Man, you're describing to a tee the kind of experience I had. It reinforces the opinion I've had recently that we are wildly alike in our experiences and basic makeup.

Do you know, that despite my absurd end to the military, I almost reenlisted? There was this wonderful Master Chief that became like a father figure to me. He was old Navy, had been in since WWII, an electrician in the nuclear field. He knew that the service was no longer honorable and we had so many great heart to heart talks about life. He could sense how miserable I'd become but also had this incredible sense of honor and commitment and wanted desperately to keep someone like me in the Navy that had filled his life.

He approached me and asked what it would take for me to remain in the service. Since our specialty, nuclear power, had such limited billets and assignments available to it (basically you could get service on a sub, aircraft carrier, or become an instructor at a school), I gave him an option I knew for sure he couldn't fulfill - shore duty in Australia. There were no nuclear facilities there, hardly any US military presence at all, just some basic administrative areas. Well the old guy, with his tremendous contacts he'd made through his 30 years of service, almost did it. He said it was a done deal for weeks until some directive came through from above vetoing it. He retired shortly after and I found a way off the sub and on to my eventual actions.

I've tried to tell people on here that I met wonderfully dynamic and intelligent people while in the military but they were this tiny percentage of the whole and the quality dropped off fast. Of course my real time experiences were sloughed off as liberal nonsense and countered with recruiting statistics from the DOD. Wow, I'm so impressed that the US government publishes figures telling the public it only recruits quality individuals. Why there's certainly no incentive for them to present a rosy picture. We should just believe them cause we're the good guys.

I can tell you understand the huge alienation an intelligent person receives when they see first hand people reduced to painting spots over and over just because some moron with gold on his shoulders is coming to walk through your space. Those instances for me though were almost comic relief compared with the other images I got to see such as the captain of our sub nearly sinking our vessel and killing all on board because his ego told him to disregard 20 people screaming at him to not go to periscope depth during an exercise. They were all aware that we were in the midst of heavy traffic and the chance of a collision was huge. Well, the idiot got his way and, as the periscope raised in his hands it pulled him off his feet as the sub collided with the destroyer above. The flooding and force of the collision brought the ship to its crush depth before the crew could regain control. I was lucky enough that day to be on shore at training and got to watch it pull back into port with all its masts torn backwards. The man made the captain from Mr. Roberts look like Mr. Rogers.

The other incident I viewed was a sub pull back into Pearl Harbor with its conning tower torn off. Seems it was tailing a Russian sub (a common task) and lost track of its position. It ended up ramming the Russian vessel in its propeller with its tower which was ripped off. The Russian sub had massive flooding through its shaft and was heard going down and imploding killing all on board. The US sub barely escaped the same fate. It never made the news.

I got to meet Russian sailors in ports we visited and they were regular guys just like you and me caring more about their families and hobbies than any political ideology and yet there were guys on our sub that wanted desperately to blow them out of the water whenever we came upon their ships.

By the way, the final part of my incarceration before my discharge was at Camp Pendleton Marine Base. I spent about a month there mostly trimming weeds and playing volleyball and got quite an exposure to "the few and the proud". Now there was culture shock. No matter how alienated I felt amongst sailors, I learned quickly how much more intelligent even the dumbest of the Navy guys were than the cannon fodder they recruit in the Marines. Now I know they also have their exceptions but, for the most part, these guys were downright scary. I think I know now what it must have been like in Jim Jone's Guyana before the suicides. I never had experienced complete and utter brainwashing before but many of these guys were definite victims. I have no doubt they were an effective fighting force but I can tell you that no longterm good will ever came from their presence in a foreign country. These were not the best and the brightest but instead those guys you met in high school that you were sure would never rise above fry cook in a McDonald's or petty thief. To this day, if I see a Marine emblem on a vehicle I encounter in rush hour traffic, I immediately assume they'll be a rude and aggressive driver. I'm almost always right. I wish that were not so.

I'm treading here on blasphemy of course. We have to support our troops during times of war and yet I know so well the face of those soldiers. I know that, if you take 100 of them, only 10 - 20 are going to be the type that you want representing our values to the rest of the world. I know that a sizable percent of the guys in Iraq right now have way too much blood lust and secretly yearn to be behind the awesome firepower they're entrusted with blowing away some living target.

Like you, I know there are times when force must be used and that there must be strict discipline for that fighting force to win its conflicts. I never would've enlisted had I not believed in the basic mission and structure. I just never imagined how completely bizzare and out of control that world would be.

Art