UNTIL HE COMES HOME.
That's a line from Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried," a fictional story with factual influences told from the perspective of various soldiers in a Vietnam platoon both before, during, and after their Military Service. It's not a particularly happy collection of vignettes, but I guess that's why it's so fitting a quote.
Being in the military is difficult.
Some of it's classified, so
I can't talk about some of it.
Parts of it are hard to explain.
People can't relate to you.
You're always the bad guy.
I really don't like Chief Harlow. He often mocks our Battalion, which I find disrespectful, and he jokes frequently in what I find to be a distasteful fashion. He directly addressed a critique I wrote, once, with the misconception that I was requesting a vote rather than a tally, and more or less called me stupid and naive for thinking the Navy would ever give a damn what a single Battalion decided amongst itself.
"You don't have rights anymore," he said. "You gave those up so others could have them."
That's one of the hardest things to explain to people.
Trying to sounds exaggerated. Or worse, like you're some sort of martyr, and when people are dissatisfied with you on a social level, the last thing they want to hear is some self-sacrificing bullshit about how, as a Sailor, you don't always have a say in what you do, when you do it, and for how long.
- Sometimes, I have to muster six times a day.
- Sometimes, I have to work until midnight.
- Sometimes, I don't get to eat.
- Sometimes, I don't get a complimentary phone-call.
- Sometimes, I have to wade through the red tape.
- Sometimes, I have to shut-up and color.
- Sometimes, I'm not accountable for myself, but for the guy next to the guy next to me.
- Sometimes, I don't sleep.
- Sometimes, I work with and for incompetent people.
- Sometimes, I realize that getting hospitalized could mean an extra month here.
- Sometimes, I show up sick and pretend I'm not.
- Sometimes, things just go wrong.
- Sometimes, things just go right, but things have gone wrong so long that it doesn't cheer you up.
Perhaps that's a bit of perspective on the way things work within the United States Military.
I think if we didn't laugh at ourselves.
If we didn't laugh at others behind closed doors.
If Dimacelli didn't sing cadence about how terrible things can be in a lighthearted manner.
The U.S. Navy would almost certainly spiral into mass-depression.
I am SA Harmeyer.
And I assess this with Moderate Confidence.
