Seychelles

Recently things have been extremely boring here on the ship. The only thing that we want to do is go home. We've been underway now for almost 6 months away from our friends and family. It's getting lonely and tiring out here.
I haven't updated this page in a while because there isn't much to add to it. Being in the Navy, there isn't much going on when you are underway on a ship. We did go to an island off the east coast of Africa called Seychelles that was supposed to be some sort of tourist attraction. Of course, to get there we had to go fight our way through a monsoon and then when we did get there, it wasn't anything special. If you are going to book a vacation, do not go to Seychelles. It's not that great. We are currently enroute to Singapore to do the ship turnover with the Oldendorf crew and then I'm finally done with sea duty for good. I will be attending college starting August, although I haven't signed up just yet. I have contacted them by email, but it's hard to sign up for college when you are floating in the middle of the ocean. The only things to do out here is watch movies and write. I'm just waiting to get back to San Diego where things are normal. I can't wait to go to a coffee house, get Mexican food and spend time with my girlfriend.

The War

Mostly the only thing to report is that we've gone to war with Iraq back at the end of March. Here on the ship we were a little bit excited to do it because at first we were in the Red Sea and we got to launch Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles at Iraq. I'll just say that it is a profound experience to see one of these things get launched from the forward part of a Navy ship. The missile shoots straight up (vertical launch) and then heads in the direction of the target. After the initial launch, it was in the air about an hour and a half before striking somewhere in Iraq, my guess being Baghdad. Watching it go off is just completely surreal. I've never been on the ship when we actually did something of this nature, and my guess is that most of the other people haven't been either. When it launched, it was like a release for all the anger that these countries put on our shoulders as Americans. We live in freedom and hope for a better world. These Arab countries that are against us are nothing but hate mongers and dictators who have a country that lives in fear of them. Personally, I'm glad we went to war. I'm glad we are doing what we are doing. And for all the people out there who are against military action, get a cause. I think some of these people use this whole anti-war thing as an identity issue, focusing on making waves and getting some sort of a name for themselves instead of the real cause. I've been to these third world countries and I've seen poverty. I've seen how Arabs are. I've been around them enough to know what they are like. I've been to Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Deployed

[I was actually deployed during this time.]

A lot has happened since November. At the end of November I went on leave back to Missouri. At the end of December I had my cousin come out to San Diego for a week. In the middle of January I went on deployment to the Arabian Gulf to fight the global war on terrorism. I thought I'd update the site a little since I have been busy. There isn't much updating to do here on the news section, but there is a lot of updating elsewhere on the site.

Mazatlan, Mexico

Recently the ship went to Mazatlan, Mexico for a liberty port. It was my first time in Mexico, and I must say that I was not impressed. I thought the port was supposed to be some sort of tourist spot, even though in my 24 years on this planet I had never heard of it. Upon first examination of Mexico, it's a true trash pit. Within five minutes of being on land I realized that it was a very indigent country/city and was not very well taken care of. However, I only seen about 3 active bums my whole time there. The city stinks and everything is dusty and worn down.
The significant factor about Mexico that I particularly didn't like was the fact that every where you went someone wanted to badger you into buying something or purchasing their services. I'm the type that is mature enough to make a conscious decision on my own whether or not to buy something. I guess that's part of the advertising age.
"If you are in advertising, kill yourself." - Bill Hicks
While I was in Mexico, I finally finished a book that I had wanted to finish for a while called Shit Magnet by Jim goad. I put it down somewhere near the middle where he had been ranting for a few trees about how the whole situation got very bad between him and his girlfriend and he eventually ended up hitting her because, apparently she had hit him first. There was a lot of relentless banter about how she provoked it and how they were both guilty in this case. He wasn't saying he didn't hit her, but he was saying that she should have been punished along with him. If you go by what Jim says, one begins to realize how screwed up the relationship really was between him and his girlfriend and his ex wife. Not that it was any one persons fault, but that all parties were guilty. The one thing that I do respect about Jim is that he doesn't whitewash anything and he doesn't try to make it seem like he wasn't guilty.
The latter half of the book goes into the prison system and how an intelligent person would probably go insane in such a place of chaos. I read that and actually it opened my eyes up to a lot of things about prison that I never knew about. It kind of makes you think, is a man who hits a woman a couple of times really deserving of 3 years in prison? Jim said that he had been hit before and beat up, and no matter how bad it was, it was nothing compared to living in prison and I honestly believe that. Before reading this book I had a rather harsh view on criminals, thinking they should actually have more punishment. But when one looks at the prison system and what one has to endure for little more than giving a girl a black eye that probably went away after a week, you begin to see how lopsided it all is and how it doesn't really make sense in the eye for an eye meaning. Not that I think people shouldn't be punished. I think there is a problem with the prison system, and any idiot can see that. Just like most human endeavors, it's not perfect and wasn't meant to be. See, to me, prison is a deterrent. It's not supposed to be a place to rehabilitate criminals; it's supposed to be that dark scary place that no one wants to go, thus reducing crime. The problem with that theory is that it's like most everything else in life; you don't know what the hell it is until you actually do it. I'm sure had Jim known what prison was like he wouldn't have done this at all. I know he doesn't think it was worth the time. I know the argument is still up in the air as to whether or not the prison system is effective, and I'd say that most of the time it's not really that rehabilitative, especially to people who go there for any length of time. The last chapter is about death, which I found to be particularly engaging. It's not exactly a depressing thing, although that topic tends to warrant some emotions from that realm. It was more a chapter about living life before you die. Today is a gift...

Decisions and the reenlistment scandal...

We chose orders to our next duty station today. Some others and I on the ship were doing some research trying to find out what was available to seethe our growing curiosity of where our future was going to be heading. As I walked into the career center I thought to myself that I have to stay strong and not be swayed by something that I knew wasn't in my best interests. If I wasn't getting exactly what I wanted, I was going to move along and possibly try to choose sometime later on to bargain for something better. Surprisingly, I got what I wanted. At the time I wanted to go to Seattle, but they didn't have any orders there. I chose Fleet Combat Training Center, Point Loma here in San Diego. The real question was whether or not to reenlist or just extend. If I had reenlisted, I would have had to reenlist for a minimum of 3 years. If I extended I would have to stay in the Navy for another 2 years. The reenlistment would have gotten me about $16, 000 minus taxes. Extending gets me nothing. Was it worth it to do three more years and get the money or do another two years and get nothing? No one really understood the fact that I'm extremely cautious about what I do these days in terms of my life and how things affect me. They all said that it was kind of stupid to pass up the chance to get that much money. Since I've been in the Navy, if there is one thing I've learned, it's that making wrong decisions about these types of things is an extremely stupid thing to do. The other thing I've learned is that I'd rather be happy and get by than to be miserable and have lots of money. So I chose to extend for two more years and not take the money. Money and the rich lifestyle is a lure, a trick played on people who fall in love with the green. Most of them feel as thought they have been hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Swindled. Well, as the song goes, take the money and run. They somehow think that money equates happiness and being content. As a wise man once said, everything that really matters you get without money at all: romance, devotion, friendships, wisdom, manners, culture, etc. I also learned something from another excellent book that I read a while back called Class by Paul Fussel. That book is about the class divisions and the American status system. I learned that having class isn't about having money, it's more about doing something with the money that you have. It's things like keeping your car clean and well maintained, keeping your house clean, and keeping your clothing neat. You don't have to spend a million dollars on a house and a car to have a fulfilling life. The bourgeoisie seem to think that making more money is going to make them better people or get them further. I admit, it sucks to be poor. I guess in a way I'm lucky that I came into the Navy because I have made decent money since I've been in and it's going to set me up well for when I get out. I didn't give in to the American Dream. Requiem for A Dream is a good movie where they illustrate what the lure of money and the American Dream will get you if you aren't careful. Real success takes real work. You can't get anything for free. Not in this life. So get out there and do something before you die.