sure when you would have served, but it sounds like you had a solid command.
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).
yamazakiwi
2008 - 2012 in Yokosuka
CobaltFire
As an ex-Sub RO, specifically during the 2000's in Pearl Harbor:
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.
killjoywashere
Bob?
CobaltFire
Nope, I'm not a Bob.
Kind of wish I was a sentient intergalactic probe some days though.
codyb
Just wrapped up reading "The British are Coming" by Rick Atkinson (great book!) about the start of the American Revolution and half the letters from the generals were in request for or talked of shipments of rum and mead and wine. Many captured soldiers were just the ones too drunk to flee when they needed to.
It was a brutal endeavor. They did not have ice cream.
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pyuser583
> It was standard practice for Chiefs to take their divisions to bars and pay for their drinks all night so they could be drunk and immobile under Chief's supervision instead of drunk and mobile out in public.
Encouraging alcholism so they can manage it - that is really bad.
ceejayoz
There's a possibly apocryphal story about a Japanese higher-up who realized the war was lost when the ice cream barges showed up, because the Allies had that much spare resources for a treat while the Japanese troops were starving in the jungles.
teachrdan
I've heard the same said about German POWs in WWII. Towards the end of the war, when they were served tea and biscuits while their comrades in the field starved, they knew the British (and Allies more generally) were going to win.
ashoeafoot
The absence of horses
rasz
russians are running donkeys nowadays in Ukraine, doesnt seem to break their morale at all
carabiner
There's also the version with the NY cheesecake.
idontwantthis
I heard of a Boston Apple Pie.
_carbyau_
At it's heart a battle is a logistic operation to make an impact.
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
wagwang
thats what happens when you have 1 support unit per in field troop instead of 36.
aaron695
[dead]
psunavy03
Two beers per head are still authorized after 45 days underway when there's no port call scheduled in the next two weeks. But they still make a bureaucratic circus out of it to avoid hoarding and trading. They crack the beers before they give them to you so you can't stash them.
cabinguy
I had that happen once in my three years in the fleet and they didn’t open them for us (long time ago). We did have kegs & BBQ on the pier in GITMO once, too (“pigs on the pier”). I was in when they were just starting a/the tobacco ban on the ship. You could smoke them, but you couldn’t buy them . It created an excellent black market opportunity for entrepreneurs onboard. Last fun fact - my ship was catered by Krispy Kreme donuts every morning when we were in port - long, long before they were a nationwide brand.
GJim
> Two beers per head are still authorized after 45 days underway
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!
lotsofpulp
Based on how it effects health, drinking alcohol regularly is mad, especially as often as daily.
GJim
Life is full of choices. And the choice to enjoy oneself and not live on a diet of rabbit food is one such.
psunavy03
Eventually we're all going to die . . .
yamazakiwi
Never happened to me once and I was deployed multiple times longer than that, it depends on your captain and command I guess.
psunavy03
It's in a published instruction. The Wikipedia article has a link to an archived PDF of the OPNAVINST. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_day
cameldrv
One of the many funny stories an ex-sailor friend of mine told me was that the crew on his ship would take blood thinners so they could get drunk on two beers...
madaxe_again
It couldn’t be more of a contrast to the Royal Navy - my grandfather served from the mid 50s until the late 70s, and not only did they still have rum rations until 1970, but they dished out Valium like candy. The way he tells it most of the crew were high or drunk most of the time, and would end up laughing in situations that would otherwise result in brown trousers.
RichardCA
Monty Python did a skit about it, along with a Terry Gilliam animated bit.
jaoane
Do they have non alcoholic beer?
hatsunearu
is it 2 beers per day?
psunavy03
Two beers per 45 days at sea, and only if no port call is scheduled for 14 more days.
Ships usually pull into port somewhere in the world more often than every 45 days outside of large-scale combat.
yamazakiwi
Depends on your command, I was forward deployed and most of our deployments were longer than 45 days without port.
Could be different now
yamazakiwi
Once, per deployment that meets that requirement
adriand
Of all the reasons I would not enlist in the military, this one never occurred to me, but it is now probably in my top five.
abeppu
Concurrent with the WWII ice cream barges, the Navy _did_ actually have a lot of alcohol but really didn't want anyone to drink it.
SoftTalker
Didn't they also have an exception for "medicinal" use? I wonder how often the pharmacist's mate was called upon for a prescription?
sidewndr46
At least one Soviet aircraft doubled as a flying bar
potato3732842
Americans replaced alcohol with sweets, generally. There's a reason a huge fraction of the modern candies and confections either got their start or took on their modern forms during this era. Prohibition is probably single handedly responsible for more of the "processed sweet junk" in the American diet than any other singular policy. It really is the gift that keeps on giving.
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.
senkora
Prohibition also had the effect of largely killing off the small breweries started by various immigrant groups in the United States.
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.
JumpCrisscross
> Prohibition also had the effect of largely killing off the small breweries started by various immigrant groups in the United States
Same for wine production. Beringer, Mondavi...these were families who secured sacramental wine contracts from the Church.
robocat
If your theory is right, then countries without prohibition would have structural differences of brewers.
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).
dfxm12
Booze is regulated unevenly from state to state, which is a weird aspect in America that could make it hard to grow depending on where you are in the country.
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).
Spooky23
It’s a different time scale. The microbreweries of the 90s were an upstart.
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.
AStonesThrow
I had occasion to study the Whiskey Rebellion a few years ago, and I discovered the flipside of alcohol distribution.
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?
cco
I refer to this as "hedonic exchange", the idea that there is a base rate of hedonic drive that animals tend to satisfy and that this drive is mostly fungible.
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.
Reasoning
> 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.
senkora
You might like the book "The Age of Addiction, How Bad Habits Became Big Business" by David T. Courtwright.
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.
asdff
I see this readily with my cats too. Give them a treat, they gobble it down instantly then look up at you and yell for another one. Next day and they are sitting by the cabinet they saw you put the bag in and yelling for more treats. The most shrill and pitiful yells too.
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.
losteric
Perhaps we’re trading different stress/anxiety coping mechanisms?
Spooky23
I’m curious as to the impact of weed. I live in a college town — the bars are empty. Everyone is home sparking up.
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nemomarx
some of that could be nicotine appetite suppression, right?
badc0ffee
I'm wondering who's out there underrating ice cream.
Avshalom
Ice cream is, culturally, a things kids eat because they like sugar, not a thing adults savor because it's fucking sublime.
quesera
I have never seen an adult disdain ice cream.
We just eat the better stuff.
dylan604
those are broken adults.
THroaway225
actually ice cream sandwiches are known as a "dad thing"
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dylan604
the lactose intolerant. people with teeth that ache with cold. people concerned about sugar/fat intake. i can think of a lot of people that underrate ice cream. it doesn't make them sane though.
BenjiWiebe
I love ice cream and I'm lactose intolerant. I take generic lactase pills with the ice cream and it works.
I'm picky about my ice cream though - I pretty much only eat Braum's premium ice cream.
themadturk
As a type-2 diabetic, I pretty much avoid ice cream. Now and then my wife insists on a stop at Dairy Queen, so I do indulge in an ice cream cone the, and she will often give me a spoonful of ice cream at home (Tillamook Oregon Strawberry...yum).
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).
bluGill
There is lactose or sugar free ice cream if you need them
nimbius
this is definitely not a tradition still practiced.
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.
yamazakiwi
My Ship Store only had Yoohoo's, Monster's, and Uniform Items.
steviedotboston
I quit drinking a couple years ago and my ice cream consumption went way up.
asdff
Switch to good cheese. Become a savory head.
euroderf
Doesn't sugar soothe the withdrawal pains of metabolic pathways that alcohol has established and that alcohol withdrawal irritates?
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AStonesThrow
As children, we loved to partake of Grandma’s supply of Sen-Sen.
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.]
euroderf
OK, that explains Sen-Sen. They didn't really seem to be an actual candy.
selimthegrim
This puts the police chief in the Hardy Boys in a whole new light.
keybored
High fructose corn syrup and subsidies? Hm maybe not.
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yamazakiwi
I was on an Australian Navy ship in 2008 and they could still have beer then. They were also paid different by job which I found interesting.
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.
stackskipton
>I was also surprised to learn that they were paid differently by job.
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)
yamazakiwi
>US does this in roundabout way. Medical officers have various Special Pay along with Flight Pay, Flight Deck pay and so forth.
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.
stackskipton
>Everyone gets various special pay depending on their command and those don't compare to the Australians varying pay largely by role.
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.
tetris11
Conversely, Chris Spargot did a great video about government-run pubs during WW2 in Britain, where the government offered good wages to workers who would help make shells, and then recruited all the local barkeepers under a decent steady wage to stop the workers from bribing the barman to give them more alcohol.
jdross
True story: My great uncle was a secretary to General MacArthur during world world 2, and one of his jobs was to source and procure ice cream to the front for the general and the troops.
devrandoom
Sailors in WWII drank the fuel for the torpedos, which happened to be clean ethanol.
https://www.adn.com/alaska-life/2024/12/15/torpedo-juice-the...
create-username
It’s always a good moment to remember that it must still be proven that ice creams are not good for your health.
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.
n2d4
> 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.
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...
create-username
*Rethinking evidence from BYU researchers adds nuance to that message, suggesting not all sugar sources carry the same risk. In the largest and most comprehensive meta-analysis of its kind, BYU researchers—in collaboration with researchers from Germany-based institutions—found that the type and source of sugar may matter far more than previously thought. Researchers analyzed data from over half a million people across multiple continents, revealing a surprising twist: sugar consumed through beverages—like soda and even fruit juice—was consistently linked to a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes (T2D). Meanwhile, other sugar sources showed no such link and, in some cases, were even associated with a lower risk. “This is the first study to draw clear dose-response relationships between different sugar sources and type 2 diabetes risk,” said Karen Della Corte, lead author and BYU nutritional science professor. “It highlights why drinking your sugar—whether from soda or juice—is more problematic for health than eating it.” https://news.byu.edu/intellect/rethinking-sugar-byu-study-sh...
n2d4
This is pretty well-accepted as far as I'm aware — but I don't think anyone has sufficiently shown that the sugar in ice cream is less risky than sugar in, say, fruits or yogurt (which often has 5-10x less!)
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.
euroderf
There's also the effect of (fruit) fiber.
nartho
I believe that excess sugar would be the issue, Yogurt contains no sugar
create-username
Yes. Maybe eaten sugar is less harmful than drinking it. That’s what the latest evidence suggests
nartho
In the case of ice cream, do you really eat it or drink it though ?
themadturk
Depends on the yogurt. Many commercial yogurts in the US have added sugar.
GJim
Somehow, Americans adding sugar to yogurt doesn't surprise me.
xboxnolifes
No normal person is eating ice cream for health benefits.
wmil
No but in a world of 400 calorie muffins and 700 calorie boba teas it's easy to argue that ice cream is getting a bad rap.
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zabzonk
It's gone from the Royal Navy:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rum_ration
along (one perhaps hopes) with "sodomy and the lash".
dmurray
Actually, one of those things was brought back in in 2000.
Officially, the Navy switched from alcohol to ice cream. Unofficially, when I served in the US Navy in the 2000s I was surrounded by the most extreme levels of alcohol consumption I'd ever seen, by far. In the US Navy today, on any ship you will find people who get blackout drunk several nights per week every week. Junior and senior. The Chief of the Boat on my submarine regularly showed up to work drunk, haven driven himself to work. The Topside Watch reported him multiple times and it was always swept under the rug. We had nuclear reactor operators who snuck bottles of liquor onto the ship to drink while at sea. It was standard practice for Chiefs to take their divisions to bars and pay for their drinks all night so they could be drunk and immobile under Chief's supervision instead of drunk and mobile out in public. Our head Engineering Officer made a joke one day how it wasn't a problem that one of the reactor operators was drunk because "this is nothing new, we always start the reactor up drunk during WestPac". Extreme alcoholism is still rampant in the US Navy, and that includes among the people who operate the nuclear power plants and the people who guard the nuclear weapons. But yes, they also have ice cream now.