Eight hours after landing in Japan I stood before the ship that was to be my home for the next three years. If you have never stood before a warship it is hard to imagine the power that one displays: Guns, big guns, missile launchers, armor, antennas, wires, fuel-smells, loud, industrial noises, all concocted together before me to form one massive, offensive threat. The severe lines and angles of my ship came to such a point at the bow that it appeared to resemble an unsheathed sword. It awed me. It awed me not just because of its display of power, but also because of its intimidating beauty. The ship was sleek, slender and, at least on the outside, well maintained. It was nothing like the squat, landlocked simulation ship that we trained on in boot camp. The simulation ship, the USS Bluejacket, was more like a ship that children play on in neighborhood parks than an actual navel vessel. But still it served its purpose. On the Bluejacket I learned everything nautical that one could learn in two months: line handling, basic navigation, firefighting, the manning of battle stations; but what I learned most while “sailing” on the Bluejacket was that boot camp was not the real Navy. The warship poised before me was the real Navy, and I had been ordered to it.
While in boot camp I was reminded by my company commanders at regular intervals throughout the day, usually around the times when my arms were about to buckle from pushups, or after I had been running in place next to my rack non-stop for thirty minutes, that what I was experiencing at boot camp wasn’t real. They explained, in their language of scream, that boot camp was a vacation compared to the fleet. In the fleet, I would be on board a ship, in the middle of the ocean, at the mercy of Davy Jones and my commanding officer, with real life-and-death responsibilities. “Recruit, quit your crying,” they would spit into my ear as my arms gave out and I collapsed to the floor. “If this wasn’t a kinder and gentler Navy I would call you a faggot for giving up like you just did.” They would both be on their hands and knees with their faces inches from mine. “You didn’t just quit on yourself, sweetheart—oops…ah, I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to make fun of recruits who act like queers anymore. Let’s start over again. You didn’t just now quit on yourself recruit, you just quit on every other recruit in your company.”
I was used to quitting on myself. That is what people like me do. In fact, I had quit so often on myself that eventually I quit trying to stop quitting trying. But I was not used to my inabilities and ineptitudes having so much impact. For the first time, in a sense, I realized that I had power. People like me—the weak, the quitters, the ones conditioned only to defeat—believe that we are powerless, that we are insignificant. But in fact, we are the ones who truly matter because the winners are totally dependent upon us. We are the ones who enable the winners to win and to live their superior lives. The winners need us more than we will ever need them. In boot camp, through pushups, pain, and perspiration, I learned that I had power. I learned that through my weakness and my readiness to accept loss and defeat, I could dictate whether my company lived or died. If winners wanted to live, they had to learn how to motivate me, condition me to win, and relinquish some of their individual stature in order to either convince me to finish, or carry me to the finish. I had power. Either the winners had to teach me how to win or they had to find a way to compensate for my inabilities so that I did not kill them. In the Navy, the winners must find a way to help those they despise the most to save themselves. In the Navy, I finally mattered.
Bored with humiliating just one sailor, the CCs stood up and began their dictatorial pacing around the berthing to better direct their threats to the entire company. “If this were the real Navy, and if you and everyone else in here were real sailors, you all could get blown the fuck up just because one sailor gives up.” As the CCs walked away leaving me for dead, they would remind the other recruits that they, the recruits, were now also dead because one little faggot gave up on them. And since we all were dead we all wouldn’t mind doing another fifty pushups. Boot camp may have not been reality, but those pushups were.
Now, in order for me to enter the reality of the fleet, I had to report aboard my ship. In order for me to do that, I had to cross the reality of the brow that was before me. I was nervous. I was more nervous to have to cross the brow than I was when I had to report to boot camp. Even then, the night that I reported to boot camp, even at the time when the doors of the bus folded open to release a flood of screaming company commanders, it seemed that I knew that what I was about to enter was merely a gross simulation of what was to become my reality. I had no doubt that the brow that now bridged the gap between the pier and my ship was real. I had no doubt that I would have to cross it. I would have to climb the steps that led up to the brow. I would have to walk with confidence toward the quarterdeck. I would have to turn and face aft toward the national ensign and salute it to show my respect–no, it was after sunset so the ensign would have already been lowered; I would only have to face aft and briefly stand at attention to show my respect to something that wasn’t there. I would then have to turn to face the sailor on watch; the sailor who stood watch over whomever entered and exited the ship. I would have to salute and request permission to come aboard while holding my military identification card next to my face so that the sailor on watch could verify that I was who I was supposed to be. I stood on the pier before the brow and practiced over and over in my mind the proper way to board a ship, wanting to get the task done with, but not really wanting to begin it at all.
“Request permission to come aboard,” I said, hoping that the sailor on watch, a real sailor, a sailor who held my immediate fate in his hands, did not hear the quivering in my voice. My right hand, with its fingertips positioned next to my forehead in a salute, felt heavy and began to shake. The more I tried to stop it from shaking the more it shook. The sailor—what was his title? Officer of the Deck? Petty Officer of the Watch?—turned to face me in a manner that completely expressed his lack of concern for my existence. My hand shook so much that I was afraid it would break from my wrist. I had to pee and my mouth began to water, signaling that the bile from my stomach was beginning its ascent. What was he doing? Why was he slouching over that podium staring at me as if I was an exposed bed sore? I wanted to drop my salute, perform an about face, and run. Tears began welling up in the corners of my eyes. Don’t cry. Don’t cry! Not now! I’m a sailor now and sailors don’t cry. Sailors sail, and heave to, and cuss, and screw exotic women—many of them. That’s who they are and that’s what they do. That’s who I am and that’s what I’ll do. Sailors don’t cry. They don’t cry!
Like a wraith, an officer appeared from out of the shadows. He saw me, gave a quick look of disdain to the sailor on watch, returned my salute, and granted me permission to come aboard. Seeing the officer, the sailor on watch immediately acted as if he had been making entries into the logbook.
“Jesus Christ Petty Officer Sinclair, didn’t you see this guy standing there?” the officer asked in a way that indicated he knew that the sailor would answer with a lie.
“Sir, he walked up as soon as you walked out,” Petty Officer Sinclair offered smoothly. “I was just finishing entering the eight o’clock reports into the log.” He had already begun reassuming his slouched position on the podium, knowing the officer could really care less if he saw me or not.
The officer looked at the brown envelope with my orders stapled on the outside and, in slow monotone, ordered, “Take care of our new sailor Sinclair. Find out what department he’s reporting to and then find the duty Master-at-Arms so he can get a rack.” The officer disappeared just as he had entered, wraith-like.
I remained standing at attention, too nervous to drop my salute. I was used to feeling insignificant, but Petty Officer Sinclair was better than most at completely ignoring my existence. His indifference re-enforced my own self-doubts about why I was where I was. I knew I must talk to him—to remind him of my me-ness and his responsibility for taking care of it. While I waited for the courage to speak to somehow declare itself, I occupied myself by silently berating my self’s weaknesses. I didn’t notice Petty Officer Sinclair call anyone to come get me; in fact, I never noticed him do anything but completely ignore me and disregard his duties, but eventually I was retrieved.
My escort was not pleased to meet me. I could tell because after Petty Officer Sinclair indifferently instructed him to find a rack for me, the escort said nothing that indicated he understood his orders nor did he show any signs that indicated he cared; he only turned and returned inside the ship.
I stood there, redoubling my efforts of awkwardness, not knowing what to do. I picked up my sea bag and took a hesitant step forward. Petty Officer Sinclair offered no assistance. Perhaps the escort was not really an escort after all. Perhaps I just imagined that someone had come to take me to a place where I could finally sleep. Without looking up from whatever it was he was looking at, Petty Officer Sinclair rescued me with the welcome words of, “Hey dickhead, if you want a place to sleep tonight you better stop playing with yourself and follow Jimenez.”
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