At least it's over.

Last week the E-4s in my old company signed their evals, and it gave a good picture of how much the chain of command cares about their troops.

I was one of the last three to sign their eval, three of us went straight from the armory at the end of the day to the office. When we got there, Chief, LT, and one of our first classes hurried into the office and shut the door. After a minute they called us all in the office at once (evals are a private matter unless you wish to share them) and told us that they had forgotten to write one up for one of us. Come back tomorrow and we'll have it all fixed.

The next day when I went back in to sign my new eval, I looked at the block which contained training and classes that were recommended I take by the chain of command. The first of which said SCW and the second said IN RATE TRAINING.
Last deployment I did all the requirements for SCW (warfare qualification) except for a field exercise. Two months ago at the end of FEX I thought I was going to get my pin, but it didn't come. I had to run a chit through the entire battalion, up to the master chief, in order to be given something that I had worked for and earned myself. So I looked at LT, adked what he meant by SCW and pointed to the patch on my uniform signifying that I already had it.

As for the IN RATE TRAINING entry, I was told by LT and to my suprise Chief that I needed to practice the skills I learned in A-school and the ones I would use on deployment. I was then told to make sure I used the opportunities this deployment to learn how to do work in other rates, not just my own.
Great. Except there was no mention of the fact that I did all that last deployment. It was spoken like I just spent all my time in the office, doing paperwork. But the fact of the matter is, I surveyed two 20'X48' buildings and a 120' bridge, both of them turning out within specifications, if not perfectly. Then when the surveying was done, I put down my instruments and went to work. I'm not sure how many other EAs in the battallion can build forms, place and tie rebar, pour and finish concrete, cut and weld, hang sheeting and trim, put in walls, and drive a dump truck, loader, bulldozer, roller and forklift.

All this just made me happier that I'm off of CST, and onto a small det where people won't be able to ignore the fact that I'm doing what I should, and doing it well.

Parade Practice

Yesterday at practice for the Seabee Days parade, Gunny told us that our company was the best looking group on the grinder. He then followed it up by saying:

"Don't let it go to your head! You can build a thousand bridges, but if you suck one cock you're a cocksucker for the rest of your life!"

That guy is awesome.

Breath of fresh air.

This evening I went over to a co-workers house for dinner and to help some of my fellow EA's study for thier warfare qualification. The dinner was great, but even better was being able to sit with some of my favorite peers and talk. Most of the conversation had to do with various gripes and complaints from work, but I loved it. The best part was that the three of us were in control of the conversation, it didn't have to be in bursts, like when we would talk during breaks in various classes, and it wasn't constrained by office propriety or the worry of offending someone. Before calling it a night we decided to do it again next week, hopefully there will be more studying involved but either way I am definetly looking forward to it.

Full Circle

This morning at work we had a brief (I've started calling them assemblies because it feels more like a high school assembly than an important brief) that dealt with how to avoid becoming a POW and what to do if you find yourself in that situation. Before the brief started the C.O. gave us a pep-talk on how everyone needs to be getting their affairs in order before our deployment arrives. . .But more on that later.

The acronym for the brief (the Navy loves acronyms) was S.E.R.E. Survival Evasion Resistance and Escape. The brief was given by an Air Force Tech Sergeant who's only job is to train on SERE and debrief people who have been behind enemy lines or POWs/hostages. At one point during the brief he asked the two people sitting closest to the doors to shut them because we were going to discuss "sensitive" information (not classified but still not good for the bad guys to learn). During this section he told us that he gave a brief on resisting interrogation that contained Classified information yesterday, presumably to those higher up in the chain of command. This struck me as another example of the military giving important information to someone more important vs. Giving the information to someone who will actually benefit from it. As far as chances for becoming a prisoner of war or just being kidnapped on our next deployment, I am much more likely to be the unlucky one than our Commanding Officer or some other person who is important to the battalion who will most likely have a security detail traveling with them at all times. However the Navy, in all it's infinite wisdom, gives the good tricks to those who are not likely to use them, and who are less likely to give up information because they feel a larger sense of obligation to the military than Joe-enlisted.

But back to the C.O.'s pep-talk. As he stood up on the stage before our assembly, he told us all of the importance of getting all affairs in order before leaving to Kuwait. There are quite a few concerns, especially for those who haven't made a deployment yet: fill out your will, power of attorney, automatic money transfer for car payments. These are in addition to time that, according to him, should be spent enjoying the company of family that we will not see for 6 months.
There was no mention of the fact that I have been gone on various field exercises for over 1 month of homeport, seven CPXs, missed out on multiple 3 or 4 day weekends due to class, and stayed late getting weapons/equipment/coms cleaned, checked out, or turned in. After spending nearly 2 weeks in Southern Cali doing a desert exercise, I returned to work only to find that I'm marching in the "seabee-days" parade this coming weekend. So much for spending this time with my wife.
As hypocritical as his words sounded, the speech reminded me of one we had at the beginning of this homeport, regarding Equal Opportunity in our battalion and workspace. This EO brief spoke of all the shortcomings we had dealing with people of a different race, religion, paygrade or sex, and stated that such things would no longer be tolerated. Period. Seven months have passed since that first brief and today I was told to fill out another EO survey, presumably to check if things have improved during this homeport. Granted, having the build up feelings from the previous paragraphs I was in no mood to give the C.O. any slack, but I don't know how much it would have affected my opinions anyway. Since the first EO brief I have seen the same preferential treatment given to the same people who were getting it before the brief, and seen the same problems occur and be more or less ignored by the chain of command as a whole.
For the first time in my career I put not one but multiple comments in the "comments" section of the survey and since everyone has a unique ID to log onto the website, I hope my words make their way up to someone important. But maybe I'll feel different about that if they actually do.

A call in the desert.

Just last night I returned home from a 10 day field exercise designed to train people about to deploy to the middle east how to operate in a desert environment. The camp we stayed at was small, under-developed, and hotter than the center of the sun. . .Also there was no cell phone service.

The other camp on this base, by comparison, had a swimming pool, movie theater, and possibly the best galley that I will ever see in my military career. . .Plus my cell worked over there.

This meant that almost every night after training was done, we would pile into trucks and drive over to mainside for food and the ability to call loved ones. Other times a select few would drive over to the park and drink beer (alcohol is prohibited in the camp we were staying at). One of these nights I volunteered to be the designated driver for the beer crew so I could escape most of my more annoying teammates and make a phone call to my wife at the same time. While we were over there I got a call from my mom:

Me: What's up?

Mom: Hi, I just called because I wanted to let you know that Dad's in the hospital in Portland.

Me: What?! Is he okay?

Mom: He's doing fine, we're just waiting on test results right now.

After she assured me that they had no idea what was wrong but he was not going to die in the middle of the night I got

Well I should probably also call your sister and let her know too.

You think?


And to top it all off, she said at the start of the conversation how much she hates when my grandma doesn't call when conditions change with my grandpa (he was living in a nursing home, now he's not, long story and you may be able to tell that my family doesn't do well with information transfer). I called her the next day to make sure that Dad was alright and also (I kicked myself for not doing it the first night) that she was doing alright. As the week progressed I had to call whenever I had the chance to find out what was going on "So they said it wasn't a stroke?" "So they said it wasn't a heart attack" turns out it was a bone infection that he got somehow during a tonsilectomy last month.

However, I spent almost every night after that outside, looking at the moon, and thinking "what if." My dad is a healthy guy, He has never smoked or used drugs, and the first time I saw him drink a beer was after I turned 21. And for him to be in the hospital from a mystery-ailment was quite surprising. So I would stand outside of our K-span (metal building shaped like a miniature airplane hanger) and smoke my cigarette and look at the moon. And think. My dad has been the one unchanging element throughout my life. My sister has gone to college and moved away, and my mom has gone through cycles of support and borderline-disdain towards me. But dad was always the silent, supportive being in the house that you didn't even have to share your problems with him to know that he understood them. And tomorrow on fathers day I get to call him on the phone in his hospital room.

Maybe I'll tell him how much I want to be like him someday. But if I don't, he'll understand anyway.

Starting it out.

So, I'm not really sure what inspired me to just start posting my thoughts up on the internet, but as I think about it I get more of a clue. There are things that I think about and worry about that I would love to share with other people, but some of them deserve a thoughtful and deliberate way to convey other than just saying "(insert subject here) is fucked up." Please, if you decide to read this, don't get hung up on grammar, because I hate it. If I have spelling errors that's one thing, because I don't like typos, but I've never been great-shakes at grammar and I don't plan on starting now, after all, this blog is supposed to be for me.

As far as the title goes, it sort of sums up how I'm feeling about life right now. Here's a brief history lesson:
I played water polo for three years, two in high-school and then another year in College. The hardest part of the sport is that you can never put your feet on the bottom of the pool, ever. Most official waterpolo pools are minimum of 8 feet deep, so it's not even an option, so the entire time you are playing you are either swimming, or treading water. Learning how to effectively tread water was a big part of practice. Every morning before we got changed and ready for class, coach would start throwing empty gallon jugs into the pool. Everybody would grab a jug, fill it up with water, and on the whistle we would all hold the jugs straight up over our heads and sit there treading water. Usually the guy who kept his jug up longest would get to show up to morning practice 30 minutes later or something like that. Now I never won the competition, so I never got to sleep in, but I became very proficient at treading water. The only problem was that most people who play waterpolo in high school are also on the swim team, and lots of these guys were state-level competitors who had been swimming nonstop since age 7. This meant that when the game started I was still at a distinct disadvantage. Sure, I could tread water with my arms up all day long, but what good is that when the person you are guarding is already at the other end of the pool scoring a goal.
I am currently finishing up year 2 of a 5 year enlistment in the United States Navy as a surveyor/builder/steelworker/Humvee driver/radio guy/whatever else the Navy wants me to do. I feel that I am good at my job, and that I am a good seabee in general because I learn how to do new things quickly and am fairly adaptable. I've made rank faster than anyone who started the same time I did, and I have already passed one ridiculous 7 month trial-by-fire. The only problem is that I still don't feel like I'm going anywhere. For all the work I do and all the things I put up with, all I'm doing is becoming proficient at treading-water. I don't want to stay in the Navy and I don't really care to work construction when I get out, therefore forward progress is at a minimum. Granted work is not everything, and it's really my only complaint. I have a wonderful wife whom I love more than oxygen and a nice place to live, a cat and dog, and good family and friends.

Just wish that I could also be the guy who comes to practice 30 minutes late tomorrow.