Essay #9

Should I be walking down a cold and poorly lit street one winter evening, I might huddle into my coat and suppress a shudder. It's funny how many senses are tied to memory and how it can make a tragedy linger on so much longer than it should. The cold always reminds me of Great Lakes, Illinois. That was the site of the beginning of the end of my innocence. I joined the Navy in a weak moment, I was lost and living in the shadow of grief. My first love have ended our association and I was five hundred miles away in rural Pennsylvania. I spent two years trying to make something of my career and then three years falling apart. My lack of maturity cost me everything but I was too proud to understand, too strong to be broken, and too stupid to capitulate. It has been almost ten years but I still remember the event so vividly, maybe someday it will leave me alone. My parents had interred us in Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania for the winter of my discontent. I had made one ill-fated attempt to move back to New Jersey but was unable to make it on my own at eighteen. I had made the embarrassing call to the parents for a ride home and then had spent many months sequestered in my room. My meloncholy seemed to have no remedy but I found hope in my fathers suggestion of the military. I signed up with the all-too eager recruiter and was off to Great Lakes for my personal nightmare.

The entirety of the entrance processing is meant to begin the breaking down of your psyche. You head is shaved, you are issued the same clothes as your neighbor and every transgression against the rules whether you know them or not is punished with the wrath of God. The Company Commander was your mother and father. Their was little sleep, hard work, and church on Sunday. They called us 'Rickies,' or recruits. They herded us like cattle through a line of corpsman holding pnuematic guns that pumped doses of various antibiotics and vaccines and then sat us down and fed us. We were kept exhausted so that we were more docile and suggestable as they fed us their way of life like a cult. The Krishna's would still be around today if they had the cold efficiency the military uses to turn your children into weapons. They had said eight weeks, and that was all they kept us for. Only certain days of the month were considered 'Training Days' so the eight weeks took several months. The whole humiliating process culminated with our parents all showing up at our graduation. Four boring Admirals spoke for thirty minutes a piece while our families waited anxiously in the bleachers. We were told if we passed out we would not be allowed to graduate that day or see our family. That we would be immediately put back in boot camp with a company set to graduate in two weeks. I made it through, although a few did fall. I was unceremoniously released to my parents custody. The drive to their hotel was strange, all the colors were so bright. I realized that through the whole of the last four months I had rarely seen anything that was not grey or blue.

I was the in one of the last classes for Data Systems Technicians ever held at the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. I failed. My academic performance was worthy only of two words so there I will leave it and sincerely apologize to the cheated reader. I was so distracted by the freedom I now had that school seemed like a fools passion, I became drunk on life. I was transferred to Meridian, Mississippi where I was reassigned to become a Yeoman, in other words an officers secretary. Women ruined both of the schools that the Navy had offered me. How could I choose between love and boring curricula? I had many girlfriends in between the beginning of my first school and the ending of my last but every year their memory fades a little more. Now they are such trifles and yet I did love each of them. I was not wise enough to know each of them, any one of them, would have married me only based on the intimacy we shared. We had intense friendships and love of a quality some never shate. I was fearless, then. The memory of the heartache I paid for the loss of each of them is a masochistic tribute to the quality of the ladies, may we all remove our hats for just a moment in remembrance. Eventually I passed but I went to my ship unprepared for the politics, the abuse, and the nature of the life I had volunteered for.

The ship was a dreary place full of unfortunate souls, each with their own sad story. I met many officers who had joined from patriotism but few enlisted. The enlisted men were all there for less lofty goals. All in search of better grub and a better place in which to consume it. So many simple souls put to the dark purpose who were so naively unware that their flesh was being made to serve death. The point of our lives was to 'Fight the Ship," better described as killing. You can label a bullet peacemaker but that is little comfort to an unfortunate recipient. I was there when I had to be and never studied to increase my paygrade, hence my paygrade never increased. I ignored anyone who could have helped me actually succeed because of my ignorance and immaturity. They began to berate me in the hopes I would either strike one of them so that they could send me to jail or kill myself. Noone ever said that but it was implied. I was hindering the careers of all the people in my leadership with my constant drinking offenses and I was a lousy sailor. I had three choices: Kill myself. Hit one of them. Find a way to get a Psyche Discharge, what you might call the Klinger Solution.

I chose the Klinger way out since it had the least threatening consequences. Some are not so lucky. There were many young men there who were treated the same way as I was and who didn't make it to the end of their careers, either. One young man ate forty hits of acid at a club and after a brief hospital stay ended up in federal prison for five years, yet another cut his wrists. One young man wet his bed on purpose and was discharged. My friend Shawn came home and, like me, fell into a horrific battle with alchohol that neither of us may ever win. I might try and project blame at the Navy but instead I blame myself. I have great regret at the poor showing I made in the Navy and for all the pain and trouble I caused some great fighting sailors. I was not made to be one of them, not a Boatswain, Yeoman, or Machinist. I was not a good person then, and God used this horrible experience to build the man that I am. When I started out in the Navy I was a bold young man with endless aims and a surplus of courage. I openly mocked God. Now I am a careful thirty-three and I'm just a humble cook. If I could ask for anything out of this experience it would be forgiveness from all those who tried so hard to help me learn. I was not asked what I wanted out of this though, I was simply payed a fair wage of wisdom with a bonus of regret.