Globall War of Terror - Direct Commission
Apr. 13th, 2018 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drewkittyGlobal War of Terror - US Navy 'Press Release' Entries
Ringside Seat | Raid 17 | Hangar Bay | Direct Commission | Intercept | Coastal Action
We saved the ship.
We may never know what caused the hangar fire. Too many people were killed. One survivor says he heard a brief burst of 20mm cannon fire - very different from the sound of an explosion. A moment's inattention by a pilot, an electrical short, a malfunction ...
It is faster to get a head count of surviving crew than killed crew. 2,143. We left port with over 5,500 souls on board.
Many of us are injured. I am wearing cotton gloves with burn cream inside and have cuts and bruises all over. I am one of the lucky ones.
The hangar fire was so intense as to be detected by enemy satellite recon. They immediately put in an alpha strike. Two destroyers and a fleet oiler were trashed, but so were the 80 attacking aircraft. Not a good trade for us.
We have one catapult and two arrestor wires up. We have six aircraft remaining - all were airborne at the time of the fire, and if we hadn't been able to fix the arrestor wires in time, we'd have lost them too. All are fighters, the standing Combat Air Patrol.
I remember a quote from an Air Force pilot, which I carefully keep to myself.
"At least if I fuck up, they don't have to tow my air base into a body and fender shop."
I have showered, changed into clean khakis, and reported back to sick bay to work. They immediately put me in charge of the psychological casualties - the PAs and corpsmen are far too busy, as is the surgeon, and the ship's psychologist was killed.
We are using one of the mess rooms - the dining facility - because there are so many. I have two Marines to help me keep order, and a sailor with a broken arm to escort them one at a time to the head as necessary.
It is entirely possible for a person to be physically untouched but badly mentally hurt. In World War I, they called it 'shell shock.' In World War II, 'battle fatigue.' Later it became the 'thousand yard stare." Now we know it is post traumatic disorder or PTD. Untreated, it becomes the more serious - and often fatal - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PTD is the perfectly normal human response to witnessing and participating in horrific events. If treated promptly, it can be resolved.
PTSD is the inability to cope with witnessing and participating in horrific events, usually over a prolonged period of time. It is endemic among survivors of severe childhood abuse, soldiers left in close combat for too long, and tortured prisoners. PTSD carries a high risk of self harm and often results in suicide.
The answer is stress defusing. Encouraging people to talk, constructively, about what happened. Get it out there. Some people write it down - I'm a reporter, that's what I do. In longer term situations, sketching or painting or music.
We talk. And I listen to their stories.
I'm not going to share any in detail. One sailor shat himself. I certainly did. But it bothers him a lot more than it bothers me - he thinks it means he's a coward, and he can't think and blames himself. Another sailor is blind. It's psychosomatic - he's blinking in reaction to pinwheel - but he believes he can't see, and therefore he can't. Some sailors are weeping and can't stop. Others are furious, enraged, so angry that they can't do work and are dangerous. We have had to straitjacket two and use soft restraints on a third. All three are at an end table with one of the Marines watching carefully. Yet others are staring. Just staring. They have to be prompted to eat and drink. Drawing them out is a task for experts, but we don't have experts. We have me.
I do rounds every half hour. In the five minutes between rounds, I write. I am still a war correspondent and I have that duty as well as this one. I finish "Hangar Bay." Actually, I can't finish it. But I do the best I can.
A Marine major enters the room and both Marines salute. He motions me over to him. He is a chaplain.
"I cross decked over from an amphib. They told me all the chaplains had been killed. Who are you?"
I identified myself and passed down what I had been able to determine about each of the casualties. He did the next set of rounds with me.
He knew how to do something I did not. I knew only how to apply psychological first aid, the equivalent of the first aid I had been doing in sick bay. Between his battle and pastoral skills, he knew how to return sailors to duty and was able to return six.
We agreed on shifts. We would alternate watches, every four hours.
I filed my stories. The PAO, the junior officer who had escorted me at the start of the War, flagged me down after I pressed 'SEND.'
"Captain wants to see you."
He escorted me to the Captain's day cabin.
"Come in."
I stood at attention.
"I understand you were NROTC." Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.
"Yes, Captain."
"Were you commissioned?"
"No, Captain."
"Why not?"
"I left the program senior year to focus on journalism."
"But you had a cruise."
"Yes, Captain." On a destroyer, like the two we had lost yesterday.
"I am desperately short on officers. I have already directly commissioned two CPOs and a naval cadet. You're not qualified to take the conn or a watch in CIC, but this isn't a destroyer. This is a carrier. I need to push as many non combat duties off my combat officers as I can."
He looks at me carefully. I haven't run out of the room. I am still standing at attention.
"Do you, without hesitation or moral reservation, swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, obey the lawful orders of officers appointed over you, and faithfully discharge the duties which you are about to enter?"
I think about it for just half a second.
I think of the bodies on the hanger deck.
I still have more that I can give.
And the duty of an officer - which I know and he knows, no need to say anything - is to send men to their deaths to carry out the mission. To pile bodies on the deck if that is what it takes.
"Anyone can die. Only an officer can point."
I nod.
"I so swear."
"You are directly commissioned Ensign, United States Naval Reserve, effective immediately. Continue your existing billeting arrangements. Report to the Chief Medical Officer for your duties. Put these on your khakis."
He tosses me insignia.
"Dismissed."
Ringside Seat | Raid 17 | Hangar Bay | Direct Commission | Intercept | Coastal Action
We saved the ship.
We may never know what caused the hangar fire. Too many people were killed. One survivor says he heard a brief burst of 20mm cannon fire - very different from the sound of an explosion. A moment's inattention by a pilot, an electrical short, a malfunction ...
It is faster to get a head count of surviving crew than killed crew. 2,143. We left port with over 5,500 souls on board.
Many of us are injured. I am wearing cotton gloves with burn cream inside and have cuts and bruises all over. I am one of the lucky ones.
The hangar fire was so intense as to be detected by enemy satellite recon. They immediately put in an alpha strike. Two destroyers and a fleet oiler were trashed, but so were the 80 attacking aircraft. Not a good trade for us.
We have one catapult and two arrestor wires up. We have six aircraft remaining - all were airborne at the time of the fire, and if we hadn't been able to fix the arrestor wires in time, we'd have lost them too. All are fighters, the standing Combat Air Patrol.
I remember a quote from an Air Force pilot, which I carefully keep to myself.
"At least if I fuck up, they don't have to tow my air base into a body and fender shop."
I have showered, changed into clean khakis, and reported back to sick bay to work. They immediately put me in charge of the psychological casualties - the PAs and corpsmen are far too busy, as is the surgeon, and the ship's psychologist was killed.
We are using one of the mess rooms - the dining facility - because there are so many. I have two Marines to help me keep order, and a sailor with a broken arm to escort them one at a time to the head as necessary.
It is entirely possible for a person to be physically untouched but badly mentally hurt. In World War I, they called it 'shell shock.' In World War II, 'battle fatigue.' Later it became the 'thousand yard stare." Now we know it is post traumatic disorder or PTD. Untreated, it becomes the more serious - and often fatal - Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PTD is the perfectly normal human response to witnessing and participating in horrific events. If treated promptly, it can be resolved.
PTSD is the inability to cope with witnessing and participating in horrific events, usually over a prolonged period of time. It is endemic among survivors of severe childhood abuse, soldiers left in close combat for too long, and tortured prisoners. PTSD carries a high risk of self harm and often results in suicide.
The answer is stress defusing. Encouraging people to talk, constructively, about what happened. Get it out there. Some people write it down - I'm a reporter, that's what I do. In longer term situations, sketching or painting or music.
We talk. And I listen to their stories.
I'm not going to share any in detail. One sailor shat himself. I certainly did. But it bothers him a lot more than it bothers me - he thinks it means he's a coward, and he can't think and blames himself. Another sailor is blind. It's psychosomatic - he's blinking in reaction to pinwheel - but he believes he can't see, and therefore he can't. Some sailors are weeping and can't stop. Others are furious, enraged, so angry that they can't do work and are dangerous. We have had to straitjacket two and use soft restraints on a third. All three are at an end table with one of the Marines watching carefully. Yet others are staring. Just staring. They have to be prompted to eat and drink. Drawing them out is a task for experts, but we don't have experts. We have me.
I do rounds every half hour. In the five minutes between rounds, I write. I am still a war correspondent and I have that duty as well as this one. I finish "Hangar Bay." Actually, I can't finish it. But I do the best I can.
A Marine major enters the room and both Marines salute. He motions me over to him. He is a chaplain.
"I cross decked over from an amphib. They told me all the chaplains had been killed. Who are you?"
I identified myself and passed down what I had been able to determine about each of the casualties. He did the next set of rounds with me.
He knew how to do something I did not. I knew only how to apply psychological first aid, the equivalent of the first aid I had been doing in sick bay. Between his battle and pastoral skills, he knew how to return sailors to duty and was able to return six.
We agreed on shifts. We would alternate watches, every four hours.
I filed my stories. The PAO, the junior officer who had escorted me at the start of the War, flagged me down after I pressed 'SEND.'
"Captain wants to see you."
He escorted me to the Captain's day cabin.
"Come in."
I stood at attention.
"I understand you were NROTC." Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps.
"Yes, Captain."
"Were you commissioned?"
"No, Captain."
"Why not?"
"I left the program senior year to focus on journalism."
"But you had a cruise."
"Yes, Captain." On a destroyer, like the two we had lost yesterday.
"I am desperately short on officers. I have already directly commissioned two CPOs and a naval cadet. You're not qualified to take the conn or a watch in CIC, but this isn't a destroyer. This is a carrier. I need to push as many non combat duties off my combat officers as I can."
He looks at me carefully. I haven't run out of the room. I am still standing at attention.
"Do you, without hesitation or moral reservation, swear to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, obey the lawful orders of officers appointed over you, and faithfully discharge the duties which you are about to enter?"
I think about it for just half a second.
I think of the bodies on the hanger deck.
I still have more that I can give.
And the duty of an officer - which I know and he knows, no need to say anything - is to send men to their deaths to carry out the mission. To pile bodies on the deck if that is what it takes.
"Anyone can die. Only an officer can point."
I nod.
"I so swear."
"You are directly commissioned Ensign, United States Naval Reserve, effective immediately. Continue your existing billeting arrangements. Report to the Chief Medical Officer for your duties. Put these on your khakis."
He tosses me insignia.
"Dismissed."
