About Me

Hi, I'm Roberto Montesinos, an Actor and former US Navy Engineering Laboratory Technician based in Los Angeles. In my final four years in the Navy serving onboard the USS Arkansas CGN-41

Pentagon Inspections

Every nuclear-powered American warship received a yearly one-week inspection by the Pentagon, an inspection team led by an Admiral, to confirm that the Engineering Department operated its nuclear reactor plants competently and safely in all conditions.

One of the key components of this yearly Pentagon inspection was to observe and grade how propulsion plant casualties, either from equipment malfunctions or missile/torpedo strikes, were handled and overall safety enforced.

If a nuclear-powered ship does not pass its Pentagon inspection, it is pulled from its deployment duties causing other similar ships to be rescheduled to cover the responsibilities of the ship while it went into intense training to re-qualify for its deployment duties.

Training

Therefore we ran propulsion plant drills almost everyday we were at sea, and prepare for roughly 10 out of 12 months for our yearly Pentagon week-long inspection. There was no way we on the Arkansas were going to flunk and have other ships cover our national defense responsibilities.

These propulsion plant drill sessions were my favorite time at sea. In the engine rooms, us Nukes worked as a team recovering from pretend missile-hits on a nuclear reactor plant dealing with:

• flooding
• steam ruptures
• electric panel explosions
• radioactive releases
• contaminated injured personnel, etc.

Similarities to Acting

Years later I joined an acting class on the advice that I would make a good indie film producer but needed to learn screenplays and characters and directing and I noticed a few things:

• in the engine rooms, we had casualty procedures that we had to memorize: actors had lines they had to memorize.
• our casualty procedures had pre-authorized orders and other actions that required authorization: actors had pre-written lines and needed authorization to improvise/modify a line here and there.
• verbatim compliance: when given an order in the engine room, the operator had to precisely repeat the order before executing it to ensure correct action was being taken. Once the order was complied, the operator had to report that the order was executed.
• during propulsion plant drills, orders and reports of order compliance flew all over the place as more than a dozen passionate Nukes tried to return the plant to a stable condition, very much like a theatrical production.

Balm in Gilead

One day after stepping off stage at the Beverly Hills Playhouse after finishing a scene from 'All About Eve,' former Marine (4 Purple Hearts) and acting teacher Allen Williams.