

You are Free by Matthew Montague

Published by Crazy Diamond Beef at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Matthew Montague

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
Chapter One

You are free-falling in the fo'c's'le[1] when the ship[2] goes up on a wave, a mound of water you can only feel in your knees as you stand in this windowless room at the front of the boat, a triangle with the huge black chain links running up from the chain locker[3], through the windlass[4] and the capstans[5] and then out through big black holes in the slanted rounding hull to the 25-ton anchors snugged against the hull but still swaying slightly.

You crouch as you feel the deck rise under your feet, the power of the wave to lift the nose of the ship into the black night, with the whitecaps cracking and the hull creaking and the keel twisting[6] as the waves lift the ship from left to right and then.

Just before the peak you push off and at the top, you feel the deck pause and then fall away from your feet and then you are free for just one moment, hanging in the air you breathe in deeply your feet dangling there and you float back to the deck and feel your stomach pull to the bottom of the sea as the ship rises again and you just happy to be free if only for those long seconds and only when the waves are really big and coming right at you.

Then the Bos'un[7] bangs through the hatch[8] and chases all of you motherfuckers out of my goddamn fo'c's'le before one of you breaks your goddamn legs, and you scurry around the outside of the space[9] and behind his back before he can see it is you and then down the ladder[10] to the AIMD[11] passageway, past the sweating Marines working on helo engines and bos'un mates working knots out of line, out into the big black hangar bay with the blast doors shutting out the Atlantic with the spray coming through the cracks and shiny black puddles on the deck and the overhead lights glowing yellow, tracking back into the shadows.

You cut past a bent back '46[12] with the engine mounts open and the gears and the gears of the turbines gleaming oily in the hangar bay lights and the twin rotors folded to the center like broken dragonfly wings, and you sway as the ship takes a big one rolling to the left and hanging there as you hang with it way out waiting and waiting for the boat to come back and always wondering if it really is coming back this time.

And it does and you reach the mess decks ladder and drop down it heels clicking ringing off the metal steps and as you fall as the deck drops away from your boots and you watch your ass for firefighting hoses and AFFF[13] cans and wireguides and waveguides and latches and hatches and angle iron sticking out from the walls and you can smell the musty smell of food kept too long in a freezer far below decks and then humped up four flights of steep ladder stairs and along cold metal passageways, dodging officers sorry sir and sailors coming through asswipe and Jarheads[14] get the fuck out of my way.

Sweaty musty fuel oil smell, scratchy new denim shirts that smell like mothballs, and too much food in big vats and mixing bowls that no one will eat this morning since they laid all night in their racks with their stomachs swaying way to the left and hanging there and then back to the right, some of them groaning deep in their guts[15] as they hang their chests out over the toilets in the head and watch the water going up and down and waiting for the sweet release of puking so they can get their asses back in their racks and maybe get some goddamn sleep tonight or any night because they've got the balls to four watch in the boiler room again cause the goddamn first class hates their guts because they are smarter than them and that lifer[16] knows it.

But you don't give a shit because you never get seasick, unless you need to lay down on the cold deck for a little while and take a nap, a nooner, a little downtime, since you had the fucking balls to four last night, with the second class[17] rattling your rack at 2330 telling you to rise and fucking shine sweetie and to get your ass on the bridge in 15 minutes or the chief will have your balls for breakfast.

So you got off watch at 0345, turning over course and speed to the next poor bastard to spend another four hours staring at the compass repeater, the rudder angle indicator, the lee helm[18], and the black shiny windows of the bridge, and then you couldn't sleep so you and the rest of the watch, the five of you, worked your way down two decks from the bridge, poking your heads out the flight deck hatch to watch a Cobra[19] spinning up until the first class airdale[20] hollered at you to shut that fucking hatch, and then down another deck, forward carefully through officer country, down a ladder and then another, around the corner past the quarterdeck and then forward to the ladder to the fo'c's'le.

Where the bo'sun chewed your ass and shagged you out and so now you are hitting the mess decks for some coffee and eggs and some bug juice.
Chapter two

It's your first float even though you are a third class already, because the advancement exams for bos'un mate are so ridiculously easy that a total rock could pass them and get rank, and you came out of boot camp a seaman anyway because you spent two years in that dumb ass community college before you decided to get your ass out of the shithole town in upstate New York before you died there, so you only had to pass one time and now you are a third class and you don't go on working parties[21] anymore or hang out in a cage to paint the hull on Christmas Eve in the sleet and the rain in Norfolk[22].

The first couple of days after you got your Marines in Morehead City[23] and headed out over the cold January ocean, you spent a lot of time up in the signal bridge smoking and drinking coffee with the signalmen and using the big eyes to look out over the cracking waves and watching the other poor bastards on the LSTs[24] and the LPDs[25] looking out their big eyes at you. And the ocean never stopped once and after three days you stopped taking the hike up seven ladders to get to the signal bridge because who wants to look at the fucking ocean anymore?

But the fourth night out a signalman[26] second you were eating with, Riggens, said it would be clear that night and that you ought to come up before your watch and take a look at the sky and you told him you had better things to do but after the tenth hand of poker on the mess decks and there was nothing good on the SITE-TV[27] and your watch was coming up in 45 minutes anyways, you climbed your way up there to see what he was talking about.

Riggens was out on the starboard wing of the signal bridge with a cup of coffee when you got up there and he said to look up and you looked up and there in the pitch black sky from one side up across the night there were stars like you never even saw them before, growing up in one bright glowing stream and when you looked up into the mast with the wet signal flags flopping and the boat leaning a little to the left and right it looked like the rigging could sweep them down into the smooth water swishing past the hull.

When you were a kid, and it was August, your dad would take you out in the back yard to watch the meteor showers and you would lay on your back on the plastic strap lawn chairs in the first frosty August night cold and shiver while you listened to dad tell you about how the Chi-coms would come over the hill and how a mortar fell on his buddy since boot camp and then he was gone all the while you watched the stars fall down around you.

A third class got out of working parties and got to lead watch teams and got to take charge of sea and anchor details[28] and was done with the shit pretty much since most guys with any brains who started in deck got the hell out as soon as they could, but you stayed in because it was really easy to get rank and anyone with any brains who stayed in deck didn't do any shit details anyways.

So you were the Bo 'sun's butt-boy, the deck department admin ape, but you still had to stand watches on the bridge and be on sea and anchor and be on the low visibility watch[29], but at general quarters[30] you didn't have to sweat your ass off in the firefighting suits you were a telephone talker[31] in the number one repair locker[32]. Which was excellent because a lot of the GQs went four-five hours and that's a long time to hold a hose.

But you came aboard as a seaman and had to go mess cranking, which was 90 days of working on the mess decks. You got the bug juice locker, which was pretty easy shit as long as you kept the big aluminum cans of bug juice topped up, dumping in the powder and smelling the sweet cherry or grape flavor in your nose and then filling them up with water with the spray nozzle and you kept a dozen or more always ready to hump out on the mess decks and up and over the lip of the bug juice dispenser and pouring the red or purple water down into the transparent tanks on top while the squids waited for you and bitched for their bug juice.

And keep the juice locker clean, which was a small room about 12 feet square with a big double sink in one corner and stainless steel counters all around and you learned to use a knife to dig the crud out of the cracks so when the chief hit your locker he'd say okay and you could get your ass on liberty. Which was Puerto Rico for your first liberty[33], the blue-green workups where the Marines and their helos and the SEALS and the commodore and staff came on and you all practiced all sorts of assaults and shit off Viegas Island off Puerto Rico.

And on your first night of liberty, you were on duty which meant you had to stay aboard and make bug juice while the other three sections[34] got to go ashore and get hammered and that night, the Filipino[35] chiefs were fishing off the fantail[36] and they brought a whole shitload of dead fish into your locker and you bet that they had a bottle back there for fishing because they were laughing and shouting in Tagalog[37] and they brought their fish in and cut them up on your stainless steel counters and there was fucking blood everywhere and then they took them into the galley and cooked them with lime and their own juices and then called you out to have some fish with them and it was actually pretty damn good and cool to chow down with them telling stories about fishing in the Philippines and growing up on the beaches and in the sun and so you didn't mind scrubbing the whole locker again.

Especially since now you and Chief Esteppa were buds and that the first class down on the reefer decks needed someone to help hump the food up four decks and so Esteppa came in to your locker the next day and said Kieffer how you say your gaddamn name you bastard you want to work on the reefer decks[38] with Leonard? Break outs is a fuck-easy detail for you if you work your goddamn ass off and then you got the whole afternoon to piss off. Except Leonard need to paint the goddamn reefer decks anyways. But it still fuck easy for you? You want to work on the reefer deck, huh, breakouts?[39]

Hell yea you want to work on the reefer deck it's a skate detail because your buddy Mike works down there and he told you that all you do is get the order from the chief and break out the food from the reefers and haul it up to the mess decks and then you are on your own and that Leonard is a good guy to work for not like the other first classes busting for chief and busting your ass while they do it.

So the next morning you are down in the reefer decks with Mike and Leonard and a black seaman named Ames who is really the first black guy you ever worked with upstate New York being a pretty white place anyways.

Except for boot camp when you were tossed in with 80 other guys half of them from Oklahoma and half of them from Harlem and the all of you sweating while the company commander chewed your ass for not having your butt crack in line with your pants pockets.

The first morning of boot camp you woke up when the chief whipped a goddamn garbage can 80 feet in the air so it hit the far wall of the compartment and you sat up on your sweaty plastic mattress where you slept in your civvies for about 15 minutes and watched the guy next to you fly through the air on his magic carpet mattress because the chief had yanked the whole goddamn thing off the top rack and on to the floor.

Your plane landed in Chicago and the intake guy herded all of you sleepy and not knowing where you were down to the sidewalk where you put your feet on black spray painted foot spots and stood there trying be at attention while the businessmen walked by and looked at and then grabbed a cab for the city, and when the bus got to Great Lakes some asshole climbed up the stairs and looked at you all with you hands on your bags and said real quiet that you got 30 seconds to get your asses off this bus and on to the spots on the sidewalk.

And in the middle of the night you stood there with your bag in your hand and your feet on the foot spots and wondered not for the last time what the hell you were doing there.

The next four days you only slept standing up in line[40] while they shoveled shit at you and you got about 20 shots in about 20 seconds from the air gun needles that blasted all sorts of weird shit into your arms and ate standing up while some asshole screamed at you to hurry the fuck up and marched in the cold August air of the Great Mistakes[41] Naval Training Center somewhere up near Chicago.

At the end of the first week you wanted to quit but at the end of the second week you had the shit down and were marching all over and doing push-ups and sit-ups and making your rack in 30 seconds and at the end of the fourth week you got yourself a skate job in the company commanders' office filling out reports and shit while the rest of those assholes mashed in the compartment.

And one afternoon while your pals were mashing, doing sit-ups with their pieces in their arms because some asshole had not made his rack properly and you were in the office keeping your head down and pretending to re-do a report and your company commander had lost his voice and invited the evil bastard from the company next door over to work on them, and he came into the office and saw you there and you shrank down a little and he told you to go out into his company's compartment, and down to the smoke and coke room and to unplug the coke machine.

So you jumped like a bunny and did what he told you to and your company was in there doing squat thrusts and you had no desire to join them and you got back into your office and buried your little nose back into a big book of regs and then about 30 minutes later, he came back into the office and told you to go back through his company's office and back down to the smoke and coke room and to plug the coke machine back in and you did.

And he went back out into your company's compartment and told your company to take a break, take a 10-minute smoke and coke and so all those guys all tired and thirsty ran into the smoke and coke room and they all bought themselves warm cokes and slugged them down, and smoked cigarettes and then that evil bastard called them all back into the compartment and had them start doing slow push-ups, up and then down on a ten count.

And about 30 seconds later the first guy started to puke and then the second guys started to puke, and then the third guys, and this evil bastard was down on his hands and knees and writing in the puke and hollering you are a rock and writing the word rock in the puke or you are a bug and writing the word bug in the puke and you got up and carefully closed the door to the office because you are a sympathy puker and were starting to feel a little sick.[42]

Chapter three

And so this was the story you were telling Mike the first afternoon on liberty after the three of you had broke out the food from the reefers and hauled it in steps up the four decks from the reefer deck up and then down the passageway to the mess decks. And at 1400, you were all three crossing the quarterdeck for Puerto Rico and the beach. And then Ames saw some of his buddies and headed off with the black guys and you and Mike walked down the pier and now Mike was telling you his booter stories.

His company commander was this old bastard, been in the Navy for twenty-some years and late at night in the office he told these guys this story about how he got out of basic in '67 and got orders to a shore det[43] in a place called Khe-Sanh[44] just a few days before the Viet Cong or someone surrounded the place for seventy-some days, and this guy had to learn how to shoot because they don't teach you that in Navy basic except for shooting some little .22 for one day.

And Mike tells you that this guys eyes would get all red while he was telling them about whacking guys with shovels and how the Viet Cong or whoever would play these long speeches at night over speakers while the flares would shoot up and light up the rice paddies or whatever in this eerie glowing shadowy bright light and you would see the Viet Cong or whoever coming over the dikes shooting their AKs with the tracers from the machine guns flying out over their heads and the mortars going whump and the Spads[45] coming in off the carriers and lighting up the whole treeline with napalm white, white, white in the night.

And Mike tells you how this guy went to work on the flight deck being a fuelie and how guys would get sucked into jet engines and come out the back all red mist and what a bitch it was to clean out the engines after[46] and so this guy, the company commander would walk into the compartment and yell hit the deck and then whip this big fucking stick whirling down the compartment and how this same guy would always get knocked in the head no matter how many times the CC would do this and how the CC would tell the guy that he was a dead man when he got on a carrier.

And how the CC had them all in school call one night and asked how many guys have girlfriends back home and a bunch of guys raised their hands and then he asked them how many of you want to find your girlfriends back home the way you left them and the same guys raised their hands and then the CC said freshly fucked? And all these guys got all sad.

And you have a good laugh over that since only assholes get married in their first tour because most of these women they only want the paycheck and they're off getting laid the night after you pull out for the cruise and you tell Mike about your first night on base when you went over to the enlisted club for a beer and you started dancing with this chick and then she asked if you wanted to go home with her and when you didn't answer right away she said it was okay because her husband was out at sea[47].

And by that time you were at the little dive shop and you both rent some flippers and a mask and a snorkel and then you walked down to this huge shallow beach and put on the gear and floated out into the gulf water clear and blue with little schools of blue and yellow fish and some big ones and just miles of sand and warm water that never gets much deeper than four feet and you don't come up for about an hour before you go back on the beach and smoke some smokes and just lay there and let the boat drain off you.

Later you hit beer on the pier because no one can go in to town unless you are on a tour because the local yokels hate the squids in Rosey Roads[48] so the base puts out some beers and the local wine for you for a buck a pop and some of the guys are getting pretty hammered sitting on the pier in the warm night with their legs dangling over the side looking down at the oily water and you are talking to the mess decks chief Esteppa who is pretty hammered himself and buying you and Mike beers and saying how that fish last night was pretty damn good, right Kieffer while you and Mike are talking about this 19-year-old squid from the boat got himself killed buying a crotch rocket and running it into a bridge at about 110[49]. And you drink your warm beer on the pier with it running sweet down the back of your throat and looking up at smooth black Gulf Stream sky and wonder if this is the world you joined the Navy to see. And maybe it is.
Chapter Four

So one morning you're talking to the quartermaster who does navigation and shit like that and he tells you that the boat is three days out from Rota[50] and you go and find Mike who works in the Admin office and you got out on the sponson[51] where the Sea-whiz[52] is and since you know the FCs[53] pretty well they let you hang out there as long as the boat's not at flight quarters.

After a while, the FC who is a second class and on his second float comes out for a smoke with you guys and you ask him about Rota and what it's like, and he tells you that it's a little shit hole town in Spain but that they got a pretty good gut, and like a total booter you have to ask him what a gut is and he tells you that it's like a part of town where the whorehouses are, and a lot of bars, and that's where all the squids go to get their rocks off because its totally legal there.

And you've only been laid twice, once in high school and you are still not really sure you got laid and then once with that crazy arts chick from the community college one night in her apartment, and you were so stoned that night you still don't remember a lot of it except that you woke up in the middle of the night in her bed and you went out to piss, and you saw that she had a whole room of pictures of abortions, of women getting abortions and of abortions and shit like that and you went back in her room and got your pants and your shirt and your socks and your shoes on like a little mouse and got the hell out of there and ended up getting a ride into town on a freaking milk truck and who knew that there were still milk trucks anyways?

You tell Mike and the FC this story, except the part about it being only your second time, and you not remembering it much, and they laugh their asses off and you all decide to hit Rota together and go down to the gut and get laid.

But that night while you are walking down the passageway past combat one of the OS[54] guys leans out and tells you to come in here and see something cool and you go in and he's got a computer and on the screen is a map of the Persian Gulf and Iraq and he says watch this and points at all these little dots popping up in the Gulf and he says that this is the Navy Tactical Data System and that all those dots are little cruise missiles getting shot out of submarines and from the battleships and the destroyers and the Aegis cruisers and then he shows you where all the little planes are going in to bomb the shit out of Iraq and how this is the start of the war and this is all happening right then and its just like a Tom Clancy book but this is real[55].

You go down to deck berthing and tell the guys that the war just started and they all say bullshit and you're a dumbass by the next morning the Skipper[56] comes on the 1MC[57] and tell you all that this is the real shit and that you are at war now and that we are in three-section combat steaming now and that no-one's going off base in Rota and you say that sucks the big one.

Chapter Five

So you're out on the forward catwalk[58] hanging out fifty feet above the water with a life jacket and a helmet on, after the chief came down and got your ass out of your rack which is a little seven-foot by three-foot box they stick you in when they're done with you for the day, yours is a bottom rack you got when the third class who had it finally got off the boat and out of the Navy and he told you that day was like taking the biggest shit of his life it felt so good[59].

Anyways it'll be another two years and nine months before your enlistment is up, so you have all that time to enjoy the bottom rack, which is a pretty good deal because you just have to roll out of there in the morning, but the guys who rack above you step on your sheets all the time, especially the guy in the top rack whenever he needs to get anything out of his coffin locker which is the space below your mattress that flips up and has a little drawer.

You have that, which is about eight inches deep, and a stand-up locker if you're lucky, and that's all the space they give you on this 600-foot long boat, but when you pull your curtains it's all yours, you have a little light in there and a three-inch deep mattress and a scratchy wool blanket that you've gotten used to, and you lay in there rolling back and forth when the ship is rocking big and wonder what it would be like if it one time kept going all the way over and the water would rush in to the compartment and that's where you'd die.

There's a hole in the hull, a long crack in the wall of the head where the tug hit the boat the day you pulled out of Morehead City and if you sit outboard to take a dump you can look through it and watch the water run by about ten feet below only don't sit there when the seas are big because the water sprays in and gets you all wet[60].

The crack runs forward about ten feet from the shitters and into the shower and that's a good thing when the seas are up because the sea water is really pretty refreshing, especially when you are on water hours and have to take Navy showers where you turn on the water and get yourself wet and then turn it off and soap up and then turn it back on to rinse off and you can use the sea water to rinse yourself off some before you hit the spray again.

You heard that in the old days the toilets were just long troughs with salt water running down them and a big hole at the end and the guys would kind of squat down on them to take their dumps and every so often a wise ass would light a bunch of toilet paper and sail it down from the high end singeing all those hairy asses a chief told you that one morning as you swabbing out the head and bitching about the hole in the hull.

He told you that these old boats were built cheap out of aluminum that burns if it gets hot enough and engines from a World War Two battleship and the only armor is around DC Central where the guys sit and plot out the damage to the boat if you get hit and that's why a fucking tug can put a hole in you not to mention a Exocet and then he left and you stood there leaning on your swab and thinking about that.

Like the one that hit the Stark[61] that you watched videos of the damage one night on SITE-TV while the DCA[62] explained just how much it would suck if you got hit by one of them and how we all have to watch our asses and practice damage control, and no one laughed much or even talked in the whole dark berthing while you were watching it especially when you could see a sneaker from one of the guys who got killed and you remember when you had sneakers like that – Nike high tops.

So anyways you are out on the sponson and it's dark because it's 0330 and the water is slick with barely any waves, but it's foggy as hell and you can't see shit as the bow cuts through the soft water, and the rushing sound makes you need to pee and you tell the guy that you are on low vis. detail with that you got to pee and he says whiz over the side and so while he watches out for the first class, you whip it out and take a long pee fifty feet down off the catwalk into the ocean, your pee breaking up and scattering all over the ocean and the hull, and you zip it up just as the first class comes out of the flight deck shelter hatch to come down to you guys to tell you that they are securing the low vis watch, and the Skipper is pissed at the booter ensign who called the watch out and now you spent two hours out on the catwalk, listening to nothing and seeing less, and reveille is at 0600, and by the time you get back to your rack you'll have only two hours more to sleep tonight and there's a GQ[63] this morning at 0800.

And a dogging wrench is a big honking steel wrench a foot and a half long that weighs about ten pounds you use to turn the nuts on watertight doors, and when you get back to Deck berthing to crawl into your rack to try to get some goddamn sleep before you got to get back up in about an hour, there's a bunch of guys around your rack and one of them is holding his head with blood on his fingers and another guy you know is holding a dogging wrench and he is telling the first class that this is the third time that fucking faggot tried to crawl into his rack and so he whacked him.

The lights are all off except the red night lights and the first class and everybody else looks at the guy with his head all bloody with the blood black in the light and you all know that it's true and the first class looks around and says that the guy must have tripped going up the stairs[64] and knocked his head and he looks around at every body and you all decide, even the guy with the bloody head, that's true too and the bloody guy goes up the ladder to Med to get his head patched up and you all go back to your racks and the guy you know is telling everybody that he warned the poor fucker for the last time and then you all crawl into your racks and try to get some sleep.

And while you're lying there in your rack and waiting to go to sleep you think about all the homos on the boat, because everyone knows who they are, and most guys except for some of the chiefs don't give a shit what anyone does off the boat to whoever they want to do it to however they want to do it, just stay the fuck away from me on the boat[65], and that the gay guy in electronics is probably the best ET on the boat and no one gives a shit, and then you remember the big white bird that floated in out of the fog and landed on the flight deck on the bow just about thirty feet from you when you were out on low vis and stood there in the dark, lit red from the port side bow light while you and that other guy watched and didn't say a thing, and then he flapped his wings and took off, and you wonder where the hell he came from and where the hell he went and then you fall asleep.

Chapter Six

All the lights go in the berthing at 0600 and that prick second class is going around whipping open everyone's curtains and yelling at them to get the fuck out of the rack and even saying drop your cocks and grab your socks, goddamn some people want to make chief so bad.

So you wake up from a dream where you were waterskiing and kept wiping out and then wait just a second for the two guys above you to swing out before you roll out to make sure they don't kick you in the head, and then you sit on the edge of your rack and pull your pants on, then your socks, then your boots and you stand up and turn around and flip up your mattress and grab an undershirt and a shirt out of the coffin, and then you grab your shaving kit and close the locker and lock it and go into the head where its steamy and about twenty guys are all trying to shave at six mirrors.

You take a piss and consider a dump, and then go find a spot at the sinks and lather up and shave, and then push at your hair which is still pretty short and had a little of that ATD[66] swirl left over, when you hit boot camp they shaved your head and it grew back in a big swirl that, with the big black birth control glasses that they give you, pretty much ensure you won't get laid for a long time, even a year and a three months later.

You dump your shit into your locker and head out for the mess decks and see that there are about a thousand fucking Marines already in the chow line, and so you cut back out of there and up to the hangar bay and across and then down the ladder by Personnel, and to the back way into the galley and you look in until you see that third class messman[67] you know and you catch his eye and he comes to the door and you hook up for a plate of real scrambled eggs and some bacon that he owes you for the paint hook-up[68] you got him when the messdecks office needed painting done, and you go out on the messdecks and eat before GQ.

And while you are eating, the first class from the berthing comes up and sits down by you and says that the chiefs got wind of how that guy got his head smacked in last night and how they're going to process his ass off the boat in Rota and how that guy was on the Flying Squad as a phone talker and how that spot is open and how he got the chief to put you on it and how you get a red turtleneck and get head of the line privileges[69].

That the flying squad is the first responders to fires and emergencies on the boat and it's a good job to have, especially since this gets you off low vis so no more getting your ass out of the rack to go out and stand on the catwalk in horizontal rain with the waves breaking over the bow at oh-dark-fucking-thirty, and the first class is looking at you like he just saved your fucking life and he's really not a bad guy but you are so goddamn tired you think you're going to puke, but you work up some enthusiasm and say thanks and where do I get the turtlenecks and he says to go down and see Senior Chief Rodriguez in Supply after GQ.

The alarm bell starts to gong, gong, gong while the Bos'un blows his pipe and says this is a drill this is a drill general quarters general quarters all hands man your battle stations and you get up and dump your tray at the scullery window while you trot by, because Repair One is just up the ladder, and then you remember up and forward starboard and down and aft port, and so you need to cut back across the mess decks to the starboard ladder to get up to the hangar bay.

The big blast doors are ringing and thundering shut across the elevator holes, and guys are running all over the hangar bay, their boots thudding to their battle stations and you cut across the hangar bay and into the Repair One locker where you get your sound-powered phones out of their little box and put them on and test your connection with DC Central[70] while the hosemen pull on their firefighting suits and OBAs[71] and helmets and then flake out the fire hoses and the chief is hollering the whole time and you are stuffing your pants into your socks and buttoning your collar too tight against your Adam's apple[72] and he's trying to take muster and when he's done you shout down the wire that you are manned and ready while the 1MC ticks off five minutes.

It takes seven minutes for the whole boat to get to their battle stations and man up with the airdales on the flight deck spinning up the ready helo, Cobras with sidewinders on the rails, and the three-inch fifties'[73] rounds sliding into the racks and the mount spinning out on the bearing and the fifty-cals[74] loading up and the Sea-Whiz jerking around searching for targets, and the ship heeling into a turn to put the formation against the threat axis while the commodore puts on his helmet and sits down in his chair and bitches, but he knows that seven minutes is pretty damn good for a gator[75] as watertight doors slam shut on men who are now where we'd find them if this was real and not one of us isn't thinking about that a little.

So you sit and you sweat, with little drops pooling up in your ears and you listen hard because these sound-powered phones don't work very good, and you need to peer down them with your ears listening to the ghost crackle of the electricity, and the other guys breathing hard all over the boat, and you still listen while you scrabble around in the angle iron looking for a grease pencil, and you find one and pick it out and unwind the paper around the tip so you have something to write with, and then you find the Windex bottle and some paper towels and you wipe down the plotting board, all the while hearing the pops and the snaps and the breathing hard of the guys all sitting like you are in the repair lockers one, two, three, four, five, and seven (why not six?) and in DC Central, all sweating with their phones on their heads and the mouth piece tucked under their chins and you all are waiting.

You hear a whisper Hey Kieffer heard you had a fag in your berthing last night you hear and you swear under your breath and you push the talk button and you say I hear you guys have a fag in your berthing every night, baby and he says I heard the guy fell up the stairs into a dogging wrench and you push the talk button and say I don't know what happened, but he was bleeding pretty good and the guy says you guys don't fuck around in Deck and you say it was the third time the motherfucker tried to crawl into the guys rack and then you hear a click as the DCA dials on to your circuit and tells you guys to shut the fuck up.

And the first call comes out incoming missile starboard side brace for impact, and you do that thing from Airport or whatever and lay yourselves over OBA cylinders and cans of fire-fighting foam, and get a good laugh out of the chief but the ensign looks like he doesn't know whether to laugh or chew your asses, and then you hear hit alpha starboard side (which is the side you are on), and Repair One provide, and then the guys go clumping out of the repair locker dragging hoses and axes and infrared sensors that look like big camping flashlights, and it's all the sudden real quiet in the repair locker with just you and the chief and the ensign all waiting to get the report.

And then this guy runs into the locker with a little piece of paper with triangles and shit written on it and he hands it to the chief who hands it to you, and you push the talk button and say DC Central Repair One Class Bravo fire[76] in the hangar bay starboard side frame 96[77] and the guy in central (some yeoman shit) repeats it back to you, and then you go to the plotting board and draw a little triangle with an A in it at frame 96 hangar bay starboard side on the map of the ship and then you hear on the 1MC fire, fire, fire, class bravo fire hangar bay frame 96 Repair One provide, and then you hear incoming missile starboard side and then brace for impact, and this time you don't do the comedy bit, and then hit bravo starboard side, and you listen for the report and then hear fire, fire, fire, class bravo fire on the flight deck, starboard side, frame 30 and then you hear on the phones to set primary and secondary fire boundaries, and you write it all down on the message blank and hand it to the chief who hollers for a runner and sends him off.

The fire is under control, and then out, and then a reflash watch is set, and then they dewater[78] the compartment, even though it's the hangar bay and all the water would just run out the elevator doors, and while all this is going on you can feel the seas getting bigger and watch the spare OBAs rock back and forth, wider and wider, and you are more tired than you were last night when you stood on the catwalk, and then you remember that you need to get your ass down to supply to get the flying squad shirts so you can have head of the line privileges, and then the whole ship secures from GQ and you wrap up the phones and stow them in the little box, and wipe down the plotting board and put the grease pencil up in an angle iron and make a little note in your head where you left it for the next time, and then you head on up on the hangar bay where the blast doors are opening back up, as the ship heels to port as it comes back on course with the MARG and you all are heading into Rota and the Med[79] finally.

So it's late at night and you just came off your last bridge watch with the Bos'un pissing and moaning about having to re-do his watch bill, and you type it in and print it out for him, and really like it that your name is not on it finally since you are on the flying squad now, and can't take the wheel because you'd need to go to a fire but still you already miss the feeling of that wheel in your hands and the way you have to use a little back rudder to pull the boat right on to the course the Officer of the Deck sets, and how the whole ship does what you tell it to but still who wants to sit on a dark, dark bridge with the faces reflected in the windows and the Skipper snoozing away in his chair and snoring, and everyone laughing a little at that and then right five degrees rudder new course 275 sir my rudder is right five degrees coming to new course 275 and the compass clicking around to 273 and then you put the rudder over left five to steady and then sir steady on new course 275 very well.

With the GQ and your last watch done you are feeling pretty good about your day, and so you fill your mug of coffee on the mess decks and head down to the berthing, but the movie on SITE-TV is Roadhouse[80] again and you are tired of beating off to that shit so you get up and go up on the hangar bay.

Chapter Seven

The seas are whipping up pretty good by now, getting into Rota tomorrow is going to be a bitch if this keeps up, the waves crack against the hull and the wind whips cold spray into the hangar bay, cold January ocean on your face but it feels good and there is a pretty good crowd standing around the elevator doors watching the waves run by, and the ship rolling and heeling and humming deep on the port rolls like breathing and cutting into the ocean moving pretty good for a 30-year-old ship at 18 knots[81], you could water ski behind her tonight.

Even though the hangar bay is about 15 feet above the water, the seas are rising and coming up to the deck level, and you all ooh and aah as they rise and fall, with the ship leaping through some of them and diving through others, and coming over hard and the helos straining against their tie-down chains, and someone says the Skipper is making sure we hit Rota tomorrow and someone says for what, more beer on the pier and then you look out over the waves and see one build on another and rise up above the deck level and you back off.

And tell this guy you know from engineering to get back some, as the wave comes up and then the top half of it washes into the hangar bay and floods out over the tie downs and up to your ankles, but some booter[82] who was leaning out over the stanchions gets knocked down and then the return wave, the water flowing out of the hangar bay, catches him in his back and just like that he slips under the lifeline grabbing and missing the stanchion and goes over the side and down, down, down into the black cold water. Like an otter.

And everybody loses their shit and they call man overboard and the ship slows down like it hit a big wall of jello because it takes the boat more than a mile to come to a full stop from 18 knots, and people are running all over to be mustered even though we all know who it was who went over the side, and that booter is in the water, but no one can see him since he's already about 500 yards back and that water is cold as shit about 40 degrees.

And on the flight deck you can hear the chains dragging as they get the ready helo ready for lift off and the SAR crew is being briefed in, and all the while time keeps on tickin' and the deck department (you helping) are getting a ship's boat out on the davits and ready for lowering, but by the time the helo is crewed and spooled up, and by the time the boat is ready to lower, it's been at least five minutes and maybe more like ten, and then the word is passed that the commodore has decided to not put a boat in the water in these seas, and to not launch a helo at night, and to not risk ten men for one man who is probably already dead[83].

And the booter's friend is standing by the elevator doors and he's saying holy shit and holy fuck and his first class is standing by him and saying that it makes sense because the motherfucker's already dead and there's no good reason to put other guys in danger, but the booter's shaking and he's crying and still saying holy shit and holy fuck, and the first class pulls him away from the elevator door and down the ladder to the mess decks, and you think about that girl you knew from high school who put her Mustang II into a tree over by the Thirsk farm flying off that long smooth curve and smashing into that big tree right on the top of the curve, and she died just one month before graduation and how this makes just about as much sense.

And that sucks but you help get the boat back in the davits and secure it while the helo is chocked and chained, and you all are thinking of that poor bastard back there in the water with the ice in his veins and the lungs frozen and full, and his body floating half in and half out of the water in the swirling wake of the ships, and by the time you hit berthing Roadhouse is almost over but you still go back to your rack and with a hundred other guys wait until everyone is asleep before you whack off[84].

Chapter Eight

In the morning you wake up and remember that you don't have any more bridge watches and you realize that for the first time since you got on the boat you can live like a normal squid, getting up and hitting chow and going to work and hitting chow and watching a movie and playing cards and hitting the rack, and it really feels good, like you graduated from something, and you hit the head to shit and shave and hit the mess decks for some breakfast, and then get to the deck department office punch in the combination (7-18-54-6), and fire up the computer, deck department yeoman don't do whole lot since they stand watches and do sea and anchor normally, so after you print out the morning muster you grab your mug and haul your ass up[85] to the admin office to make some copies, stopping on the way to top off the coffee[86].

And then you get back to the deck office and help the Bo'sun figure out the new watch bill and he says goddamnit Kieffer on the flying squad now I gotta put Simmons on the helm and the Skipper hates that bastard and he's gonna be bitching at me and I'm gonna be bitching at you but you figure it out and format it for him on the PC and print it out on the dot matrix the head zipping back and forth and then you play Tetris[87] for about an hour.

While you play, sorting the little boxes as they come down faster and faster, the Bos'un tells you that the guy overboard last night was a engineering booter come up to see the ocean, and that the Cheng was bitching about deck not having the blast doors shut or the right lifelines in, and the Skipper wants new rules about guys on the hangar bay, and it was just one of those weird things, every boat loses some guys every float[88] but the goddamn officers are all going for rank all the time, and they need to show the commodore that they're doing something about it, and that one of the escorts picked up the body this morning, and they're gonna fly the kid back home from Rota and his buddy's going with him since he was crying in the corner of engineering berthing last night[89], and wouldn't stop and he's going to get a psych eval[90] and probably be sent home.

After the watch bill is done you need to make copies and post them around in the berthing, and so you are glad to get the hell out of the office and go to personnel to use their copier, and when you're done with that, you cop a squat on the mess decks and drink some more coffee and then remember that you need to go get your flying squad turtlenecks so you cut down the ladder to the supply office and ask the senior chief about it and he tells you that the DCs[91] have the shirts so you need to go see them so you climb back up four ladders to the hangar bay and walk out to see a bunch of guys standing by the elevator doors looking for Spain, but the seas are back down though the boat is still hauling ass, and so you back up the AIMD tunnel forward past the deck office to where the DCs hang out in a little corner up in the bow below the fo'c's'le.

And the DCs are all laying around, out two sacked out on the big angle irons on the hull, as big as a bed with blankets and pillows and shit, and the first class is sitting at the workbench messing with a P-250 pump, and a couple of other guys are playing cards on a desk, and one other guy is just sitting his back against the bulkhead[92] laying back on the curve of the bow, with the radio on playing wild Spanish music, and you tell them that you are the new telephone talker on the flying squad and you need some turtlenecks, and they tell you to go ask supply for them, and you say that you asked supply and supply said to talk to them, and the first class reaches behind him with his boot and nudges the guy laying against the hull and says go below to the storeroom and see if we got any more turtlenecks down there for Kieffer.

You start to go out the door but the first class says wait, what have you got for the turtlenecks, and then he says we need to paint for the office and do you got any white paint up in the paint locker, and you say sure how much do you want and he looks around at the walls and says four gallons and you tell him to go see Stillwater in the paint locker and he'll hook you up and so you get your turtlenecks and he gets his paint and no one has to fill out any goddamn paperwork and the first class tells Monroe to get you some of the new ones.

And so you, and this guy whose name is Monroe, you and Monroe go back out in the hangar bay and then you follow him down the messdecks ladder and then down the DC central ladder and then down another two ladders, down deep into engineering, and it gets hot, and you can hear just this roar of the boilers and steam and turbines spinning, and you go down another ladder, and then down a real ladder to some storeroom, and the water in the bilges[93] is flooding left and right and washes through the grating and over your boot and then Monroe pulls a huge roll of keys off his belt and tries about twenty before he hits the right one.

He opens the hatch and the two of you go into the storeroom, and he roots around through some old dirty shirts and then digs out four new ones still in the plastic, and he tosses them to you and then he digs out a paper stencil with black spattered paint and cutouts of two crossed axes below flames, and tells you to get them stenciled and stencil your name where the left pocket would be and then you go back out with your foot still all wet and the air hot and a pipe sending steam shooting out toward your face and it's loud, and Monroe shouts something at you and you turn to say what and trip on a kneeknocker[94], and one of the turtlenecks falls off the top of the pile and hits the grating just as a wave of bilgewater floods over it, and you say shit and Monroe just laughs and then you start laughing, and then realize that you and a black guy are laughing together, which is weird because you never knew a black guy until you got to boot camp and now it doesn't seem like such a big deal[95].

You and Monroe climb back up the ladders with the sound of the fires and the turbines and the steam rushing through pipes getting softer and softer, and finally when you hit the mess decks and the DC central door shuts behind you, it's so nice and quiet you feel like you have to pop your ears and Monroe looks at you and says I said look out for the kneeknocker and you laugh again you holding the nasty bilgewater turtleneck out and then dropping it in the trash can and Monroe saying I'll get you another one when we get them in and then the two of you pretty much pals now go back up forward, you to the deck office and him to the DCs' space.

Chapter Nine

The sun is blinding and you blink at the white spots bouncing off the water leaving holes in your eyes and feel how the seas have fallen and the ship is moving smoothly with you riding its back as it flows into the harbor and you see the pilot boat[96] chugging out with a man dressing in black with a little cap on his head, he's the pilot and the first Spanish man you will ever see.

You shift the clipboard to your other hand and reach up and pull your cap down on your head, pulling the visor down low against the top of your glasses and the bridge bites into your nose, smelling the salt air and the smells of the brown land rising up from the sea, with low hills and a small white town in the curve of the harbor as the ship slows and the pilot boat comes along side.

You move to the edge of the bridge wing and hear the 1MC call to the deck guys on the quarterdeck to prepare to receive the pilot and then call to the ship to man the sea and anchor detail and now you are on duty so you take your clipboard into the suddenly dark bridge and get the log from the quartermaster and snap the clip over it and find your pencil and hear the orders to the helm and carefully, slowly write it down, ahead one-third, as the helmsman reaches forward to the brass lever and pulls it back one click, the signal reaching down to the engine room where some guy will adjust a valve and then the pointer on the dial clicks back one stop, Aye aye sir, he understands and will obey.

You wait and then wait until the pilot comes on to the bridge, a small, brown man with a moustache and small quick hands and dark eyes, with black pants and shirt and a white cap with Spanish on it and the Skipper talks to him while you stand across the bridge at the chart table and the Gator talks to the Skipper and the pilot and you wait and then wait until the pilot comes over to the chart table and then you can see that his skin is pocked with marks and that his arms are covered with dark hairs and then he says something low and quiet to the Gator.

Then the Gator calls out loudly attention in the pilothouse I have the conn[97] and then captain recommend rudder left ten degrees new course zero four five ahead two thirds, speed twelve knots and the Skipper calls back very well and then the Gator repeats left ten degrees rudder come to new course zero four five ahead two thirds make turns for twelve knots and the helmsman spins his wheel and catches it and calls sir my rudder is left ten degrees coming to new course zero four five and the Gator says very well and the helmsman pushes the lever on the lee helm forward two clicks and calls ahead two-thirds making turns for twelve knots and your look at the clock and on your piece of paper you write down in all caps 1425 RUDDER LEFT 10 AHEAD 2/3 as the helmsman calls out passing nine zero and the Gator says very well.

And then the helmsman says passing zero eight zero and the Gator calls out belay your headings and the helmsman says aye aye sir and focuses on the big flat compass in front of him and you watch the pointer swing to zero seven zero, zero six zero, zero five zero, and then the helmsman spins his wheel back the other way to five degrees right and the pointer slows down and edges toward zero four five and then the helmsman brings the wheel and the rudder back to center and the pointer slows and stops on zero four four and so he brings the wheel back right and the pointer nudges finally on to zero four five and he says steady on new course zero four five and the Gator says very well and you understand that you understand all of this and you jot down 1438 COURSE 045 on the log[98].

You remember how the Skipper was dead on about pulling out on time and how the day you left for workups for this deployment he ordered the boat backwards out from the piers into the Norfolk shipping channel at exactly 0800 even though this huge container ship was bearing down and you looked aft and calculated in your head that these two boats might smash into each other with an almighty crash and the container boat laid on its horn and you whispered to the OOD and asked him what the log entry was for collision at sea you are a real wise-ass sometimes.

And it goes on like that as the afternoon sun dips below the edge of the bridge windows and then is behind the ship, casting tall skinny shadows of helicopters and flight deck tractors and antennas and masts and men down the flight deck ahead of you, and the pilot whispers and the Gator calls out and the captain confirms and the helmsman obeys, and the rudder orders ring down the wire 300 feet to aft steering where two men read them and turn the levers that move the rudder left and right and the engine orders sing down the wire eight or ten decks to main control where a chief reads them and his men adjust the flow of live steam into the turbines and the shaft turns slower and faster and below the fantail the huge fucking propeller beats the sea into a froth.

And the tugs come out, three in a neat vee, and they spin off and make fast to the bow to the stern and amidships starboard and the ship begins its surrender as the pilot sits up and pulls a radio from his belt and walks out on the bridge wing and calls to them to slow the ship and push its bow around, and the Skipper gets up from his chair and goes out the hatch to him, and listens to the commands scrambled in Spanish and all the sudden you know that there are Spanish guys on the tugs and Spanish guys on the pier waiting the catch the lines and Spanish guys in town – Spanish kids and taxi drivers and office workers and housewives and teachers and fire men and policemen and women and then you look up and see that you are at least four orders behind and you look at the chart and figure out what they must have been and jot down your best guesses while the Spanish people come closer and closer.

You are secured from sea and anchor detail and you put the clipboard on the chart table and go below, down the ladder to the flight deck and you walk all the way out on the port elevator, out over the pier where you can look down and watch a crane lift the brow off the pier and swing it over and set it down on the quarterdeck and a slight of steel stairs and watch the deck guys tie it down and the Bo'sun looks up and see you standing there and gives you the finger.

You salute him just to piss him off and then go forward to a ladder than drops you down on the catwalk, and then cut into the hull into a flight deck shelter, through a Marine berthing where the jarheads are grab-assing and getting dressed for liberty, and then aft to a ladder and you drop down to the hangar bay and then down to the second deck and then down another ladder to Deck berthing.

Chapter Ten

You grab a shower and shave and run your hand through your hair and then put your pants and shirt and underwear and socks into the laundry bag and kneel down and open your coffin locker and pull out jeans, not bellbottoms, and white socks, not black, and a red cotton shirt, not blue denim, and sneakers, not boots, and you hop around six other guys and put on these clothes and feel lighter and freer and looser but you know that you still smell like fuel oil and JP-5[99] and steel and bilge water and ship.

But still the commodore lifted the base restriction which means you can actually go out in town, but watch your ass because this part of Spain is pretty Muslim and right now your fellow squids are pounding Muslims over in Iraq, you read in the ship's shitty little paper the fuck-off JOs[100] write that the Air Farce and the Navy are flying something like a thousand missions a day, and dropping tons and tons and tons of bombs on the Iraqis, and now the battleships are pulling up to shore and firing those big fucking sixteen inch guns at the Republican Guard, and still you hear how there's going to be like 15,000 casualties when we do invade their asses.

And you wonder what it's like to be cruising in at like a thousand miles an hour in a little plastic bubble with your breath in your ears, and a little screen telling you to drop, drop, drop right now or hear the sirens going off as you hunker down in your basement and wait for those big fucking bombs to rain down on your ass.

And on the hangar bay you run into Mike and he's got two of his buddies from the personnel office with him and the four of you get your asses across the quarterdeck to request permission to leave the ship, very well turn and face the stern and then across the brow across the oily black water and then tumble down the stairs and out on the pier, and you breathe really deeply and somehow it is suddenly all funny that you are in Spain and going out for a beer.

So it's about ten o'clock you are pretty hammered and liberty expires at midnight, and just like you know it's going to happen one of Mike's buddies, the tall guy with the mustache says let's get laid and so you cut down a street and another in the dark cold your feet rattling down the stones and your jokes and your laughs making little puffs in the cold sharp air and then the Mustache Guy, he's a second class, says there it is and I hope Rita remembers me and then you are all at the door to the whorehouse and you stop outside while the other three guys go in and you look up at the sky and think about it and then you go in anyway.

And inside its dark and smoky, and there's a long room with a bar at one end, and all these benches along the walls, and a Budweiser sign over the bar above the head of this big guy who is looking at you guys like he's pissed at you, but he pours quatro cervasas por favor into little dirty narrow glasses and you all dig around in your pockets and get out the pesos and slide them on the bar and order quatro more beers, and then while he's pouring you see that the other three guys are turned around and you turn around with them and lean against the bar while this pretty fat chick with a long skirt and big brown eyes and huge tits comes towards you, and you can see that she's old and you hope that you don't get her.

But she's the owner and her name is Rita and she says she remembers the Mustache Guy, whose name you still can't remember, and he talks to her in a little Spanish and a little English and then he turns around and says that Rita's got four girls for us, and Rita goes to the stairs in the corner by the door and hollers something in Spanish up the stairs, and you can hear footsteps across the ceiling and then they come to the stairs, and then the girls come down the stairs, but the Mustache Guy tells you he's going with Rita, at least for the first time, and you all say how much and the Mustache Guy says it's 20 pesos each time, and you all check your pockets and Mike is down to 13 so his other friend, this dorky-looking skinny third class who is still wearing his BC glasses, gives him twenty and then the girls are in front of you and the Mustache Guy is already at the stairs pushing at Rita's butt as she trundles up in front of him and then suddenly it's very quiet.

And you look up at the four girls in front of you, and they stand in front of you in tight shorts and tight shirts with their tits pushing out at you, and their asses and their smooth brown legs, and then the Dork some how reaches out first and takes the hand of the best-looking one with long dark hair and she nods and then they walk to the stairs and go up and then it's just you and Mike, and Mike says which one do you want and you shrug because you are really not sure what the fuck you are going to do about this and then Mike says don't worry you got a rubber, right and you do and there it is in your front left pants pocket and Mike says you can't catch anything if you got a rubber on.

Then Mike says fuck it I'm tired of beating off, I'm getting laid and he grabs the hand of the tall one who has braces and a shirt that says Saint Louis Cardinals on it, and then they're gone up the stairs and you look up to hear their footsteps walk across the ceiling, and when you look down its just you and the bartender who is watching soccer on the television, and these two girls.

You drink the rest of your beer and reach around and pick another off the bar and then you turn to face the girls and the one on the right is taller and she has a scar that curls up the corner of her lip and runs up to her eyebrow, and her hair is short and her neck is shaved and she has about twenty rings all over her fingers and she raises her eyebrow, not the scarred one but the other, in a question and the one on the left is shorter and her hair is curly and runs down over her shoulders and she has a loose green tank top on and one strap is off her shoulder, and she's a little chunkier and has on high heels with a broken strap on one, and she looks like she's about fifteen and you say to her hi.

And she kind of smiles a little and then you drink the rest of that beer and reach around behind you without looking for another beer and you knock over a glass on the bar, and you turn and see the beer run across the metal top and make a puddle, and the bartender turns from the soccer game and frowns at you and he pulls a rag off his shoulder and comes over and wipes up the beer, and you take another beer and turn around and look at the girls and drink that one too.

You say hi again and the tall girl on the right makes a face and puts her hand on her hip and taps her foot, and the young girl smiles at you and then you hear the Mustache Guy come clumping down the stairs and he comes over to you and says that's a load off my mind and Rita's chunky but the girl knows how to fuck a guy, and he sees that there are no more beers and then you turn back to the bartender and say quatro cervasas por favor and pay for them all.

While the bartender is filling up four more beers and sliding them one by one over to you, the Mustache Guy, he says haven't you gone up yet it's eleven o'clock and we got to get out of here by eleven-thirty to make it back to the boat on time and you say that you're trying to decide and he says hell if you don't want them then I'll take them both, and he turns to the taller one and says how much for two how much cuanto por dos chickitas and then tall one nods, she understands and says trente y cinco pesos and the Mustache Guy reaches into his pockets and has twenty-five pesos and says to you lend me ten pesos and you say no.

And the Mustache Guy says c'mon you pussy, lend me ten fucking pesos... if you don't want to get laid then let me, and you see the Dork come down the stairs acting like he's zipping up his pants and he comes over and is smiling, and says how's it going and the Mustache Guy it's going great and that these two gals will both do him for thirty and that this dickhead won't lend me five fucking pesos and then the Dork says I'll give you ten and I'll do them both with you and the young girl is looking nervous and you say wait I'm doing this one and you point at the young girl.

And the Mustache Guy and the Dork are both pissed, and the Mustache Guy says no way bro I called her first and me and Wilkerson, who is the Dork, are going to go rodeo on them we're going front and back and you say no and grab the hand of the young girl, and she looks scared and then the Dork shoves you back against the bar and says watch it bitch, and you push away from the bar and give him a shove and then the bartender is over the bar and standing between you breathing hard, and then the Dork says fuck you and the Mustache Guy says let him have her, we'll take this one and says to the tall girl how much for the two of us cuanto por dos muchachos and the tall one says trente pesos and then the Mustache Guy says let him have the little one, at least we know he's not some homo or something.

And then they are gone and you are left standing there with the young girl, and you see that you are still holding her hand and then she tugs at you, puts her head toward the stairs, and then pulls you across the cracked tile floor to the steps, her hand soft and moist and warm in your hand, and then up them and through a old door with a broken hinge, and then into a hallway and down the hallway to the end, and into a room on the left, with one light, a table lamp with a sideways shade that throws shadows on the wall, and you walk past it and sit on the bed and see your shadow on the wall and then hers when she sits down next to you and you hand her twenty pesos.

And she takes it and pretends to kiss it and puts it into an old envelope and then in one second pulls her top off and you can see how her tits are smooth and small and how one nipple is pushed in and then she reaches down and unbuckles your jeans and starts to tug them down, and then you put your hand out and it lands on one of her tits and you can feel how soft her skin is, and she smiles and leans to kiss you and you can see that one of her front teeth is broken off like a cracked bottle top.

Then you pull your hand back and stand up and pull up your jeans over your cock which is hard as a rock, and you zip them up over your boner and then reach into your pocket and pull out all the paper and coins in there and you say to her no more you take this and don't do this anymore and you pick up the envelope and, and shove all the money and coins in there and you, you hand it to her and you say no more no mas you don't do this any more no mas you understand and your voice is shaking like you are going to cry or some shit and she takes the envelope from you and sets it on the bed and picks up her shirt and pulls it over her head and picks the envelope back up and looks at you and says okay and then she goes back out in to the hallway, and down the hallway out of sight and you sit on the edge of the dank dark dirty mattress like the one on your rack with one sheet and a flat pillow and shut your eyes as tightly as you can.

And later you go out into the hallway and walk past Mike, and go down the stairs and out the door, and in to the cold Spanish night with your breath foggy in the air and down the stone streets past the dull lamps and the houses with the Spanish kids and office workers and pier guys and teachers and firemen and policemen and past the houses and the bar-tobacs and the smash sandwich stand and the drunk singing Marines, on to the base down the pier up the stairs and across the brow, and then stand swaying on the quarterdeck and say permission to come board sir.

Chapter Eleven

You wake up with your wool blanket wrapped around your legs and eyes all foggy and as you untwist the blanket scratching at your calves you realize that you forgot to take out your contacts when you pulled off your clothes and stuffed them into your stand-up locker and rolled into the rack and shut off the bed light and then lay there staring at the ceiling and just hating everything, and then you turned on the light and rolled over and pulled a book out from under your pillow wedged there with your alarm clock and the Saint Christopher's medal your grandma gave you when you headed off to the Navy.

You left the house at the end of the drive with the cornfields all around it whispering in the summer wind in the morning after your mom made a huge breakfast with eggs and sausage, and she burnt the cinnamon rolls and then you put down your fork and wiped your mouth and got up and grabbed your gym bag with your shaving gear and a change of underwear, standing at the edge of the table with the egg yolks drying, and then Grandma came downstairs and she was crying without making a sound and she pushed this medal on a silver chain into your hands, and then went into the front room and sat down on the sofa with her head in her hands because she thought that she'd never see you again and she was right.

At the intake center, your Dad parked the car and walked with you along the city streets with his jacket over his shoulder, and you walked side by side without saying a word down the cracked sidewalk and into the federal building, and up in the elevator to the ninth floor where you got out and went up to the sailor at the desk and told him who you were, and he checked you off and your Dad said well this is it sport and you said yea and he said be careful and make something out of this and you said yea Dad and then you shook hands and kind of hugged, and then he walked to the elevator and turned around and the doors closed in front of him and you turned back to the sailor and said where do I go?

And now the medal's chain is all twisted up and it lies loose under your rack and you pick it up and tell your grandma that you are sorry.

But you are on duty today and your alarm clock starts beeping, and its six-thirty and muster is at seven so you shower and shave and dress putting on the bell bottoms and the socks and the boots and the shirt and the cap, and then you take off the shirt and reach into the coffin locker and pull out one of the flying squad turtlenecks and pull it on and then go to the mess decks to eat walking one two three four and duck and up down the passageway and over the kneeknockers in the kneeknocker rhythm – one, two, three, four big steps and duck and up and over and one, two, three, four big steps and duck and up and over and through the hatch.

You go to the wrong side of the galley and look in the door and see your friend Pinchon the cook opening up a case of eggs and you say hey Pinch One how much longer we going to have eggs and Pinchon looks up at you and says real eggs or the powder shit and you say real eggs Pinch One and he says that you and me are going to have real eggs for six months, but the jarheads are already on powder eggs and he says you want an omelet and you say sure.

Pinchon is thin and tall and he wears the heavy black plastic boot camp glasses and his hair is thick and never looks cut to regs and he says I got some cheese and some ham cubes let's you and me eat some real breakfast[101] and you go in and jump up on the counter while he breaks six eggs on the griddle and chops the yokes open with his spatula and spreads the eggs out in a thin puddle where they start to cook real fast.

Pinchon says nothing to you for a few seconds and then without looking at you he says so what do you hear about this float and you say usual shit, Rota for two days and turnover, then an op off Spain, then Toulon for a week or 10 days, and a op off Sardinia and then off to Haifa midway. I don't know any more than that and thank fucking God we aren't in the Gulf sweating our asses off and waiting to get a Silkworm up our ass and he says I believe that you are right on that.

He touches the eggs with his spatula and then says still and all, if there's a war and you say there is a war and he says I mean a real war on the ground and you say we didn't put 500 thousand troops in the desert and there's no goddamn ground war and he says okay, so there's going to be a war and I heard that like five or ten thousand casualties, maybe more Skipper was talking about Saddam having some gun that can shoot 200 miles or something[102].

You run your hand through your hair and say well I don't want to fucking die, you say I'll spend my little war here in the Med...not my goddamn fault I'm here on the nice boat with showers and A/C... choose your rate, choose your fate...mate and Pinchon says don't you feel like you should be there, though? I mean, at least on a boat, but there and you say nope...I figure that just getting on this boat last week and heading off in the general direction of the shooting was enough[103]...could be us, isn't...not my fucking problem.

Pinchon thinks for a while as the eggs turn white and says should've turned on the grill earlier its still not really hot...hey, we got steaks tonight, you get down here at 1530 and we can have a cookout and he flips up the edges of the eggs and cuts them in two and sprinkles real cheese and ham cubes on the center of each half and when the cheese melts flips them over and then reaches behind him to a rack of plates and grabs two in one hand like playing cards and then slides the omelets off the griddle and on to the plates.

These will be good he says let's eat and he jumps up on the counter next to you and you both feel around for a fork and then Pinchon jumps down and finds two in a silverware rack and hands you one and jumps back on the counter just as his first class comes through the galley and looks annoyed and Pinchon tells you that you better go eat on the mess decks so you jump down and grab your plate and fork and go out the door and say thanks man.

You stop to get some bug juice and then grab a seat at one of the long tables and pull a newspaper over and read it while you eat the hot steamy omelet full of air and scrape the plate to catch the cheese and ham cubes that run out of the cut end and then the Mustache Guy and the Dork and Mike come out of the other end of the galley from the chow line with trays and they sit down beside you.

And the Mustache Guy reaches over and taps you on the shoulder and says thanks bro for last night and you say for what and he says for leaving like 90 pesos with the house when you went home...fucking Rita hooked us up solid she said you looked like you were going to puke and went home but that you left all this money for us so me and Wilkies here we tag-teamed that little one and then Mike came in and he had a go too and all had about five more beers each before your cash ran out and we had to get the hell out of there because it was 1145 and we had to grab a cab and came over the quarterdeck at quarter after but our bud Devons had the deck and he let us go so thanks bro.

Then Wilkerson the Dork says thanks bro and he smiles and you look at him, and then the Mustache Guy, and then Mike, and then back at Wilkerson, and then you throw your whole fucking tray right at his face and before you can come over the table to stomp your boot in his face, Mike is up and he grabs you and the Mustache Guy has Wilkerson who is saying what the fuck was that and a MA[104] is getting up from his table and coming over and the Mustache Guy is telling Wilkerson to cool the fuck out and Mike has you almost in the passageway and then the Mustache Guy is telling the master at arms that it was just a little foodfight that got out of control and the MA shrugs and goes back to his breakfast and Wilkerson is looking at you and saying that you are a crazy motherfucker and that this is not the end of this and you hate him so goddamn much.

And then you and Mike are in the passageway and he grabs your arm and he is saying what the fuck is your problem and you say you fucked her too and Mike says yea what the fuck is your problem and you pull out of his hands and start to walk away and then turn and look at him for a long time and he makes this face at you like you're crazy and then stares at you and you turn and walk away down the passageway and up the ladder to muster in.

Where you stand in four lines while some booter ensign tries to take muster while the guys in the back are grab-assing and the senior chief is standing there getting more and more pissed off and then he finally grabs the clipboard from the ensign and hands it to you and tells you to take muster for God's sake and you stand up there until the grab-assing stops, and then call the names one by one and then hand the clipboard to the ensign and the senior chiefs says to him look a fucking third class deck ape can do it why can't you.

And then you carry on, with four guys in dress blues heading over to the quarterdeck to take over the watch and the rest of the duty section shagging their asses to their spaces where they can lay back in the swivel chairs and lie about last night.

The duty day drags on with you in the deck office all alone and the rest of your department out needle-gunning off old paint with the first class and you mess around on the computer playing Tetris, and then lean back in a chair to sleep off the rest of your hangover and before you know it Mike is in the office shaking you and you wake up and say what the fuck Mike and he says you really went psycho on the mess decks this morning what was your problem and you want to tell him how you gave the money to the girl so she would stop being a whore, but you realize before you get it out that Mike doesn't give a fuck but then Mike says that it was a real sad scene there after you left and how he feels like shit about screwing that girl and how Penn (that was the Mustache Guy's name) and Wilkerson are real fucking pigs.

And then Mike says that its 1530 and you remember that you have petty officer of the watch at 1600 and that you got to go get dressed and you say that you will go by his office and get him for dinner after your watch and tell him to tell Pinch One to save some steaks for us, and then you go down to the berthing and get your perfect white t-shirt out and your dress blues on with the heavy wool shirt and the pants with the flap and thirteen buttons and the white hat, the whole crackerjack outfit, and you run a brush over your shoes and straighten the scarf in the mirror and then head on up to the quarterdeck where you take the pistol and the white canvas web belt from the guy you are relieving, checking the chamber to make sure there isn't a round in there, and then sliding the magazine up into the pistol grip and strapping on the belt and feeling the gun heavy on your hip, black oily gun.

And all through the watch, through sending out messengers and making 1MC announcements and taking the reports of the deck watches, and ringing the bell as the Skipper comes aboard slightly hammered you can tell from some party with the ambassador or someone, and the guys on liberty going ashore and the tours coming back from the wineries, and every so often you walk out on the sponson aware of the weight of the pistol and the magazines dragging at your hip, and look out over the harbor in the evening light and up into the town and the hills above it and trying to feel like you are in a foreign country and only feeling like you want to get the hell out of there.

Chapter Twelve

Two weeks later the boat is at sea, and you are running hard north from the Costa Del Sol where the ship spent ten days sending helos into the air, and Marines running ashore in some exercise with the Spanish Marines or some shit like that, and you spent two weeks sitting down in the deck office working on reports and grab-assing with the other petty officers, and you lose the touch you had when you were on the bridge at the wheel listening to the officers and the Skipper shooting the shit about the war and the operation and watching the Marines coming up out of the shelters and across the flight deck and into the back of the helos and the LSOs[105] lifting their arms up together over their heads, and the helos squatting and then sitting back and then lifting off sliding to the side and then tilting forward and off with the LSOs lifting them up and up.

So one night of heavy seas you end up on the signal bridge on top of the whole ship, one deck above the pilothouse on the narrow balcony that leans out over the water with signal lights shrouded in canvas and double-barreled big eye spotting scopes swinging softly in their mounts and you see the ship's lights are all below you and how they light the bottom halves of the masts and the rigging in yellow and hear the wind humming through the halyards and the signal flags flopping wetly in the mist, and see the stars above shining shone through the ragged scudding clouds like headlights far away on a wet foggy highway.

Below is the black sea quartering the ship from starboard and from the stern, a following sea that the ship can't outrun and you lean against the rail and watch a large wave, maybe twenty feet, catch up with the ship and lift the stern from right to left, swinging the ship to port, and the ship surfs for a second down the face of the wave, the flight deck and port elevator surging toward the wavetop and the ship groans and shudders as the keel twists deep in her guts.

You're high above it all and you lean out over the water when the wave goes under the ship and the ship lifts and then gives up the wave forward and you can see the wave cresting past the bow with a brief brilliant white cap before sailing off into the dark, they are long and smooth and the ship leaves no impression at all on their backs.

You hear holy shit and see the black signalman who is pointing astern at an even bigger wave, maybe 25 feet this time, as it comes out of the dark and you watch that wave catch a smaller wave and build itself up on its back, lifting its head now maybe 35 feet, maybe 40 feet above the ocean surface and see it catch the boat off-rhythm and slam flat against the stern like the back of a hand against the back of a head.

The seawater bursts and sudses over the gun tub and splashes down on to the flight deck against a helo but most of the wave passes below, pitching the bow down and lifting the stern so that the screw comes almost all the way out of the water and the old ship shakes hard as the screw turns free for a second in the cold air and you turn to the signalman and say like a dog shitting a peach pit.

Then you both hold on as the stern slowly falls back deep into the sea, smothering the propeller with the bow still down and the ship squats down into the seawater, the water bulging out from under the hull and lifting the wave to run flush with the hangar deck and the hull hums low for a moment, deep in the sea, and then lifts so slowly from the ocean, like a cow stumbling out of a pond, and water drips from stanchions and the catwalks and the gun tubs. And you can smell salt sea and tangy JP5 sharp in your nose and your hair is misted with cool rain and your face is wet and you are awake and aware and clear.

The signalman says not sure we were coming back up that time and his face gleams yellow-black from the running lights and wet from the mist and you can hear soft biscuit Maryland in his voice and you say I seen green water over the bow – that's sixty-five feet[106] and he says crap. I mean, crap and you smile and brush past him forward and through the blackout curtains into the warm and steamy signal shack where you see Revelard standing and leaning over the chart table, a Sports Illustrated flat on the shiny Plexiglas spotlighted by a small lamp.

Hey retard you say to him where's your porn library and he says goddam chief came through and shitcanned it all on us...new guy's some kind of born again and you say no more beating off on the balls to four watch and he says nope...and I really miss it...I really do and Revelard stands up and asks you want coffee and you always want coffee.

So he gets you coffee and you slurp it out of your mug that you always carry with you and its hot and stings your tongue and it tastes really awful good running down into your belly and making you feel warm and Revelard says you are going to have to kick in to the coffee mess if you want to keep drinking up here and you say fuck you and dig around and pull out a pack and shake a cigarette loose at him.

The smoke and the coffee taste good together and you stand there with him in the red night light of the signal shack and you drink your coffee and then Revelard says fuckin' Navy is going to outlaw smoking I know they are[107] and he squints and you say and it's so good for you I just can't understand it and he says after that coffee and then the blackout curtain swirls and the black signalman comes in to the shack, and then it's too small in there.

Revelard puts his cigarette between his lips and says good to see you young Richardson because it's time to hoist Hotel and he reaches up into the overhead and pulls down a flag and Richardson says Revelard, it's dark as shit out there no one's going to see no flags at night and Revelard says and yet you are going to climb up there and hoist these flags and when the sun comes up in two hours, there it will be, all ready for flight quarters, at the dip, young man.

Revelard Richardson says please and Revelard says that's SM2 Revelard to you, young man, signalman second class Revelard and he turns to you and says young Richardson does not like to go up on the roof at night to hoist flags and you say I don't blame his ass it's dark and wet and slippery as shit up there and didn't the HTs say there was a crack in the mast...something like that.

Richardson is scared now and Revelard lays a hairy arm along his back and says tell you what, you are going to have to get used to shit like this because you are in the Navy, young man. It don't make no sense and he stops for a second but it must be done and then he pulls his jacket off a stool and says tell you what, young Richardson, why don't I go up there with you this one time and teach how to not fall off the boat and you put your smoke out in the butt can and say you got to go and then walk out on the balcony high above the black water and remember some poem from the ninth grade into the valley of death rose the six hundred[108] and you can't figure out why.

Chapter Thirteen

You take the outside ladder down the side of the island to the flight deck and stand on the flight deck and watch a Cobra helicopter wind its engines on the number four spot directly across the deck, and the skinny helo's wide blades begin to turn slowly and then speed up, whipping around faster until they blur, and you can feel the downdraft tugging at your foul weather jacket and your face and see the pilot turn his black helmet, red in the deck edge lights, left and right and watch the front-seat gunner tweak his nasty little Gatling gun around and see the LSO look left and right and the chocks and chains guys run underneath the spinning blades crouching to the landing gear where they grab the release levers and wait.

You look out over the water and see the ship moving, and see the LSO spin his hand above his head, and hear the helo's engines whine higher, and see the LSO's head swivel and the visor face you, and the LSO grabs the mike on his helmet and talks into it and an arm grabs you from behind and you hear someone say get the fuck in here, you asshole and it pulls you through the door.

And your face is hot because you know that you were doing a dumb-ass thing standing twenty feet from a running helo without a cranial helmet or a lifevest or the experience that kept the flight deck guys from being blown over the side or eating a blade and you say oh fuck, I'm a dick and the airdale says you are a dick standing on the deck like a boot you know better than that and you nod and he says watch yourself don't do dumb shit like that we like you.

So you go below, down through the hull bouncing down the ladders, timing your descent to match the rise and fall of the ship, and you drop down on to the hangar bay and then down another deck to the mess decks and then across the mess decks with the long, rimmed tables where five guys from supply are playing cribbage and one looks up at you and says the senior chief wants to see you and you say when and he says whenever and then you remember that you need to get your hose team qual[109] signed off because everyone on the flying squad is supposed to be able to do any job on the flying squad, so you go a little aft and swing through the heavy door to the engineering spaces and then down another deck and into DC central.

Ericsson is leaning back in the reclining chair fixed to the deck in the middle of a rectangle of tables with small plastic seats attached, and his mouth is open and he is staring at the overhead and without looking at you he says Kieffer did you know that this is my fourth fucking cruise and not knowing what to say you say yea And then he says, still staring at the ceiling yup, this is the sixth week of my second deployment on this bitch, out of six years in this Navy, I have now been at sea for four years and two months[110] and then he sits up all the sudden and stares at the diagrams of the ship's firefighting systems on the far wall and then says I just figured that out, four years and two months, and before I get off this piece of crap, I can add another five months to that if we don't get extended like I have been twice, and I have never once gotten beer at sea[111].

And then he looks at you and says I bet you want me to sign off on your hose team qual and you say sure if you have the time and he says what the fuck I have nothing but time and so you reach around to the hollow in the back of your jeans and pull out the faded folded green book they gave you the day you got on the boat.

You flew into Norfolk after graduating from the ATD, a kind of advanced basic where you marched around the base and sat in hot steamy classrooms and tried to stay awake while old chiefs rambled on about capstans and pulleys and boats and painting, and told sea stories about guys getting cut in half by snapping lines, and going out in to Chicago one night riding the trains into the city and wandering around looking at the people who were looking at you, and sitting in diner and eating your first meal without someone screaming at you to chow down and get your ass in muster and then going up to the counter and having the owner tell you that someone had already paid for your meal.

After you graduated, which wasn't that big of a deal, Mom and Dad staying home for that one, you got a week's leave and you flew home, landing in Syracuse and walking through the airport in your dress blues and feeling everyone looking at you, and seeing the long-hair guys and the girls all laughing a little at you with your short hair and little white cap on your head, and Dad was waiting in the station wagon for you and you drove home for 45 minutes without saying much and when you got home it was 11:30 at night, and Mom had dinner waiting but first you went up to your too-small room and put on a pair of jeans and a Def Leppard t-shirt.

And then you came downstairs and ate quietly while Mom asked you a million questions and caught you up on the news, and then you went back upstairs and tried to go to sleep but looked at the walls with the posters and the shelves with the books and you knew you weren't at home any more.

You went out the next night to a bar, and ran into some of your buddies who acted like you were a total dumbass for joining the Navy, but were still bitching about their crappy jobs and running after the same old girls who were putting on a lot of weight and then you ran into your sometimes friend Todd who had gone off to Fredonia and was in his junior year and majoring in economics, and you wondered if you could have should have, might have gone to college and then you remember how the guidance counselor had just looked at you when you brought it up to him, and then asked you if your Dad got a deer this year and you knew that you weren't going to college, and you remembered the year, it was fourth grade, when you all took the standardized tests and the next year when all the smart kids were in one class and you were in the other.

And how you took shop while they took algebra, and you took typing when they all took chemistry, and you sat outside the gym on the hill with your buddies and talked about cars while they were all in there sweating out the Regents exams, and how you got that job at the plastics factory while they went to school and how when they came back on break, you had a fine ass Camaro and they were still driving Mom's car, but that the same girls talked to them and the same girls talked to you because they all had it figured out even if you were still guessing.

Anyways talking to Todd was like reading a book and he asked you a lot of questions about the Navy and you made up some shit about how tough boot camp was and how you had orders and he looked at you like he wished it was him but with some kind of pity in his eyes.

So after four days of sitting with your Mom and Dad and watching the television and one more night out on the town where you felt like no one in the world could would talk to you, you told Mom and Dad that you might as well get to your ship and so you changed your flight and left for Norfolk two days early.

You flew in above the landing lights on the water of the bay and got a cab from the airport and rode through the city in the back, like this night was the last night of them all, and then got waved through the gate and then drove down dark streets past the McDonalds and then up a street toward these huge black ships in the dark on a pier and you couldn't believe that anything was so big the hulls were like mountains above the concrete piers and their masts pointed up in to the sky and the cab dropped you at the end of the pier and you walked up along side the ship smelling wet air and fuel oil and salt water and seeing steam shooting out from the hulls like a animal breathing and then up the brow and across the water to a hole in the hull where you dropped your seabag and handed your orders to the quarterdeck watch.

The watch called down to deck and this guy, Upham, came up and grabbed your sea bag and led you down two ladders to the deck berthing where he pointed to a top rack and said put your shit in the coffin locker we don't have a stand-up for you yet and you put your shirts and pants and socks away just like they taught you in ATD and then let the lid fall and then climbed up into the rack and lay down with your head just a foot below a huge pipe that said JP-5 on it and tried to go to sleep because you knew from your training that JP-5 was jet fuel and the next day they handed you this book and told you that you had to have sections one through four signed off before you could leave the ship.

So you flip that book over to Ericksson's lap and while he sits up and spins around to look for a pen in the nooks behind him, he says you see a pen anywhere and you say if it was up your ass eating a ham sandwich you'd know where it was wouldn't you[112] and he looks at you and says I guess I would and he goes back to looking for a pen and then you dig one out of your sock[113] and toss it to him.

And then Ericksson leans forward and flips through your book to the hose team qual and while he looks at it, you can hear the ship breathing, a steady low hum of boilers and turbines and steam rushing through pipes and see the loose packing around the pipes hanging down and steam oozing out[114], and then finally he looks up and says you know this shit don't you and you say yea and then he reads through the lines of qualification and asks you went to firefighting school[115] before we left and you say yea.

And you remember climbing up the four-story building sweating in your thick padded brown firefighting suit with your feet loose in the too-big boots and then the instructors lit up the building and the hose team leader opened the hatch and you followed the guy ahead of you in.

You went into the top compartment and looked down the maze of gratings and ladders and watched as the oil fed fire curled up from below, lighting off like a big gas barbeque, and felt the heavy hose in your arms firm with water pressure and then the hose team leader pointed and the nozzleman opened the nozzle and the hose bucked in your arms as you helped the nozzleman point it down at the base of the flames by arching it up behind his head and the guys behind you pushing forward and kinking the hose and the cooling spray come down on your helmet and mask in a shower while the fire burst up to the deck below you and you felt the heat through your suit and you gloves and felt a little bit of panic creep down your neck to your guts.

You could hear the hushed roar of the flames despite the foam cylinders squeezed and rolled into your ears and you could see the top of the flames flick the grating you were standing on and you drew deeply into your mask breathing hard and tasting the sweet smell of chemical oxygen while the nozzleman pushed the nozzle from side to side against the fire and the hose team leader drove you toward the ladder to the next deck below.

The rubber mask edges pressed against your face and you stumbled forward and the nozzle shot up in the arms of the nozzleman and the hose team leader reached out and pushed it back down to the flames with one arm and catching you with the other just as you looked over the edge of the grating and down the ladder into the face of the fire, and then suddenly you were okay and you spread your legs and took sliding steps forward and down the ladder to the fire burning red and orange against the sooty black sides of the building, and as your team worked its way down the ladder with the cooling spray falling all around you and the water on your mask drying off as soon as it hit it you could see that it really all worked.

At the bottom with the fire out and a reflash watch set you all stumbled out of the hatch and into the cold November air dragging the hose and pulling off your masks and walking wide legged and cocky back to the classroom and since then you've gone to three real fires on a hose team and each time it got less scary, and the last time you leaned against the serving line ledge and fell asleep in the warm cozy firefighting suit waiting to go down into the main spaces where burning fuel oil puddled out across the boiler room floor and then woke when the team moved forward with the hose in your arms and looking forward to stumbling down the black ladder through the hatch and finally seeing the fire.

So you know what you are doing and Ericksson knows that you know and he scribbles his name over and over down the page to the bottom and signs the final qual and you are done and you say thanks and ask him what you want to drink and he says a coke and you look at the book and you say this has got oil all over it and some kind of grease you monkeys can't hold a simple piece of paper without getting oil all over it and he says I am so sorry that the goddamn lifeblood of this ship got all over you precious report, you admin-pussy and you smile and tuck the paper onto your clipboard and go out the door and you stop to say you know, I wanted to be a machinist mate but I couldn't get into the school my test scores were too high and I couldn't get a waiver[116] and you duck the soda can he throws at you.

So you go up the ladder and across the mess decks to find the supply guys loading the coke machines so none of it will be cold and they tell you that the senior chief wants to see you and you say you know and that you will be right there and so you go back down to DC Central and tell Ericksson this and that you will have to owe him one and he says better remember bitch and then you go back up to the mess decks past the quiet galley with one guy in there scrubbing out one of the huge cooking vats and then past the personnel office to the supply ladder and then drop down two ladders to the supply office.

Where the Filipino chiefs are gathered around a deck playing cards and then the senior chief Barazza leans back in his chair and says BM3 Kieffer I was talking to the Bo'sun and he say you hot shit on the reports and good on the computer and that you too smart to be a deck ape and he say that you should come down to supply and strike for supply[117] what you think and you say that's news to me the Bo'sun only chews my ass day and night but I guess I could give it a try and he says you get your ass down here three days a week mornings and we see how it goes eh and you say sure senior chief tomorrow and he says no start next week Monday and he says you know you still got to do the deck work and train your relief and you say that's the fucking Navy senior chief two jobs for the price of one and all the chiefs laugh and go back to playing cards and you head up the ladder for your berthing thinking that this might be pretty good.

Chapter Fourteen

So next Monday you muster in with Deck and after you get the muster report up to the bridge, you go down below to the supply spaces and report to Barazza and you spend the first morning climbing down ladders with the second class SK[118] Thomas to the storerooms deep in the forward half of the ship and as you drop down below the waterline, somewhere between the third and fourth decks below the hangar bay, you can hear the ocean slamming against the hull and the sliding rush of water on metal and then down past the reefer decks and further below than you ever went before, six decks down where the lights are low and the decks are wet and you can feel all that water all around you just one layer of aluminum away.

After that you and Thomas climb back up to the second deck and then down again to the supply office where he gives you a chair on the front side of a desk and shows you where to fill your coffee mug and shows you how to check in supply chits[119] to make sure they are right because you get one number of about 200 wrong and instead of ordering helo parts you are ordering a new rudder or something and then you enter the chits into a log and then help create message forms so that the new parts will be on the pier when the ship hits Toulon.

And it's all kind of interesting and at least it's different and you are not still sitting in the deck office listening to the deck apes shoot the shit, and even though the paperwork is getting to be kind of pain in the ass, but when you get done for the day, you're not covered with grease and paint and all sweaty and you start to drift into having supply friends and away from your deck friends and when you hit the berthing at night you have to take a lot of crap from them.

You are still in the deck office most of the time though and you still sit around with the Bo'sun and listen to his sea stories about how he was on a gun boat in Vietnam[120] running up the rivers and it was hot as hell all the time and the fucking Viet Cong would wait until you got the boat to somewhere it wouldn't turn around and then they'd open up and you'd jump on the .50s and hammer the bush and that other Chicano Simenez or something would pop grenades over the trees while the Skipper hauled ass up the river farther and farther until one night you knew you must be over the border into Cambodia or some shit like that and you couldn't raise the base on the radio anymore.

So the chief decided that the only thing to do was to haul ass back down the river and so he opened up the throttles all the way and you tore ass back down the black water with the bush flying by and every four five miles the VCs would open up on you and you stood at the .50s the whole fucking way with those big guns hammering in your hands shaking your hands and your shoulders and your guts and all the sudden you notice Simenez there dead with his guts in his hands draped over the stanchion and then you all ran out of fuel and you were still about 20 miles from the Delta and the boat glided to a stop in the black fucking night and you all sat there quiet as little mouses and sweated it out until the Army sent a helo with 55-gallon drums of gas and dropped them on the far shore.

So with the sun coming up you rowed the gun boat toward the shore slow as shit with these little paddles and a big boat and drifting on the slow current as every second you could see the trees a little more and then the boat got stuck on some sand bar still about twenty yards from the beach where the fuel was and so the chief made you and this black guy, Conner or something like that, jump out of the boat into the hot water and sinking into the mud and slog your ass to the beach and into the jungle and roll the drums back into the water with the stink of the place in your nose and then float them mostly underwater out to the boat where you climbed up the ladder and pulled a couple leeches off your legs and then you all hauled the drums up over the gunwale and into the stern cockpit and then pumped the fuel into the tanks and shifted weight to get the boat off the bar and it took about half an hour or maybe an hour and by the time you were done the sun was all the way up as your boat spun around floating down the river.

By the time you got the engines primed and started loud as hell you were sure that every gook for fifty miles was running down there to kill your ass and then the chief hit the throttles and the boat jumped up in the water and you were flying down to the delta with the sweat drying in your hair and you never felt so good in your life so we didn't get killed the Bo'sun says but Jesus I thought we were going to die and you ask the Bo'sun why the hell he joined the Navy when it was Vietnam and he said I woulda got drafted anyways and besides it was a good chance to get the hell out of east LA – you know, he says to you, it was either get killed in Vietnam or get killed in LA so what the fuck, you know.

And you think that the Bo'sun is one tough motherfucker and you realize that the shit he'd seen you were never going to see and then you remember how he'd once seen rattled up a ladder on the starboard sponson when you were unrepping[121] and caught a chunk of falling rigging just above Kileen's head while Kileen a total boot was crouching down with his hands over his head the Bo' sun held the huge piece of steel there for a second and then carefully dipped it and tapped the Kileen on the head and said how the fuck did you expect that your little pin-dick arms were going to stop a 100 pound turnbuckle from crushing your fucking head, you dumb-ass motherfucker.[122]

Then the Bo'sun shook his head and then by himself lifted the gear back into line with the rigging and said to Kieffer here rig this cock-sucking bitch back up here for me – you motherfucker, splice that goddamn line and get it through this screweye before I jam this right the fuck up your ass I am holding this piece of shit up for you bastard, least you could do is shake a fucking leg for me while Kileen laid there on the sponson and the Bo'sun looked down at him and said well, I ain't goin' to fuck you right here...get your ass back on that line and get ready to haul dumb piece of goddamn...been in this Christ-forsaken Navy for 23 goddamn years and I swear to my good Lord and savior that the fucking recruits get dumber every fucking...move.[123]

And Kileen jumped up and kind of scrambled down to the end of the line before Bo'sun waved him back and said get your ass back up here back under this goddamn turnbuckle and while you put your tiny little ass into this job, I will instruct you as to how to make goddamn sure it doesn't drop on your precious little noggin again but you remember how the Bo'sun's face was all white and sweaty when he caught the turnbuckle and your remember that the Bo'sun had seen that you had seen and then he winked at you and smiled slow and that was something.

The Bo'sun was a poet all right, like that old guy chief you had as a company commander, the guy who told you all not to introduce him to your mommies and daddies at boot camp graduation 'cause he'd tell them just what a miserable fuck-up you were and how boot camp had not changed a goddamn thing.

This bastard invented the bunk drill where there were these four little black dots on the decks of your compartment at Great Lakes where the four legs of each of the heavy old iron racks had to go and one morning he came out of the office and found a rack off its dots and had you guys stand one each at the end of the racks and lift them up and carry them all the way around the compartment, eighty guys, forty racks, in a big fucking chain circling around with your arms shaking and then you all had to put the racks back down right on the little dots and if he could see one dot[124], you were all going around again but you liked the chief and you like the Bos'un too because even though they are a pain in the ass they'd catch a turnbuckle for you too.

Chapter Fifteen

The people you don't like are the guys who don't know what a fucking turnbuckle is, like the new supply ROTC ensign, they're the worst, who asked you one morning what those bells were that kept ringing and you had to swallow a laugh and tell him sir, those are the time bells they ring twice for every hour and once for every half hour on the watch and he said on the watch and you said sir, the ship's day is divided into six watches, four hours each, and he said I guess that's good to know, good to know[125].

Then he picked up the stack of message forms you just filled out and said that there was a mistake on them and pointed to the UIC and said this is wrong, the time code is wrong and you had to tell him that is the Unit Identification Code, the ship's number and not the time and he said well we'll have to check with the senior chief on that BM3, like being a boatswain's mate made you a total idiot and then the senior chief told the ensign that it was right and the ensign said that he was going to run these past the supply officer, and you and the senior chief smiled when he got up because you knew that the commander was going to rip him a new one, and after he went out the hatch, the second class said but I went to college and you all laughed your asses off.

So you are hitting Toulon in two days and you hear it's a pretty good port being in France and on the southern coast or the Riviera, and there are nude beaches and you can run up to Monte Carlo and hit the casinos or down to Marseilles or go to Paris on the train on a ship's tour all the while the planes are blasting off the carriers and out of the desert bases and just hammering the shit out of the Iraqis and everyone's wondering what the hell is going on because the Iraq air force took off for Iran and the rest of their planes are all busted up on the ground and all their radars and missiles and shit are all blasted to pieces and the US jets are just flying around and now the B-52s are staging out of Louisiana and flying over to Iraq and dropping a shit load of bombs and then home for dinner and you think that must be pretty weird hi honey how was your day but the US also dropped a huge bomb on some place they thought was a headquarters but was really an air raid shelter but the US said that Saddam had just put an air raid shelter on top of the headquarters and you hear that 300 or so people were killed anyway.

But before you can get liberty in Toulon, the whole ship has to have a uniform inspection which is the biggest pain in the ass you can imagine because it means making sure that your blues are perfect and your shoes shined and your hair cut right and you are shaved, which is the worst because you have a rough beard and started shaving at 14 and an hour after you shave it looks like you didn't and you have been taking shit for this ever since you hit boot camp.

You go over your blues, the old crackerjacks that you actually like[126] because the squids have been wearing them for about 100 years and they are actually pretty hardy not like your whites that seem to attract dirt the second you pull them on, but your blues are in pretty good shape with all the right patches on them and you check your little ribbon bar with just one little national defense medal that everybody got when they kicked off this war and then you check your shoes and shine the shit out of them with hot wax dripped on the toes and a solid wipe down with a rag and then about an hour with the old brush.

You won't wear the corframs, the plastic shoes that the lifers buy just to get past the inspection, because it's not honest because you can't wear them on the boat because they'd just melt on to your feet in a fire and besides you like the feel of the soft worn in leather in your hands and on your feet so you spend the extra hour on your shoes and they shine, they really shine deep, not like those plastic-ass lifer shoes.

You trade some paint for a haircut and get them to cut it really high to make sure you pass the inspection because who gives a fuck about what the French think about your hair they'll know you are a squid no matter what you do about it, and then on the morning of the inspection you put off shaving until the last second, and then pull your blouse over your perfect white t-shirt that sits in a plastic bag in your coffin locker and then carefully, carefully pull the silk scarf over your head making sure you don't mess up the knot that your company commander tied in boot camp, and you never untied since and then you grab your white hat out of another plastic bag and set it on your hair.

And so you are feeling pretty good about things as you climb up the ladders from the second deck to the 02 flight deck and wander out in the air and look at the sky you don't see that often and take off your white hat and walk over to the catwalks and to the nets at the bow and feel the wind in your hair, and you look back down the length of the ship to the stern and you can hear the hiss of the waves breaking over the stem[127] of the boat, and the wind in your ears and you can't hardly hear the announcement to muster for inspection by departments but you see the deck apes lining up and you walk down to them and get in line.

And the First Lieutenant[128], the head of the deck department, climbs out of the island and comes down to the muster and the Bo'sun calls out attention and you pull your feet together heels together toes at a 45-degree angle and set your white hat on your head and push out your chest and stand staring off at the horizon, at the edge of the sea, while the First Lieutenant walks the lines and looks at all the guys and every so often sends a guy below for a new t-shirt or a shine, and when he hits you he looks carefully at your face and says did you shave this morning BM3 and you say yessir and he says doesn't look like it go below and run a razor over it again and you say yessir and go below and its goddamn embarrassing to be sent down like a fucking booter.

You hit the head with your razor and feel around your face and run the razor over every spot where even the littlest bit of stubble is, and then you go back up the ladders dropping your white hat on the 01 level and getting a little dirt on it, and then through the flight deck shelters and up the catwalk, and back to your spot in the ranks and the first lieutenant comes back down to check on you and he pulls out his fucking ID card and it scrapes on your skin while you stand there wanting to bust his fucking bad-breath face and he says I thought I sent you down to shave and you say yessir I did and he says it doesn't sound like it and you say I did shave sir and he says go down and really shave BM3 and hurry the hell up and you are turned out again.

You feel like shit as you walk all alone across the flight deck and down into the shelter and you go into a Marine berthing and skank a razor off a bunk and head into their head and rip that fucking dull ass razor across your face until tiny spots of blood sprout on your cheeks and your neck and on the side of your mouth, and then you say to yourself, fuck him if this isn't enough and you go back up on the flight deck with the blood dripping down your neck and you go back to your place and come to attention with your face red and your throat hot and the first lieutenant and the Skipper are starting down the ranks and when they come to you, the Skipper looks at you and then at the first lieutenant and asks him why is this man bleeding and the first lieutenant says he needs to learn to shave sir and the Skipper looks at you and nods and you feel like a piece of shit[129].

After you are told to carry on you walk back to the deck edge and look down on the white water tossing out from the hull, and you wonder how you got yourself into this and then after a while you go below and pull off your uniform and see that your white hat is dirty and your inspection t-shirt has blood on the neck and you sit on the edge of your rack in your pants and pull off your shoes and whip them one by one banging into the back of your coffin locker and the second class comes over and kicks your foot and says don't worry about that asshole and the next morning you are on the bridge at sea and anchor keeping the log when the deck apes drop the brow[130] into the Toulon harbor, sinking down out of sight under the oily black water and the whole ship waits with the Marines laughing their asses off up on the flight deck, while the French guys find a crane and pull it out and the Skipper calls the first lieutenant on the bridge and chews his ass in front of the whole watch and later you go down to the second class and say thanks and he says for what.

Toulon is a pretty good town and the first night you hit the bars with some of the supply guys and you all drink beers until you are pretty hammered, so you can sit back in the little wicker chair and smoke a smoke and close your eyes and breath out and forget about all this shit, and then you go back to the port and outside of the gates a guy is selling smash sandwiches[131] and you all get one and carry it warm in your hands back down to the pier and you get a beer from the beer on the pier guys and you sit on the edge of the pier and look back at the lights of the town and eat your sandwiches with meat and runny cheese in big bites so your stomach feels warm and your head is at ease finally and the next morning you get up and find out that the war has started for real.

Chapter Sixteen

You are getting into the chow line, at the front, and as you get your SOS[132], you can hear the Marines oo-rahing on the mess decks and when you walk out to get your bug juice, they are all gathered around the mess decks TV which is hooked up to the French TV and they are watching CNN and you can see this tank busting up through a big sand dune, and all these Marines following with their rifles low on their hips and you see them crouching and shooting, and then there's a shot of about a thousand helos ripping overhead, and then there's a shot from a gun camera and you can see this little line of jeeps or something in scratchy black and white and then a little back dot comes whipping in from the bottom of the screen and there's this big white pot on the television and then there's some old fart general on the screen telling Wolf what's going on and then you see a map of Kuwait and the bottom part of Iraq with big arrows stabbing into Kuwait.

The Marines are going nuts and high-fiving and jumping around and then they start to sing the Marine song – from the halls of Montezuma and all that, and then you notice how the squids are all sitting around and they're watching too, but they are also eating and finishing and getting up to go do stuff and then the 1MC hums and the picture goes out and the Skipper gets on and gives everyone the news – the ground war has started and the Marines are coming up in the south and the Army is winging around to the west and the gators are standing off the coast ready to send in their Marines and the carriers are launching strikes like crazy and the battleships are firing those huge guns they got and then the Skipper says that you are staying where you are for the time being and that everyone's got to be on watch and people going out on the town need to be extra careful.

After the workday is done – you spent the morning in supply and the afternoon bullshitting in the Deck office and working on the report about what happened with the brow being dropped into the harbor, and you see that the first lieutenant is taking even more official shit about it even though he's trying to blame it on the first class Jenkins who wasn't even on the quarterdeck at the time, and the new deck ensign, some academy guy who got on the boat just before you deployed is saying how pissed he is that the boat is in France when all the action is over in the Gulf and the Bo'sun is saying how he's goddamn glad to be here 'cause he's had enough of people shooting at his ass and the ensign is looking at the Bo'sun like the Bo'sun's some kind of pussy.

After the work day is done, anyways, you get your civvies on down in the deck berthing and head out up on to the hangar bay where that second class Bo'sun's mate Kendall is waiting and Mike is there and the three of you are heading out to this restaurant Mike went to where they have excellent steaks, and they do, once you get there after walking about four miles up in to the town where the stores are all shut up with big steel grates pulled down and you have to wait around in the empty square until they all get done with their naps or whatever.

At about seven at night, when the sun goes down, the restaurant finally opens up and you three guys go in and sit down and Mike tells you what to order because it's all in French and while you are waiting for your orders and drinking some pretty good wine and watching the news in French on the television over the bar, the owner comes out and sees you guys and then he points up at the screen and then at you and says you fucking it up pretty good, and Kendall's says yea that's right we are fucking it up pretty good, partner, and the steaks are excellent.

And your days go by, slow as shit, reveille-supply-deck office-liberty that sucks now that you are out of money and walking the flight deck on security with a shotgun on your shoulder that you fired maybe ten times and are still not sure exactly how it works yet, and you find yourself standing on the quarterdeck two nights later as petty officer of the watch with the .45 hanging down from the gun belt with the magazines in their little holders and you are aware of the greasy black bullets in the gun but not chambered, not ready to fire, grab-assing a little and shooting the shit with Mr. Pensquod[133], some preppy ROTC shit straight out of college with big round glasses who is down in engineering and taking a lot of shit from MMs[134] and the BTs[135] and you are giving him some advice on how to listen to his chief but carefully, like it is something you learned because you can't tell an officer how to do things.

There's some kind of party going on up on the flight deck with the helos all shined up and in neat rows and the white friendship lights hung from the bow to the mast to the stern and a couple of big tents set up with the cooks cranking out the good food they keep for the wardroom and the officers in their mess dress blues with the buttons and short jackets and their freaking swords hanging down and little white gloves on drinking beers and wine and getting hammered with the locals and you can hear some jazz music coming down from their little party.

When you walk out on the brow just to move your legs a little, you see, clear as day, the first lieutenant falling down from the port elevator, down past the fueling station and the little boat deck, and past the hangar deck and just missing the pier and into the oily nasty harbor water and when the water falls back from the splash, you yell man overboard and flick off your gun belt and drop it on the brow and then are up and over the brow rail and into the water in your freaking dress blues, and then taking a mouth of the nastiest fucking water ever, spitting it out, and stroking for the spot where the first lieutenant's hat floats in the water

The water is pretty warm for March, and you look back toward the brow where Pensquod is holding your gun belt and waving his arms back into the ship, and then with about 20 of the worst strokes in your life you are there, at the hat, which is sort of sinking in and already dirty and then you look down and there you can see the first lieutenant sort of half floating in the muck, and you up end yourself and dive down, and grab his arm and turn and look up to the surface and you go down deeper and wrap an arm around his chest and start pulling one-armed for the light.

And he is heavy as hell and your breath is running out and your lungs are screaming and you are just six inches below the surface, when he wakes up or something and starts fighting you and you let him go, and then watch his eyes get really big and then he latches on to you, and you start back for the top, knowing that you are going to drown here in the shitty black waters of the Toulon harbor.

But then you break through the surface and gasp in deep, and pull the first lieutenant up, and he splashes around and breaths in deep, and you feel something soft hit the back of your head and you reach around and it's a life ring and you grab it, and then sort of slump the first lieutenant over on to it and he grabs on, and then the guys on the brow sort of work themselves down the ladder to the pier, and then down on to one of those big floating deals that keep the ship from smashing into the pier, you'll think of the word later, camels, they're called camels and that's the word that keeps running through your head as you sidestroke along behind the first lieutenant to the camel where the guys pull you out of the water and you lie there on a pile of greasy rope and look up at the sky – it's blue-white-red and there's a few sort of hazy clouds – and breath and breath and breath.

By the time you get up on the pier, the Skipper is down from the flight deck and the corpsmen are there checking out the first lieutenant and he's still pretty hammered and the word is that he just walked off the side of the flight deck, and Mr. Pensquod slips up behind you and puts the gun belt back on you and you realize that you left it on the brow when you hit the water and that you have fucked up big time.

So the Skipper turns around from looking at the First Lieutenant and he sees you and he says you went into the water after him and you stand up and say yessir and he says are you on watch and you say yessir and he looks at you all wet and dripping and at your gun belt which is dry and then says to you get dried off and report to the XO[136] and you say yessir and then shit real quiet.

You go back up the ladder and across the brow and you look up at the flight deck and see all the people from the party looking down at the crowd on the camel and then you look and see the First Lieutenant with a blanket around him and the Skipper patting him on the back and them laughing and you realize that you are truly fucked.

Because enlisted guys can fuck up and junior officers can fuck up a little but that the senior officers can never fuck up, because the first lieutenant was on the bridge when that container ship laid on its horn and slid by about 20 yards from the boat's stern and because the Skipper has a girlfriend in Rota and they all went out for drinks while you and your buddies were in a whorehouse, and because they all got twenty years in and you got a little more than one.

And when you hit the quarterdeck Mr. Pensquod is looking at you like you are some poor bastard and you stand there while they call your relief and then you hand over the gunbelt and turn over the watch and then slosh your ass across the hangar bay and then down one deck to the XO 's office and knock and are told to enter and you walk in and you see that everything's already decided.

You stand at attention in front of the XO s desk while that nasty water runs down the inside of your thighs, and you are cold and start to shiver and the XO gets off the phone and goes into his stateroom and comes out with a towel and throws it at you, and you catch it and dry your hands and then run it over your head and around your body and on your legs and then around your ankles, and then you don't know what to do with it so you sling it over your shoulder and come back to attention while the LN[137] comes in with his little steno pad.

The XO sits back down and does a little legal shit with the LN and then he dictates a quick report about how the first lieutenant tripped over the stanchion and fell into the water and how you were on watch as petty officer of the watch and you jumped in without thinking about it and pulled his ass out of the water and then he looks up at you and asks is all that is correct and you say to yourself throw in that the first lieutenant was hammered and you got it all but to the XO you say yessir.

And then the XO asks you what happened to the gun belt that the Skipper said it was dry when he saw you and you tell him that you flicked it off because you didn't want to take it into the water with you and he asks did you turn over the watch when relieving the PO of the watch before you and you say yessir and he asks including turning over responsibility for the firearm and you say yessir and he asks you did you drop the firearm on the brow and you say yessir and then he stops for a second, and then he asks how did you retrieve the firearm and then you have to think.

Because Mr. Pensquod is coming along pretty well and he might want to make twenty years and how he's actually a pretty good officer considering the other dipshits that you get every year if he gets caught putting the gun belt back on you that he'll get his ass handed to him and then you remember how your boot camp company commander once told a story about a guy who was in deep shit and told some wild story but stuck to it no matter how many times they asked him and got off and so you tell the XO that you went back up on the brow and got the gun belt and put it back on and then went back to the camel.

And the XO looks at you like you are lying sack of shit, which you are, and he asks you a million times about the whole routine and you just keep saying that you went back and got the gun belt yourself and you can tell that he knows that you are full of shit but after a while he starts to smile a little and then he tells the LN to write it down like you said and then he asks you if you want to go to mast or just take the punishment he is about to deliver, and you go with his punishment and he asks for your liberty card and you reach down into your sock and hand it to him and he says that you are restricted to the ship for 30 days[138] and you think that's not so bad, could be worse.

And then the XO sends the LN out to type up the report and when the door closes, the XO leans toward you and shakes your hand and says dismissed, and you salute and go out of his office and then back up on the hangar bay and past the Skipper and the First Lieutenant and you salute them[139] anyways.

Chapter Seventeen

So two days later, the boat pulls out of Toulon and you are back on the bridge doing the log, and there's this weird feeling because no one ever mentioned the first lieutenant's little dive and how you jumped in after him, and how you are restricted to the ship, it's like there's the usual conversation going on the bridge and there's this little bubble around you, even when you are down in supply although the senior chief said when no one was around that it was a ballsy thing to do but you still feel bad about dropping the gun belt because it was your duty and your responsibility[140] and the right thing to do would have been to call away the rescue detail and stand there and watch the first lieutenant drown but anyways you only missed a day of liberty and you were broke any how so who cares.

For the next week the boat moves out into the Med and then toward Corsica and the ground war is over and Saddam surrenders his ass, and there's pictures from the news of this big convoy all smoking with dead guys charcoaled and hanging down from their tanks and jeeps and the cars they stole out of Kuwait[141] and then there are this people in the northern part of Iraq, the Kurds, and Saddam is banging the hell out of them with bombs and shit and they all ran up in to the mountains to get away and in the south the Shi'ites are fighting the Iraqis and Bush is saying that they ought to take over but he's not sending any troops and Saddam gets to fly his helos and he is bombing the crap out of them too, anyways that's what it says in the ship newspaper.

And you run south and then up between Sicily and Italy and then you stop by Sardinia to do an operation with the Italians, and the helos pound off the flight deck and the jar heads get the hell off the boat and everything is empty and echoing, and then one night when the boat is pulling up the anchor to move closer into the bay for backload day after tomorrow and you are on the bridge making log entries and looking out over the long low brown land and at the evening sky, the Commodore comes up on the bridge and walks over to the Skipper with everyone listening very carefully but they sort of talk low, and then the Skipper hops down from his chair and they go out on the bridge wing and talk some more with everyone sort of listening in through the windows, and then the Skipper comes back on the bridge and hops back up into his chair and he sits there with his head on one hand leaning against the bulkhead a little and thinking and you are all thinking along with him.

Once the anchor is down and set, and the sea and anchor detail is secured, the Skipper looks up and calls the gator over and then they talk while you are taking your time turning the log over to the quartermaster of the watch and sort of just milling around a little, and then the gator comes over to the chart table and asks the QM for a chart of the eastern Med and then he takes it over to the Skipper and that's when the QM chief asks you if you are done and tells you to go below

And just as you are clambering down the ladder to deck berthing the 1MC clicks on and hums and the Bo'sun of the watch blows that annoying whistle and then says stand by for the captain and then the captain comes on.

And he says that we all know about the Kurds and how they are up in the hills starving and freezing and how the US is dropping supplies to them and then how the MARG has given orders to bring its Marines to northern Turkey and then having them go down into Iraq and set up a safe zone for the Kurds so they can go back to their villages and get on with their lives and how we are right now expediting backloading the Marines and all their gear and how tomorrow we would weigh anchor and get underway for Iskenderun Turkey where we would offload the Marines in four days and how this would be a tough mission, that nothing like this has ever been tried before, and how we all need to work hard to make sure that all combat and damage control systems are in order and working right and when he says that last part everyone looks at everyone else and one guy says oh shit

So before you hit the rack, you go back up to the Deck office and then grab the PMS sheets off their hook and go out into the passageway and start going over all the hose reels and valves and OBAs and AFFF cans, and you are running your finger over a valve flange and the bright brass cuts into your forefinger and you hold it up and watch the blood run down the finger into the palm of your hand and then clench your hand to hold the blood there, then you go into the office and run over all the cables and check the welds on the angle iron holding the desks in place, and look over the pipes in the overhead and then trace them all back to their cutoff valves with the blood in your hand, and then you look up and it's 0214 and the Bo'sun comes in and tells you to hit the rack and on your way below you can see guys in every passageway going over the cables and the hose reels and the valves and the dogs on the watertight doors, each tracing them with their fingers and looking at them with thoughtful looks because it is real this time

And the next day everyone is running all over the boat getting the Marines back on board and you walk through the mess decks past a table of FCs and they're talking about the BPDMS, a piece of shit missile system, and you can hear them say that the Raytheon guy said to just punch the fire button and hold it down until all the missiles are gone, and then you slip on a big chunk of Italian mud on the deck and almost go down but catch yourself on a table, and you pull yourself back up and keep on walking one two three four and up and duck and one two three four and up and duck all the way to the Supply Office.

Three days later, after the ship got everyone back on board and you pulled out from Sardinia and hauled ass across the Med, running the straits between Italy and Sicily at top speed, and then across the water at about 20 knots the whole way, with those fat old boats cranking it on all three of them, and the Marines live-firing on the flight deck every night and the GMs greasing up the guns, the old three-inch fifties the ones you see in World War Two movies going bang-bang, bang-bang, bang-bang against the Kamikazes arrowing down out of the blue Pacific skies, and the 25 millimeter chain guns going bam-bam-bam-bam, and the fifties on the pintels going duh-duh-duh-duh-duh and the tracers skipping out on the waves and the oil drums spinning around as the bullets slam into them and then sinking under the ocean water, and the Cobras lifting off the flight deck with their chain guns swiveling around under their chin, and then the '46s and the '53s humping off the deck with their crew chiefs in their helmets swinging their fifties around, and the ordinance guys hauling shit out of the magazines you never saw before like the sidewinder missiles they hang on the Cobras, and the SAWs and the M-16s burping out, and then they test fire the CIWS spinning carefully on their mounts like the fucking terminator, and then zipping out the rounds, and the ship heeling through the whitecaps, tucked over to port and just hauling ass, and the cold saltwater fresh breeze deep into your lungs like the cold snap air you walked in as a child.

And suddenly you are there on the bridge as the boat pulls into the bay of Iskenderun, and as soon as you are secured, you go up on the signal bridge to watch the jarheads march up out of the flight deck shelters and across the flight deck in a big arc behind the rotors spinning up in the soft morning air, and then up the ramps and into the helos, and the ramps closing and the helos lifting up and then left and then forward and then joining up, and the off into the mist and over the mountains all around, a swarm like gnats, and below the Marines are climbing down the accom ladder and into Mike boats and then chugging off to the shore where you can see through the big eyes something like Greyhound buses waiting for them all different colors, and the whole day is crazy with running people and supplies humping up out of storage and cranes lowering them down into boats, whole rafts of MREs and one whole pallet of toilet paper.

At the end of the day when the sun drops beneath the sea and flight quarters are secured and the boats come slogging across the bay back to the ship and everyone is back on board, and suddenly the ship is empty and echoing again, you climb up to the signal bridge and stand there looking out over the mountains to the east where the Marines went and you wish so hard that you could go with them.
Chapter Eighteen

You walk up on the empty flight deck to look around and you see mountains on three sides of the bay and a little town with towers sticking up at the head of the water and the air smells bad like oil burning and the sky is gray and the two other ships of the MARG are laying off about a mile away and you think this is the first real foreign country I've ever been to, and then off in the town you can hear people singing with their voices echoing across the water to you and someone says that's the Arabs calling people to prayer, and then you say a prayer yourself even though you almost never even think about God.

But you remember how that afternoon you ran into a Marine Cobra pilot you kind of know and he had his pistol on and his flight suit and he was going up to his helo, and you stopped and watched him as he came down the passageway toward you and then you stuck out your hand and said good luck sir and he said thanks and you said take care of yourself be careful sir and he nodded and you turned and watched him walk away down the passageway getting smaller and smaller and then turning to go up the ladder to the flight deck, so you say a prayer for the pilot right there on the empty flight deck with the Arabs singing and the wind picking up and running through your hair and you walk to the bow and stand looking out over the water and you say good luck sir and maybe goodbye.

But nothing happens to them and you hear how the Marines spent four days getting up there and then came down to the border and shot the shit with the Iraqis who didn't want to get their asses kicked again so they let the Marines go down into Iraq and the helos fly into the mountains and drop tons of supplies and every day the Skipper comes on the 1MC and gives you all a talk about how the tents are going up and the people are coming back and then one of the JOs goes up there and comes back and they show the video on SITE-TV and you can see how the people are living in tents and eating MREs and getting their water from the Marines who set up purifiers for the water, and how the Marines got checkpoints up and no one is allowed in with a gun or anything and every day the ordies blow up a big pile of rockets and grenades and bullets and stuff, you can hear the boom and see the cloud go up into the sky, and the JO says that they do this every day and there's still tons of stuff up there lying around.

And you sit in the bay, working in supply and in the deck office moving paper around and bullshitting with the guys, and then one day you are alone in the deck office when the First Lieutenant comes in and he looks around and then shuts the door behind him and walks over to your desk and says I hear that you are striking for supply and you say pretty much and he says that's a good idea and you say yup and then he says I never said anything about it to anybody but I want to say thanks for jumping in and pulling me out of the water and you say don't worry about it sir and he says sure and then he looks around the office and then back at you and he says well thanks and then he says I endorsed your transfer chit, like that's a huge favor to you and you say thank you sir and he says well we need you here for the rest of the cruise like you been doing but when we get back you can go to supply full time and you say thank you sir and then he walks out and shuts the door behind him.

And then day after day after day and days go by sitting there in the bay and guys are getting testy and jumping every time someone says boo and you almost get into a fight on the mess decks with Wilkerson when you walk by and he is telling a whole bunch of assholes all about the girl in Rota that he and Penn were screwing and how it was a free ride for them and you are walking behind him and when he starts laughing you reach over and slam his face into the mess decks table and he jumps up and this time it's Revelard who pulls you away and you don't know what the fuck is up with you.

Then one night you are sitting up on the signal bridge with Revelard in two chairs he ripped off from the wardroom and the signals officer, a kind of a jerk, comes up and passes you guys and goes into the signal shack and then comes out and walks kind of jerky past you and Revelard, who are sitting there smoking and drinking coffee and then he walks into the hatch and you see it kind of close and then it slams open and he comes out and hollers at you and Revelard to stand up and so you do kind of slow and he's breathing hard and you are wondering what the hell is wrong with him.

And then he grabs your chair and kind of swings it around and then lets it go and it falls out and down spinning in the air and then it hits the water and you are standing there and then he shoves past you and grabs Revelard's chair and he kind of gets it up in the air and then sort of just shoves it out over the rail, and it falls too, hitting a sponson on the way and it breaks into about ten pieces and then those pieces hit the water and Revelard says Jesus Christ sir and the officer stands there with his mouth open and breathing hard and then turns and walks down the platform and into the hatch and it slams closed and bounces open and you see his hand reach out and grab the hatch and pull it closed and then you see the dogs move as he closes it.

You look at Revelard and he says what an asshole and then he says guy got a letter from his wife two days ago and she says she's two months pregnant and look at him and say what and Revelard says you dick we been to sea for four months and you say oh and two days later you see the first chair, your chair, on the deck of the garbage barge when it comes out and the captain of the barge is sitting in it like the king of all creation and you and Revelard sit there in two new chairs and say these are better ones anyway.

Three days later the Skipper comes on the 1MC and says that because of the war and the mission and how the boat that was supposed to relieve your boat is still working up and all that shit, and you are sitting there on the mess decks and you know what is coming, and then he says that the boat's been extended and everyone on the mess decks all at the same time says oh shit.

And the Skipper says that there's no way of knowing when you'll head home and one guy about four tables down stands up and starts yelling fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck and he picks up his tray and whips it against the bulkhead and the spaghetti sticks to the bulkhead and then starts sliding down and this guy starts laughing and laughing, and he can't stop, he tries to sit down in the little plastic swivel chair and then slides out and on the floor laughing and laughing and laughing, and later you hear that he is a OS, works in combat on the radar and that his wife told him that if he was extended one more time that she was going to divorce his ass.

So the next day you go down the ladder into supply and the senior chief down there asks you Kieffer you qual'd on the M-16 and you say no senior chief and he says you ever shoot one and you say yes senior chief and he says we need to get you qual'd and you say why senior chief and he says cause you going ashore with lieutenant Holden and bring gee-dunk up to the Marines and you say huh and he says sure I worked it out with the Bo'sun you wanna go right and you say yes senior chief and its like the whole world is changing right there in the supply office.

So all the sudden its like you are some kind of celebrity with the supply guys going into the stores and getting you some cammies and a web belt and you go to the ship's store and buy some black crows and the senior chief shows up the next day with some combat boots and he says that you got to wear them into the shower and then walk around in them to break them in and so you walk around the whole day with your feet making fart noises in your boots and you get a hat and you go up the MAAs and they take out an M-16 and you go aft to the fantail and figure out how to shoot it, and you are pretty good with it, and then you go with Mr. Holden to the hangar bay and you guys go over the two pallets of smokes and candy and magazines and all sorts of shit you are bringing up to the Marines, in Iraq.

That night you go down into deck berthing and all the guys know where you are going the next morning and they ask you a million questions and you sit there and shoot the shit and they say you are so lucky man getting off the boat and you sit there and see them look at you and everythings kind of soft and slo-mo and you finally hit the rack and lay there in your cammies and boots and stare at the flesh-colored paint on the ceiling and wonder where the hell you are.

And the next morning while you are sitting in the galley eating a omelet with real eggs and real cheese Pinch One made for you the senior chief comes in and tells Pinch One to make one for him and then says Kieffer the shit hit the fan and you are not going and you say what senior chief and he says that the asshole First Lieutenant reminded the XO that you are restricted to the boat for two more days and he says he's not signing off on this and you say oh fuck and the senior chiefs says yup and then sits up and tucks into the omelet and says Pinch One, this fucking thing is runny and you put down your plate and say I'm gonna go see the Bo'sun and the Senior chief nods at you like you took a long time figuring that one out and then he asks Pinch One you got any good hot sauce for these runny fucking eggs.

So you get to the deck office and you walk in to see the Bo'sun napping at his desk, his big legs up on the top and one hair shin showing where his pants pulled up, and all the sudden he says what the fuck do you want and you say oh shit, Bo'sun, you scared the crap out of me and he says I ought to, you standing there looking at me like you were measuring me for a dildo, Goddamn, I got my first boner of the float, and then I see you, I was dreamin' of some LBFM pussy I had in Subic in '73 and he sinks back into the chair and closes his eyes

And you say Bo'sun, first lieutenant says I can't go up to Iraq cause I'm restricted and he says I already had a talk with the Skipper about it and the Skipper calls up that asshole up to the bridge and says this guy pulls your drunk ass out of Rota and you are shitting on him like this and the first lieutenant says guess not sir and the Skipper says guess not you're right, don't be an asshole and you smile and you salute the Bo'sun, who is some kind of officer after all, and he says get the fuck out of here, salute my ass and then he says Kieffer and you say what you want Bo'sun and he says you watch your ass up there in I-raq and you say aye aye sir and he throws his pencil at you.
Chapter Nineteen

You huddle in the flight deck shelter with your cammies on and your boots and your cap tucked into one of the big pockets on your thigh and your MREs in the other, like the thigh pads in your football uniform sweaty, and a blanket rolled up and stuffed into your web gear and the canteens hanging heavy and wet from your chest, and you look across to Mr. Holden and he is got his eyes closed and his lips are moving and then he opens his eyes and says thought I'd get in a little prayer before we go you want one and you say what the hell Mr. Holden say one for me.

And you remember how you would sit in the gym with your uniform on with twenty other guys all sitting there together but no one looking at any one else, and the sun slanting down on to the gym floor, the warm fall sun, with your cleats out in front of you, and one guy always pacing up and down the floor with his cleats making little black marks on the hardwood, and one guy hopping up and up and up, then someone's dad would stick his head in the door and say time to go fellows and you would all come to your feet and line up two by two at the big double doors, tugging at your helmet and shrugging your shoulders to get the pads set right.

And then the airdale first class sticks his head in the door and says all aboard who's coming aboard and the two of you stand up in the dark cool shelter with the pipes and the electric running down the conduits and you look at each other and then you go out the hatch with Mr. Holden following you with the airdale checking your names off on his list.

And the two lines would come out of the school to the blacktop path up to the field in the bright cold sun with little puffs of smoke trailing down the helmets in front of you, with the cleats rattling and skating a little on the blacktop, up the hill to the flat field and the crowd and the cheerleaders and your mom and dad sitting up there in the stands.

And you stumble on the ladder up from the catwalk and fall forward and catch yourself and the non-skid burns the palms of your hands and you get your feet under you and really hump your ass up the last two steps and on to the flight deck where the '53's rotors are thunder clapping the air, this big fucking bug squatting down on its tiedown chains and you remember and remember and remember the rotors on the left, those huge blades slicing through the air and remember the rotor's on the left.

And you would huddle together with the coach you hated and the guys you love all jammed in and packed and put your hand in and feel it touch the arms and hands and the shoulders and you would shout and then break free on to the wonderful football field, the hard grass and the soft dirt and the world shrunk down into your helmet, the wind whistling through the ear holes and the mask in front of your face, and you run out to the forty yard line and take your spot second from the end, and look down the field to another helmet and shadow and shoulder pads and thigh pads, and you feel cool and light and your arms and your legs are just bursting ready to go, and you want to scream yes this is what I want.

You run under the blades shadows overhead and feel the whup and thud and air smashing into your ducked head and you follow the crew chief up the ramp and then to a seat and he shows you how to buckle in while the helo shakes and air electric and wired and so clear and you can see every line on Mr. Holden's face and count the rivets on the helo wall.

The kicker comes forward and when he passes you start running careful, careful to stay behind him and his foot comes back and then down into the ball and it sails off and you crank it on watching the ball turn over and over and over into the blue sky, and the air clear and clean and into your lungs, and you are motoring so fast and high at speed with your cleats digging the dirt and your long legs stretching out in front of you and your shoulders and your head high and the wind in your ear holes whistling.

And the helo squats down and out the window you can see the airdale lifting his arms like a touchdown and the rotors speed up and the helo shudders long and deep, and then it lifts up and into the air, and the airdale is staggering against the rotorwash, and he is lifting his arms up and up and up

You take ten long steps and see the guy you are going to hit and now you can just for a second see his eyes tight and hard, and you crash with a bam into him and hear the air rush out and you use your arms and your speed to shed his ass and he falls to your left and you push through looking for the man with the ball happening faster than you can think about it he jams up to your right and you take three steps and close your eyes and slam into him and you feel his body soft and his arms hard and he falls and you fall, and you hit the dirt and the grass and the sweet smell of sweat and plastic and dirt, and you lie there for a long second feeling the shock in your shoulders and your legs and your helmet tight around your head in your little space and the game is on and you are on the game.

And the helo stops shaking and you look down at the boat going away smaller and smaller and the blue ocean underneath you and you look ahead at the mountains coming closer.

And you sit and sit in the cold shuddering air and then you are in the end zone, it's the practice field and its fall and the air snaps in your chest and the leaves are thick on the ground, thick and wet and sticking together as you swing your legs into them and they fly up for just a few seconds and then back into the mass of leaves and dirt and a football slaps into the leaves and skids past the end line past the goal posts and toward the snow fence on the edge of the gorge and you jog over and pick it up, all slick leather and stitches, and you feel the little bumps all over it as you turn it over and over in your hands and then someone slaps your shoulder pads and you wake up in a helo shuddering over the mountains with Mr. Holden staring at you.
Chapter Twenty

You fly for about two more hours in and out of sleep and over the mountains and a long stretch over just miles and miles of brown grass, and the helo squats again and then settles down and you look out the window and can see tents and about twenty helos all lined up, and then you are down on the ground and the helo winds down its blades slowing and finally the crew chief stands up and waves his hand for you to unbuckle and you fuck with the latches and then get it off throwing the straps down over the side of your seat, and you stand up and can feel your butt all wet with sweat and your legs unlock and everything creaks a little, and then you hunch down and walk down the helo to the ramp and remember the rotor's on the right now and you walk out and turn left and step out on to long grass and into hot air.

You can see a town off in the distance shimmering and you walk out into the grass smelling the smells of JP5 and hot metal and oil and you see a tent and you turn and look at Mr. Holden and he shrugs his shoulders and you nod toward the tent and he nods and then the two of you walk across the long grass tangling your boots to the tent, and then you see Captain McCord sitting in the front of the tent under the fly smoking a huge cigar and he says hey Kieffer and you say hey sir and then Mr. Holden walks up and you say to Captain McCord this is Mr. Holden and he's from ship's stores and he's got two pallets of smokes and gee-dunk for your Marines sir and Mr. Holden comes up and he shakes Captain McCord's hand then Captain McCord says sit down boys and you do sit right there with the officers and shit, you sit down, and Captain McCord reaches down behind him and finds a box and lifts it out and offers you all cigars.

You say no, of course, but Mr. Holden takes one and you light a smoke and you all sit around for a minute lighting up and smoking and you lean back in the canvas chairs and Mr. Holden says this is a nice cigar captain and you can see he's a little green but he's puffing all the same and then Captain McCord says what can we do for you boys and Mr. Holden says can we catch a ride down to Iraq and deliver our load and Captain McCord calls out for the Gunney who comes around the corner and has to have a cigar too and you all are sitting there with the freaking Gunney for god's sake.

And Mr. Holden is saying that you want to get a HUMVEE and drive around and drop shit off for the Marines and the Gunney is nodding and Captain McCord is saying don't we got space on the '46s going down tomorrow a.m. and the Gunney says yessir and Captain McCord says let's wrestle up a working party to load their shit tonight and then let's talk to S-3 and get a HUMVEE for these boys once they get to Camp Denton and you say Camp Denton sir and he says that's the forward base south of Dohok named for a sergeant who rolled his truck down well you'll see it and bought it you can start there and run down to the south and then over the mountains and then to the camps and you say yessir thank you sir and Mr. Holden says that sounds perfect captain.

And so you sit there looking out over Turkey and the sun starts going down and the shadows of the Marines humping the stores, your stores, out of the '53 and into a '46 stretch out toward your feet, stretched out and feeling good and the Captain goes back into the tent and comes out with a tray with a bunch of little cups and you all take one and drink this wicked hot really good coffee and then the Captain looks at his watch and says five four three two one and then he's off duty and he goes back into the tent and comes out with a tray with a bunch of little glasses on it and you all take one and drink down this wicked hot liquor than trickles down your throat and into your stomach and you are feeling pretty damn good and then you all have another round and then later the Gunney comes for you and you follow him through the dark, through the Turkish dark to a tent where there's a cot and you lie down and pull your blanket out and pull it up around your shoulders and lay back into the soft canvas and look up at the tent overhead.

And then you hear the thud, thud, thud of rifles and you sit up into the dark and look out the tent flaps and over the town you see tracers arcing up into the sky and the Gunney is there next to you and he says real soft it's just the PPK shooting up the town and you nod even though you don't know what the hell he is talking about and then you lay your head down in the cot in the tent in Turkey and you can still see over the edge of your cheek the bullets flying up into the air and coming down you don't know where and then you are asleep.
Chapter Twenty-one

You wake up the next morning smelling coffee and chocolate and you look over and see the Gunney working over a little stove and he is boiling up some shit in there and then pouring it out into some cups and you sit up and he hands you one and you drink deep and you can feel the coffee working its way into your arms and legs and the chocolate sitting down pretty in your stomach and then Mr. Holden comes into the tent and says rise and shine petty officer time to go to Iraq.

So you grab your shit and stumble out in to the early morning with the hills all soft and gray in the before the sun comes up light and across the fields with the dew wet on your legs and then to a '46 with its rotors just starting to turn, blowing soft dawn air into your face and you look up and see the pilots in their helmets looking at you and so you go around back, no rotor this time, and then up the ramp where your pallets are all tucked in, and then to a seat and you buckle in and you see Mr. Holden across from you buckling in, and then you look up to see the crew chief settling in and looking out the window and not at you, and then the Gunney comes trucking up the ramp and he's got flack vests and helmets and an M-16 for you, and he hands you four magazines full off bullets and he says sign here and hands you a clipboard and you scribble your name on some sheet and then you hand it back and then you reach out and grab the rifle and set it carefully between your knees and watch the Gunney scramble back down the ramp and off to the left.

You can feel the helo shake in your butt and you suddenly feel like everything is real, you can see the walls of the helo very sharp and crisp, the shadows are like knives and the light through the windows is blinding, and then the up and your stomach drops out and you close your eyes and breath in deeply and you remember going on the roller coaster, the big wooden one, the Comet, at Crystal Beach when you were a kid, and how the cars climbed the huge hill clicking and clicking and clicking and then the hill leveled out high above Lake Erie and you could see the park and the shore and the water all out in front of you everywhere, and then there was this moment where everything slowed down and stopped just for a second before the cars started down.

And then you are over the camp and then you are over some fields and then you are over a river, and that's when the crew chief gets up and walks to the front of the helo and grabs a big metal can of .50 caliber bullets and hauls it back to where the .50 is stuck on a pintel with its nose out the window drooping, and he opens the lid of the can and hauls out the bullets on their metal chain and slides the first round into the top of the .50 and hauls back on the charging handles and talks into his helmet and points the .50 out away from the ground and squeezes the thumb trigger and the gun rattles for a second and the chain links float up into the air and on to the floor and smoke slides back from the gun through the helo and you can smell the sharp gunpowder smell and hear the gun echo in your head and you think that this guy thinks we might get shot at and then you think that this is the stupidest thing you ever did in your life.

Then the crew chief sits down and the helo grabs the air and lifts up, and out the window you can see another '46 kind of loosely along side of your helo and the two sway together and away like two killdeers over a cornfield on a summer day, and then you are up in the mountains with the helos diving and climbing and skittering over the mountain tops, and over camps of Iraqi troops who run out of their tents and to their guns and you can see the barrels track your helo across the sky and then down into a valley with the mountain tops above you and then up one more time where the air in the helo is very cold and clean tasting and then down one more time, down and over long fields and low hills, and then all the sudden your helo flares out and squats down and the crew chief is pointing at you and Mr. Holden and saying you and you out here and the ramp goes down and you unbuckle and stand up and look at the crew chief and he says you and you out here again and so you shrug and together walk side by side down the ramp into the Iraqi sunshine.

You take a few steps together and then jog carefully out from under the rotors and you can see the other helo circling over head and then the rotor blast hits you and you both crouch down in the tall grass and wait there while the shadow of the '46 flows over you and then it is gone, a black dot growing smaller in the sky and you and Mr. Holden stand up a little, you with your M-16 in your hands awkward and heavy and it is quiet and you can hear a Iraqi bird singing somewhere and you look at Mr. Holden and he looks at you and you say where to sir and he says I've haven't the faintest fucking clue.

So you look around and you can see some kind of Iraqi fort down the hill about a mile away and you point it out to Mr. Holden and he says let's wait a second and you both crouch back down in the tall grass and you say what if they fucked up and dropped us in the wrong spot and Mr. Holden says like 29 Palms where the Marines got dropped off in the middle of the freaking desert by accident and like five of them died trying to get back to base and you reach into your web gear and pull out a magazine and slide it in the belly of the rifle and feel it click home and then you pull back on the charging handle and let it slide forward and then you thumb the safety on and say let's go get a closer look sir and Mr. Holden says sure and so you walk all hunched down through the grass playing war until you get about a quarter mile away and see a HUMVEE come around the corner and you stand up together and breath out and then you put the sling of the M-16 on your shoulder and realize that you were shaking all the way.

So you and Mr. Holden come swinging through the grass and you walk up to this cement fort set in a field with a dirt road running into it and you walk up to the gate and a Marine is standing there with his rifle and you say hello and Mr. Holden says hello and the Marine just looks at you and then he says who are you and Mr. Holden says I'm Lieutenant Holden off the boat and we're bring some ship's stores down to you guys and the Marine says Jesus Christmas you got smokes and the Lieutenant says sure and the Marine turns around and hollers for the Master Sergeant who comes around the corner and says where'd you guys come from.

And so you tell him the whole story about how the helos dropped you off in the field and you didn't know where the hell you were and how you walked through the field all crouched down to see who the hell was down here and the Master Sergeant says you came through that field and he points and you say yup and he says hell we haven't checked that field for mines yet and you say holy fuck and then you have to sit down.

And then the Master Sergeant smiles and says where's your stores and you look at Mr. Holden and he looks like he's saying ah shit to himself and then the master sergeant says those guys will probably be back on the afternoon run don't worry and then he says you boys hungry and you both say sure cause you're all the sudden really hungry and he says come on in we're ready for chow and you go into the courtyard of the fort and look around at the rooms all around you, bare walls with what looks like bullet holes, and there's a big picture of Saddam painted on one wall with all these holes in it, and you walk over to the chow line and grab a MRE out of a big stack and go back to the middle of the courtyard and sit down and tear it open and you got the chicken which is actually pretty good.

So you spend the rest of the morning sitting there, and when the sun comes overhead you move into the shade at the edge of the courtyard and you shoot the shit a little with the Marines and one of them asks to see your M-16 and you hand it over and he says shit this thing still has the grease pack in it and good thing you didn't try to fire this fucker and then he pulls out the magazine and ejects the bullet in the chamber and breaks it down into pieces and cleans each piece and then he snaps it all back together and hands it back and says don't keep a round in the chamber it'll jam, don't' charge it unless you're ready to fire and don't fire until someone tells you to, got it and you say sure and you slowly slide the magazine back into the rifle and lean it carefully against the wooden railing at the front of the sidewalk than runs around the inside of the building.

And the Marine says don't sweat it petty officer none of us has even chambered a round since we got here, the Iraqis are about a mile off but they're staying well clear, especially since the A-10s showed up, they're scared shitless of those bastards we got here four weeks ago and deployed down here and have been sitting in our fireholes ever since, pulling our puds and looking at the Arabs looking at us. We spent a week just cleaning this place out – look in that room over there – fuckin' Iraqis shit in there.

Right about then another '46 comes in a lot closer this time and you can see Mr. Holden and a bunch of Marines ride out in a truck HUMVEE to the helo and the pallets roll off the back and the helo lift off and disappear and then you go over and help him break down the pallets and stow the stores in the back of the HUMVEE.

You get in and a Marine leans over and shows you how to drive the thing and then you carefully drive it over the fort and a crowd of Marines comes around and you and Mr. Holden sell their allotment of smokes and playboys and a few watches and a boom box and a lot of candy and then you get your M-16 and a map from the master sergeant with the camps marked out on it and you drive out of the fort into the afternoon sun and your last view of the fort is a Marine with clippers shaving the heads of a long line of guys.
Chapter Twenty-two

You and Mr. Holden bump along the dirt road for a while and then you hit the black top and you stop the HUMVEE and pull out the map and show it to Mr. Holden and say sir it looks like a left to me and he says I got to trust you petty officer and then you notice he's wearing a .45 in a holster and you point to it and he says the master sergeant signed it out to me at the fort just in case and you ask you qual'd with that sir and he says once and you say we're well and truly fucked if something happens and he laughs and says yessir petty officer, yessir and then a A-10 comes humming over with that evil big cannon sticking out of its nose and a shitload of rockets and bombs under its wings and those two big engines over the nail howling and Mr. Holden says I am awful uncomfortable trusting in the Air Force.

And so you laugh and pull the big fucking truck out on to the Iraqi highway and shift gears and stomp on the pedal until the bastard is rolling at 50 with the big fucking tires humming on the blacktop and the wind whistling through the canvas and you drive out on the endless highway that runs between the mountains and the oil wells and the flattened forts every one hundred yards along the road, with the A-10s overhead and the oil heads burning in the distance and it is a beautiful afternoon with the sun slanting in and the sky blue as hell.

After a while you come to a crossroads and turn right and then start climbing up into the mountains through a pass, and you climb and climb up the side of the hill past the brown grass hillsides and the tumbling rock walls, and then past a fort that was just fucking flattened by some big ass bomb in the war with a huge steel I-beam bent up out of the blasted roof toward the sky, and you can see inside some black things that might be bodies like road signs along the Thruway, and you climb up into the mountains shifting and grinding the gears.

You come to the spot marked on the map and look up to see the top of the pass and at the top there's a comms station so you pull the HUMVEE over and park it, set the brake and get out and you and Mr. Holden load up with a couple of cartons of smokes and an armload of candy and you walk up the hill and surprise the Marines there, and a couple of Brits who are living in old refrigerator cartons and little corrugated tin hooches in this bombed out shelter on top of the mountain, and guarding the comms link between Denton and the main camp outside of Mosul, and you sell them some shit and throw in the smokes for free and they take a picture of you on top of the hill with your M-16 and throw you your camera.

And one guys says can he grab a ride with you guys cause he stepped on nail or some shit and it's all fucked up and pus-y and he need to see the corpsman, and he takes off his sock and shows you the foot and you can see the nasty black mark where the nail or whatever jammed in and how there's a black line running from it up his shin, and you say sure hop in and the Marines and the Brits are calling out pussy-pussy-pussy and he throws them the finger and hops in to the HUMVEE and crawls into the back, and breaks out a carton of smokes and says I'll get you later for this right and you say right, and then Mr. Holden climbs in and you start the HUMVEE and pull back on to the road and start down the mountain.

About halfway down the Marine says stop the truck and you pull over and he gets out and looks around and says come here I want to show you something and you and Mr. Holden get out of the truck and follow him up the hillside with the dirt crumbling under your feet and then you run into a string of foxholes and little forts with tin roofs and there's about a million RPGs laying around and a whole hole full of bullets in rusting cans and an old helmet you pick up.

The Marine says watch your ass here boys these things have been lying around in the rain and then he takes you up to a little cave where there are four bodies lying there like mummies with their bodies all twisted up and the blood dry on their shirts and their mouths open and their ears rubbed raw and red and their eyes still staring up, and he says they are still looking for the bastard who did this to them and you can see how someone rattled up this hillside at about 400 miles an hour and dropped a whole string of some kind of bomb on them and just blew these guys into the next world.

You can see one guy kind of off to the side like he was crawling and scrambling when he bit it and you can see his shirt ripped off his body on one side and still perfect on the other and when you bend down to look down where his shirt open was you can see his guts lying on the dirt all dried out like a model from 10th grade biology and you don't feel sick at all not at all like you expected.
Chapter Twenty-three

You ramble down the mountain dodging RPGs and strings of bullets and thinking hard about land mines and realizing that you left the M-16 in the HUMVEE and you jump back in the truck with a real road trip feel to the whole thing and you start it up and get it in gear and haul ass down the mountain, switching back and forth down the brown hillsides and the dry grass and the rocks that look like someone's backbone up out of the earth, and then you hit a long highway and drive on that for a while with the tires humming and the wind whipping and the dry air sucking the water out of your body, and then finally you hit the checkpoint just south of Zakho and the Marine tells you to run up to the gate and you drive up past trucks and tractors and horses and wagons all loaded to the brim and above with furniture and clothes and all kinds of shit and you hit the checkpoint and get waved through and then you drive down the road and into the town of Zakho.

And the buildings are low and sandy-colored and there are kids on every street corner shouting Hey Joe at you and waving and running alongside of your HUMVEE and you slow down and the Marine says speed up cause if you slow down they'll be all over you and there are men in those raghead scarves and they are standing outside of coffee shops and they are looking at you with dark expecting eyes and they make you feel a little scared, and you turn right and up a street alongside a river and the Marine taps you on the shoulder and yells that's the Tigris River and you can remember that name from Sunday School.

And then you see a huge fort with machine guns on the walls against the setting sun and the Marine says pull in here and you do and you run through the gate and go inside and Mr. Holden sets up shop and starts selling while you go find a place to sleep that night.

And you run into a guy from Marine S-3, the supply guys, and they say you can catch a rack with them tonight and you go back to the HUMVEE and start to unload your gear and you can see that Mr. Holden is about sold out and there is one big pimple red faced Marine standing there and he says where's the fuck books and Mr. Holden says we don't stock them anymore and he says why the hell not and Mr. Holden says the Navy stopped selling them and he says oh fuck sure we can haul our asses thousands of fucking miles and sit in these godforsaking holes in the motherfucking desert and we got nothing to whack off with and Mr. Holden kind of smiles and says don't blame me I got nothing to do with it and another Marine a big white guy says you whack off too much anyhow like you need a fuck book and the pimple faced guy says it's my dick and I can wash it as fast as I want bitch and they all laugh and Mr. Holden laughs too, just a little.

And you hit the chow tent starving, with the steam tables steaming and a long line of Marines sliding up and getting their food and sitting down and eating all dirty and tired looking and then you rack out in a cold cement room that was an Iraqi barracks not too long ago and you lay there on your rack and Mr. Holden is just across the room on his rack and you finally say to him why did they cut off the porno sir and he says oh the born-agains are all over that shit and they got to the secnav and he wrote some instruction banning all porno from ships stores and you say that's fucked up and he says I don't give two shits the guys can just buy that shit ashore and you say I guess so and then you roll over and stare at the concrete wall with the shadows dancing and someone's name or something dragged deep into the stone in Arabic.
Chapter Twenty-four

You wake up in the morning and your back aches from laying on a saggy cot and you fold your blanket and put on your boots and wish you had clean socks but you forgot to pack some so you just get your stuff together and look over where Mr. Holden is still sleeping on his stomach with a sweater for a pillow and you walk over to him and shake him a little and his eyes open and you say rise and shine Mr. Holden and he rolls over and then he sits up and says holy fuck petty officer we're in Iraq and then a Marine pokes his head through the door and says breakfast is almost over and you better shag your asses over there if you want to eat and then he sees Mr. Holden and says sorry about that sir and Mr. Holden says don't worry about it Marine I can shag my ass just like anyone.

After you eat you and Mr. Holden get in the HUMVEE and he says our helo is meeting us at Camp Denton so we got to drive back over there and return this HUMVEE but it's not going to be there until tomorrow so you want to go up to the camps and you say sure sir let's go and then the Marine you drove down here shows up limping a little and he says that they lanced his foot and shot him up with antibiotics and he needs a ride back and can we get him one and Mr. Holden says sure but we're going up to the camps first thing this morning and you mind and he says no sir I guess they won't miss my ass for a few hours and so he hops in the back and settles in and you start the HUMVEE and you pull out of the camp to the main road and he points you left and you go up the hill to the camps.

It's about a mile and a half up a long dirt road and as you drive up there you go by about a thousand of the tractors and Mercedes and old trucks all loaded up with people and their shit and their kids wave at you and say hello Joe and hi and they are really cute kids with dark hair and dark eyes and then you come over a little rise and there are the tents all in front of you for miles they are spread out but clumped together in little groups over the hillside with the mountains behind them and then you turn left again and pull in and turn off the key.

You can see a long line of men waiting to sign in or something and down by the water truck, there are about a hundred women and girls all lined up with water jugs, and there are two Marines up the hill sitting on a black plastic mountain of MREs, and you get out and walk up the hill between the check-in tent and the water truck and past the MREs, and you come over a little rise and there's a tent with red cross on it and a long line of people waiting to get in, and you go into the tent and find out its those doctors without borders guys and they are working here for free to help out the Kurds and that's pretty cool.

And then you see a kid on a table and his freaking arm is gone, just gone, all there is a big red bloody bandage where his elbow should be and you walk up to him and look at him and he's not screaming or anything, he looks like he's about ten years old, and there he sits with his freaking arm blown off and his eyes closed holding the bandage in his other hand, and you grab a nurse guy or a corpsman or something and you ask him what happened to the kid and he says RPG, the kid was out picking up ammo for his family and the RPG went off, those things are really unstable, you got to watch your ass around them.

You say why was he picking up ammo and the corpsman shrugs his shoulders and you are getting really pissed at the whole thing, and then his Dad or whoever, maybe his uncle, comes up to him and talks to him real low and the kid nods his head, and the doctor comes up and talks to the uncle or dad and the guy nods his head, and the doctor turns to the corpsman who's talking to you and says let's get him on the table and get him under, they just agreed to take the thing off above the elbow and the corpsman says catch you later like he's going to the store or something and he goes up to the kid and helps him off the table and they go into another part of the tent and the dad or uncle is just standing there.

And Mr. Holden who heard everything can see that you are just freaking out about all this and he says easy there Kieffer and puts his hand on your shoulder but you shake it off and take a step over to the dad or uncle or whatever and you tap him on the shoulder and he turns to you and says yes and you say do you speak English and he says yes and you nod toward where the kid went and you say your son and he says no mister, my sisters son and you say you sent him out to pick up ammo and he says yes.

And you can see in his eyes that he can see in your eyes that you are really, really pissed, and Mr. Holden comes up and says we need to go and the uncle says wait and then he looks at you for a long time measuring, and says it makes you angry to see that and you say yes and he says very angry and you say yes very angry and he says I am sorry you are angry I am sorry that I send my sisters son to pick up bullets and rockets too, I am sorry that my son is dead but I would send him too, because you, and he waves at you and Mr. Holden and the Marine, because you will leave soon and we, we will have to fight Saddam again and we will need the bullets and rockets and there's not a goddam thing you can say to that, is there.

You walk out of the camps very fast, past three kids sitting on a rusty anti-aircraft gun and swinging around in the seat and past another kid playing in the dust with some piece of metal, and you all get into the HUMVEE and you start it and jam it into gear and back up just missing a cart full of shit, and you put it in first gear and it stalls, and you have to start it again and then you get it into first and you pull away and jam down the road at about forty, and the carts and tractors and Mercedes and the trucks all pull over out of your way.
Chapter Twenty-five

And the three of you drive out of town and out on the highway and through the checkpoint and then on to the highway and you stomp on the gas and the HUMVEE spins up to about fifty, which is really hauling for them, and finally Mr. Holden leans over and says slow down petty officer and you take your foot off the gas and the HUMVEE winds down and then you put the thing in neutral and just let it glide for about a half mile and then when it's going about a mile per hour you pull over to the side and turn it off and you sit there with the engine creaking and a little wind in your ears, and then you lean over the side of the HUMVEE and puke in the dirt.

And Mr. Holden says that was pretty fucked up wasn't it and you say sure was sir and you take a swig from your canteen and spit it out and the Marine says you see that shit all the time kids and women fucked up from bad ammo or mines, there's about a million minefields all over the fucking place and you really don't want to hear anymore so you take another swig of your water and spit it out and then you take and drink the whole fucking canteen and then start the HUMVEE and pull back out on the road and you drive through Iraq.

And all the sudden Mr. Holden leans over and says why'd you join the Navy Kieffer and you say why the service or why the Navy and he says both and so you tell him about your shitty job at the plastics factory and how you got promoted to be a manager and you went to one more wedding where one of your buddies was marrying a woman who was as goodlooking that day as she was ever going to be, and the next day you went in and quit your job and then walked down to recruiters row, lots of recruiters in upstate cause there are not a lot of jobs, and you walked past the Marine recruiter and looked in the door, and a Marine master sergeant looked up at you from his desk and put his pencil down and you looked at him and he looked at you for a long second and then he picked his pencil back up and went back to writing, and you took three more steps to the Navy office, and how you always wondered who rejected who.

And the Marine in the back laughs and you kind of turn around and you say you're a corporal right Marine and he says yea and you look ahead at the road and say how long you been in and he says what and you say how long you been in and he says oh, four years and you say I'm a E-4 too, been in for a year, and next year I'll be an E-5 and what will you be then and he says probably still a fucking corporal and you both laugh.

And then you turn back to the road and you tell Mr. Holden that the Navy recruiter looked like you were interrupting him but he gave you the practice exam and you aced it and then the recruiter dragged out the rating books and tried to talk you into going nuke and you said no way and no to subs and flight crew and flight deck too and then you signed up for a three-year hitch as a basic seaman and went off to boot and Mr. Holden says no Kieffer, not how, why and you think for a second and then you tell him because I didn't want to die in the same shitty upstate new york town I grew up in without ever doing anything or going anywhere and he nods and says that's not bad.

And you come to a stop sign and wait there for a second, and then you say how about you sir why'd you join up and you turn left and start up the side of the mountain toward the comms station and he thinks for a while and says I needed money for college and it looked easy, the first two years they baby you until you sign up for real and then it still wasn't that hard, we went to knife and fork school and we got commissioned and then I was on the boa,t and it happened so fast one day I was getting hammered at my frat and then next day I was on the boat, and I didn't know what the hell I was doing but the senior chief took me in and after a while I was all right, you know its not that hard to be a officer.

And then you feel the whole fucking HUMVEE lift up under your ass and before you can say or do shit it's rolling on two wheels and its swerving all over the road and you hear the Marine say holy shit and it comes back down hard, and you can see a wheel rolling off to the left and the HUMVEE is scraping into the blacktop on its axle and it spins a little, and you hit the brakes and try to turn into the spin but it rocks back up on two wheels and then comes down hard again, and then it stops and everything is quiet

And the Marine is climbing over the back with his M-16 in his hands and he's shouting get the fuck out and you reach behind you and grab your M-16 and then climb out and turn to look and you can see Mr. Holden trying to get out of his seat but he's still buckled in, and just as he figures that out you hear about four shots and you see the front of Mr. Holden's head just come apart in a big cloud of red, and he falls forward in slo-mo kind of to his left and then across the transmission hump and on to your seat, and you can see into the top of his head where the bone is gone, it's just gone, and the Marine grabs you and pulls you down behind the HUMVEE and you hear five or six more shots slam into the other side of the HUMVEE.

And you are sitting there leaning against the HUMVEE and saying what the fuck what the fuck what the fuck and the Marine screams in your face shut the fuck up and you do and you hear a whole shitload of shots hit the HUMVEE and a few whistle overhead and you think its true you can hear the bullets go, and you see the Marine crawl around to the ass end of the truck and take a quick look, and then he sits back for a second and charges his rifle, and then he whips around and he lets loose, and you look down at your M-16 and you cannot remember how it works.

The Marine lifts up over the back end and fires again and then you crawl over to him and say I can't remember how it works and he looks at you like you really suck and he takes the rifle from you and pulls back the charging rod and hands it to you and says you need to fire back and you need to fire at that little fort over there and then you need to get the fucking radio out of the back and hand it to me and you crawl back to the front and lift up over the hood saying holy fuck holy fuck and you see the little fort and you aim at a window, and when you pull the trigger you see a head pop out at the bottom of the window, and your M-16 rattles like a stick in a can and your bullets fly and they sail downstream and they hit that head and it turns red and the sill turns red and the head slides down out of sight.

And the Marine yells good shooting Tex and then he stands up and waits for a second and he squeezes the trigger, really calm, and the rifle rattles, and then there is silence for a long time, maybe ten seconds and you remember that you are supposed to get the radio and you scoot back to the back of the HUMVEE and snake your hand over the fender and feel the handle and try to haul it up and over, but its too heavy, so you have to take a deep breath and stand up and lift the heavy fucker over and down, and then you put it on the ground between you and it's still silent, and the Marine says maybe there was only two of them and you say what the fuck was that all about and he says who the fuck knows – could be Iraqis could be Kurds could be some bored ass motherfucker – that was a mine in the road prolly remote detonated with following fire – pretty basic maneuver – your officer is dead and you say yea he's dead and the Marine says too bad but you got some back for him and then he squats down and fires up the radio and you then realize that you did get some and you wish you felt worse about it.

You can hear the Marine on the radio and he's saying we about two kliks from the comms station and we took a mine and we got a dead Navy officer and he says to you what was his name and you say Mr. Holden, Lieutenant Holden, and he says it's Lieutenant Holden, off the boat and he listens and he says I don't know what the fuck they were doing they were selling shit off the back of a HUMVEE and he listens and he says I got some petty officer here some supply type and he listens and he says to you what's your name and you say Kieffer, Tom Kieffer, BM3, and he says Kieffer, a bo'sun's mate and he listens and all the while you are sitting there with your back against the HUMVEE and you are looking out at the mountain above you and breathing heavy.

And the Marine signs off and puts the hand set back on top of the radio and he says they say sit tight and they'll send out some guys from Zakho as soon as they can and you say sit tight okay, and he says you did alright there squid and you are breathing more slowly and you say holy shit, and he says yea holy shit, and then you look at your M-16 there all black and hot and smoking in the sun and you think this is fucked up, this is fucked up, and the Marine lifts his head and looks over the HUMVEE toward the fort and he says I think there's one more motherfucker in there and you say what and he says yea I can see something moving over there and you try to get up to a crouch but your legs aren't working too well and so you fall back against the HUMVEE.

And the Marine says we should go over there to make sure he's not calling in back up too and you breath deep and say sure what do I do and he says you go back around the back and I'll go around the front and we have a look and so you fall forward on your hands and knees and crawl to the back kind of dragging your rifle behind you and then you look back and see him disappear around the front fender and you get to the back and poke your head around and you can't see the fort, so you sort of crawl forward a little so you can peek around the front side fender, and then you can see the fort and it looks quiet, and then you hear the Marine call softly I'll go first and you watch the fort and if you see anything plaster it, right and you call back right.

And the Marine takes off running low and bent over, and he scrambles over the road and into the ditch, and he puts his head up and then waves at you to come and you sort of hop up and stagger a little and then take three very slow steps across the hot blacktop and sort of fall into the ditch, and you look over to your left and see the Marine crouching up and he looks at you and says same thing again and you bring your M-16 up over the lip of the ridge and then you see the top of a head and you pull the trigger and the rifle fires and you see little dust clouds all over the wall, and then you stop firing and there is silence again.

And the Marine comes flying out of the ditch and hauls ass over to his left and flops down behind a little hill with a bush on top and then he waves at you and you say fuck and you haul your ass out of the ditch and run like a mother fucker, ten long steps, and slide down into a little hole in the dirt, and then you lay there for a second and breathe, and then you pull yourself up and see that the fort is only about 20 yards away, and you look out over the brown dirt, and then from the corner of your eye you can see the Marine roll to his left getting farther away from you, and then jump up and run to about ten yards from the fort and lay down behind a little wall there.

And then he waves at you, and when you get your legs under you, you can see the head come up and the AK flop over the window sill and even so, you pull yourself up and start running, and you hear the AK open up and the Marine's M-16 open up, and you run like hell toward the fort and you see the head go pink and fall back behind the window sill, and you then feel something like a slap on the head with a big board, and you fall down and scrape the hell out of your chin and your helmet falls off and tumbles in front of you and you slide into the dirt and lay there, with your ears ringing, and you see the Marine run up to the fort and he kicks the door in and goes inside and then there's quiet again, and then you hear one shot and then you see him coming out the door with his rifle low and he walks over to you and squats down and says where you hit and you don't know.

So he checks you out and then he reaches over picks up your helmet and whistles, and then hands it to you and you can see the long crease in the metal where the bullet hit and flew on and you finally get how close to dead you are.

So you sit up and the world spins around you and the Marine says you okay buddy and you say yea I guess and he says good cause we gotta go in there and you say in there and he says yea we gotta check it out and he stands up and puts out his hand and you grab it and he pulls you up and you are all dizzy and try to walk and he says lean on me and you do and then after about six steps you say I'm alright lemme go and you walk like a drunk, but you walk with him toward the little fort.

And you get to the doorway and he goes in and you hear him say shit and oh fuck and he comes out and says three dead goobers in here and a fucking radio and you lean on the door and he says good odds they called this one in and now we got to sit tight and hope our guys get here before their guys do and he looks at the three dead guys and says let's get them the fuck out of here.

The Marine goes inside and you look around through the window and see him grab the ankles of one guy and haul him to the door, the dead guy's head rattling on the stone floor and his web gear chinking across the stones, and then he stops and looks at you and says a little help and you say oh sure and he hands you an ankle with a boot on it and a sock all scrunched down and dark skin showing with dark hairs on it, and you take it anyway and the two of you pull him out the door and into the shady side, and then you go back in and grab another guy and drag him out, and then go back in and grab the other guy and you try not to look at his head with a big chunk missing over the right eyebrow and you still do, and think I did that, and you look over at the Marine and can see that even he's a little messed up about this and you drop the last guy in the shade and the Marine says mebbe they won't smell so much over here and there they are, three dead guys lying in the shade and then you both go back in and kick dirt over the blood on the floor.

The Marine picks up the radio and squeezes the handle and you both jump a little when a voice comes out asking some kind of question and the Marine grabs the handset and squeezes the button and says fuck you ragheads and you hear fuck you Joe come back and then he picks up the whole radio and smashes it on the floor.

You both go back out to the HUMVEE and grab everything you can find, even Mr. Holden's pistol out of his belt and you pull Mr. Holden out of the HUMVEE and you lay him on the road in the shade, and the Marine grabs the radio and you both haul all this shit, water and MREs and some ammo, back to the fort.

The Marine crouches down on the floor and gets on the radio and calls in and they say 30 minutes and he clicks off and says or it's free I guess and he stands up and says you take that window and I'll take this one, just watch for shit and if you see something call me before you take a shot and he says you know how to charge the rifle now I guess and you say I guess and he says you're doin all right squid and you say thanks jarhead and he smiles and says get to the window.

And you look out the square window, back over the road you drove up on, and you look at the hills and the mountains all around you, going pink as the sun goes down and the air gets cold and your legs get cramped hunched down, and every so often you reach down by your feet and pick up the canteen and take a swig of the warm water inside, tasting the purification tablets you dropped in there this morning and feeling cold come up through your feet and into your legs.

And then its dusk and there are still no headlights on the road, and you hear the Marine call in again and he says it's been an hour and where the hell is the relief and the voice says on it's way Marine and then Marine checks off your location with the voice and the voice stops for a second and then goes quiet for about five minutes while the rest of the light goes away

And then the voice comes back again and the voice says sorry about this fellas we got the directions wrong they're about five kliks south of you and are looking for a road to turn north as soon as we can boys sit tight and then he says we whistled up some Air Force for you, a A-10 will be overhead in about 15 minutes and you hear the Marine's voice all tight and he says roger that sir and out and then you two are all alone in a little stone fort next to a road in a desert with mountains all around in the dark in Iraq.
Chapter Twenty-six

And you hear gunfire off to your left and the shots spatter against the little fort, and the Marine says oh shit they are coming in and he runs to the window to the south and looks out the corner of the window and he says I see five, maybe six guys coming and all the sudden he jumps up and lets loose out the window for about ten seconds, and then falls down and says now there's four, maybe five guys, and then there's more shots like rain on the roof at the start of a thunderstorm, and you crawl over next to him and then you hear three shots and three bullets whistle over your head through the window, and then another two shots go in the window you just left and the Marine says they got us flanked fuck.

And the Marine says we got to get out of here and get our ass back to the HUMVEE, grab the radio and your rifle and we'll crawl our ass back just like we got over here and then you nod and he jumps up and fires for about three seconds, and then you hear the hammer clicking on an empty chamber and he ejects the magazine and reaches down into his BDU thigh pocket for another magazine, and then you hear three shots real quick and the Marine falls down next to you and you grab his shoulder and its all wet and warm.

The Marine shouts what the fuck is this and you say you're hit bad and he says it's all meat, no bone lets get the fuck out of here and he crawls to the door and you sort of lift your rifle over the ledge and fire until the magazine runs out, and then you crawl back to the door and the Marine says fuck crawling let's run and you look at him and he looks at you and then you both jump up and run as fast as you fucking can back to the HUMVEE, and you hear in the distance behind you more bullets smacking into the fort.

You dig around to the back of the HUMVEE, with your boots scraping in the sand and squealing on the blacktop, and fall down behind it and you hear the Marine say shit and then he moves a little and he says I jumped on your officer, probably go to mast for that, and all the sudden you laugh like hell slumped against the HUMVEE, and you try to stop laughing, but the Marine is laughing too, and you slow for a second and you say just fucking reload this bitch for me and he shows you the button that makes the magazine fall out, and how to line up the new one, and to make sure it clicks home, and then you charge the rifle, still wiping your eyes and the Marine gets on the radio and calls in and they say the A-10 is five minutes out.

And you look around the corner of the HUMVEE and you can sort of see the fort, and you catch the shadow of a guy coming around the front through the door, and you turn and you say to the Marine they're in the fort, and you lift up your rifle and he pushes it back down and says no use letting them know where we went and you squat down and sort of lie on your side and look out under the HUMVEE with your head on the blacktop and your cheek touching the road and look from behind a tire at the guys slipping one by one into your little fort.

And you turn back to the Marine and you can see him slapping a bandage around his shoulder and wrapping down over his arm and you say you gonna be okay and he says yea bleeding like a stuck pig here and you move to help him and he says just watch those motherfuckers will you and then he reaches down for another bandage and pulls out something like a long pen and says will you look at this and he smiles and you can see his teeth white in the dark.

And you say what the fuck is that and he says this my squid friend is a laser designator, and then he grabs the handset and calls the voice and asks can I get patched through to the A-10 and they play around with it for about a minute and you watch the guys in the fort and you wonder what the hell is going on and then you hear him talking to the pilot who is overhead and telling him we are behind a HUMVEE and the fort is about 50 yards to the south and I will begin designating in one-five seconds, one-five and then you hear a rumble overhead and the Marine counts 15 and then turns on the little pen and points it at the side of the fort and you can barely see a little red dot on the wall.

And the A-10 comes over real low from south to north with a whoosh and a roar and a guy comes out of the fort and looks up at the two red circles at the back of the plane as the sound goes low like a semi on the highway, and the guy turns and yells something into the fort and the Marine says hurry up you motherfucker and the guy is yelling louder and someone answers him, and you hear the A-10 take a big honking turn, and then its sound starts getting higher and higher, and its coming in, and the guy reaches in and grabs a guy out of the fort, and the A-10 is about a half mile behind you and the red dot is on the wall and then the A-10 whips over and you hear just a quick little whistle and then the whole fucking fort goes white and you duck and there's this huge crunch and little bits of stone and other shit are rattling against the other side of the HUMVEE and raining down out of the sky.

And the Marine hoots and puts down the laser on top of the HUMVEE glowing red, and you both look up and over the side of the HUMVEE at the fort and the thing is just blown to fucking bits, and then you hear on the radio, you hear the pilot say something about insurance and you can hear him take another big honking turn and then he's coming from the south, his engines getting higher and higher, and he says something about locked on, and then he's about a half mile away and you hear the Marine say something like holy jesus motherfucker run and you jump up and start to run when you hear the A-10 whip over and a little whistle and in front of you the ground goes white with your shadow dark and you hear a huge crunch and this huge fucking hand slaps you in the back and you fall face down into the dirt and slide on your face, and then little bits of HUMVEE and other shit are raining down out of the sky.

And then you smell the sweet smell of sweat and dirt and then you fall asleep.
Chapter Twenty-seven

So when you wake up you are blinking in a white room on a white bed and you are warm and your muscles hurt and you have this splitting fucking headache so you go back to sleep.

And then you wake up again and you look down and you see that you are some kind of hospital gown with a sheet pulled up to your chin on just on the edge of what you can see there is a little medal pinned to the sheet, and you lift your arm up carefully and see that there's a tube in it, and so you lift up your other arm and see it has a bracelet on it, and so you use that one to lift up the sheet and the medal falls back off the ribbon part, and you look at it and can see George fucking Washington and you say holy fuck that's a purple heart and then you see a head poke into your vision from the top and he looks at you for a second, and then he goes away.

And you feel the room roll to one side and then hang there for a long moment and then come back to the other, and all the sudden you know you are on the boat, and that way is left and that way is right.

And then two doctors come into your vision and one says petty officer can you hear me and you say yessir and he says how do you feel and you say alright sir and he says what is your name and you say BM3 Kieffer sir and he says good, and you say why am I in medical sir and he looks funny for a second and then he says what do you remember, and you say I remember being on the boat sir and getting ready to go, and then you have to think and you say somewhere sir I must have hit my head or something, and he says you go back to sleep petty officer and you say yessir and you drop your head down and go back to sleep.

And later you wake up in one of the regular beds in medical and there's a corpsman sitting beside you and he says morning there beautiful and you look down and say where's my purple heart and he says for tripping on a tent rope they don't give out no purple hearts for tripping on a tent rope and you say what the fuck and he says you can't remember shit can you? You went up to Iraq like GI fucking Joe and tripped on a tent rope and whacked your head on a tent stake. They hauled your ass back here and you been in medical for the last week.

And you say I remember going up to Iraq now, and you think with Mr. Holden, and you say where's Mr. Holden and the corpsman looks sad and he says he got killed up there in a truck accident, it rolled over on him and crushed him up pretty good, guess you're lucky you're a dumbass and can't walk in the dark, though I heard you were pretty fucked up when you did it, getting drunk in a combat zone – that's not going to play good at mast – and you lost your rifle up there and that's not good either and you lay back on your rack and you stare at the ceiling and you can feel tears in your eyes and you kiss your supply gig goodbye.

The rest goes fast.

The XO comes by to check on you and he brings the legalman and you sign off on a bunch of forms and shit that say you are a stupid motherfucker who got drunk and tripped on a tent stake and lost your rifle, and then later that day the Skipper comes down and masts you right there in you bed, you become a seaman again and when you get better, you got 60 days restriction coming and extra duty.

After another two days you get freed from medical and you get back to Deck and people are acting weird around you, no one talks to you, and you go down to supply and clean out your shit and the senior chief don't even say hello, and you go back to the deck office but there's a new guy running admin now, so you get sent up to the paint locker, all the way up in the bow of the ship and you work like a dog up there cleaning it all out and carrying the old gunky cans back to the stern and dump it into the garbage barge, and then inventorying everything, and you go back on watch but not on the helm, just lookouts all alone up on the signal bridge in the dark.

And after a while everything goes back to normal and the days go by, and soon enough the boat gets relieved and all the Marines come back and they do a big washdown on the beach, and one by one the little boats come back to the big boats and the cranes haul all the trucks back aboard, and you are on a working party one day and you see the master sergeant talking to the Bo'sun and they are looking at you and you feel ashamed.
Chapter Twenty-eight

The next day you get up at reveille and get your shitty old dungarees on, and pull on your socks, and reach into your coffin locker and get your nasty dungaree shirt on over your head, and stand up and get ready for another day of this shit, and you hit the head and watch the ocean go by while you take a really serious dump, and then go up to the mess decks and get your chow and some bug juice and you sit there sort of with a group of guys, but not really with them, and then you drag your ass up to the hangar bay for muster, and stand there in a line and call out here when they call your name, and then are dismissed and you head up the AIMD passageway to your paint locker when you hear the Bo'sun call you name and you walk over to him and he says Kieffer and he looks at you for a long time.

And you say what's up Bo'sun and he says you know I been in the Navy for a long time, and you say yessir and he says and I thought I'd seen some shit, and you say yessir and he says you get your ass back in the deck office and get the muster filled out, then I got some supply chits for you to fill out, you remember how to do that shit, and you say yessir and he says good and he says next week we get you back down to the supply office I worked it out with the senior chief, and you say yessir and he says get the fuck out of here, and you say yessir and he says you call me sir one more fucking time and I will stick a red hot poker up your ass and you say yes, Bo'sun.

So you pull out of Rota, which was no big deal since you spent the whole liberty sitting on the boat and pulling your extra duty, and you get through Rota and you cross the Atlantic with the quiet waves shushing the ship on its way home, and then the last night before Morehead, the boat is off Hatteras and you get some big waves coming down the bow and lifting the ship and you creep up to the fo'csle all by yourself.

And it's quiet in the passageway, and the red night lights make you all peaceful like you're the only one awake on the whole ship, and you can smell cold damp metal and warm electrical cables and the unburned fuel oil, and you creep into the fo'csle and walk up to the very front of the boat, and you wait until a wave lifts the bow and just before the crest you push off and you are free.

[1] Formally spelled forecastle, this is the space furthest forward on a ship through which run the anchor chains and in which are the mechanisms for raising and lowering the anchors. It's a special space to deck seamen, who keep it clean and painted.

[2] The ship in this story is based on my ship, the USS Guadalcanal, a 602-foot, 20,000 ton amphibious assault carrier with about 25 to 28 helicopters, 650 crewmen, and about 1,800 Marines. The Guad was commissioned in 1963 and decommissioned in 1995, about 15 years past it proposed service life. It was a piece of shit and we loved it.

[3] A large space below the fo'c's'le where the massive, 75-pound links of the anchor chain are stored. Interesting note: the anchor chains are not secured to the ship because the links have massive momentum and if they were to come to the end of the chain (the "bitter end") that momentum would tear the chain locker out of the ship. One night off Virginia Beach, we dropped anchor and the windlass motor failed and the entire chain ran out. We took a lot of grief for coming back to port with just one anchor.

[4] A geared shaft rising vertically from the deck and responsible for pulling in or carefully letting out the anchor chain.

[5] Basically, big vertical guides for the anchor chain.

[6] The keel of a large ship is not all of one piece; it is several pieces. Otherwise, the constant twisting of the hull would finally fatigue the metal and snap it.

[7] Although there are many Bo'sun Mates, there is only one Bos'un. A very experienced, very senior chief petty officer or warrant officer, the Bos'un is in charge of the Deck Department. Our Bo'sun was a mean bastard who could swear like a poet.

[8] Door.

[9] All rooms on a ship are called spaces.

[10] Stairs.

[11] Aircraft repair shop.

[12] Technically a CH-46 Sea Knight; we called it a Frog.

[13] Aqueous Firefighting Foam.

[14] Only squids, or sailors, and other Marines can call them Jarheads, and only Jarheads can call us squids. The two services only get along when the Zoomies (Air Force) or the Grunts (Army) are around, and then just barely. We think they're stupid; they think we're pussies.

[15] I knew a guy who got sick when he heard the word "underway" on the 1MC (general announcing system)

[16] Someone who plans to make the Navy his or her career.

[17] Navy non-commissioned officers (E-4 to E-9, like sergeants in the other services), have six ranks – petty officer third, second, and first class, then chief, senior chief, and master chief.

[18] The ship's throttle.

[19] AH-1 Cobra attack helicopter, a two-man aircraft with rockets and a mean-ass 25 mm Gatling gun steered by the gunner's helmet.

[20] A flight deck crewman, doing the world's most dangerous job.

[21] Where everyone E-3 and below are mustered to do a big, crappy job, like haul meat aboard and down to the freezers for two days running.

[22] The deck apes did this one year when I was on the Guad.

[23] A North Caroline port near the Marines' base where they load on to the ships for Atlantic deployments.

[24] A Landing Ship Tank, a shallow-bottomed ship with a big ramp on the bow built to run up on beaches and unload tanks. They roll like crazy.

[25] A medium-sized ship with a flight deck for two helos and a well deck where small boats and the hovercraft LCACs can load before heading to the beach.

[26] Flies signal flags from the masts and uses semaphore to send messages.

[27] Shipboard Information Training and Entertainment. One of my jobs was to run this system.

[28] A special team of sailors, each trained for a specific job for getting the ship in and out of port.

[29] Much fun: whenever the officer of the deck can't see (snow, rain, sleet, hail, high waves), he calls this detail away. Two guys on each side of the bow and two more guys on the fantail all listen and peer into the nasty weather for other ships.

[30] Or "battle stations."

[31] Using sound-powered phones to send reports to Damage Control Central and other repair lockers.

[32] There were six repair lockers on the Guad, basically walk-in closets stuffed with firefighting and repair gear.

[33] Sailors can only leave the ship on "liberty," which is a privilege, not a right. Enlisted men ask permission to go ashore; officers report that they are going ashore. For some reason, this used to really tick me off.

[34] The sailors are broken into duty sections, each section has sufficient men to get the ship underway. The number of sections is up to the captain and makes a difference. If you are on four-section duty, you can go ashore three nights out of four; on three section duty, it's two nights out of three.

[35] Filipinos were once restricted to mess duty, basically being waiters for the officers. They took advantage of this relegation, however, and now own the supply corps in the Navy.

[36] A platform at the read of the ship below the flightdeck where all the mooring gear was kept along with two .50 caliber machine guns.

[37] The Filipino language.

[38] Refrigeration decks, where there are a series of massive freezers. On the Guad, one was known as the "Dead Iranian Freezer," because that's where they put the guy they fished out of the Persian Gulf in 1987.

[39] I'm not making fun; this is really how the chief I worked for spoke. I can hear him now: "Mon-ta-goo, where the fack is my gadddam white bread?" He was a good guy, nonetheless. Okay, maybe I am making a little fun, but I think that the chief would be okay with it.

[40] The idea is to keep everyone tired for the first four to five days so that the Company Commanders can weed out the psychos and drug addicts. Guys come in to boot camp on crack, really.

[41] Really Great Lakes, of course, but I never heard it called that.

[42] Yup, really happened. All the boot camp stories are true.

[43] A land based sailor, usually a pretty good gig, but not in this case as my company commander found out...

[44] Wikipedia says: The Battle of Khe Sanh was conducted in northwestern Quang Tri Province, Republic of Vietnam, between 21 January and 8 April 1968 during the Vietnam War. During a series of desperate actions that lasted 77 days, Khe Sanh Combat Base (KSCB) and the hilltop outposts around it were under constant North Vietnamese ground and artillery attacks.

[45] The Douglas A-1 Skyraider, the last propeller-driven combat aircraft.

[46] This happens, but not as often as sailors say.

[47] This is not say that all sailor's wives are like this, but the divorce rate is pretty high.

[48] Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, now shut down.

[49] They sell them on the road leading out of Norfolk Naval Base, "E-1 and up, E-Z financing,"

[50] Wikipedia says: Rota, Spain is a town of approximately 27,000 people in the Andalusia region of Spain, located in Cadiz province, across the Bay of Cadiz from the city of the same name. Rota is also the location of a joint Spanish Naval base and U.S. Naval base, opened in 1955 (which also hosts U.S. Marine and Air Force units). It is also the entrance point of U.S. Naval Vessels entering the Mediterranean Sea.

[51] Sponsons are decks that stick out of the ship below the flight deck. There are sponsons for fueling, boats, and the CIWS.

[52] Wikipedia says: A Close-in weapon system (CIWS) is a naval shipboard weapon system for detecting and destroying incoming anti-ship missiles and enemy aircraft at short range (the threat(s) having penetrated the ship's available outer defences). Typically, the acronym is pronounced "Sea-whiz". A CIWS usually consists of a combination of radars, computers, and multiple rapid-fire medium-caliber guns placed on a rotating gun mount.

[53] Firecontrolmen, or missile techs. They maintain and operate missile systems and the CIWS, and then go to work for the contractor after they are discharged.

[54] Operations Specialists, used to be called radarmen.

[55] Yup, really happened, except we were in port in Norfolk before we deployed and I was walking upper deck security patrol. A quick word about Tom Clancy. Most squids thought he was a little bit scary, an insurance guy who looooved the Navy, but apparently never thought to actually join it, like the guys who would come on the ship's tours wearing a flight jacket with squadron patches on it and knowing more about your ship than you did. But still, we all read his books, even though all the enlisted guy characters were obsequious to the max. When I was in boot camp, I smuggled in "Red Storm Rising" just to have something to read and asked a submariner how accurate Clancy was; he laughed and said that he was about ten years behind.

[56] The Captain of the ship, the last true dictator. It was a fact that the Skipper had the power to stand you up on the fantail and have you shot. I had four skippers, each of whom made admiral (which was my job). One was a true Captain and the crew revered him; one was a party animal and we all liked him; one was an intolerable prick and got the two balls from "The Caine Mutiny;" and the last one was "Joe Navy" who tried too hard to be our friend.

[57] Ship's general announcements circuit. There is a 1MC speaker in every space, or room, on a ship.

[58] Catwalks are the little walkways that run around the ship just below the flight deck.

[59] A direct quote from an esteemed colleague.

[60] Gotta love the crack; we would sit outboard and watch the ocean go by while taking a dump. Very restful.

[61] Wikipedia says: USS Stark (FFG-31), a guided-missile frigate, was struck on May 17, 1987, by two Exocet antiship missiles fired from an Iraqi fighter during the Iran-Iraq War. The frigate did not detect the missiles, and both struck without warning. The first penetrated the port-side hull; it failed to detonate, but spewed flaming rocket fuel in its path. The second entered at almost the same point, and left a 3-by-4-meter gash—then exploded in crew quarters. Thirty-seven sailors were killed and twenty-one were injured. The guys on the Guad watched the Stark go home with a big hole in its side as they steamed into the Gulf that same year (before I got aboard).

[62] Damage Control Assistant, in charge of coordinating the firefighting and repair teams on the ship.

[63] General quarters, or battle stations. A GQ is a drill emulating some sort of major emergency, such as an enemy attack or a major fire or accident.

[64] Or "fell up the stairs," a generic term for "got the crap beaten out of him for good cause."

[65] The official policy is "don't ask, don't tell;" the actual practice is "don't touch me or I'll fucking kill you."

[66] Advanced Training Division, an "advanced boot camp" for people going straight to the fleet.

[67] Called Mess Specialists, or MS. They used to call them "cooks."

[68] The unofficial economy aboard ship. Say I needed some paint: I could either fill out about ten forms and run all over the boat getting them signed or I could go find the Bo'sun's Mate who runs the paint locker and trade him the movie of his choice on TV that night for a couple of gallons of paint.

[69] One of the best perks on the boat – you go to the front of any line, anywhere.

[70] Damage Control Center, a room in the center of the ship above the engine rooms where the DCA takes reports and plots how to respond to and repair damage.

[71] Oxygen Breathing Apparatus, uses a special candle in a tank to generate oxygen into a over-the-face mask.

[72] This is done to prevent flash burns.

[73] 3-inch, fifty caliber rapid fire rifles in twin mounts. WWII vintage, developed to shoot down Kamikazes.

[74] The old fifty caliber machine guns, like the ones you see in the WWII movies.

[75] A generic term for any ship assigned to amphibious operations; the cheapest, crappiest ships in the fleet.

[76] There are four kinds of fires: an Alpha fire burns wood or paper; a Bravo fire is a fuel fire; a Charlie fire is electrical, and a Delta fire is anything that won't go out and needs to be pushed over the side, like white phosphorus.

[77] The ship's lateral frames are numbered and used to identify spaces. Every space has a number – for instance, I worked in 02-99-4, SITE TV. 02 – second deck above the main deck (the hangar bay, at frame 99, and the second space outboard from the center line.

[78] Pump out.

[79] Mediterranean Sea. (Don't know if that really called for a footnote).

[80] Patrick Swayze plays a bouncer in a rough bar, features many large-breasted women in tight shirts. A perennial favorite with the squids; I once got to fire 100 rounds from a .50-caliber machine gun just for running this movie "one more time."

[81] 1.150779 miles per hour, so 18 knots would be 21 miles per hour, fast enough to waterski.

[82] Young clueless sailor, fresh from boot camp, who requires a lot of training before he or she can become useful.

[83] Happened to USS Wasp in 1992 while we were sailing with her, though it was in the North Atlantic and the guy was on the fantail, the low deck at the stern, or back, of the ship. Even though I bet it was a hard letter to write, it was the right thing to do. And it beat writing five more letters.

[84] I know, no one wants to hear about whacking off. But you are at sea without women for six months. You either admit to doing it or you are a liar.

[85] I just changed this from "over" to "up" remembering that the admin office was on the 02 level, just below the flight deck and therefore up from the Deck office. Sometimes I have trouble picturing the layout of the boat; I never have any trouble remembering how tired we all were, or what it smelled like, or how the guys talked.

[86] We drank a lot of coffee, usually black with a couple spoons of sugar. I owned a 16-ounce mug that was an extension of my left hand.

[87] Tetris – a computer game invented in 1985 by a Russian and omnipresent on the ship's computers. The joke was that it was invented to reduce productivity on US Navy ships; it did.

[88] We lost five guys on each of the deployments I went on. Shit happens.

[89] First night I was in boot camp, a guy curled up in the corner and cried all night. It was an eerie way to start a new career.

[90] I had a friend from journalism school desperate to get out of the Navy and who was assigned to a carrier. The first night he was on the ship, he went up to the flight deck and jumped off. They fished him out of the water and he went back up and jumped off again. They fished him out and he jumped again. He had to do it one more time before they let him go home.

[91] Damage Controlmen, specialists in fighting fires, repairing damage, and welding.

[92] Wall.

[93] The space at the very bottom of the hull. Since it is impossible to make the hull completely watertight, there is always water coming in and being pumped out of the ship.

[94] All watertight doors are oval in shape, and the bottom of the door is about a foot above the deck, and when new guys go through them, they tend to bang their knees on the bottom part and their foreheads on the top, until they get the rhythm.

[95] In the old days, guys would get drafted and sent to boot camp and thrown in with guys from all walks of life and from all over the country; the volunteer service ended that for more Americans and is a loss.

[96] The pilot is a local seaman with a lot of experience getting large ships in and out of tight harbors. The Captain is still in charge, but would have to be an idiot to ignore the pilot. Like a cruiser captain on the Yorktown River; we saw the big dent in the dock when we pulled in there to load ammo.

[97] "I am in charge of directing the ship." The officer of the deck is responsible for the whole ship.

[98] When I took on this job, it was impressed on me that I was making the legal record of the ship's activities.

[99] Aircraft fuel.

[100] I was a "fuck-off JO," a Navy journalist. There were only about 600 of us in the whole Navy. We ran SITE-TV and the radio stations (WGBC – the Guadalcanal broadcasting company), published a daily paper, and served as the ship's public relations guys. It was a pretty skate (easy) job, but we stood watches, did working parties, and mess-cranked just like everyone else. Our motto was "choose your rate (your job), choose your fate" and "it's not my fault you were too stupid to get into journalism school."

[101] "Hook ups," like having a friend on the mess decks, are key to a comfortable life in the service. One of my friends was the Captain's cook and for about two years, I ate in the Captain's galley.

[102] Saddam did have a super gun, designed, and built by a Canadian engineer who was obsessed with long-range artillery. It never really worked.

[103] This is something I told myself while sitting on the patio of a bar in France while my high-school buddy was leading a company of troops in Kuwait. You join the service knowing that you might go to war and hoping that you don't, but when the war comes and you aren't sent to it, you feel a curious disappointment.

[104] Master at Arms, the ship's policemen.

[105] Landing signal officer, a senior petty officer who is charge of launching and landing helicopters.

[106] Green water over the bow means that you are really in the big seas. All the same, when my boat had green water over the bow, the smaller ships, like the LSTs and the destroyers were submarining – over one wave, under two.

[107] They did.

[108] "The Charge of the Light Brigade," by Lord AlfredTennyson, 1870

Verse Two

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldier knew

Someone had blunder'd:

Their's not to make reply,

Their's not to reason why,

Their's but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred.

A surprising number of squids know this poem; but perhaps it's not surprising at all.

[109] Everyone on the boat has a green qualification book where respon-sible parties sign off that you are capable of handling a fire hose nozzle or a M-16 or a .50 caliber machine gun or a nuclear weapon. I can neither confirm nor deny that there were nuclear weapons on the Guad.

[110] Not to brag or nothing, but out of the four and a half years I was on the Guad, three and a half were spent at sea.

[111] A mythical moment that comes when a ship has been at sea for 180 days and the Skipper can authorize two beers a man. The Brits get beer every damn day at sea. Not that I am bitter.

[112] One of my favorite vulgarities; no one knew what the hell we meant by this, but we said it all the time.

[113] It's amazing how much stuff you can store in your socks – pens, smokes, ID cards, keys. It's also useful to stuff things, like books, into the hollow between your pants and the small of your back.

[114] All the LPHs were built on the cheap; our power plant was scavenged from a World War II battleship and behaved accordingly. Still, we were ridiculously proud of our engineers' ability to make the thing run. We never missed a sailing date.

[115] In which you and your duty section went to a four-story building built like a ship and wired to catch on fire at will. Very scary at first, but excellent training.

[116] "Choose your rate, choose your fate." It's not my fault I got the good job and your job sucks, so stop bitching about it. A quick note about the Navy ranks and rates – your rank is your rank, or level of authority; your rate is your job. I was a JO2 when I got out – a Journalist (job) Second Class (rank – petty officer second class, E-5, equivalent to a sergeant in the other services.

[117] Striking is the process wherein deck seaman can apply for a better job and train on-the-job rather than going through the specific school for that job.

[118] SK is a storekeeper, a pretty generic rate for a supply guy.

[119] Forms.

[120] This story comes from a weatherman I knew who told us this story back in the balloon room one night. He was a former SEAL and had medals that he wasn't allowed to wear. The ones he could display took up rows and rows and rows, up to his shoulder. And yet, he was an E-6, just one rank above me. He had also been a cop in LA and in NYC.

[121] Underway replenishment, in which two ships steam side-by-side 120 feet apart, and fuel and stores are transferred from one to the other. I believe that the US Navy is the only Navy that does this as a matter of routine.

[122] I did not see this, only heard about it.

[123] Again, the man was a poet and I can only approximate his command of this particular vernacular.

[124] Again true story, and a drill just evil enough so that you had to admire it.

[125] We had an Intel officer come out of the Pentagon, never having been to a ship, and I had to explain this to him one day.

[126] Still have mine. Love them. Old school.

[127] The part of the bow that meets the water.

[128] Senior officer in the Deck Department. Ours was a good guy, unlike this fictional bastard.

[129] Fucker. I'm sorry Mom, but he was. A quick word about profanity – the classic line comes from World War II where a sergeant told his officer (referring to his jeep) that "the fucking fucker's fucked." Yes, we had filthy mouths and it has taken 15 years for me to finally clean it up, but this was just vocabulary; the true profanity was inherent in the life.

[130] The brow is the gangplank, the little bridge from the ship to the pier.

[131] Also known as "panini."

[132] Shit On a Shingle, ground beef and gravy on toast.

[133] You know who you are, Mr. P. You were all right.

[134] Machinist Mates, generally in charge of the turbines.

[135] Boiler Technicians, in charge of the boilers.

[136] Executive Officer, the shittiest job on the boat. The Skipper is the hero, makes all the good announcements, and gets credit for everything; the XO is the jerk who makes all the bad announcements and gets credit for nothing. My favorite XO had a surrealistic side and I could get him laughing by quoting Navalese to him, but never in front of anyone else.

[137] Legalman, basically Navy paralegals. On the smaller boats, like mine, they take on many of the duties of a lawyer.

[138] Standard punishment for first offenses, called 30-30-30. Thirty days restriction, 30 days extra duty, and 30 days on half pay.

[139] Saluting is a pain in the ass, with a million rules about where and when and how. Thank God I was on an aviation ship where we didn't wear headgear most of the time and so didn't have to salute.

[140] The man who has the duty has the responsibility for everything that happens on his watch, a point that seems to have evaded our current president. He likes to style himself commander-in-chief, but he knows nothing about the military.

[141] The infamous convoy of death that was smeared on the highway to Baghdad.
