"......Not for the first time, the squadron commander wonders why it is necessary for a career FA-18 pilot to conn a ship alongside. After all, there are black shoes, surface warfare officers, who are paid to do that very thing. He is a brown shoe – more than that, he is a strike fighter pilot, paid to put warheads on foreheads, to bring the heat to the foe at five bills, to wield the hammer from above, to swagger down main street. He’s better than this.
Except that the company does not agree – no, not at all. The company thinks that he is a by-God naval officer, and naval officers ought to be able to conn ships. So that one day, if called upon, they might responsibly command them. The company feels this very strongly. So strongly that if he should fail to achieve this simple qualification, he will be un-promotable – his career will be over. He is not sure that he knows what he wants to do when his twenty is up. He might fly for the airlines. He might teach high school. He might stay in and try to make captain. He doesn’t know. What he does know is that that he wants to have a choice.
So he curses quietly but vehemently, earnestly. Turns on the light. Sits up. Rubs his face. Looks again with jaundiced eye at the alarm. Sighs, and moves towards an inner door – today, for the first time this cruise, he’ll beat the ship’s operations officer, with whom he shares a connecting bathroom, to the shower. He takes no pleasure in this fact......"
I had more than a few bottles of Guinness last night for Lex..............
Every time sombody mentions Our Captain like that, I miss him more and more. Dammit.
ReplyDeleteWe couldn't bring ourselves to drink any Guinness (my opinion is Guinness is WAY over-rated, as far as beer goes), but we DID hoist a few... more than a few... shots o' single malt in his honor this past Saturday.
ReplyDeleteNothin' at all wrong with a brown shoe conning the ship. I doubt seriously they could do it any worse than the first skipper of the tin can I steamed in. He didn't do any serious damage to the ship, but the piers at 32nd Street were a lot worse for wear and when we were out in the stream, other ships waited for us and then nested to us.
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