it's now decommissioned and berthed in norfolk, virginia at the nautica center, we toured below deck to see where the crew lived and work while at sea. >> welcome aboard the battleship wisconsin, we are here in norfolk, virginia. we're going to go below decks and look at main street navy life and how some of the sailors lived here and reacted on this ship during the gulf war. we're also going to be joined by matt palmer, a veteran of the gulf war era. follow me. >> hi. my name is matt pomer. i'm former crew member of the battleship wisconsin. i served the navy for 30 years, battleship wisconsin is my fourth duty station. i was stationed aboard from 1990 to '91. had the honor and privilege of working with the crew members on board this magnificent battleship. after 30 years in the navy and

15 duty stations my wife and i decided to settle here in norfolk and now i have the honor and privilege to be a volunteer aboard the wisconsin. i would like to welcome you to one of the hot beds of activity on the ship when it's deployed that is, the post office. back in the day, snap chat, instant messenger and all of those things that we're so accustomed to did not exist. so lifeline to your family, friends, to everything back in the states came right through the post office. so, very exciting when we would have a mail call, helicopter would come by, drop off a large cargo net. we would form up a working party and sailors standing next to each other and pass those packages down until they got into the post office. postal clerks with great ambition and great excitement and great energy would sort them out for the different divisions and departments on the ship. each division and department would send a representative to come pick up the mail for the department and when that person

got back to the work space, they would get mobbed and everybody wanted their mail, how were the kids doing, how is the family, how is the dog doing, was that dog potty trained dwret. a lot of fun, a lot of excitement, again, our lifeline to the states when we were deployed. one of the things that i find the most interesting about the battleship wi is its service to our nation, three different time periods of service, world war ii, the korean war and desert shield desert storm. if we think about technology and the technological changes from the 1940s to the 1990s, it's amazing the evolution of the ship and how space was repurposed. the post office was the hub in world war ii when there were 200,000 sailors aboard. the same when it was down to around 2,000 for desert shield desert storm around 1,600. now, if you think about the sleeping accommodations for a warship, where do you put all those sailors, the ship is not a

cruz ship, so where the sailors sleep is actually not a priority compared to the navigation ability of the ship, the war fighting ability and the survivability of the ship. the way it is currently configured as it was found for desert shield, deserd storm in the 1990/91 time period. i would like to show you some of those racks right now. if you'll follow me, please. now, if you were a junior sailor and you had a rack this close to the post office, you know it was going to be noisy. watch your step here, we have an ankle biter. these are the racks that were installed during the 1980s when the ship was recommissioned for the third time. we call these coffin racks because they look a little bit like a coffin, especially in that it opens up. when you open it up, this is where the sailors would store everything they needed for deployment and whether that

deployment was three months, six months or eight months for desert shield desert storm, this is your storage area. they go in here, the uniforms go in here, the dress uniforms go in here, by the way, we change uniforms from summer to winter so you've got a have a couple of those and your working uniforms, not a whole lot of room, but sailors are very inventive and they learn how to pack things very very well in their coffin racks. there would be a little bit of privacy afforded to the sailors in these racks with blue curtains that would come across here. not noise reducing, but at least it keeps it a little bit quieter, not a whole lot of privacy. the good news is, you didn't spend much time in your wrack because you had so many different jobs and so many different responsibilities and so many things you had to go to and tend to and be sure you accomplished. by the time you got to your rack, most were so darn tired it really didn't matter what noise was around, they could sleep pretty well.

in world war ii, these racks were not here. cramped, conditioned much more so than you see here. so four, five, maybe even six high. as a matter of fact, so close together that you had to decide if you were going to sleep on your back or stomach because you couldn't roll over. some people had to hot rack, it's when you actually share your bed with a shipmate, hopefully you're working different shifts you finish your shift come back to the bed, turn your mattress over and you're good to go and your bunk mate is now off in the work center. if you could find a place to hang a hack mock, yo may be able to do that as well. this was luxury accommodations compared to what our world war ii and korean sailors had to go through. one of the things that i think is very interesting, the number of people, like a small city in

small town usa. a ship that's going to go to sea has to have everything available, you've seen the post office, now you see our hotel accommodations. we have a number of restaurants, we call them galleys. we have a bank, we call that disspersing. we have a chapel on board. we have a hospital, a 24-bed hospital on board and a dental clinic, which is near and dear to my heart, i actually had the privilege of being the dental office during desert shield desert storm. let me tell you what my ship's nickname was, it was tooth fairy. a term of endearment, like our aviators call sign, very proud to be the tooth ferry and cost me a lot of money running around and sliding coins we we took those wisdom teeth out. i'm wearing my original hat from then. please follow me.

so this was what i called home for eight and a half months for desert shield desert storm and for the two years i served aboard the wisconsin. in the navy only the large ships have dental officers, they're destroyers, cruisers and our submarines generally don't have dental offices. i feel right at home right next to this chair, during desert shield desert storm, our team and i treated 4,000 patients. we saw from 16 coalition countries, an additional 247 patients. so when only the battleships, the aircraft carriers and large ships have services like dental, you offer those up for your battle group partners and you provide those services for fellow sailers and in the case of desert shield, desert storm, for coalition. interestingly in the history of the battleship, these dental spaces were here for world war ii and also for the korean war.

dentist tri itself changed a lot. mostly, it was intervenn tif type things during world war ii, a lot of extractions, a lot of emergency surgeries and things of that nature. the nature of dentist ri itself changed with the high speed hand piece and things all us dental folks find interesting but perhaps the general public doesn't. we shifted more to preventative nature. we would do a lot of fillings here, we did over 4,000 fillings here, both silver and the composites. we did root canals, surgeries, so a full service dental clinic here, as i said, i was a junior dental officer and my senior was then commander, now retired captain, jeff turner, very good friend of mine. we worked very hard and very diligently in these spaces. we had final dental assistants that make sure we cleaned up after us, that helped us with all of our procedures and they

were a great group of individuals, very very focused on providing the highest possible quality dental care to what we consider to be the world's most deserving patients those men and women serving in the united states military. i think it's very important for you to understand, as viewers, that the mission of a warship is first and foremost in the primary job of everybody on board. as important as i know dental health and dental health care to be, when the ship had another major operation going on, dental care took second place. if i had scheduled patients an we went to general quarters, general quarters come first. if they happened to be involved in an unrep. that's underway replenishment when a ship is either aside us or helicoptering supplies into us, then that was where that patient needed to be. the mission of the ship, it comes first and making sure that those sailors are ready to do their mission, that's a focus. so i would like to show you a little bit about what our normal

day is, of course, we had normal routine hours and they were always subject to change, change depending on the needs of the ship, the mission of the ship and any events that were going on for the day. so, let's go and check out main street usa and see what the sailors' daily life included. please come with me. >> ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the head of main street, this is the ship's chapel. this area was not originally a chapel, originally it was a gally, another restaurant and it was for the chief warrant officers aboard the battleship. in the mid-80s it was repurposed and made a permanent chapel. during desert storm, we had two chaplains on board. they would lead services in here and nice weather up on the fantail. certainly, for special events special holidays the crowd would be way too big to fit in here. but this served as a home base, additionally, the ship's band

would practice in here as well. so every space on a ship has multiple purposes and throughout the history of the wisconsin, some areas were permanently changed like the ship's chapel at the head of main street. i want to thank you all very much for visiting. i'm going to turn you on to mr. clayton ally. >> welcome back to the battleship wisconsin. today we want to talk about our unpacked main street navy life, to some degree, yes, this is confused by the fact that we're a war fighting machine. however, the sailors that run this ship still have to live their lives, and that includes legal affairs. legal affairs may provide advice on wills, powers of attorney, as well as reviewing cases that the captain might bring against sailors who have committed some sort of offense. this is a legal affairs office. . wisconsin truly is a city at

sea. in fact, for all these sailor who is live, you've seen several items, including the dental office, the chapel, as well as legal affairs. in addition we have a public affairs office, essentially a newsroom that determines what type of materials are let off the ship, an in what form, pictures or letters or articles sent to newspapers. here we find ourselves in the disspersing office, essentially our bank, money is very important to sailors, they can't spend a lot on the ship. we have ship stores, which allow them to buy personal items as well as food items that they get to keep in their rack area, although they're not suppose to, as well as articles of clothing and replacement toothbrushes and tooth paste, things of that nature. it's all very personal and it allows the sailor to have some semblance of morale and homelife away from home.

we'll go to the college courses or sign up for the test that will allow for their promotions. follow me. welcome to the educational services office, a place for advancement. here is where sailors would come in and request to sign up for college courses, as well as correspondence courses and that all important advancement test, which can be proctored back in the library by other personnel. it's not uncommon to have a professor brought to the ship. we, of course, be able to teach several disciplines in just a few weeks. sailors would have to make arrangements for their division to be off and allowed to go to class for eight hours a day. for several weeks until they can knock out that credit course. >> in the library, we have several key features, including our digital duty decimal system, some people will remember the drawiers we had to look up the

file card to check out. we have the care souls on my far right, which would be used to study for your test and be proctored for tests, as well. it's not uncommon for the chaplain to be assigned to take care of the library and administer with chaplain's assistance. destroyer sailors when they enter the space and they say, wow, you have a library, we have a box. they're rather impressed we have a library on board. this is a huge space. that is it's undesignated we don't have to have a library to fight war. if something happen today the radio room, we can throw all of this over board and turn it into radio room. which is not uncommon during times of war when you have kashlties, that is flooding or fire or things that occur during combat. . we find ourselves in the machine shop. and like every good city, you have to have a maintenance department to help the city continue to run. some of the equipment in this phase is actually from world war ii. some of it was updated as years

went by, but much of it was pilt in place and cannot be removed without drastic shipyard improvements. so we leave it here it's still usable. it could be used. that said, this is a small family in a large city, or a large family in a small city. and so we are shipmates. we have to work together. in a small city you have lots of monuments to what you've done, to honor that which has been accomplished in past years. and so it's not uncommon for sailors to conduct some sort of art work, plaque or things of that nature, i wish we had time to go and see all the sailor art, it's not authorized, so it needs to be tastily done. here in the machine shop we have a plaque that the sailors from the gulf war made. it's over here to my left. . we're in another part of the

machine shop where we have a large lay, over me is an high beam that threads its way through the ship and down to machinery spaces, engine room, very large equipment could be brought up to the space and repaired and then sent back down. additionally, as capital ship, a very large battleship, other ships do not have this kind of affordability. and so if they have parts that need to be repaired, be it vals or engine parts they could send them over by high line, bring them on to the ship, bring them into the machinery space and have them repaired as well. kind of like the dental office where we can bring other sailors over and have their teeth fixed. we have the 20 bed hospital as well down below. every city has a hospital, dental office, we have a ma screen space that can accommodate other ships along in the battle group. . we're at the head of of one f our serving line. this city has four restaurants on board thchlt particular

restaurant serves the bulk of the enlisted men in the gally after the. you'll notice as we came down behind me, we were passing through a single door passageway. and now there are two doors. those two doors allow men to stand in line while they wait tr their food, that line would extend out on to the deck, especially in world war ii when you had upward of 29 men on board. either in the gulf war era, there were men on the deck waiting to get their food. when they got to the space hay would pick up their tray. they have an example here of world war ii and gulf war era trays. the obvious difference is that one is metal and one is plastic. however, note the food portion size, we're coming out of the depression and men will small. we want them to take in a lot of calories. they're working hard on a nonair conditioned ship. they're burning a lot of calories we need them to eat more. when i come into the service, not so much, they want me to eat less. as we leave this area, we'll

pass by a doe nut shop. it was not always a doe nut shop. it use to be a butcher shop. it would process whole halves of beef and hog, but in the gulf war era, things come prepackaged we don't need that butcher shop any more, we turn it into a doe nut shop. the fuel that runs the navy. let's go to the serving line, follow me. . here, we're able to see the entire enlisted gally. it's difficult to see at best, but on the far side, there's another serving line. and depending on what area you served on this ship, the ship is going back and forth. the one that we're in now is typically given over to traditional meal, that which my mother taught me to eat which includes a start and vegetable and chicken, something of that nature.

on the other serving line, you might have fast food, such as sliders, hamburgers, pizza slices, corn dogs, junk food. and you might think that most would go over to that lane, meal time is your personal time. so you're trying to get back to your job. you would choose the shortest line that will allow you to go back to your rack and get sleep and get caught up on studies and things of that they which you are. some sailors, their watch is such that they need to get back very quickly. they might be awarded and get back to work. so the second door allows returning to get out of this space and back to their job. they don't have enough supplies for all the meals in the space. they're stored on the third and second deck. they'll love to be able to serve the next 24 hours. we have a walk-in cooler on the other outboard side. but about 1:00 a.m., the:00 in the morning they do a fire

brigade and bring food, enough food for the next day up from the after the storage food areas. pressure cookers so we can take turkey, ship steam runs all this ship the die conmy of old versus new presents itself here in the gally. this ship is steam powered, we're able to use that steam to run the entire ship. next to me are what we call coppers, by tradition, that is in days of sail, that was the only metal soft enough to hammer out a large calderon to cook stew for the crew. these are stainless steel, however, they're double jacketed nd and allows tous make large quantities of food, rice, or stew, and we can't burn it.

they are double boiler essentially with ship steam. that steam is, in theory, a closed loop we do lose some. as it is used it returns back to the engine rooms below where it is reheated and brought back to the system. hotel steam is everywhere. today's ships, they're no longer using steam, it's effective, we can propel this ship up to 33 knots with 212,000 shaft horsepower. however, it's not very efficient. and so most ships today, this size would be nuclear like aircraft carriers an other ships are using diesel tur bens. we've gotten our food, now we need to go sit down and partake of that, enjoy our food. follow me as we go into the mess deck area.

. >> when we first step into the area, you would collect your silver and glass for theedlies and then go through the drink bar. you might have things on the morning shift that would include orange juice, grapefruit juice, as well as whole milk, chocolate milk, 2% milk. the other thing that might come into play, and evening meals will be cold and ready to go. the all important fuel that runs, the coffee mess. follow me.

. here we have one of our very large coffee urns, i want to talk about the tables a little bit where the men would sit. in this mess deck area, we have four-man tables i would liken them to little swivel chairs. in days of your, and world war ii and the korean war, i understand there would have been picnic tables, maybe eight men to each side and those tables, between meals, would be hoisted into the overhead and that would allow the mess stewards to clean the space out. one of the worst enemies on the ship is illness. we have to keep the ship extremely clean against all times and guard against rodents and that kind of thing coming on the ship. additionally in world war ii, i understand there was a bar all around the mess deck. this is one of two mess decks. today there are about 310 swivel chairs available. and even in the gulf war with a

crew of 1,000 men -- 1,000 men eating, you had 15 to 20 minutes to partake. if your fork is moving, you're fine. if your mouth is moving, it's time for you to move out. this is not a sit and get happy place. you need to go back to your job. from here, you would continue after the into the skull ri area where you would drop your dishes off and go back to your job. follow me. now, we have come to the end of our food service line. on my left is the skull ri. the skull ri is a unique name. they never call anything by its name. this is where you would drop off your dishes and your silverware and return back to your job. the floor i'm standing on is not called the floor and deck. the walls are bulkheads. the ceiling is not the ceiling it's an overhead. kind of like the bathroom is not a bathroom. it's a head. there are so many unique names

on the ship, it's hard, almost, to learn the language of the navy. continuing with our theme of a city at sea, there are several areas that we just won't have time to see today which include the brig, we have a jail, we have a master at arms that's the city sheriff. we have a laundry, how do you keep all of the laundry clean for all these sailors on board. we have a barbershop, everybody has to get a haircut every 10 to 14 days depending on your dna that's one of the way we keep the ship clean. . to recap today, we have seen a lot of this battleship wisconsin. we've seen the post office where men would increase their morale through other forms, we've seen the chapel. we've seen a little bit of the public affairs office and legal affairs. we've been to our disspersing office where the bank is at. we've seen education, and a couple of the restaurant that is we would use on this ship. all these things are, essential

to help the city at sea stay alive and run. all ships have these things today. however, this ship is still a stall ward ship. it is 72 years old today. these things have been used throughout three wars. we're glad they're here. we thank you for coming along today and being a part of this tour. >> you can watch this and other american artifacts programs by visiting our web site at c-span.org/history. ♪ ♪ >> after i came up with this idea, i did research information, because -- this is definitely the case with a lot of pieces that will be done for this competition, but mental illness, especially, it's a complicated issue, it's not black and white. it's so multi facetted that i had to research to get a base knowledge of what i wanted to talk about in this piece. and, obviously, there was a -- it's so complicated that i can't

talk about it all in 5 to 7 minutes first i was going to decide what i was going to talk about. >> i thought it would be nice to have vocal point i wanted to focus on. before i started interviewing my parents and before i went and got close. before i start shooting, i researched this topic, tensively. >> visit my dad's pharmacy and talk to the farmist there. i talked to my mom and her colleagues and coworkers and go off internet research. and actually went to the library. >> a lot of internet research to find more like facts and data and statistics about employment of those with developmental disabilities, to see, really, what was going on. most of the information that i got off of the internet came from government founded web sites so that's how i knew that most of the -- the information that i was getting was legitimate. >> this year's theme, your message to washington, d.c., tell us, what is the most urgent

issue for the new president and congress to address in 2017. our competition is open to all middle school or high school students, grades 6 through 12. with $100,000 awarded in cash prizes. students can work alone or in a group of up to three, to produce a 5 to 7-minute documentary on the issue slektsed, include c span program and explore opposing opinions. the $100,000 in cash prizes will be awarded and shared between 150 students and 53 teachers. grand prize, $5,000 will go to the student or team with the best over all entry. this year's deadline is january 20th, 2017. so mark your calendars and help us spread the word to student film makers. for more information, go to our web site, student cam.org. each week american history tv, american artifacts takes you to museums and historic places to learn what artifacts revealed

about american history. the moses meyers house was owned by the first jewish family in norfolk, virginia in the 19th century. they maintained a large shipping operation and the home was passed down through several generations. we toured the house to see many of the original furnishings and hear what life was like for the prominent merchant family. >> hello, welcome to the moses meyers house, moses meyers was born in new york city in 175 the and he made his fortune and maritime merchant. he did serve as american revolutionary war veteran. direct as a result of his efforts to supply the american cause during the revolution, he, unfortunately, suffered his first bankruptcy. it's that bankruptcy that caused him to move away from new york city and resettled here in norfolk, virginia. we think he chose norfolk for three really important reasons.

one was running the most prominent colonial sea ports and that was the very important to him in his business life. secondly, norfolk had been burned to the ground during the american revolution and we were rebuilding and he was rebuilding his life, so it was a good match. thirdly, and maybe most importantly to moses meyers, when he moved here in 1787, virginia had just passed the statute of religious freedom, five years before the bill of rights. this would be important to moses in his new because they were jewish. moses moses meyers moved to norfolk, virginia in 1787 become norfolk's first permanent jewish residence. by 1791 they were doing well enough to purchase this lot of land and begin construction on this beautiful land. we moved in, we know, by