O Captain My Captain

This morning when I opened my Outlook there was an e-mail from the CO's yeoman informing me that I have a meeting with The Man on Monday afternoon to discuss my comments at the Captain’s call. I’ll be at the rifle range so I’ll have to reschedule.

I guess he did listen.

Green Wet Dreams

Women first entered the Seabees right around 1994 and, by every account I have ever heard, were not well received. I’m happy to report that tensions have eased during the last 12 years and I can honestly say I’ve never felt like I was resented because of my gender.** But today a Senior Chief was telling me that he thought the strength and integrity of the battalion had declined significantly since women came on board. He said that sexual tension and sex acts have destroyed the loyalty and commitment that one Seabee feels to another. Men are too busy fighting over women to find time to be good buddies. And women are too busy trying to seduce men to perform at full capacity. Maybe he’s right. I don’t really know. It is a significant and interesting set of ideas. But the strange thing is, as strong as my attraction is to this topic, all I want to do is forget about it and knit a beanie with the rose-colored soy and polypropylene yarn I just bought. Sometimes a girl just needs a break from thinking. What good does it do anyway?


**At least not in the Seabees. But there was a Marine Staff Sergeant in Alaska who I felt resented me very deeply because of my gender. However, because of an altercation he had with a Gunnery Sergeant, he was removed from the project and sent back to his parent command only a few weeks after he arrived.

Karma is a Saucy Bitch

I get what I deserve. That's all I'm saying.

The Skipper

CO’s call was terrifying and as a result wit was nowhere to be found.

At first I didn’t think I was going to raise my hand. The talk was all about simple stuff like when deployment awards were going to be given out and if we would be issued Gortex for FEX (sometime in the next few weeks, and yes). Someone asked about Arabic language classes and the CO had nothing for him but an idea about where to get a pamphlet on common phrases. I raised my hand and politely let everyone know that a local library card would get them access to the Rosetta Stone online. Right after is when the Command Master Chief piped up to give us a pep talk and said (among other things), “The way we’re going to be successful in the desert is by communicating and sharing resources like EA2 just did.” I was mildly emboldened. When the Master Chief was finished the CO said he wanted to talk about the EO survey. Everyone was silent. This was my issue. This was the time. I raised my hand. It went something like this:


“During your talk on the EO survey you said that the women in the battalion think the men are favored and the men think the women are favored and this is something we need to get over. The grass isn’t any greener.”

I took a breath and he took the opportunity to interrupt.

“I couldn’t agree more.”

This is when my hands started to sweat and I began to tremble. You could hear it in my voice.

“I think it misses the mark. I know that women are favored. I see it. I’ve been on the receiving end. We aren’t put on working parties and we do get cushier assignments. But what happens is it promotes an idea that we are weaker and so men fill more of the leadership positions. In the survey both groups were right. I believe that strong leaders will always shine, but there are more positions of leadership in the battalion than there are natural leaders and it’s all those extra positions that go to the men. I think if we’re going to get past this we need to address it.”

I just told the CO his analysis of the survey was misguided. I was so scared and I was shaking even more than before. He took out a notebook and wrote in it without saying a word. When he was done he said, “I’m sorry about that. You just said some interesting things about leadership I wanted to write down.” And then he followed it with a, “Well, you have a point, but what I want you all to take away from this is that we need to confront injustices and treat each other with an underlying dignity and respect.”

My mini-speech took a lot of strength on my part and I would have liked it if he responded in a way that let me know he had listened to what I said. But he didn’t, my moment passed, and now it’s over.

I walked out of there feeling completely isolated, like I had some embarrassing and contagious disease. That’s when the EA2 from Air Det, a guy I went to A-school with, came up to me and told me I did a good job. It was just what I needed.

I Like it A Lot

Back from the run, breakfasting on a chocolate granola bar and fruit snacks, I’m exhausted. We ended up running at our own pace, which is good because when we run in formation I always get stuck singing cadence and it’s not my favorite (it is worth noting, however, that I almost always manage to work in something about penis size - it keeps PT interesting). The bad part of an individual run is that I’m obnoxiously competitive and I need to finish in front of as many people as possible. That puts me in the top 20% - 25%. It’s why I’m so exhausted and it goes something like this: we run in formation for about 1/4 of a mile and then, on command, the group breaks up. I pick my pace. During the first mile or two lots of guys pass me. I think they see my bobbing ponytail as the finish line: if they can just get there they will win the race. So they speed past me and in another mile, or sometimes less, I slowly creep back up on them. As I get closer I hear the labored breathing and sometimes small sighs of frustration or discomfort. I pass. The breathing stops. The runner decides this is a perfect time to take a break and walk. They quit. I win. And I like it. A lot.

A Time to Sleep

I’m exhausted. It’s about 10:30 in the evening and I’m still wearing my cammi pants, black socks, and brown t-shirt. Don’t ask. I have no idea why I never got around to changing. And now it’s time for bed. I have a six-mile run tomorrow and as of right now I’m predicting that the morning will bring a decided lack of interest on my part in running with the fast group.

Good night and sweet dreams.

Survey Says...

If anyone was wondering:

You Have a Choleric Temperament

You are a person of great enthusiasm - easily excited by many things. Unsatisfied by the ordinary, you are reaching for an epic, extraordinary life. You want the best. The best life. The best love. The best reputation. You posses a sharp and keen intellect. Your mind is your primary weapon. Strong willed, nothing can keep you down. Your energy can break down any wall. You're an instantly passionate person - and this passion gives you an intoxicating power over others. At your worst, you are a narcissist. Full of yourself and even proud of your faults. Stubborn and opinionated, you know what you think is right. End of discussion. A bit of a misanthrope, you often see others as weak, ignorant, and inferior.

What Temperment Are You?

I Understand

I passed another H2 yesterday. A yellow one. And the tailgate had four different Support Our Troops magnets stuck to it. I don’t undervalue the sentiment. I’m thankful that even while support for the war is low (and it’s low among service members as well) our country seems to be rallying around the men and women on the ground in the desert. But the Hummer… it really bothers me.

I’ve never been much of a driver. I lived in Chicago for eight years and was happy to walk, take cabs and the El, and bike. Cars don’t get me excited. In high school I couldn’t have cared less what type of car a guy picked me up in. And in Chicago I never knew anyone who drove (except one brief boyfriend who drove a Chevy Tahoe: I can admit it was a comfy ride). But some people love to drive and I kind of get that. I get it because I love my bike. It’s a Bianchi: this super awesome Italian road bike. The color is a pale blue-green called Celeste; it’s the official color of the Italian royal family. How cool is that? My point is that I understand you can be a little in love with your car. And if that car happens to be a Hummer, well, I’m not in the business of telling people who or what to love. Because quite frankly I can’t stick up for the guy who drank Schlitz out of a can, or the one who yelled at me to masturbate with a showerhead while he watched fully clothed, or the guy who had such a massive porn collection that even his alcoholic, stoner, guy friends were worried for me. I can’t stick up for them, but I loved them. So, I’m not going to criticize someone who falls in love with a car I don’t approve of.

I also know that if that if the driver of that yellow H2 traded it in for a diesel Jetta and ran it on nothing but recycled cooking oil (you can do that, it’s a thing) that the world would be the same. Or at least it would be the same for all of the troops he so publicly supports. Our demand for fossil fuels is not the fault of one guy who bought a yellow truck.

The real problem isn’t the Hummer driver. It’s that capitalism, which drives our country, has a breaking point where it no longer acts in the interest of the public. Restaurants in California are a good example. Because of state legislation there is no smoking in any restaurant. The logical argument is that government should have no hand in this decision. Instead, the market should take care of everything: if there is truly a demand for no-smoking establishments people will choose them, spend their dollars, other establishments will close, and the appropriate equilibrium will exist. But it’s not that simple. California has decided that it is not in the interest of the state to subject service employees to a known carcinogen night after night. And market forces alone won't make that happen. If I smoke, or if my friends do, this might bother me or it might not. But it doesn’t matter if I agree with the legislation: when I am in California my meals will be smoke-free. Acting on its best judgement government has made a decision for me.

Capitalism, by its very definition, promotes individuality. We strive, if not to keep ahead, then at least to keep up with the Joneses. And we also fall in love with things like plasma TVs, Italian road bikes, and Hummers. Some of our loves and wants are benign while others are not. When we act as individuals, as capitalism prompts us to do for the benefit of our economy, we often work against the group. One Hummer doesn’t matter, but several fleets of them do. And it’s not just Hummers. It’s all the status-getting gas-guzzlers that people buy without any need for function. An F250 to haul a trailer full of horses: that makes sense. A Chevy Suburban to run errands in a traffic-choked city like LA where you can see the smog five feet in front of you: that’s a little crazy.

I don’t know what the solution is. I can't, in good faith, argue that the government should make decisions about what products are available to me. The only thing I can come up with is that people must act as responsible adults. Decisions need to be made with a nod to the group. The fact of the matter is that I’d love to own a manual diesel Jetta that gets 50+ miles per gallon, but I drive a Honda CRV. I can’t afford a new car right now, so that isn’t going to change any time soon. But when I do, I feel confident, that I will make the best decision that my finances allow. I believe that it’s important to vote, and so I do it even though I know my vote won’t make a difference. But I also talk about voting, help people at work register, and encourage them to go to the polls no matter how they vote. I do this because I believe much more strongly in democracy than I do in any one candidate. If everyone votes and my guy looses, so be it. Purchases need to be thought of the same way. Every dollar is a vote.

Having said that, I once loved a guy who peed in a Nalgene bottle during a road trip instead of pulling off on the shoulder and aiming for a bush. He drove a Chevy Tahoe. Sometimes, we all forget what’s important.