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Two and a half weeks aboard an LHA would be
enough to try an carrier pilot's soul all by itself, but this last exercise was
particularly wearying. Oh, it's not just the differences between a NIMITZ-class
aircraft carrier and an amphibious helicopter assault ship, although these are
legion. And, along the way I finally
got my new set of orders - the three-star tug of war is now officially over -
and I'll be working for the one incredibly powerful, marvelously handsome, very
senior naval officer, rather than the other one. Reminds me of a bit of dialogue
between two mounted Arab tribesmen from
"Lawrence of
Arabia
":Bedouin
- "Where are we going?"Other Bedouin
- "We are going to Acra."Bedouin,
after slight pause - "It is
good."Other Bedouin, after careful
consideration - "What is
good?"Bedouin - "It is good to know
where we are going!"Yes it
is.And, it's not so very far from my
current place of employ, which means that we get to keep making mortgage
payments, the motorcycle knows the way to work and you will every so often be
treated to further ululation about the appalling state of SoCal traffic flows.
Because you know you want it, even if it doesn't feel that way, right
now.So - d'ja miss
me?It's funny - you go to sea for a
while and the world will keep turning, even without you there to add your voice
to the slipstream (I like to drop the occasional mixed metaphor in there, just
to keep the language police alert).
We don't much talk world events
while at sea, because these days it's precious close to politics. Politics,
along with religion and (traditionally) the fairer sex are prohibited
conversation at the wardroom table, and by extension elsewhere. All goes back to
that "long periods / enforced proximity / just get along" thing I mentioned in
para 1. So when the news broke, crested and ebbed about Korans being flushed
down Cuban toilets, anonymous single sources, murderous clerics, dark murmurings
from gerontacratic service secretaries about what people ought and ought not
talk about, embarrassed retractions and second wave, main stream media, "Oh, yeahs ?" there was scarcely anyone with whom
I could share my pithy observations and keen analytical
insight.So yeah, I sort of missed
you too.And since everything about
that event has pretty much been said, even though I wasn't there to participate
in it (so much for existentialism,
pace
Sartre), I'll only add that it should amaze me
(but somehow doesn't) that what could have been an opportunity to engage
rational political Islam in some much needed introspection about the value of
human life and the essential meaninglessness of symbols, at least when the
latter is weighed against the former. But no, it's become a game of righteous
indignation from the navel-gazing opinion elite in their ongoing struggle
against the Bushian forces of evil (cue: Vader
theme):-
The war on Newsweek shifted attention
away from how the Guantanamo prisoners have been treated, how that treatment has
affected the battle against terrorism and what American policies should be.
Newsweek-bashing also furthered a long-term and so far successful campaign by
the administration and the conservative movement to dismiss all negative reports
about their side as the product of some entity they call "the liberal
media."
-
Maybe
you've heard of this so-called "liberal media." I've got no idea what he's
talking about, but then again I spent the last couple of weeks at sea, so it
could have cropped up in the intervening period. But Dionne is staking his claim
to class victimhood based on the latest report from the FBI, summarizing the
indignant complaints of those worthies currently detained at Guantanamo:
-
So it turns out that the FBI has
documents showing that detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, complained about the
mistreatment of the Koran and that many said they were severely beaten.The
documents specifically include an allegation from a prisoner that guards had
"flushed a Koran in the toilet."
-
Well, gosh, that changes everything. I mean, these
guys are only being detained down there because they'd like nothing better,
taken as a whole, than to slit our collective throats in the name of world
peace, jihadi-style. But no one has ever accused them of being liars, for pete's
sake.
-
Whew. I'm better now, thanks. I appreciate you
being there for that. It couldn't have been fun for you...
-
So - amphibs: Here's the thing about amphibs -
they're fat and they're slow and they spend a very great deal of time going
nowhere, very slowly. A very great deal of time actually lolling around
in close proximity to
land. If you can believe that. Something to
do with putting Marines ashore, or bringing them back aboard. Very often a
combination of the two. And apparently that whole effort is simplified by
loitering around with your fantail pointed to the beach, as though you hadn't a
care in the world about coastal defense cruise missile batteries or short range
fighter bombers.
-
For a career fighter pilot and carrier guy, this
seems painfully analogous to what we call "trolling," i.e., hanging it out
there, doing something dangerously stupid in order to start a fight. But for
amphibs, that's the name of the game. In a carrier, we may not be actually going
anywhere, but we always seem to do it at flank speed.
-
Another thing about amphibs -
they let the actual ocean into the
ship! And
- they roll. A lot. More than you'd think they ought to, if there's anything
like a swell up. Comes with being flat-bottomed and shallow-drafted, the better
to snuggle up ashore. In range of those cruise missile batteries. Not for the
amphib your long, graceful pitch of the aircraft carrier, sovereign of the ocean
sea. No. Rather a nervous, high frequency side-to-side movement that leaves you
wondering at the odd moment as you are flung from side to side in your rack
through the dark watches of the night whether the shipwrights had done their
homework properly, with respect to center of gravity vs. center of buoyancy, and
above all righting moments vs. critical angle. That force, in other words, whose
tendency is to keep the dry parts up and the wet parts down. In the water. Where
they belong.And - they carry Marines,
as I may have hinted. Lots of them. All of them hard, and many of them painfully
young. Some of whom are getting ready for their second deployment in as many
years. Some of whom have scars that they do not talk about, and about which we
do not ask. These guys were at the gates of Fallujah last April, before they
were called off. And they are the most important part of the strike group's
offensive capability, and so we mere Navy officers and carrier guys did the very
best we could to integrate the new defensive firepower of the Expeditionary
Strike Group, turds in the senior ranks or no.
The commanding officer of the attached
cruiser made a comment in one of the morning VTC's that captured the spirit
well, when he was talking about a fire support mission using his five inch guns:
"I'd empty the magazines for one Marine in trouble on the
beach."Yeah. That's exactly
right.Least we could do.
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