Imagine being in a windowless room, in a windowless house.
Now imagine that house is just over the length of a football field, with over 100 people living in it and submerged 400 feet underwater – sometimes for a couple days, sometimes for over half a year. The outside of this strange home is painted a muted, faded black, propellers spinning behind the rudder on the tail end. A tower-like structure sits on top.
It’s the USS Annapolis, a fast-attack submarine, and the demanding life onboard resulted in two officers coming up with a well-read comedy newsletter to help with the stress.
Up until early 2022, the sub called the west coast home, dutifully returning to San Diego after every mission bringing its officers and enlisted back safely every few months.
Now, its homeport is Guam.
Inside the submarine, rectangles of white fluorescent light line the ceilings, mimicking daylight. Everything is close together and compact, the sub measuring only about 30 feet wide.
Communications and Operational Safety Officer Jacob Rothstein has finished his long day.
He sits down and starts to write a piece about something that happened on the sub, but it’s not an official log.
“We would see things or hear things about the submarine and we’re like this is kind of a funny thing, why don’t we type something up about it,” Rothstein says.
Rothstein and another officer on board, Conor Mettenburg, have started a comedy newsletter together: The Subpar Group.
“Submarining is hard and challenging and rewarding, and both of us loved our time onboard the boat. We had, like, a really positive experience…but there’s still really hard days.” Rothstein says, no longer on a submarine but in a coffee shop across the street from his house in Point Loma.
BELOW WATER
He looks calm, his hands in his pockets as he leans back in his chair, occasionally taking them out to grab his coffee with espresso.
Rothstein was on the submarine for 36 months, since President Trump was in office, but is now on shore tour doing outreach for the Navy.
After a demanding day onboard the ship, there are only a few things the officers and enlisted can do to unwind. These consist of short episodes of tv shows, reading, board games and even watching music videos when all they have is a few minutes to relax, Rothstein explains.
“The two of us started it underway as a way to blow off some steam,” he says of the newsletter. “The goal then was just to have something where everyone on the boat could crack a smile when we wrote a silly news article.”
Inspired by The Onion, a satirical news site, Mettenburg and Rothstein used to write short comedic stories and pass them around to their friends, hoping for a quick laugh before heading back to work.
Many of these pieces, he said, read like an inside joke, with acronyms and terms most likely unfamiliar to those not in the submarines, but perfect and much-needed for those that are – or were.
“We’re really writing with that person in mind. The person who, you know, maybe is having a little bit of a tough time adjusting to life on the submarine and could use that comedic relief to make his or her life a little bit better…and we’ve had past submariners that were interested in reading,” Rothstein says.
Life under the water is not a life meant for everyone, and with so little normalcy, The Subpar Group does seem to help people on board find a way to relax, he says.
ABOVE WATER
Operating a nuclear-powered submarine in dangerous parts of the world is the everyday life that the officers and enlisted have to adjust to, and so it is stressful for good reason, says Rothstein.
Starting the newsletter was a coping mechanism for him and Mettenburg, and it turned into a way for others onboard as well to find humor in their otherwise grim environment. Mettenburg could not be reached.
With the popularity they’ve gained on the boat and with veterans, The Subpar Group is still putting out stories a few times a month even though Rothstein and Mettenburg are both no longer on the ship. They get tips from people still onboard, and would like to have a larger group involvement, Rothstein says.
“We want other people to help write. Ideally we’d have a bunch of people submitting stuff in…where the viewers and the readers are also part of the writers,” Rothstein says.
Content with their audience and how their newsletter has reached not just those onboard the ship but those that have moved on, Rothstein is not quite content with how he gets his praise, “I’ll get texts from people being like, ‘that was a really good article’. I wish they would just comment on the article,” he jokes, laughing playfully, knowing that he and Mettenburg have accomplished what they set out to do.
All views expressed here personal and of the individual and not those of the Navy.
