March 8, 2010
81 Days

This Saturday night Che and I had our dining out…hilarity ensued. More on that later. Sunday lunch we spent at a friend’s house, having a typical Spanish formal lunch of baked fish and vegetables. Fernando, a merchant ship Captain, told us stories of sailing through the Caribbean and passing the Gulf of Aden. He told us about his long family history of mariners, going back to his Grandfather’s family of Italian merchants. It made me nostalgic of my time on the Chesapeake and racing sailboats in the summer for Navy. He is a man so deeply rooted in his family’s tradition of sailing it appears as though his great, great grandfather chose the career for him today. Although I was raised on the ocean and grew up fishing and boating, I was never preordained to this a career. I have been reflecting about what exactly attracted me to this profession. As a young adult I decided that I wanted to pursue a career on the ocean or intimately tied to the ocean. I choose, what I believed and still believe, to be the most prestigious careers at sea, that of one as an Officer in the United States Navy. After five years studying to be an officer, four of which have been spent at the Academy, I am still in awe when I realize the nature of what I have embarked upon. I speak of the connection to my country and thus to history, that I feel when I put on the uniform. I also speak of a relentless feeling I get that we are embarking on history, that we are making history every time we sail. The US Navy has dwarfed every naval force that has ever been. We dominate the world’s seas unlike any Navy in history, enabling or denying the movement fisherman, tankers, and pirates throughout the world. The combined naval force of the rest of the world does not equate that of the United States Navy. Anyone who wishes to dispute that statement need not look any further than a Carrier Strike group.

My intentions are not to toot our own horn here at the Naval Academy, but rather to refute the nay-sayers about the declining power of the US or its influence it the world. My intention is also to describe enthusiasm of the officers soon to join the fleet in four months.

This post came as an itch I have had to describe my appreciation for this service and its mission. I majored in Economics when I arrived here, with the intention of one day becoming a Wall Street broker. Rather, I have only fairly recently realized that I have no interest in that profession because it could and would never give me the satisfaction of what I do now. As little as I have done, there are those few things each person knows to be true about themselves. For me, one of those is that I will continually seek employment in public service. One day perhaps, I will find myself in DC, making a far greater contribution than I do now.

-Turbo

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February 27, 2010
90 Days- Final PRT

This morning was my last PRT at the Naval Academy. Five years, ten PRTs and now one of my personally great milestones is seven hours behind me. The PRT is a binding force here at USNA. Everyone, except for Varsity Athletes who take it earlier, gets up on a randomly picked Saturday morning and are mass tested in a matter of hours. We are herded in one set of doors, through certain checkpoints, into lines and told to assume the position for a series of exercises. Every Fall and every Spring we train our bodies and fret over nerves about this looming date, then before noon it is all over. My strategy is always maxing push-ups and sit-ups, then just surviving the run. Some have other theories on how to maximize their score.

As we do this, I am reminded of an officer telling me about how JOs proctor PRTs in the fleet. I cannot help but laugh when I realize that my next PRT will be in Hawaii and I will be overseeing the instruction. Nonetheless, a PE instructor stands in front of me telling corney jokes to lighten the mood. He has given this speech twelve times already to easily 2500 Mids.

I have been told stories of other Firstie classes who went out drinking together at Armadillos, still in blue rims and USNA shorts, immediately after their last PRT. Che, the roommates, and I showered and took the McGarvey’s route, though satisfying nonetheless.

This upcoming week will likely prove to be full of anecdotes. I will be helping give a protocol brief to a few hundred Youngsters (3/c) on Monday, then I will be re-qualifying at the firing range on the Naval Station on Wednesday and Saturday night I will be Mr. Vice at our Company’s Dining Out. That all seems very self-righteous to say at once, but its not my life…its the Navy’s. I just live it.

-Turbo

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February 26, 2010
We are imitating the portrait behind us. (Henry Clay the ‘Great Compromiser’)

We are imitating the portrait behind us. (Henry Clay the ‘Great Compromiser’)

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February 26, 2010
91 Days- Last weekend

Its Friday at the Naval Academy and one more week had passed. The week directly after Six Week Exams is a nice calm period. I found myself just going through the motions. Needless to say, I needed the calm after the storm.

As I prefaced in my last post, we went to Philadelphia this weekend and celebrated George Washington’s 278th Birthday. Friday night began at the First Philadelphia City Troop Calvary, the oldest continuous military unit in American history. Furthermore, they are grandfathered in by the Ancient Customs act to be the only military unit in America which gets to select its own Commander.

Although this was a formal dinner in celebration of our first Commander and Chief, it appeared to be more like a mead hall. The men of the troop were nominated one by one, then they preceded to stand on their chairs and sing. What they sang about will not be mentioned on this blog, but Che and I rolled in our seats. Our host soon turned to us and mentioned that we might be called on to sing a navy song. Che and I softly spoke our way through the lyrics of ‘The Goat is olde and gnarly’, changing specific words to suit the needs of the performance. I thought to myself, while chanting intermittently the ‘German name for female reproductive anatomy’, this is what Navy was like in the seventies…before women. Although, Before I had a chance to wonder if this was a good thing, we were summoned to the tops of chairs. With dinner rolls being hearled at our heads, we belted out a profoundly colourful version of our famed goat song. They cheered, we bowed and all were happy on the second floor of the appropriately names ‘Armory’ in downtown Philadelphia.

Around noon I awoke to hear Che on the phone giving directions to Kerry and Jamie, our dates. Next thing I knew they were in the room, shocked that we had just woken up. I got started slowly and soon began getting dressed for yet another day of drinking. Dressed up in our tuxedos, mess dress and ball gowns, we all stuffed into a hotel room and began to meet some of the people we would be sitting with. There were th very familiar faces and then some of the seemingly familiar faces. Including an alumnus and his wife, whom I met at the Army/ Navy game this season. We chatted for ten minutes before I realized that we had met in December. It had been cold and we were both guest at his classmate’s tailgate.

The reception for the Ball was in a series of beautiful rooms filled with historic portraits and paintings. The President’s gallery had a portrait of every Republican President and not one extra. The main hall from the curved staircase, which formed a half-circle, had a 14 foot painting of George Washington on horseback. Imagine a 6’ 2” American version of Napoleon Crossing the Alps. It was immense and incredible. With pallets and appetites wet, we made our way to the Ballroom. Called Lincoln Hall, this part of the Union League is off limits to anyone not in semi-formal attire (Jacket and tie), a rule that stands all the time. The ceremony was beautiful, with all the flags of the Continental Army units.

While reading up and down the menu, I turned to Kerry, ‘If for no other reason, I will never get tired of coming to formal balls because the food is so damn good.’ My stomach grumbled as I imagined the stubble creme brulee, torched on top to form the caramelized brown sugar. Not after long Che and I found ourselves both explaining that we were not dating the girls we brought as dates, but had rather come as friends. With red cheeks, Che explained Jamie was his sister and that his Fiance was living in Illinois while he finished school. I explained that Megan, Kerry’s best friend, had moved to Kuwait and Kerry and we came as friends as well. Che practiced speaking Spanish with the gentlemen next to him, whom was formally in the Spanish Navy. I told him of my time on the Juan Sebastin Elcano, the Spanish Tall ship, and travels though Spain. It was a great table for conversation because everyone had a tangible connection to everyone else. Hours and multiple courses were lost to conversation.

The After Party ended early for me, unlike last year when we were invited into another event and force-fed Gin n’ Tonics until two o’clock. Brunch was included in the stay and then we would be off. It was a bit of a last hooraa, not in the Marine way, because I was saying goodbye to a group of people whom I had been in touch with for two years. It was somber experience for me, yet another remind that my time as a Midshipman, albeit under-appreciated, was ending very very quickly. They wished me luck in Pearl Harbor and we made our farewells.

-Turbo

5:30pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZRAjOyOhLPs
February 18, 2010
p.s. The Lutheran

Turbo,

I’m from Southern Illinois.

Very Respectfully,

Ernesto

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February 18, 2010
99 Days- The Lutheran

In lieu of studying for my aerodynamics or weapons exam, I’ll go ahead and write my first post on our new blog. I’m going to attempt something that my colleague avoided in his 1st post…it’s called literacy. I think he had just come down off a three day meth binge when he wrote that blog, even though it is fairly insightful. I would like to formally state that my position on this blog will mostly be one of criticizing my comrade’s insightful comments because I’m not introspective enough to think on my own.

Even though I already criticized Turbo for his earlier mispellings, etc… I will be conducting the rest of this post in bullet points because I have WAY too much to do at present. I’m going to lay out a few possible topics and warnings to those of you who may read this blog.

Possible Topics

Politics- Turbo’s political stance lies somewhere between Teddy Roosevelt and Karl Marx (perhaps a little to the left of the latter). I, on the other hand, fluxuate somewhere on the spectrum between Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara and Lt. Col. Oliver North. My position on this spectrum mostly depends on the time of day, dew point, political-news cycle, and a fairly complex formula involving the distance that exists between my present position and El Toro Bravo for a frosty Sol.

Navy Stuff-We are blogging about our final 100 days at USNA, thus I’ll do my best to translate all the Navy acronyms that my colleague feels obliged to employ. I’m sure you’ll be amused by some of the stories, confused by most, and generally disturbed by all of them. Both from an upstanding-citizen and tax-paying American perspective. Prepare yourselves.

Religion- We probably won’t talk too much about this, but it is possible. Once again, prepare yourselves….

Sex- My comrade will probably be covering this topic ad-nausea.

Foreign affairs- Turbo is an economics major moonlighting as a political science major. We’ve both been known to habituate some mildly interesting parts of the world… although we don’t remember most of those journeys, and what we do remember we probably shouldn’t admit to.

Warnings

Swearing- We are in the Navy… We occasionally use swear words… the sooner you accept that or stop reading our blog, the better. In the same way that my wife-elect (whom I love dearly!) is only capable of using wedding terminology in daily conversation, we are incapable of having a conversation without using swear words.

Rambling- Blogs are a natural place to whine and ramble. If we do this too much, please mail your complaints to 1600 Penn Ave, Washington D.C.. We have a PO Box there.

Reasons for writing- Turbo is probably writing for the betterment of civilization, I on the other hand am an elitist, self-aggrandizing, soon-to-be pilot who likes to see his thoughts on paper. It would be rather presumptuous of us to assume that anyone actually gives two shits about reading this, but if you do happen to stumble on our blog on your way to a website about converting from Judaism to Lutheranism just keep these things in mind.

-Ernesto

9:48pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZRAjOyNjAJ9
February 18, 2010
Intro: 99 days until salvation

Hundredth Night was last night. The ceremonial beginning to an end for a thousand of my classmates and I. Its shocking to be here already, but there is also a feeling that this day should have been here a long time ago. It too easy to hate this place until one day you wake up and realize you are going to miss it. I perceive this to be the underlying motivation for this blog, to capture the awkward phase of limbo between holding onto the Midshipman attitude while also trying to shed it.

It is more a fact, than a trite saying that the second highest rank in the Navy is a ‘Firstie’. This might just be the wool still pulled over our eyes, but I don’t care. ‘Firstie’ year makes the rest of this place worth it all. Its like a photo-collage of awesomeness. Its the compilation of major events: One, second semester senior in university (no victory lapses here). Two, pre-commissioning slating, planning and celebrating (Ill explain). Three, getting the hell out of Bancroft Hall in three months.

In the months leading up to commissioning, we have many milestones. I would argue these are the greatest parts of the Academy experience. Service Selection is a day of high emotions and a night of no people. You see people exist in society and therefore adhere to social standards, but the night of service selection that’s not the case. If you are anything like me, you drink until you find yourself jumping up and down chanting ‘SWO, SWO, SWO’ and then turning to brush something off your face and realizing its the floor. I personally scrapped one of my classmates off the asphalt in front of Armadillos and carried her back to her room. In timid anticipation, the segundos (2/c) and youngsters were waiting to escort us away from plebe rooms and give saltines to the ones hugging toilets. For me the next big milestone was Ship Selection, where in one of the oldest and cruelest tradition at Annapolis, we lined up in class rank and picked placards representing our ships. Then we drink, starting in the rotunda and leaving a trail of bottles out to the bars. On a scale from one to ten, I was very intoxicated. My roommates put my rack on the floor and I gorged myself before bed. Thankfully I got back, unlike the Ensign from a visiting ship that was found in the Jewish Chapel the next morning.

This is a good opportunity to address the title of this blog. The brainchild of my roommate Ernesto, who spent the last semester in Bolivia chasing Che’s ghost. He was really in Chile on exchange, and he has spent a considerable amount of time in South and Central America traveling. As a Lutheran from Southern Missouri, he spend a year volunteering in Honduras and Columbia doing community work. This is in firm obligation to his church which he willingly upholds. I am a Jew from South Florida who went to Israel for the first time over Winter break. Although secular in nature, I have begun to identify more greatly with my Jewish heritage. Israel has that effect on people. The dialogue that emerges from this blog is an attempt to capture the hilarious nature of our coexistence in what equates to a closet size room at the Naval Academy.

This weekend my roommate and I, the Lutheran and the Jew, respectively, are going to a the George Washington Birthday Ball thrown by the Sons of the American Revolution. Certainly none of them are Jews or Lutherans, but thats our secret. I’ll report back after Operation Not-People concludes.

-Turbo

11:50am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZRAjOyNfjZO
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