I have, as you might have noticed, pretty much stayed out of the brouhaha over the USS Abraham Lincoln and the other ships keeping watch and running operations in the Middle East.

Mostly because, in my unfiltered honesty, coupled with my personal experience, I haven't much patience with the whining coming from the junior sailors on board or, frankly, the families who, to excuse a lot of it, oft times don't really know any better. All they are hearing is that life sucks in every direction, and they hear it often enough, thanks to the age we live in, that they grow convinced that this is something out of the ordinary and their child or young spouse/father/wife/child/whatever is suffering some extraordinary deprivations and conditions that have never before been experienced in the history of modern seafaring.

None of which is true, but these experts would beg to differ, bolstered by a frenzied flood of press reports all feeding on anything that makes the Trump administration and Pete Hegseth's War Department look really bad, with as much fervor as great whites on a dead humpback.

It's an easy, lazy target filled with all the ingredients for a drama soup.

I have to admit, I have seen this dependent/family v duty conflict coming for a long time, and the innerwebs age has only exacerbated the situation.

One of my favorite stories to tell illustrates how hard it is for some people to differentiate between the life we military types live without a conflict to when there suddenly is one.

In late July of 1990, our squadron of A-6Es, attached to something called the RDF - Rapid Deployment Force as part of what was then MAG-70 (Marine Aircraft Group), was in Fallon, NV, for an exercise with our various partners. The purpose of the MAG was to be the composite tactical (fixed- and rotary-wing) group that could respond to Southeast Asia contingencies with deployments and serve as what they called a 'pocket air force.' As part of the RDF, our group would get the call to move out first.

And to hit the deck running, you have to practice that sort of coordination between so many disparate squadrons and equipment working together in one group, and then in coordination with the RDF's accompanying Marine Corps ground forces. That's why we were in Fallon in the dead of summer.

I was the com/nav shop head at the time, and a Staff Sergeant. We walked into the hangars on the second of August, and there wasn't a sound from the flight line or the shops. It was very weird, because normally it was buzzing and clanging. And then we were told to get our troops and muster on the hangar deck.

There, the skipper told the entire squadron that Saddam Hussein had invaded Kuwait that morning, and we would all be packing up to head back to El Toro in anticipation of something big going down, in line with precisely why we were there to begin with. 

Everyone had half an hour to get to the barracks to get their gear and get back, because we had planes to launch and gear to embark as soon as they could scramble the 130s to come get us.

All the troops took off, but the SgtMaj held us shop heads back and said, 

'I don't know HOW she did it, or got the number, but the phone rang on the CO's desk first this morning, and it was LCpl Schmuckatelli's wife. FROM EL TORO. She called to tell the Skipper that she was very sorry about the deployment to Saudi Arabia (!), but LCpl Schmuckatelli couldn't go, because she has three children and doesn't drive.'

We were all gobsmacked and did not need to hear the SgtMaj threaten death to the next Marine whose wife called the CO in the middle of a real-life, flag-went-up retrograde to base.

When everyone got back to the flight line, I gathered my chickens to me and told them in no uncertain terms, 

'GOD HELP YOU. If you have the slightest doubt that your wife is capable of something this appalling, call her now. Remind her that she married a Marine. And while it's nice that base housing is free, and you are usually home every night to take her places when she needs it, this is one of those times when the bill comes due. She married a MARINE. Not the bagger at Von's or the postman. A Marine.' 

There weren't any phone calls, and we managed to get all but one of the birds up and launched that morning. We were also treated to one of the most magnificent things I've ever witnessed in my life, as Marine Corps aviation sprang to life in this beautiful synchronicity of purpose. F-18s, CH-53Es, 46s, Hueys, and Cobras - everyone boxed up and lifted off, headed back to El Toro, Tustin, and Camp Pendleton.

And 130s were touching down like clockwork - I had no idea we had so many, but they had pulled crews out of schools and off bases from all over the country to get to Fallon to get our group packed up and home ASAP.

I get chills to this day. I was so proud to be in that place in that uniform.

The Marines in our squadron wound up not going to Saudi Arabia, though. They got our planes as far as a last stop at Cherry Point on the East Coast, and a command decision was made to give them to East Coast squadrons to go with and send our guys back to start the F-18D transition.

My hubs was just finishing up Warrant Officer school, and he hustled back to go to war as the avionics officer for the same CH-53E squadron he'd left to go to WO school from. One of his troops took this picture of us on the El Toro flight line just as they stuffed the last 53 into the last C-5.

They launched about 45 minutes later. He was gone for nine months or so. 

All this was brought back today by a New York Times video article that just stuck in my craw.

I am sorry you miss your sailor daughter, but I also think you've missed the point. 

It's a war and major suckage, granted. But it isn't anything that someone hasn't done before.

From a New York Times video about the suffering among sailors deployed on the USS Abraham Lincoln. The caption, in case it's too small to read, says, "They didn't sign up to be on a ship in the middle of the ocean." pic.twitter.com/p28FmV1NqP

THEY DIDN'T SIGN UP TO BE ON A SHIP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN

I'm sorry, ma'am. A ship in the middle of the ocean is what sailors do.

And sometimes, as inconvenient as it is, it's not a cruise. It's combat.

That's why it's a 'Navy' and not 'Carnival.'

Joey Jones sort of apologized for this.

I told him I had 'hell yeahed.'

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