Or almost over - we still have the debrief to go
on Monday morning. Jump up in front of the three star with my merry band of
principal warfare assistants and subject matter experts, pontificate (but not
at length, not as who should say "great length" - he's a busy man - so are they
all, all busy men) and then sit back down, await the momentary
frisson
of approbation that comes with a exceptionally difficult job, done exceedingly
well, and then move on to the next thing. Which right now, happens to be
Christmas. So I've got that to look forward to. Which is
nice.
But no, the Christmas shopping is
by no means complete, thanks for asking.
You might have advised that I try to
shop at sea, via the internet, but that would only mean that you had never tried
to shop at sea, via the internet, before.
You know those itty-bitty straws they
use in night clubs to mix the well drinks? Imagine that you have been without
water in the desert for six days, while forced to do push ups and sit ups in the
burning sun, in between wind sprints. Now imagine being asked to drink your
table spoon-sized ration of water through one of those cocktail straws it and
you'll have some idea of what surfing the World Wide Wait can be like at sea.
It's not like we don't have bandwidth. Bandwidth we've got, great huge frothy
galumphing amounts of bandwidth - it's just that none of it is apportioned that
way. For Christmas shopping, I mean.
Oh, sure - if you know exactly what
you want: Google up "Airborne Laser Volcano Lancing ," for example -
you can probably get that done. That is, unless you were for two times in the
preceding three months while at sea the victim of credit card theft, and the
credit card that you actually have in your wallet is now cancelled, and now
there is no reliably secure way to email or fax your new credit card number to
the ship.
In that case you're pretty
much SOL, airborne lasers on your shopping list or no.
Neither am I one of those
preternaturally organized, invariably smug and sand-poundingly self-satisfied
shoppers that has crossed every item off their Christmas list by the preceding
ides of March. No, I greatly prefer the carefully controlled lab experiment in
chaos theory which comes from traveling across the country to Virginia, my own,
my native land, on the 22nd of December, going
pied-à-terre
in the world's most maddening shopping mall on
Christmas Eve, and catching the sport at its very best. The pleasures are simply
indescribable.
In fact, the only thing
more wonderful was last year, when after several hours of hurling myself
repeatedly (and it must be admitted, with little success) upon the altar of
consumerism, I found myself looking about longingly for a store that sold any
of the following items: Firearms
and
ammo, razor blades/rubber tubing, rat poison, quality braided rope of not too
rough a texture and capable of supporting roughly 190 pounds, moving at, say, 32
feet per second, squared. While thus (fruitlessly) engaged I saw the actual
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (who
stands in precedence to your humble scribe in roughly the same proportion as he
himself stands to single-celled organisms) doing his Christmas shopping in the
same circle of hell as was I. Or me.
Myself.
Whichever.
And
so seeing this, I grasped at the beginnings of wisdom. These I will share with
you, constant reader, free of charge: Death may indeed be the great leveler of
men, but Christmas shopping is
repeatable,
and as a form of practice for the real thing, not to be lightly cast
aside.
All that being true, then it
can't get any worse, you say?
Come,
let me disabuse you: Have I failed to report that the Biscuit (age 13) now
considers it nothing less than normal, indeed quite natural, that a portion of
each trip to the shopping mall must be spent inside the world's most
humiliating store (for a man to enter, anyway)? I feel like a vampire
at the church doors each time I go near the place. I stand there in front
stammering "No, fine actually!" to all the several passersby who, alarmed at the
sight of my violently blushing complexion, wonder if perhaps it isn't possible,
even likely, that I'm having a stroke or seizure of some sort? Because from my
perspective, there simply isn't a plausible or creditable reason for me to be on
the same level as that
store, not to mention standing on its
threshold. Which is not to say that I'm a prude. It's just to say that, well...
I'm not exactly sure what it's to say, but it's deuced uncomfortable, old chap.
To all of this, of course, the Biscuit is either sublimely unaware, or acutely
unconcerned. And I can not quite decide
which.
But this is all to look forward
to, and perhaps one of you would prefer to be caught
up:
We've been busy. Long time readers
of this blog (I mean you two, over there) will know that your humble scribe has
been at sea more or less continuously since the 12th of September with some
all-to-brief intervals of sand crabbing in between to remind myself where I park
my car, which office is mine
(there's
that sandwich!), and to reacquaint my family with my gross physical
characteristics. But as I mentioned above, our own Long March is over, for the
now, and the workload should become a little more normal in the discernible
future.
Why such much? Glad you asked:
For the Iraq War we got every ship to sea that we could, and so all the carriers
that went and joined the war in 2003 all came back pretty much at the same time.
Which meant that they were all pretty much ready to go to sea again at the same
time. Which was the last four months. Which is where me and my merry band come
in.
But in between coming home from the
war, and going to sea again, the
CNO , who by the way is (for a Shoe) an incredibly smart individual,
besides being a powerful and handsome man, made some decisions. For one, he
decided that it would be keen to institutionalize our capability to surge the
force in case of emergency, rather than discerning a crisis on the horizon and
then walking the strand and turning over rocks to look for ships, like we'd
always done in the past. This strategy is called the FRP, or
Fleet Response Plan (variously, the Fleet Readiness Plan, no one
seems to be able to authoritatively decide) and it's an Exceptionally Powerful
Idea¹
Which is a precise
formulation guaranteed to send staff officers scurrying to shopping malls,
looking for stores which sell: Firearms
and
ammo, razor blades/rubber tubing, rat poison, quality braided rope of not too
rough a texture and capable of supporting roughly 190 pounds, moving at, say, 32
feet per second, squared.
Because it's
all very well and good for service secretaries and four stars to have
Exceptionally Powerful Ideas, but someone has to figure out how it's all going
to actually work. And that someone is
us!
So yeah, we were busy, but now
we're not and that pretty much encapsulates all you need ever know about the
naval service.
More later, as it comes
to
me.
--------------------
Note
1:
In the beginning was
the Plan And after the Plan came
the Assumptions And the
Assumptions were without form
And the Plan was without
substance And darkness moved
upon the faces of the action
officers. And they spake unto
their Division Heads, saying:
"It is a crock of shit, and it
stinketh" And the division heads
went unto their Chiefs of
Department, And Sayeth unto them
in turn: "It is a pail of dung,
and none may abide the odor
thereof!" And the Chiefs of
Department went unto the First Flag Officer
in their Chain of Command, and
Sayeth unto Him: "It is a
container of excrement, and it is very
STRONG!" And that Flag went unto
his Fleet Commander, and Sayeth
unto Him: "It is a Vessel of
Fertilizer, and none may abide its
Strength" And the Fleet
Commander went unto CNO, and
Sayeth: "It contains that which
aids Plant Growth, and it is very
strong" And the CNO went unto
the Chairman and Sayeth: "It
Promoteth Growth, and it is very
Powerful" And the Chairman went
unto the Secretary, And Sayeth
Unto Him: "This Powerful New
Plan will Actively Promote the
Growth and Efficiency of the
Department, and this area in
Particular" And the Secretary
looked upon the Plan, And he saw
that it was Good, and so the Plan
became
Policy.
And that is how
shit happens.
Posted @
12:24 PM
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Posted in
""
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Sendit
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Credo
"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me." - John Paul Jones
"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature" --George Bernard Shaw, "Ceasar and Cleopatra"
"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."--Friederich Nietzsche
