Post Deployment Rant Gone Wrong

My coping mechanism of choice is mockery. I choose this because it's better than crying, and crying is the worst thing I can do at work. You know, because I live on a nuclear carrier, as a gunner's mate, alongside egos and tough facades.

On this particular evening, I was wrapped in a fuzzy warm blanket of mockery as I batted the keyboard, letting it all out. All of it. Each memory I resurrected flooded me with its assigned emotions: frustration, incredulity, and amusement, but mostly disbelief.

After a quick proofread, I clicked publish and let out a sigh so heavy, it thudded to the floor and dragged itself away like a large wounded animal.

Why I published at all to my blog was a mystery. It's not like my words reached an audience; my followers were one family member an ex-boyfriend, a friend, and an acquaintance. Still, deep down, I reserved a teensy bit of possibility that my blog could be found, so I opted to make each person in my story nameless. I've never claimed to be a genius.

Having let go of the madness I had carried for months within the confines of a floating tin can, surrounded by the "world's finest", I moved on with my life. Work was work and at least I could leave the ship each day instead of being trapped on it.

But we were exhausted. The rush to get repairs done in time for the next deployment had our skeleton crew working longer hours than when we were out to sea. Adjusting to the 16,000 time zone changes we went through on the way back home still messed with us. Families demanded attention and normalcy, which meant personnel were coming in each morning begging to go back out to sea so they could sleep. We were only a few weeks into workups with two months to go.

I rounded the corner to the admin office where I was assigned to work. Instead of an empty passageway, as it was every morning, I saw a wall of people. Half of my division stood there, laughing and passing around paper.

"Guys! Guys! Listen to this! Oh, hey Troup."

Everyone turned to me. Their eyes beaming.

Another shipmate pipes up. "Troup! This is the funniest shit I've read in my life!"

Huh?

"What are you guys talking about?" I was clueless.

One guy cracks up, "This is the best line ever," then he does his best Mr. Garrison impression, "Fucking is bad kids, mmmmkay."

My face turned beat red. No. No no no no no no no.

A page was handed to me. Indeed, it was my blog post. Print out, handed around.

What did I write? I can't remember what I wrote. But it was bad. This was bad.

"Troup, GM1 wants you in the office."

Holy shit, I wrote about GM1. I said the worst possible things about her. There was no mistaking it. It was her I wrote about and it was impossible to deny it.

Fear gripped me. The group parted like the Red Sea. I hear "Good luck, Troup," as I made my way downstairs.

GM1 was at her desk. I knocked three times on the open door.

"Shut the door."

I was told to sit down at my desk.

GM1 looks at me, "You said some very hurtful things."

I played dumb.

"I'm giving you a chance to apologize." She said.

A decision flashed before me and I grabbed it like a life vest. "While everyone else gets to go home after deployment, I go back to my rack. Writing has always been my outlet. And right now, it's the only one I have. I'm not apologizing for that."

She stared at me, dumbstricken.

She gathered her senses, "This was sent out to the entire chain of command, including the Department Master Chief and Gun Boss."

My eyes went wide.

Who found my blog? They would've had to purposely seek me out, read my blog posts, and be immature and unprofessional enough to forward this to everyone.

Oh my god, I knew exactly who it was.

"Was Brentwood on duty on last night?" I asked.

"Yes."

"So that piece-of-shit instigator strikes again." I said.

GM1 retorts, "These are your words, Troup, not his."

We sat in silence.

I was not sorry for writing the post because it was a much-needed outlet, as awful as it was. And while I should've taken responsibility for making those words public, albeit never believing they'd be seen, I was more flattered than anything. Like, not only did that douchebag read my blog, which was one more than none, he marketed it for me. On top of that, everyone loved my writing.

I snapped back to the situation at hand.

"This is your last chance. What do you have to say for yourself?"

My composure was solid, and like the goddamned fool I was, I confidently stated my position: "I stand by my art."

GMI's mouth dropped open.

"Get out."

Feeling proud of myself for defending my art, I marched upstairs and joined the group.

"Are you in trouble?"

"I can't believe you wrote this."

"You've got some balls, Troup. Steel balls."

Saved by the shipwide announcement for Cleaning Stations, we quickly dispersed, and the day became like every other.

As predicted, my working relationship with GM1 never recovered. When guilt finally set in, I approached my Chief to apologize for creating such drama. His response was, "I'll tell you what I told her. If she identifies herself in your writing, that's an issue with her self-esteem. You can write whatever you want. Let it go."

And so I did.

****************

Here is the infamous blog post.

Warning: I said some awful stuff. I would never in a million years write like this again. Please don't judge me for what I did 15 years ago.

"Nov 29, 2008

Post Deployment (4 months of 08): Cat is out of the BAG!!!!

Okay, I'm back. I'm back from a long four months at sea and I've never wanted a normal life more than I do right now. While I get that started, I'm going to share with you what I consider the best of the worst part of my deployment. Do your best to figure out the acronyms.

This is not censored. It's written military-style, so if you don't like cussing, stop now...

FUCKING IS BAD, KIDS...MMMKAAAYYY??

The ship was pulling out while I sat at my desk in the office. I was the office bitch working with a selfish bitch who got some sort of kick out of ordering me around like I was a stroke victim. We're the same age which is why I think she loves it so much that she outranks me. One of those, "I've been more successful with my life." Only, when I do get the chance to talk about my life there are some seriously awesome experiences that outshine hers. But she's fat, lonely, single, and her friends are anyone on the ship who worships her. So, it's jealously on her part that drives her to act immaturely toward me. The guys hit on me and they make jokes about her. She hates me because I'm beautiful. Sad. But true.

After logging into my email account I boisterously announced, "This is going to be an awesome deployment! I can feel it in my bones." This was me feeling genuinely excited for the goals I had and the fun we were bound to have. Little did I know how much absurdity would be coming my way.

My excitement was greeted with negativity and skeptism.

It started with one of my former supervisors and I deciding to hang out at our second port call in Korea. We had never hung out before but we are the same age and always enjoyed working together, so why not? So, my new buddy, NMN, were all excited to hang out and see what kind of trouble we could get in.

Korea pulls up next to the ship and NMN and I jump over the side and get on a bus to anywhere. We had some cash between us and just wandered around all day, ending up at a bar where we bought postcards of things in Korea we would never see. We had a great time. The 2nd day we ran out of money and not a single ATM in the country would accept our cards so we went back to the ship hungry, thirsty, and tired.

When the ship left Korea, rumors spread rampid that NMN and I were sleeping together. He's a guy, I'm a girl, we were seen together hanging out, and that's just how the rumor mill works: If you are opposite sex and you're talking alone, then it is automatically assumed that you have just fucked, will fuck, or are presently fucking in your mind. In any case, you are wrong and can only correct it by never being in the same vicinity again, though people will still hang it over your head that at one point you two fucked. To deny it is to affirm it. To affirm it is to affirm it. There is no way around it.

NMN and I didn't care. We're both adults who knew what was really going on, or not going on, and we decided that we were awesome, and responsible, liberty buddies, and so we were for each port during the entire time out. We had a freakin blast! Each port was better than the last and we cursed ourselves for not hanging out sooner.

During those weeks and months in between ports, the rumors flew hard. The psycho bitch I worked for sat me down for a 15-minute lecture about fraternization. She refused to believe nothing was going on and that while she wasn't asking me to end anything with NMN, please remember that "perspective is everything." In other words, she assumed he and I were sleeping together, and was believing everything she was hearing. She said, "I've been investigated for this and I don't want you to go through it too." In my head I was saying, "Yeah, but you were guilty as sin."

Meanwhile, I was agreeing to all other rumors about me, and supplying my own. For example, if someone said, "Didn't you go into the sprink shop at like 2 in the morning?" I'd say, "Yes. I was there until exactly 0235 fucking. I don't know who I was fucking because the lights were out while everyone else slept, but I was definitely fucking. You should ask around. Let me know who it was because they were really small and I don't want to be disappointed again."

One person asked if I swung both ways and I said only one day a week. Later that week I told that person I was swinging both ways every day of the week.

I had volunteered information, too. Like, "I'm itching again. Damn. Well, I guess I better use a condom during this next port visit." Or, "My period is late. Really late. Again. And I can't go to Balboa Hospital this time. Fuck."

Just anything I knew that would make those idiots stop in their tracks. Though, there was one question that stopped me quick. One guy asked about a girl I had worked with briefly, "I heard she has clamydia. Does she?" And I said, "I haven't checked her vagina lately, but I can let her know you're asking." He said no.

Anyway, NMN, and like 5 other people in my division were eating lunch and dinner together religiously. It was new behavior, but that's what happens when you're around people so often. They grow on you. Well, what my boss saw, and the other supervisors saw, was me and NMN eating together. They didn't notice the other 5 ppl there. Then a new rule came out that we could only eat with our own rank. That meant me and NMN couldn't eat together anymore, and our group was dwindled down to two people. Me and one other girl. That's if we followed the rule. We laughed about every time we sat together.

When I heard about it, my first question was, "So where is the 2nd class mess?" This is confusing to you. I was pointing out that telling us to seperate during chow was impossible to enforce. All ranks from E-1 to E-5 ate together. My entire dinner group was between E-1 and E-5. So.. we all ate together. Every meal, every day. And we laughed at the bosses. Especially, when we noticed them eating chow with a mixed crowd just like ours.

Another port visit; Hong Kong. Another fantastic time. After the port call, another rule came out. By this time, me and NMN, and another girl/guy friendship, were not allowed in a workspace together. One evening, the girl came down to a workspace. Her guy friend shows up, and there were four of us trying to figure out how to switch out bodies without breaking the new rule of not being in the same space. Literally, we stood there laughing and the two of them trying to walk in/walk out of the space without actually sharing either space. Then when the guy came back, he stood in the corner of the hallway, with his face in the wall, saying, "I'll stand right here in the corner until she passes me." It was funny as hell. You had to be there.

After a couple of weeks we gave up on the rule all by ourselves and to anyone who questioned us, we told them to fuck off. Well, I'd tell them, "Come on in, we were left alone so we fucked. But we're done. Until you leave us alone again. Then we're going to fuck again. That's what grown people of the opposite sex do when they are alone. We don't talk, watch t.v., or eat. The ONLY thing we do is fuck. It's how your mommy and daddy made you. They were left alone."

The undertones, the jokes, the rumors all continued to circle around for the duration of the trip.

Recently, I needed a ride to the DMV and NMN was the only person I could find, but the bosses said to find someone else. Because, obviously, we'd fuck while driving and again while waiting in line for my number to come up."