All hands on deck

I'm ill-suited for military life for so many reasons. Namely: I hate exercise, I'm lazy, I don't handle chastisement well, I'm not brave, I have zero killer instinct, and I really need my unstructured "me-time". That said, for whatever reason, I'm sort of a junky for military stuff. I don't have any practical knowledge to show for it — I know nothing about weapons or fighter planes or warships or tanks. But I just like it. I like the wet-leather, dusty-tarpaulin smell of it and the cut-the-crap-and-do-your-job grit of it and the idea that there are people out there who are brave and tough and honorable doing these really hard and amazing things.

I'm also a huge fan of the documentary series "Carrier"(which is really phenomenal, every American should watch it — and not, like, out of duty or anything, but because it's just really excellent, riveting storytelling and scene-setting that also happens to be REAL):

and I'm also a "Battlestar Galactica" freak (there, I said it), which deals heavily with military life on an aircraft carrier-spaceship that's one of the few remaining human strongholds in the UNIVERSE after the evil cylons destory, like, 99 percent of the human race, which ironically created the cylons to begin with and— what's that? Cylons look like humans now? And some are on onboard the GALACTICA? And they might not EVEN KNOW THEY'RE CYLONS BUT BE PROGRAMMED TO DESTROY HUMANS ANYWAY???? WHAAAAAAT???? Frak me, there I go again.

So, anyway, there's this decommissioned aircraft carrier, the USS Midway, sitting in the harbor here that's been turned into a museum, and we went to it and, not surprisingly, I loved it.

And I wasn't the only one.

 

"Launch the nukes."

"Alert the amphibious squadron."

We were accompanied by Jake's brother Adam, his lovely wife Summer and their six beautiful, Aryan children (one of which was AWOL in this photo, for anyone who's counting, like I was, constantly):

Jethro and his beautiful, unflinching co-pilot (and cousin) Starbuck, I mean, Naomi

Jethro would've happily made his permanent home in this helicopter:

The good news is that in our 2+ hours there we still didn't get to the mess deck or the chow line or the bomb elevator or the enlisted sailors' bunks or the brig or the forecastle, whatever the crap that is. So our next visitors get to take us back. Whether they like it or not.

So say we all.

JEM