There's Always One but This Time Two

In every group I've been a part of in the Navy there is usually one guy who doesn't like to shower, one who's a slut, there's an athletic guy and a funny guy, and usually there's a smart guy. But invariably, there is always one cocky, self-obsessed guy who decides he's going to hit on me.

In homeport, a week or two before we left, I had a prime suspect: a loud and narcissistic EO1 who was slated for the position of AOIC. On the morning we deployed one of the other EAs in my shop, one who deployed with me two summers ago, pulled me aside and said, "I predict that guy's going to hit on you." My reply was, "I predict you're right."

In the weeks after we landed on the island other people noticed his interest in me, too. I put on my feistiest personality whenever he was around, didn't give him an inch, and he was frustrated. Then he was angry, and then he tried to humiliate we with inappropriate jokes as I drove him around in a pick up. Time has passed and he's in the angry indifferent phase which, for him, involves several passive-aggressive comments tossed in my direction every day (I'm cool with aggressive because it's a license to fight back, and I have no problem with passive because it's easy to ignore, but passive-aggressive pisses me off and I think he knows it).

Time for round two.

On the way out to the project in the mornings the bridge crew sits in the back of a truck, or more recently in a van, listening to music, reading books, and passing around pornographic magazines. One of the SW3s sometimes passes me his head phones and plays me some music. Recently the music has been very sexually suggestive. He asks me how I like it. I shrug my shoulders because I'm not sure of what else I should do.

Last Thursday he asked me,

"What do you say after your roommate goes and does her Mexi-freaky thing down the hall I come over with a movie and we'll cuddle. I'll have you asleep in minutes. I promise. Right around 2145? What do you say."

I say,

"I don't think it's a good idea."

The next morning, minutes after we arrived at the job site he pulled me aside:

"Hey, Jess, check this out. These van rides are really getting to me."

He pointed to his crotch to show me an erection bulging from under his camouflaged uniform pants. I walked away.

Protecting myself if exhausting; I'm mentally tired. And today I'm wet too because we spent the afternoon working in a downpour. I'm in the mood for a break, for an outside influence, for something to pull me away from here. The deployment is 40% finished but it is too soon for time passed on this island to be a comfort.

I Wanted to Welcome Him

When a person walks into our spaces the first noticeable feature is a group of five military head shots each in its own brown wooden frame. The photos are of the Battalion CO, Battalion XO, Battalion Command Master Chief, the Det OIC, and the Det AOIC. It's my job to maintain the photographs.

I wanted to welcome the new Lieutenant warmly and sincerely and the best way I could think to do it was to contact a Yeoman friend of mine with main body and have her e-mail the LT's head shot. The day he arrived from Andros I pasted his photo in its proper place and moved Mad Dog down in rank to the position he will fill for the rest of his Cuban days. It felt scandalous, insubordinate, but most of all it felt good. I was smiling every step of the way.

Today, D+2, I walked to the front of spaces where LT and Mad Dog were looking at the photos. Three of five brass labels were missing from the frames (adhered with unsticky tape they fall frequently).

MD: Who moved the photos!? Who did it?!
        calls on radio: Job Sup, do you know who moved the photos?!

JS: in a tone that communicates frustration...  What? No, chief. I have no idea.

MD: LT, who took your photo here?

LT: No one's taken my photo this week.

EA2: I had the photo e-mailed from Arifjahn and I put it up. But I didn't touch the CO's picture or the Master Chief's. Did you check under the couch for the labels?

MD: We checked.

LT: walks to couch... Here's one of them.

MD: to me... OK. Never mind. We got it. We got it. You can leave.

I walked back to my desk and ten minutes later Mad Dog came back to talk to me.

MD: Next time you don't move my photo till I tell you to.

EA2: pause... There's not going to be a next time.

Mad Dog walked away.

EA2: in an elevated tone so that he could hear... I was just doing my job.

Sometimes I can't help myself.

It is a Comfort to the Miserable to Have Comrades in Misfortune, but it is a Poor Comfort After All

Christopher Marlow must have been dealing with someone like Mad Dog when he said that.

The new Lieutenant is very quiet and very professional. In fact, his behavior is so appropriate that no one has bothered to give him a nick name.

He used to be an EA, just like me.

Up until this week the soundtrack of the office was yelling, screaming even, from the other side of spaces. Mad Dog would squawk, "BU1!!!" and BU1 was required to come running. Or, "UT2!!!!" and the same response was expected. Sometimes he would come to one of our offices, ferociously snap and point like he was sending a dog to his kennel, and shout in close range, "In my office, NOW!" (I decided the first week we were here that I don't come when called in that manner and so even though he would yell my name from time to time I didn't leave my desk. Without fail, Mad Dog would meander into my office with a calm-for-him demeanor in the space of a few minutes.) With the Lieutenant on board there is no yelling - proof that Mad Dog knew the behavior was unacceptable.

Life is better and the future looks bright.

Who Knew Steel Was Flexible?

I had this idea for sinking the sheet piles to specifications; I would solve little triangles for each pile and as we placed them one by one I would meticulously measure the hypotenuse from my strong and faithful center line stake. My thinking was that if the hypotenuse was right, it must be in the right place. But I tried it today and there was a huge problem: My method requires a rigid structure (I thought steel was pretty strong), but under the stress of a misplaced several-ton pile driver (so not my fault) the piles warped like cheap Tupperware in the microwave, and suddenly the set of measurements my triangles were birthed from were no longer accurate. It was a disaster. So we sent the crane crew home, I regrouped and set some stakes, and hopefully tomorrow my efforts will bear less strange fruit.