If you're an aviator in the Navy, you get a call sign at the beginning of your career.

It's like a nickname that follows you through your service.

So it could be anything. It could be a play on your last name. It could be due to a, like a skin defect.

Sometimes it's a little bit pejorative.

That's Captain Chris Chowda Hill. He's the commanding officer of an aircraft carrier,

the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mine was just based on a Simpsons episode where the word

Chowda came up. At that time, I had a pretty strong Boston accent. I've lost a lot of it over

the years because I grew up in Quincy, Massachusetts, which is right next to Boston. So it was either Chowda or like Duncan, I guess, was the other possibility.

Well, they make a list on the whiteboard and people vote on it.

Oh, you're kidding. This is actually like a democratic process?

It is, yeah. And then the commanding officer can veto it if it's too nasty.

Like I knew one guy, the back of his head,

it had a little bald spot with curly hair,

and it looked like a monkey's butt.

So they called him monkey's butt.

And he kept that one.

Eventually he just became MB as he became more senior.

Music I'm Dan Heath, and this is what it's like to be. In every episode, we walk in the shoes of someone from a different profession, a secret service agent, a TV meteorologist, a stand-up comedian. We want to know what they do all day at work. Today, we'll ask Captain Chris Chowda Hill

what it's like to be an aircraft carrier commander. We'll talk about what it's like to face down

huthy rebels in the Red Sea. Why landing a jet on an

aircraft carrier is every bit as stressful as it sounds. And what he thinks is the hardest job on the

carrier? Stay with us. So let me start with the dumbest possible question.

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