How I Almost Joined the Navy

As I mentioned in my last comment, I've been rather busy with work this last week, thus the dearth of posts. Not only have I been working overtime, but my job site has changed once again, so I have an hour's commute on each end, thus making for twelve hour day. Leave at five in the morning, and returning around five in the evening. If I were out just a little longer, I'de be able to see both sunrise and sunset :-) But enough of the excuses, on to the blog!

A few weeks ago, I was feeling really low. Work stank, school seemed useless, and I just wanted to shake things up. Ever since highschool I've always considered joining up with the armed forces, and giving the military a try. With all the dis-satisfaction in my life I was once again looking at this option only much more seriously. I had gone to a recruiter's office, gotten info on all the different branches and decided that if I was actually going to join, it would be the navy.

The only thing I lacked was a clear leading from the Lord. Only a few days after going to the recruiter's, I was transferred to a job in Portsmouth, NH. Now Portsmouth is as the name suggests a port city with lots of trade as well as a navy base where subs are made and repaired. I couldn't help but think that maybe this was my sign. I had a letter from Tom (the recruiter), and so one day after work I went down to the navy base and asked to speak with their p.r. man. He gladly saw me, gave me a tour and told me everything I wanted to know. It all seemed so right until we came to an old decommissioned submarine. The U.S.S. Albacore was launched in 1953 as an experimental sub. It was the first hydrodynamic sub and most modern day subs are patterned after it. It set several speed records and greatly improved knowledge and understanding of underwater mobile warfare. It really has quite the story and is very interesting as a submarine. I just had one little problem with it. It's name.

The albacore is nothing more than a tuna fish. Something that gets canned, shipped around the world, and eaten by hungry little kids every day. It is considered nothing more than floating food, just waiting to be caught, masticated, and digested. I'm sorry but I just can't respect something (even if it is as impressive as a sub) called lunch. Why not just call it codfish, or milquetoast. Shouldn't subs, which are basically metal tubes of death, have impressive names; names like Greyback, Grenadier,Cutlass, or Seapoacher? Or if not a name that strikes fear into our enemies at least a name that inspires our own people? Maybe USS Texas, or Virginia, Cheyenne, perhaps Carter, or the Ronald Regan. Any of these would have been fine, but instead our government names it the USS Tuna Fish.

Any government that can do that to it's own military, isn't really one that I wanted to be serving in, so with a heavy heart I walked away. After getting a good night's sleep I realized that life wasn't so bad after all and maybe I should keep on being an electrian. I realize that this may sounds like a bad April fools joke, but here are two pictures to prove that there is indeed a sub called the Albacore sitting in Portsmouth. One is a file photo (the good looking one) and one is from my phone (the blurry one). You'll see the numbers match. Or just google USS Albacore.





Now that all this excitement is over, hopefully it won't be so long between posts. Thanks for sticking with me :)