Opaque Lucidity

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I began watching the public TV documentary 'Carrier' earlier today. It's about a deployment aboard the USS Nimitz, the class leader of 10 of this nation's 12 aircraft carriers. I believe it was filmed in 2005, although it's hard to tell. The Navy is heavy with tradition and things are so slow to change that except for the aircraft and more modern electronics, it could have been made in 1985.

One scene was especially striking. Once the ship got underway, the captain called a meeting of all the chiefs. That's Chief Petty Officers, the men and women who make up the Navy's middle management. Officers may think great thoughts and become the subject of historical novels, but the chiefs make sure everything gets done, from keeping the head clean to arming the Super Hornets on the flight deck. As I looked at the assembled faces in the 'Goat Locker' (the traditional name for the chiefs' mess), I had a strange thought: had I stayed in the Navy and studied a little harder in the Nuclear Power Program, one of the faces there could have been mine. I would now have 18 years in, enough time in the nuclear rates for a sharp sailor to become a Senior or Master Chief.

And as I do whenever I see a program about the Navy, I thought of Dave Robertson. My best friend Peter and I went through 'A' School with Robertson; I went through boot camp and Nuclear Power School with him as well. He stayed in the Navy, but not in nuclear power. He was stationed in Italy the last time I heard from him almost five years ago. He said something to me in that last e-mail that crosses my mind almost every day and makes me feel a certain sense of guilt. In an earlier conversation, I had mentioned to him that Peter and I, almost inseparable in "A" School, were still best friends. He seemed surprised that neither of us had stayed in and said, in reference to the two of us, "We really need men of your caliber now." It was one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.

I spent my last year in the Navy being bitter and homesick. I was immature, selfish, and tended towards having an over-important sense of myself. Had I stuck it out, who knows what would have happened. I see that same attitude in some of the kids interviewed for 'Carrier' and I want to yell at them to make every moment of their time count for something. Because someday, you will have some sense of envy for the next generation running that ship.