Re: PBS Series: "The Carrier"

On Apr 30, 8:30 am, "Jeff Crowell" <jeffDOTcrow...@xxxxxx> wrote:
Grey Satterfield wrote:

Welcome back, young man!

On another topic, I don't know how much many of you know about Jay,
Oklahoma, where the redneck kid who got in trouble for racism came from.
It
is in far northeastern Oklahoma, in the Cookson Hills area, near the
Arkansas border. It is so remote that there used to be a joke that you
had
to have a visa to go there. The kid wasn't a rocket scientist but when
you
consider how remote where he came from is, it's a little less surprising
than it might otherwise have been.

It seemed to me that he was milking it for all he was worth as a quick
way to get out. No great loss to the good old USN! It also seemed
as if the guys who worked with him got along with him just fine--or at
least, they said they did for the benefit of the cameras.

What has really struck me throughout the show to date is the backstories
of so many of these kids. Their upbringing is enough to make your ears
bleed--drugs, alcoholism, abuse, etc., not to mention last night's episode
with the sergeant whose parents were carnies and left him with "Uncle
Bob" when the carny pulled out of town, wow. Yet for most of them the
service has become their home and their divisional buddies their families;
they are busting their guts to become good, productive people and
members of society. It's one of the aspects of the service which never
gets adequately recognized. ISTM that this is not necessarily what you
want for a mission for your military, but for these people it is a
life-changing,
very positive process.

I, too, would like to see an ep dedicated to the interplay between
the chiefs, LPOs, and JOs. All we have gotten so far is junior enlisteds
giving with the old familiar: "Officers don't work, they don't do anything,"
or griping because some guy in khaki got ahead of them in line. OTOH
this is apparently a pretty common idea--a former Army co-worker and
I were talking about the show yesterday, and he was amazed to discover
that the pilots and aircrew also have "real jobs", stand duty, etc. I went
to
some length to explain his error!

Jeff

I detect a certain Hollywoodeness in these back stories. Mayhap they
searched out the saddest tales of the 5,000 or so, just as they seem
to have found a number of people who have no idea why there is a war
in Iraq. The only "real" guy seemed to be the Cdr from a family with a
Navy history who said if the President says do it I do it. I have been
gone too long from the day to day and never spent more than a few days
on an aircraft carrier.

I remember one of the people who used to do the carrier transfers from
Westpac telling of walking down a passageway and saying "I smell
Phillapine ***". Several days later they found two broads in a space
on that passageway. Only on a carrier.
.

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