The Power of Words

It’s funny just how powerful words can truly be. When you put them on paper, or publish them online, they can become as powerful as any tangible weapon. Take blogging for instance… there are at least two other bloggers from my ship that post pretty regularly, and between the three of us, we get quite a bit of read time from a portion of the chain of command onboard our ship. Our voices, while small, are starting to be heard. One of the bloggers struck a nerve just the other day, which resulted in some of the leadership having to call a meeting to address some of the issues that were brought up in his blog.

Inadvertently, we are starting to have a miniscule effect (at least, I like to think that we are having a little effect) I am slowly seeing some change (although not enough for others to notice.) For the record, I have to annotate, that the injustices I tend to rant about don’t always affect me. I am in the unique position of having a supportive chain of command (at least, the immediate chain is relatively strong.) The things I tend to rant about primarily affect the junior personnel onboard. But once upon a time, I was that junior guy. While things for me were no where as bad, I can totally empathize and see exactly why they act out the way that they do.

As far as my job is concerned; I love it still to this day. Granted, I am extremely burnt out… but I still wake up and get to do a job that (while often thankless) has tangible results and leaves me fulfilled at the end of the long day. While being aboard this ship in excess of 40+ months has been anything but good for my psychological or mental health, I still enjoy what I do. In the end, I think that’s what really matters too. I get paid to do a job that I thoroughly enjoy, although I have to endure a bit of morale abuse.

I also have the knowledge that this evil place is NOT the US Navy, but a hellish faction of it that doesn’t exist outside of it’s own crappy universe. I just feel bad for the first term sailors who get out of the navy after only seeing this command. The constant demands and under appreciation tend to wear on those new sailors and they pretty much become disillusioned with the Navy and end up going back to whatever hole they crawled out of in civilian life… for some, even being poor and homeless is better than subjecting yourself to the harsh lifestyle of the FDNF (or more importantly my ship.) “STAY NAVY” has become a joke as opposed to a realistic option for most. Hell, I’m only staying because I still enjoy what I do and have a soon to be family to support. I was once an unconditional lifer, but this place has beat that motivation out of a once Gung-ho sailor. I just count the days until I leave this place, and pray that I never have to step foot on this god-forsaken ship ever again.