Cackmandu's Bio

As promised I will give a bit of a bio as asked and maybe wondered upon by my readers.

Well, I joined the Navy in fall of 1996 and went to boot camp in Great lakes, Illinois and enjoyed myself. Wasn't a scary thing at all. I spent the next three and a half months there (Bootcamp and school) At one point in school we had a choce to pick which coast we wanted. I had made some pals that wanted east coast. So me being the freethinking young man I was asked for the east coast. A few weeks later we were told where we would go once in the REAL navy. Everyone that I had befriended went east coast and I went with one guy out to San Diego. Wonderful...that navy just fucked me from the get go.

I showed up to the boat and was told the boat was leaving for a deployment in 2 weeks. So I did like any sailor should do and went down to Tijuana, Mexico and got drunk off my ass. Was late for my first official day in the fleet. I was aboard the USS Constellation CV-64, an aircraft carrier.

I had no specific job when I came there I had an option of being placed in a division and staying with that or choosing another job. It was all insane. I hated the people that I worked with but liked working the flight deck. So I stayed! I decided to be an AVIATION BOATSWAINS MATE-FUELS (ABF). That means I work with aviation fuel basically. I worked the flight deck where the retards worked but I enjoyed myself. I was a good worker and eventually moved up and had easier jobs as I went along. I did 3 six month deployments and tons of "work-ups". So, in my first enlistment I would estimate that I was actually on the open water for 2.5 years of my first 4 years. Maybe more!

It was time for me to move on and go to shore duty. I chose Maryland becuase my soon-to-be wife was from Philly. I chose to come to a medical clinic. Boy was that fucking stupid. They put me in Optometry right away. Remember I am a guy that works on the flight deck of a carrier and have no medical skills whatsoever. I wasn't too happy. Then I found out that I was attched to the hospital ship USNS-Comfort. What the fuck? I am promised my wife that I would be home every day for 3 years. I was here for 6 months and then we went to Europe for the summer of '02. It was fun but my son was only 6 months old. I came back and was no in charge of people below me in Optometry. It was cool but they hated it because I had no idea about eyes. I had made rank and they didn't. I was now and E-5 (Petty Officer 2nd Class). Then a few months go by and I get told to pack my seabag and be ready to go to war. This was about X-mas time and it wasn;t fun around the holidays. I finally got the word on January 3rd, 2003, that I would be deployed to Irag on the hospital ship. Four days later we were pulling out of Baltimore. We spent a month in Diego Garcia and then headed up a few weeks before the war started. Once it did, we were pretty busy. It was just us from the clinic that I work at that worked the flight deck. So, that meant if a helicopter was coming in at 3a.m. we had to wake up and land/fuel/take injured off at all hours. Always seemed they would come as we sat down to get a warm meal or was just getting comfy in bed. We mostly took care of Iraqi civilians and a handful of U.S. guys/women.

I am not the most people friendly person sometimes. So, when some one would freak out on me in Optometry I would give it back to them. Thats how ABF's do business. I was always being complained about, and still am. People would get so hooked up if they were cool about things instead of being assholes or bitches.

So thats me in a nutshell. I don't really take shit and that doesn't fit well with a military lifestyle. I make decent money and hate what I do. I need to go back to a boat and life will be good again. Something about being on the sea that is good stuff. It is harder now that I have a family back home. So, I am at a crossroads as to what the hell I want to do. Like I said, I make good money for the little college that I do have. I want to have the balls to get out there and try real life. I have 12 more years left in the Navy. It is a good time to get out and also bad. I will see what happens. I just need to grab my balls and make sure that I have them still and make the choice. Because the next place I have to go to is a ship. That means another 4-5 years on a boat. I make more money there too. But am gone a lot. So who knows?

That is Cackmandu and what he has been up to in his adult life.