In
June 2008, I finished my eighteen-month tour on the USS Cowpens and thus
reached my minimum service obligation of four years in the United States Navy.
I resigned my commission, separated from the navy, and moved to Canada a
couple months later to start graduate school at the University of Toronto.
During that year in Toronto, when I had free time, I pulled
together some disjointed stories and musings from my previous four years in the
navy. By the summer of 2009, they all came together in a self-published
book, Assumed the Watch. Moored as Before. (An Alternative Naval Officer’s
Guide).
Eight years later, when I occasionally reflect back on
both the navy and the book, I harbor no real regrets. True, I could have
left out one or two of the more superfluous penis jokes and references. I
probably could have weaved some of the stories into a better cohesive whole.
And, it probably could have been less bitter or angry. That is, if
I were to have written a book about my time in the navy (2004-2008) now, it
would look a lot different from the one I wrote. Yet in 2009, after
Toronto, I was on my way to Uganda for a year-and-a-half volunteer teacher
program. One of my closest navy friends encouraged me to get the book out
sooner rather than later, to capture the bitter me in the bitter moment,
especially before I became too “peacey-lovey” in Uganda. And so I did: I
tried to capture an honest, bitter moment, and I’m glad I did.
All
in all then, I am proud of the book. Short of bringing down the entire
U.S. Navy, it accomplished what I wanted it to do: it was fun to write; it
exorcised some of my demons; it made a handful of officers and sailors still
out in the navy laugh and even cry; and it eventually broke even and, somehow,
still brings in a couple dollars of royalties once in awhile.
In Assumed
the Watch, I do not paint life in the navy as a surface warfare officer
(SWO) in a good light. And by sharing all of my reactions to that life, I
admittedly do not paint myself in a good light either. John Wheelwright,
the narrator in John Irving’s beautiful A Prayer for Owen Meany,
reflects on his move to Canada during the Vietnam era: “But I didn’t come to
Canada to be a smart-ass American…. I didn’t want to be one of
those people who are critical of everything.” He, predictably, had become
“one of those people.” I went to Canada in a different time and for
different reasons, but by many accounts, I was the smart-ass American that he
described. I was critical and complained of many things, both American
and non-American. This comes out in the pages of Assumed the Watch.
There are positive reviews of the book on Amazon and elsewhere.
But, there are certainly negative reviews as well and some reviews in
between. Among the mixed reviews, these two are my favorite:
A shockingly accurate yet incredibly whiny and
negative view of life in the surface navy.
I am in the Navy but luckily
not a SWO. [SWO’s] are miserable and yes they do like it that way. It is
just the culture. LT Fitzgibbons didn't like the Navy, but the Navy is not
about liking it is about serving. I only fear Mr. Fitzgibbons will find himself
as bored in the corporate world as he did in the Navy. Hopefully he finds a job
crab fishing or smoke jumping I don't think he can hack the 9-5 world either.
All
through high school, I never got in trouble. I never argued with my parents.
I dutifully did any schoolwork or housework asked of me. It
appears, then, that I had saved my teenage angst for my early-to-mid twenties
and for my respective commanding officers. I was, at times, a little
shit. If the now-high-school-teacher-I was in charge of the
then-sophomoric-me, especially on my first ship, I would have tired quickly of
my attitude. Thus, I am thankful that my captains went easier on me than
they could have or perhaps should have.
None
of this is to absolve Uncle Sam, John Paul Jones, or Commodore Barry of any
malfeasance on their part that led to our divorce in 2008. But almost ten
years later, I recognize my own role in the matter.
When
I wrote the very first draft of Assumed the Watch, it was much longer.
It contained a second half which attempted to summarize, theologize, and
philosophize away not only the surface navy but the need for all wars, ever—past,
present, and future. Fresh out of the navy, I had embraced pacifism, and
I felt like I had to make the case for it there and then, or never. When
I sent the first draft to my friend Weston, who had served in the navy and was
in the army at the time, he told me he really enjoyed the first half of the
book. However, he didn’t like the second half. Not necessarily
because he disagreed with all of it. But rather, I was in over my head
and trying to do much. I was more effective in what I didn’t say—stick to
the stories—he said. He was right, and I lopped off the second half.
After
President Trump has fired Tomahawk cruise missiles to Syria—or was it Iraq?—while
eating “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake,” I now feel compelled to
revisit some of the more explicitly anti-war sentiments from the original
draft. Much of the popular U.S. media, which had been relentless in their
criticism of Trump since his inauguration, now fawned over the new president and
his missiles. This was his first “presidential” act, many commentators
applauded. MSNBC’s Brian Williams went so far as to, oddly, describe
“beautiful” images of the ships firing the missiles. Was he speaking of
the missiles themselves? Of the gray ships illuminated at night?
Or, the smoothness of the operation, at least seen from this end?
That
is not to pick on Williams alone. He and we are part of a larger current.
More than 70 years ago, Orwell wrote, “Political language—and with
variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to
Anarchists—is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and
to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.” Sleek missiles fired
from sleek gray ships intoxicate Americans of all stripes and parties. It seems respectable. As for the other
end of the missile, which we rarely see, the powerful have fed us phrases
suitable for our palate: collateral damage, enemy combatants, extraordinary
renditions, and enhanced interrogation techniques. We mindlessly accept
the language and in turn do our own sanitizing and euphemizing.
Those
Tomahawk cruise missiles—and the ones before and the ones since—came from navy warships similar
to one I served on. In fact, in 2003, three and a half years before I
reported on board, the USS Cowpens fired thirty-seven missiles in the initial
“shock and awe” devastation in Iraq.
In 2003, while the
Cowpens fired those missiles, I was studying abroad in Cairo as an undergrad
and as an inconspicuous ROTC midshipman. Watching the Iraq invasion
unfold from the center of the Arab world necessarily colored my view of the
war, and from then, March of 2003 would forever color my political worldview.
And so, when I took the oath of office in 2004 and was commissioned an
Ensign in the navy, I said aloud with my right hand raised that I had no
“mental reservation or purpose of evasion.” While I took that oath freely
and while I did not have any purpose of evasion, I certainly had mental
reservation. What would I be asked to do? Would I have to participate
in what I believed was an unjust war? With modern weaponry, can any war
be just? And even if I was not directly involved in that or any war, did
my being part of the institution nevertheless equate with guilt and complicity?
Assumed
the Watch, without that second,
moralizing half of the book, attempted to describe the boredom and the
bureaucracy of the navy: fudging spreadsheets; counting bullets; painting and
re-painting the hull; circling with the carrier in the Pacific for weeks at a
time; sweeping; inspecting and preparing for inspections; and more sweeping.
Some degree of bureaucracy and non-glamorous work, I’ve learned since, is
part of life in any institution. And, toxicity can exist in any work environment,
military or civilian, to be sure. Yet, lurking behind my mundane,
soul-crushing paperwork was some larger soul seeking. Behind our
carelessly vulgar and often dehumanizing everyday language were some essential
human questions. That is, I no longer believed in the mission of the
United States Navy, and in particular instances and particular places, I found that
mission to be explicitly immoral.
In 1951, W. H. Auden
wrote a poem entitled “Fleet Visit,” which seems like it was written
specifically for the USS Pelican or the USS Cowpens. In it, he
feels bad for the sailors who come ashore, “mild-looking middle-class boys,”
who are victims to some larger social forces. But, I think he gives us
too much credit when he says, “No wonder they get drunk.” I can’t
attribute my fake suicide notes, my going AWOL for a concert, or my drinking
copious amounts of cheap beer most weekends, for instance, to some connection
or disconnection from any “Social Beast” that Auden names. All of my shenanigans did not stem from a larger moral
and existential crisis. But, I nevertheless navigated through a moral and
existential crisis.
My “war story” is fairly clean and normal.
Because of that, it is no story of real war, and for that, I am
grateful. I have my life, my limbs, and my wits. I never felt real
danger in those four years, and I thankfully never had a comrade or friend
killed in war. Given the choice between navy war games in the Pacific and
Marine wars in Fallujah, I still would go with the navy war games every day.
Whether it was in Cairo as a student, in Bahrain as a newly minted
Ensign, or on the Cowpens after it had fired those missiles, I was
always several degrees removed from the action. Thus, my war story is
neither Ron Kovic’s Born on the Fourth of July on one hand nor Chris
Kyle’s American Sniper on the other. But precisely because my war
story is so normal, so clean, and frankly so removed, I believe it is worth
sharing or, rather, sharing again in a different light.
In
theory, uniformed military members take orders from a civilian
commander-in-chief and civilian cabinet members and advisors; that
commander-in-chief must seek a declaration of war, or now at least some type of
“resolution,” from Congress; furthermore, both that commander-in-chief and
those members of Congress purchase the hardware for any war; but both that
commander-in-chief and those members of Congress serve at the pleasure of the
citizens of the United States, who elect them. And so in theory, the
citizens of this country have a say in foreign and military policy. Yet,
so many of us have outsourced our critical thinking on these matters. The
decision-makers have given us the clean images and the clean language of war.
In turn, we have given them our consent. We are, for the most part,
neither a check nor a balance on their decision-making.
Most Americans do
not view war from the vantage point of Ron Kovic or Chris Kyle, even after we
have read their books. Let alone from the vantage point of the Vietnamese
or the Iraqis. Many Americans choose not to view war at all or do not
even know we’re at war, which is a luxury, because it all happens “over there.”
If we do indeed view it, it is filtered through our cable news channels
of choice. The closest we get to it is those “beautiful” missile videos
from the foc’sle of the USS Porter and the foc’sle of the USS Ross this past
April 7. And this goes for a great number of military members, too. The closest we get to the action is the
air-conditioned “combat information center” on the USS Cowpens—the dark,
blue-lit room with all the radars like you see on the movies—where actual armchair
warriors preside.
None of this is to
argue that all civilians and current military members not on a front line
should sign up for the infantry. Nor that you have to do so in order to
state an opinion on a war or on war in general. I think the fewer people
exposed to direct violence the better. Nor is this to argue that Bashar
al-Assad is a good man, as we use the missile attacks on Syria as an
illustration. Nor that all use of force—in Syria or elsewhere by every
actor always—is a priori wrong.
While I hold a presumption against war, I am in the end not a pacifist.
But, these issues cost lives, and therefore they merit debate.
There is little to no debate in the United States of America about war.
“Mild-looking
middle-class boys” and girls grow up with an easy and simplistic patriotism.
This patriotism prefers slogans to critical thinking. It demands
flag-pins and support-the-troops car magnets over sacrifice and responsibility.
Its images of war are beautiful missiles that, by definition of nation of
origin, are morally justified. That patriotism, combined with an endless
supply of consumer goods, makes for a deluded and distracted public that
acquiesces in endless war.
I
am thankful that I was not on the Cowpens when it fired those 37 missiles; I am
thankful that I am not currently on the Porter or the Ross; but my own
non-explicit involvement makes little difference to the people on the other end
of those missiles. The fudging spreadsheets, the counting bullets, the
painting and re-painting of the hull, the circling with the carrier in the
Pacific for weeks at a time, the sweeping, and the inspecting and preparing for inspections has
all been for those missile moments. All
that bureaucracy eventually kills, as it has killed before. That is its mission after all. Are we okay with that? Some say “yes,” but I doubt most of us have
really thought about it. Thus, the
mission proceeds with easy patriotism’s blessings. This is the normal war story—the normal,
clean, and removed war—that we are a part of,
and the story continues. It is a strange and latent militarism that we
possess. We receive it very early
on in our lives, and it all appears so normal.
“In
a free society,” said Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, “some are guilty, but all
are responsible.” With that spirit and in this little corner of the
internet, I revisit the USS Pelican and the USS Cowpens. This is a longer
series that I will for the moment call, “Assumed the Watch, revisited.” I
will post new parts here and simultaneously compile them on the page labeled as
such. Perhaps we can exorcise some other
demons. I will do my best to stick to the stories.
