CAPT Stephen W. Ferguson, Master, USNS Big Horn

All I ever wanted to do in the Navy was go to sea. My father went to the Naval Academy and I followed his footsteps. I served aboard a cruiser, two destroyers and an amphib, followed by an instructor tour at Surface Warfare Officer School. At that point I had no plan to leave the Navy.

But during that tour, for professional enhancement, I obtained my Second Mate’s license. I was not interested in all the shore tours that further a career; I just wanted to go to sea. So I decided to “leave the Navy without leaving the Navy” by going to sea with the Navy’s Military Sealift Command (MSC) as a Civilian Mariner (CIVMAR).

I’ve put in probably five times the amount of sea time in MSC than I would have in the Navy. All the ashore stuff doesn’t happen here. When we’re done going to sea, we go back to sea. I’ve put a lot of miles under the keel.

The goal of every officer is to command a ship. I got my first command in 1985, 10 years after I graduated from the Academy. I treasure a postcard that my father sent me for the occasion: “Congratulations, Captain. Remember four things: Port is left, starboard is right, a constant bearing is no fun and we love you.” Over the past two decades I’ve been privileged to command 15 ships of seven different classes.

The mission of USNS Big Horn is underway replenishment of ships. We carry 90 CIVMARs, as well as five Navy operations specialists for tactical communications. All spare hands are involved in operating the rigs when we are alongside a receiving ship.

We are very automated, but a machine can’t tie a bowline knot in the line and ease it out over the side. It takes a sailor’s eye to watch the line and watch the person on the other ship pulling on it to see if it’s too slack or too tight. Underway replenishment is nautical poetry in action.

The majority of CIVMARs are former Navy sailors. A lot of them miss going to sea and join us to return to it. You don’t have to teach them port from starboard. They immediately know how to act in a firefighting party or repair party. It’s a godsend to hire on senior enlisted men. Within a week they are running things on deck again, making my job so much easier.

The average age of my crew is 46. Some are in their 70s. Because the crew is older, we can’t send them sprinting up to the foc’s’le and back 20 times in 15 minutes. There are more medical challenges with an older crew. But what you lose in athleticism and dexterity, you gain in wisdom.

The thing that keeps you watching out for your shipmates when you’re trying to refuel a ship in a gale and the temperature is below zero is not the order you were given or your schedule. It’s the heart that you offer your profession.

Going to sea has been my life, a rich and rewarding career. I’m at sea 10 months of the year. I’ve been married 30 years and not being home — to be a full-time, on-scene father to my sons — has been a sad thing for me. As the joke goes, I’ve given the sea the best years of my wife.