Haze Gray & (Almost) Underway

Underway, you didn't even have the energy to dream most days. Hit the rack, close your eyes, and the alarm goes off. Not so here ashore.

I think that was one of my favorite parts about deployment.

I'd like you to meet my friend. His name is Jerry. Sailor Jerry.

We were walking to the base galley this morning. The daily pilgrimage of the off-going Alpha watch as we head for breakfast, rolling deep in a group of about seven or eight. A cab pulled up to the corner as we crossed to the entrance.

She looked so much like you. The cut of her pea coat. The way her dark hair was held up under her cover, the look of her skin. For that brief moment it was all there. I stumbled. I almost ran into a Master Chief coming down the sidewalk. I kept trying to look back as my buddies pushed me forward.

She looked so much like you. My eyes were fooled for only moment, but a moment was enough.

The dreams were vivid. You'd been absent so long, and now you're here again. I crossed the ocean and stood on foreign shores, but you've followed me. I can feel you, hear you, and worst of all, remember you. The smile, the eyes that looked into mine. I ran for miles after chow. I pushed myself till my lungs screamed and my legs ached but I couldn't run away.

The shade whispered "I love you" and I've been drinking ever since.

Some drink to remember. I drink now to forget.

"Until a man is 25, he still think he can be a bad-ass."

Loosely paraphrased from Snowcrasher. Well, here I am at 25, and tomorrow I go through this right-of-passage. Got tapped for two weeks of Security Reaction Force "Alpha" level training. I did the Bravo level back when I first got to Japan and was assigned to the port security force, and it was fun but was noting more than how to put handcuffs on, shoot a pistol and a rifle on the range and a bit of OC spray (Devil Piss!!!!), but nothing serious. This is a little different. Sweep and clear tactics, charging into small ship spaces guns blaring, handling hostage threats, and getting shot back at. Simulated ammunition of course, but this is going to be where I learn that Hollywood is just that.

I am not going to walk calmly through a hail of fire picking off bad guys while bullets bend around me through sheer awesomeness. I am going to find out that TAC gear is heavy and that I am going to be breathing hard and moving slow, that my visor will fog and my arms will shake as the adrenaline takes control, and that my first dozen or so times through the door I will be dead before I even sight a target.

But I'll learn something damn it.

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Well, three months and one more deployment later, I'm back. Again. This time it was night check, moved up to the Tractor Shack. I have been on the pitching deck in the bad winter seas of the Pacific waters, stood amongst the silent birds, felt the chill of the night winds and the sting of the whipping rains as the ship barrels through the storms it avoided during the days flight operations. Definitely a different experience.

Well, three months and one deployment later, I'm back. I have been on the deck, stood amongst the turning birds, felt the heat of the exhaust and the heat of the sun.

So here it goes. Leaving soon for that experience spoken of reverently by all Sailors - "Underway." Guess I'll have to take the (Almost) out of the journal title.

Just about done with the pier-side indoc for the GW. I should be up on ship and in my shop withing the next few days.

Japan has been incredible so far - I have run into a few people I didn't know where out here, mostly some guys from back in boot who are going to be either ship's company or in the Air Wing.

Posting here will get more regular, save for underways.

Got the call. Was sitting on the back porch and had just popped the first Sam Adams of the day (haven't had a lot to do since coming back - I've been joked to be the command ghost, just a spirit that never left.) I'm on a plane out of Atlanta in four days bound for Japan.

I'll meet up with the folks who were planning on being in DC anyway (that worked out well) for Easter, do Easter with the Schmidts, then down to Augusta to see Katrina before going past Atlanta to Auburn to see my sister. I'll spend the night crashed at her apartment in Auburn, wake up and go see the guys at my old flightline and the brothers up at the Delta Chi house before shooting back East to Atlanta, spend the night outside the airport where I'll see the folks again as they fly back in, give them the car, and meet up with Amanda for a night out in Atlanta. I'm gonna miss this kind of life, but deployment promises plenty of travel I guess.

Well that didn't last long. As most of you have heard about the quake in Japan, I will skip the details. But as some may not know, that is my next duty station. It has jumbled things up a bit.

So I made up here to Michigan after about 16 hours on the road - stopped to see Andrew and Matt in Huntsville, Jacob somewhere on the highway right outside it, got yelled at for not stopping to see Anna Wells in her podunk corner of Alabama, hit the Jack Daniels Distillery in Tennessee and tracked down a Jack-in-the-Box (and ate most of the menu) before pushing on. Made it to Joe's at about 0300 in the morning, and crashed on the couch.

At about 0630 the phone rang, and I hear BM1's voice telling me to drop everything and get back to Boston. Stop movement order issued, full recall. Damn. I'll be getting in the car and cutting up through Detroit, across Canada past Toronto (where I guess I'll stop to see Melroy), swing to Niagara Falls and come into the States at Buffalo, then straight shot to Boston.

I don't know who was listening to my farewell speech when I departed Constitution, but you misunderstood me. Happy St Patty's Day. On the upside, Bell's Brewery. Its a local here in Kalamazoo and I bought a few of each label. Delicious.

Managed to grab hold of an iPad 2. Been playing with that all evening and now its time for me to hit the sack - trying to depart from Enterprise at about 0430 or 0500 and head North. Roadtrip 2011 commenced. I'd post the expected stats but even I haven't pinned them down yet. Tomorrow night, Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Posted via LiveJournal app for iPad.