Via Gmac, a recommended serialized novella about life on an aircraft carrier for all you swabbies out there.
My only knowledge of aircraft carriers is that my swabbie progenitor hated them because of bulkheads that sealed to prevent the spread of fire. Prefacing by saying that it's not water that sailors fear but fire, he told me that the dead he helped carry off one carrier in the Philippines after a fire had been trapped behind automatic airtight doors with no override. There were no marks upon them except for their fingertips -- where they'd frantically clawed the searing metal walls until they literally wore their fingers to the bone.
Then again, maybe he was just trying to entertain a small child.
then again, maybe he was just trying to entertain a small child.
I don't know how to.
Theres something there but I'm both horrify'd and amused, and now I'm confused and starting to feel guilty.
Your dad not a sailor? You missed out on all the naughty sailor songs,then. They're pretty funny.
Posted by: Donnah at June 2, 2007 10:19 AMUncle was career, dad was MC, like me.
Posted by: Wickedpinto at June 2, 2007 10:53 AMJarheads don't have songs though. That would require being able to form rhymes, and the only one they can figure out is that "Uh" goes with "Huh."
Posted by: Donnah at June 2, 2007 12:35 PMI was at the port in San Diego when my dad arrived from somewhere on a destroyer. It was like looking up at the Empire State Building, and all the sailor standing at the rail looked like ants.
Huge ship.
But as an adult, I can't figure out what was the significance of bag-pipes playing (?)
He was a destroyer man all the way. He loved them.
Posted by: Donnah at June 2, 2007 05:50 PM"Jarheads don't have songs though."
Oh, you're so right, little Army doggie. We don't have 'songs' and we cry every night about it. Shit, even Gary Gilmore had a song, for Chrissakes. But, then again, our one song has like...BATTLE and shit, you know? Not happy caissons heading for picnics or soaring blue yonderers heading for...whatever their types head for. Not even anchors and 'boys' dropping into the deep blue sea. Damn.
One of these days we'll hook up, like...Gabriel Garcia Marquez or one of those poetic big thinkers and come up with a...SONG. Worthy of a broadway musical, Rockette-type chorus line, thumpin' melody. Until then, Montezuma's Revenge will have to do.
Posted by: tree hugging sister at June 4, 2007 12:06 AMWe don't have folksy yarns put to music that is true.
But we DO! have john phillips souza.
Just saying.
Posted by: Wickedpinto at June 4, 2007 02:10 AM