Greetings loyal readers, fans, and internet surfers who happened on this site by mistake. It’s been a long time since I posted, but I have a good excuse: I didn’t want to. No that’s not really true. The fact is I have been really busy lately.
My request to retire from active duty was recently approved and I have had all kinds of work to do to prepare, not the least of which is trying to figure out how to afford food when the Navy stops feeding me (anyone want to hire me?) So I guess I have kind of dropped the ball here. Don’t worry this whole retirement preparation has given me all kinds of material, which you will be hearing all about as soon as I get a chance.
In the meantime, I have had the chance to answer one question from one of my readers. Rory form Mayport writes:
I am working as an Food Service Attendant for the next two months in the scullery washing dishes but when I’m at the club I tell girls that I’m a Navy SEAL. Is this OK?
Wow, this is a new one. Before you pretend to be a Navy SEAL you have to ask yourself a few questions. Are you a good fighter? Are you fast runner? If not you might want to rethink your claims.
Here’s the deal, Rory, you are not a SEAL and there is no reason to tell someone you are… I don’t care how pretty she is. After all, not all SEALs will beat you to a pulp for pretending to be a one of them, but all of them can. And I guarantee that you are not picking up anyone after she sees a SEAL pummel you.
How would you feel if you were in a bar and some Navy SEALs came in bragging about how many dishes they washed during their last deployment? Like they know anything about washing dishes. Like they would know who to call when the garbage grinder clogs because you tried to grind a whole chicken. They probably have no idea how to set the proper temperature on the sanitizer (although to be honest, neither do you). You wouldn’t like that very much at all, would you?
Anyway there is no reason to lie to people about what you do in the Navy. Most civilians have no idea what we do and pretty much anything you tell them will sound cool. Well not washing dishes, I would just leave that part out.
For example, I know a guy who took some shrapnel to the face while engaging a target in Iraq. Sounds pretty impressive huh? He has a small scar under his eye where it melted through the skin. Now that is a story to tell in the bar.
The story gets less impressive when I explain where he was in Iraq and how he received his shrapnel wound. He was actually hit in the face with a shrapnel ricochet of a bullet from his own M-4 rifle. While he was shooting a refrigerator. Which was floating by our ship. While we operating in the Northern Persian Gulf about 10 miles off the coast of Iraq (so yes, it was technically in Iraqi territorial waters).
Seriously, this really happened. We were off the coast of Iraq conducting small arms exercises (which means we were shooting the water) when a refrigerator floated by. This was one of those old ones, like the one that protected Indiana Jones from a nuclear blast. We decided that it was a hazard to navigation and that we should try to sink it. So we did, try that is. We never actually succeeded. For all I know it’s still floating around up there.
So there you have it, one boneheaded decision and now he has an awesome war story to tell all his friends, as long as he leaves out about 80% of the story. You can do the same thing. Go and tell everyone how many you killed in the service (just don’t mention that all you killed are germs).
I’m sure you are wondering what I would do. Well I would, of course, opt for the whole truth. You can never go wrong there. Afterall, that’s how I captured Saddam Hussein.*
* In the interest of 100% honesty, I didn’t actually, personally, capture Saddam Hussein. Although I’d like to think painting the forecastle helped.
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Sea Stories and other lies 
