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.
You Are Free Page 4