Navy Boy in Hawaii




I hope that I don’t start a fire. It’s kind of awkward here sitting on a balcony without an ashrtray. So here I am in Hawaii and it’s jut beautiful out there is no snow and I feel like I was meant to be here…

I can see the marina where the opening of Gilligan's Island was shot and there are a lot of pretty little white boats and I think is that some kind of rule or something? And they have blue covers and there are palm trees everywhere I look maybe a couple of kinds of varieties and they boogie in warm wind.

I can see people in shorts and flip flops and people looking like ducks out in the harbour and a surfer too. And the break wall to protect the little inlet. I met a funny little boy from Wisconsin yesterday on the flight. He was with the Navy had been since he was 16 I think. He works on turbines and has a great interest in scuba diving and now he's heading to Pearl Harbor… he joined he says because he wanted to see the world as a result he’s been to Guam to Iraq and he spent a long time in Bahrain in his soldier's uniform.

I wanted to know what makes a man want to join the army. It’s not something I ever wanted and not just because I'm not a man and I'm a mummy. We talked about it a little and he said he really just wanted to see the world. What a funny reason uhuh I mean you end up risking your life. But he was so young and he didn't even know about the massacre in Rwanda and hadn't heard of the Hutus fighting the Tutsis. Because I told him about General Romeo D’allaire’s book, Shake Hands With The Devil and this child hadn’t even heard of it. I should have asked him if he thought it was important for U.S. soldiers in particular to leanr military history and world history and not just their own because they happen to have parked their asses avec guns in so many places around the world. His lack of of knowledge and lack of concern for it was somehow frightening.

These blind little kids who just go and join for whatever reason and get involved in the politics of the elders. I should have liked to talk to him more about it. But there was something about this 6-foot-tall boy who barely has enough facial hair to shave and his lack of knowledge was freaky. Well we sat next to each other for six hours so I didn't want to insult him.

I suppose that I should not be judging him I mean who am I to question his motives? But I can’t help it when I think of him or his compatriots sitting in their SeaHawk with their powerful weapons of destruction and what havoc they can wreak with just a wee press of the button and jut blindly going what their military obsessed bosses tell them.

In six hours I didn’t even ask him his name and it gets me to thinking about how we meet people for just a minute and how these little meetings touch and change our lives even ever so minutely and that ultimately changes who we are. It isn’t like having a long-time relationship but what they say becomes a part of you and who you are… and it will change your perception of what you think and possibly even what you act upon.

Comments

Popular Posts