Greetings all (please pass on to family, friends, NHC work and reserve people respectively)
My first week at Norfolk is finished and, as far as Big Navy is concerned, I have been transformed into an active duty sailor, with my reserve life carefully excised with an electronic scalpel.
Declared fit by the medical mobilization board, I sailed through the rest of the process with nary a hiccup. It really does pay to get as much paperwork as possible finished before you leave home -- I heard one sailor failed his screening and was sent home, while many, many others suffered through very long lines.
There was one uncomfortable moment, when one of the Law Enforcement Detachment policemen presented a briefing on the ancient roots of the religious quarrels between Jews, Christians and Muslims, the schism of Islam into Sunni and Shiite after Mohammed’s death and the unmodified intolerance that characterizes both ancient and present day Islam, particularly in Arab cultures. While the briefing slides themselves were quite good, the presenter was notably ignorant of history and even some current events. And this led to an inability to filter the material correctly, so that he emphasized unimportant things (like Mohammed’s age or family) while ignoring key elements of the story (such as the role of the Roman empire in the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel and the rise of Christianity). There was even a point where he mixed up Shia and Sunni, and that right after misidentifying a fatwah. We decided (quietly anyway) that only intelligence specialist’s (IS) should be able to present briefings. Still, it was a good sign that the Navy was trying to provide a little context for these policemen, who will spend their tours doing the very hard and very dangerous job of patrolling outside military bases.
The same easy transition held true on Friday, when we gathered for our last shots. The medical people frightened us with a few horror stories – the soldier who refused the anthrax vaccine and had an infected wound deeply cut out like a cancer or the Marine who wrapped his smallpox vaccine wound tightly in duct tape. Luckily, I am old enough to have received a childhood smallpox immunization and so I am waived on through. The anthrax shot is both optional and a minimal discomfort, especially given the prevalence of the microbe throughout Iraq. It is hard to understand the sailors who refuse the shot, while at the same time suffering from the smallpox shot, when the likelihood of catching the latter is miniscule and the former is a known danger.
Checking out on Friday, I am relieved to have completed the first stage. Norfolk is finished, and now I will move on to the much more difficult two weeks at Fort Jackson, where somehow, they will try to turn this sailor into a soldier.