CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

What I Saw When I Stopped Pretending

Some of the most peaceful moments of my life were spent standing on the deck of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier just before dawn. It feels like looking over the entire ocean, into endless blue water. An aircraft carrier is massive — like a floating city on the sea — and yet you can still feel the gentle rocking from the ocean’s waves through the soles of your feet. When you breathe into this moment — the salty air filling your lungs — you’re reminded of how incredibly small you are in the grand scheme of things. The realization causes a sort of lightness and fluttering within the chest, an overwhelming sense of gratitude for all that you cannot understand.

Then the day begins. The launch of the first F/A-18 fighter jet tears a sonic hole through the silent morning. Naval airmen run around the deck, bracing themselves and clutching their headsets to evade the thundering sound. The whole ship shakes as it launches jet after jet, white and gray trails marking their courses across the serene blue sky. Fuel and oil cover the hands and faces of mechanics working throughout the day and into the night to make sure the jets keep coming and going, launch after launch. There is not enough ocean breeze to prevent the sweat that stains our coveralls. The mixture of stenches — salt, oil, sweat — sticks to the hair inside your nostrils. It is the same the next day and the next. Preparation for war — for terror — is a never-ending, completely mundane affair. We eat our oatmeal, we don our coveralls, we load the jets, we drop the bombs, we do it all again.

I currently work for the antiwar organization CODEPINK, but long before that, I was an enlisted member of the U.S. Navy. My last job in the Navy was easy compared to others. I was the Operations Specialist for a squadron of fighter pilots. I worked with the commissioned officers, pilots whom I affectionately called “the frat boys of the Navy.” They were young, zealous, mostly white........

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