I believe the hype! We are running out of oil! We need to grab those compact fluorescent lightbulbs, build windmills in our backyards and install solar panels on our roof! We are running out of oil.
Sure, I previously scoffed…but it really takes personal suffering for some people to fully grasp the enormity of the problem, this includes me.
So what was my turning point? It was the test firing of my new Beretta handgun. A few hundred rounds were put through to ensure that everything was in order. Firing it was very familiar…it should be, it’s was an issue handgun for me for about four years.
As the round counts got higher I started having problems. My slide was not locking back at the last round fired. I decided it was just one magazine…till the slide failed to lock on the other magazine.
Later on I finally disassembled the mags and peered inside before cleaning. Did I mention I had to jab the followers out of the magazine with a pencil eraser for them to come out? Loading was not a problem, unloading I saw bullets getting hung up. A look inside the magazine body showed some traces of oil around the bottom third of the magazine walls…the rest of the magazine walls were bone dry. Surely, Beretta was planning ahead and resorted to only using half a drop of oil to lube the inside of their mags…this would allow them to manufacture more mags and conserve for the oil crisis. Duh! When you’re a big manufacturer like Beretta, you are in tune with the reality of the world!
Solar power it is!
Lol, all joke aside (yes, it’s a joke…don’t give me your stupid CFL lightbulbs, I’ll make you eat it!)…the handgun is nice and familiar. Next weekend we’ll see if my lube remedy fixes the problem.
When I finally got to hold my new pistol for the first time, I was swept with quite some emotion and memories. One of the more prominent things I did in the Navy was watchstanding. That has always had both its great satisfactions and fits of rage. I wasn’t merely standing out there with a gun. I was always evaluating my performance, looking for better positions and equipment, those hours would be mixed in with several moments of brainstorming trying to look at myself from different perspectives and locations. Minimizing vulnerabilities, maximizing angles…then more soul-searching thoughts, many a times I was wondering what I was still doing on the ship and why was I fighting what seemed to be an impossible uphill battle sometimes.
This is the only weapon I currently have that has brought all the memories and emotions back to the present. Well, good thing this isn’t really a carry gun…matter of fact it’ll be last resort as far as that role! More on why I bought it in the first place later…though I will leave with a quote I read from someone I respected (I was in the process of getting the pistol when I saw this, so this wasn’t what convinced me)…”My feeling on the M9 is this: it is currently the standard issue military sidearm and as such should be mastered by all serious firearms trainers, servicemen, and fighting age Americans…period.”
Kind of on topic, though I’ve been bouncing everywhere so far on this post, is the “why” as far as my time in service. I thought it was interesting, because I had a small conversation with a friend of mine regarding that. No names for now because she may be reading this and I’m only going to take a snippet of what she said, which without heavily rewording it or stringing it to a fuller conversation, will make her sound pretty ignorant. That wasn’t the case…but here goes.
We already know I have friends in multiple flavors and welcome virtually all talk and opinions until they start getting pretty extreme. The way I was raised as I child to the way I was “raised” as a Sailor has made me who I am, along with looking at my experiences throughout those years in my life…all of that has shaped me.
My friend understood that I made the choice as far as my service and couldn’t understand why. She didn’t understand why guys like me were willing to fight, but respected my answer when I replied that I love the country and feel a duty to its people to serve them. She said she couldn’t serve, she could barely take out the trash! Ha ha… But was glad since she needed people like me to take the steps forward.
Told you that sounded shallow…but it isn’t, I have omitted a significant amount of the conversation because it broaches a topic that I am not going to make public, at least at this time.
Getting my handgun the day before, now the rest of the day I had that conversation in my head. It isn’t the first time that I have been asked of my decision to be a Sailor, nor will it be my last. I’ve been asked multiple times from multiple people. I have various answers and depending on the day, my mood and who I’m talking to I give out one of those aspects.
I guess I’ll put some down for the record.
I had decided in 4th grade that I was going to be in the military, and that decision never changed up until I reported into boot camp. I knew I wanted to help people, but in typical Filipino train of thought…those adults in my life thought it my way to go as a doctor, lawyer, airline pilot or some other sort of uber profession. That never clicked with me. Destruction and war did…I know that makes me sound like a psycho, though those that know me know I’m not a psycho…those that are my friends know that I am…I think everyone knows what I mean by this sentence, lol! If not, don’t misconstrue.
I wanted to be a fighter pilot in the US Air Force…I felt I could help by taking down the bad guys. You know, typical boy thoughts and all…well at least back then, when we had GI Joe and more manly type stuff out there. Not this Sponge Pants and Rocky Montana shows, or whatever they’re called…
At about the same time I was concerned I wouldn’t be able to fly because of my poor vision, I became aware of terrorism. Somewhere, I came across a documentary of the events that happened in Munich and that absolutely crushed my heart. I was still an honor kind of guy, and while I understood the unconventional tactics of ninjitsu to an entusiast degree, it didn’t seem to be the low blow type attacks that I saw in that show. Now here’s a trivia tidbit, because I wasn’t very well versed in the whole world and all…I had no clue the origin of the terrorists, so it was several years before I ever connected terrorism with the almost norm of the Middle East as our current events play out.
Then there was the first World Trade Center bombing, and Oklahoma City. I didn’t follow what happened in New York, but followed intently Oklahoma City as that actually stopped my Algebra class in high school as we watched the aftermath on TV.
All that was seen was a crater and shredded remains of a building. People were asking questions in class…without blinking an eye, I remember telling them simply it was a vehicle bomb and some other specifics. They asked how did I know…I dunno, common sense? Turns out almost all that I surmised was true.
As high school progressed for me, I became more and more concerned about terrorism. I don’t know why…I wasn’t a big news nut, but I just had a feeling it was going to be prevalent. Try warning fellow high school classmates about terrorism in the 1990s…yeah, oh well…at least I was entertainment for some of my peers. At this time, I was aware of an Islamic extremist threat and viewed them as a growing threat…I just thought they were still smaller than the terrorists involved with OKC.
Times changed and with piloting out of the question (and not seeing a strategy that required aerial dogfighting), Navy SEAL it would be for me. It would be more fun to do FBI and find the domestic terrorists, but I couldn’t be swayed out of the thought of the military still. So off to the Navy it would be for me.
I didn’t do anything SEAL related mainly because I thought I still wasn’t ready, I wasn’t as fit as I should and I wanted something in electronics (this was one of those stereotypical Asian/Filipino things as well), and needed a fallback in case I didn’t make it through BUD/S.
As my fellow classmates new, I wanted to be an FC…and was very specific with my FC rating, either Tomahawk or anything Aegis. For some reason, I felt these would be important at the right time.
All throughout, I’m still doing my security/terrorism ranting and raving. This was back in 1998 and 1999…even in the Navy, nobody really cared about terrorism except the crap they read from the instruction book.
Even when I first reported on the Cole, just your typical slide shows here and there and your lessons…very disappointing. So what a twist of fate it would be that I would be on the ship when terrorists detonated their boat and killed 17 of my shipmates.
For my friend…the carrying of Chief Costelow while he was still alive only to find out he later died, along with 16 others…is more than enough reason for me to fight. If that wasn’t a good enough reason, September 11 followed eleven months later.
I abandoned my prospects for BUD/S, Naval Academy and any other thing that I was working on in the Navy. It became my life’s passion to stay on that ship and make sure nothing like that ever happened again. Putting aside six years of my life for my country and people, I put aside most anything else of my Navy career for the Cole and her past, present and future crew.
I think it showed, I ended up being a part of a lot of things concerning force protection on the Cole that normally isn’t handed to lowly third class petty officer radar techs. I wasn’t content on just standing there with a gun. I did not freeze in 30+ knot headwinds on the bridge while it was raining/snowing on sea and anchor.
In my normal job I tried to be better…I didn’t want some other watchstander telling me how my radar should be run or what I should be looking for. I wasn’t some uber golden knight, it was tough and tiring physically, emotionally and mentally. I’d been beat on plenty of times and plenty of times was calling it quits. I was ready to pull my “Cole Card” and just stomp off the ship, repeatedly over and over again, from Pascagoula to 2003. I never did, I stayed on her for the longest possible moment and I finally stepped off with a ship that was “All Secure” and left it to the rest.
Throughout my time in the Navy, I got to talk with numerous people as far as why we joined the Navy. Most of the time I kept my mouth shut, my response was starkly different from some of the more shallow and self-serving answers that I got. It is no wonder I looked at things a little differently. I’m not saying most everyone in the military joins for sucky reasons, but they are out there and they are still my fellow Americans in uniform, some do their job well in spite of their beliefs.
We have an obligation, as a government, to protect the people of the country. We can talk about government interests and all that, you are arguing with the wrong person…go write a letter to your President and Member of Congress for that. We take their guidance in a military, and sometimes political, viewpoint…setup the method for success and win. As a country, we are inherently good and try to spread that goodness throughout. Whether you believe in internationalism or isolationism, as well as all ranges in between, is your call. We’ve been deployed to kick butt as well as deployed to save and comfort, off our own shores to the furthest distance to the United States.
While I loved all the countries I visited and really got a kick out of the people I met and the friends I have made, this country is so much better for its diversity and the ability to hold that diversity together and is rather inspiring as a united people. Not united, that diversity becomes very fragmented and people shouldn’t lose sight on that.
It is a shame that I can talk to people and talk of the period of about 1900 as the greatest generation of this nation. A pity, the greatest generation award should continue to move in time. We should be the greatest generation, but let’s not fool ourselves.
Finally, I remember many times where I get asked, being a person in uniform, when will I quit fighting and go for peace. I’m not a big fighting person if I don’t have to, and I tell them to go and bug the otherside first…we’re more than willing to do the whole peace thing, believe me.
Violence isn’t the answer? Haven’t left the United States have you…in som places of the world, violence is the ONLY answer. Shouldn’t be our first resort…but we definitely shouldn’t kid ourselves.
I had gotten to visit my cousins and I’ve gotten to see the contrast in my way of growing up versus theirs. I’m not saying I couldn’t live in their shoes, but there’s a lot to appreciate. You want racism, I got Filipinos that blow me off when they realize I can only speak English.
I have every reason to be grateful to this country, to owe it at least six years of active service…a service that elapsed through an eventful time in history and one that I will never regret. It has brought out the best in me, as well as the worst…but that’s my yin yang balance. While it may not have been intended for it, it doesn’t matter to me. Being one that is with Glenn in the belief that you should question everything, I can stake a lot of my success in that. I didn’t let idiots on the ship step past me, otherwise things could’ve been plenty worse…no, I like to think I left the ship in a very sound status as far as security.
I am awarded with a newer appreciation and understanding of the real world, the training and responsibility of people and machinery that my friends at home can only shudder at the thought of me having control of, some little creature benefits for being in uniform…but ultimately also having some of the greatest friends anyone can ever have. Military friends are just in another league, even seeing a military person out in public nowadays who I never met before…it’s far more rewarding than a civilian.
Not saying civilian suck…but do not ever underestimate the camaraderie of those who have served together. It is a strong bond that will last longer and stronger than many other things that will fade in life and in time.
Here I am in Texas, doing somewhat the same thing. Keep the home safe, the ratio of sheep to sheepdog is more disproportionate here. Is there some things I wish I could’ve done better? You bet. To me, from the bombing on…my mission and guidance for my objectives and how best to serve has been heavily swayed to a personal level. I feel that in that aspect I probably didn’t do as well as I should. But overall I’m satisfied…I looked forward since childhood and tried to discern what type of person I was and how I could best channel those skills and that drive, and I think it turned out well in the end.
Eh, I guess it never is easy to really talk about what nurtures the drive to serve without some moderate digression…at least for me.
Random parting shot…graphic wise, that American Idol PS3 game is an utter disappointment! Paula would fit right at home as a cast in a Silent Hill game.
