Welcome to Confessions Of, a weekly series where Task & Purpose’s James Clark solicits hilarious, embarrassing, and revealing stories from.

Welcome to Confessions Of, a weekly series where Task & Purpose’s James Clark solicits hilarious, embarrassing, and revealing stories from troops and vets about their job, billet, or a tour overseas.

In the military, nothing breeds camaraderie better than adversity. The harder and riskier a job or mission, the tighter the bond that forms between those who endure it together. For Navy submariners, every day at sea and aboard ship brings with it a certain level of risk. They operate in world where disaster is narrowly averted by the smallest of margins, due in large part to the hard work and diligence of every sailor onboard. It’s a dangerous job in an unforgiving environment. Fortunately, submariners know how to relieve tension and they do it in spectacular fashion – from riding makeshift go carts down the ship’s passageways, to hilarious ceremonies and rites of passage.

Task & Purpose spoke with Walter Lyon, who served in the Navy from 2000 to 2010 as a ship’s diver and fire control technician, about what life is like on a fast attack submarine. Lyon spent more than 1,200 days at sea, as well as a year-long tour to Iraq as part of a military advisory training team. After leaving the Navy six years ago, he now works as a corporate training manager at an engineering firm. In his spare time he runs Diver Tough, an online community and podcast focused on sharing naval and maritime stories.

Lyon spoke about what it’s like to live in a submerged pressurized container, where to go for a little “private time,” what happens when the sanitation valves aren’t set up correctly, and what goes down when a submarine passes the equator – here’s a hint, there’s a ceremony involving cross-dressing, a fat guy’s belly button, and an M&M.;

What was the day-to-day like for you guys as submariners, and how much time do you spend at sea and what subs were you on?

I was onboard a fast-attack submarine. It’s the smaller submarine. It’s about 360 feet in length. … Fast attack submarines do more of the intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, so they’re going out and staying busy throughout the year. …

… For any one period of time you’re out to sea, it really depends on food that you have. Once you run out of food, you obviously have to put into port. The longest we were out at sea without having touched land was probably 70 days. I’ve heard of some subs going 90 days, but once you start eating bread with ketchup on it it’s time to pull back into port.

Sometimes we stay out at sea six months out of the year, longest I’ve been out at sea was 328 days out of the year

Tell me what that’s like, 70 days in an enclosed pressurized container, can you describe that? What’s the environment like?

You find out who your best friends are, and you find out who you stay away from

It’s interesting. …You’re basically stuck with a bunch of guys whether you like them or not. okcupid sex It’s about 130 guys onboard the subped. I’m a tall guy. I’m 6-foot 3-inches, so I’m bending over to get through the passageways and things like that, so a lot of times it’s really really tight quarters.

You’ve got a bunch of guys, it’s the military, young dudes, where do you go for a little bit of private time and is that even possible? By “private time” I’m beating around the bush here, but you can probably guess what I’m talking about (masturbation). Where do you go to do it?