Extreme makeover, US Navy edition: See the new apartment-like digs on US aircraft carriers

‘The importance of recharging’

The USO spaces, including the library, sit just below the flight deck, and the dozens of embarked fighter jets and airborne early warning planes rumble off the ship’s catapults or thump onto the angled landing strip overhead.

“It’s a little bit noisy. They hear them land, they hear them take off,” Riebe said. “There’s only so much you can do when we’re talking about jet engines, overhead catapult landings, catapult takeoffs, and arrested landings.”

Still, the new spaces provide respite from the hard industrial environment that is aircraft carrier life everywhere else.

“A ship is made to be a military facility, so there is no comfort. That’s secondary,” said Plamp, a 25-year US Air Force veteran. “They’re able to go in and just sit in a comfortable chair or sit on a comfortable couch, take a pause, talk to your shipmates, read a book, be on your phone or on the internet, play a game, or whatever that activity is.”

“It gives them a place that isn’t Navy. It isn’t shipboard — or doesn’t feel like it,” he said.

That may go a long way toward boosting the quality of life for seagoing crews, a big focus for the Navy as it struggles to recruit and retain Gen Z.

“40% of my crew is [age] 22 or less, and 60% of my crew is 24 or less, so this is a young man and woman’s game,” Riebe said.