"It is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room," warns an old proverb. "Especially when there is no cat."
I was passed a book containing that quotation by a colleague recently. The title of the book is Ignorance, by Stuart Firestein. I'm not sure what made my friend think of me, but I tried not to be too offended.
Maybe he thought of me because of the science.
Anyway, remember that when I say "colleague," I mean another Marine Corps officer who, like me, is now suddenly thrust into a position that is essentially identical to being a college professor. Except we run through the woods sometimes and do pull-ups. And shoot pistols. And all our students do too. So, other than that, pretty much just like any college campus.
Maybe there are some subtle differences.
For the most part, it's not that different.
This place is just like any graduate-level school.
Okay, sometimes we make bombs. But only once or twice a year.
It usually looks more like this.
Or this.
This is more difficult to explain.
See? Just like a regular school.
Getting back to my point. So this book, Ignorance, How It Drives Science, is pretty intriguing. The underlying thesis is that it is the things we DON'T know that drive science, rather than the things we already know. And furthermore, we don't know a lot more than we DO know. Facts, data, and accumulated knowledge serve mainly to show us where the dark rooms are, where those black cats may be hiding. The book takes it a bit deeper, talking about uncertainties and the "unknowables" in life. Heady stuff.
Donald Rumsfeld makes a clumsy attempt to explain it:
My job, at the moment, is to teach Marine officers to plan operations. We try to teach them to think, essentially. Again, I'm not exactly a professional educator. But I've been pretending to be one for three years now, and I'm thinking that the way we approach our military education programs could benefit quite a bit from this line of thinking.
Many of my superiors and even my peers might view it differently. They might think we are showing them HOW to do something. That we have this amphibious warfare and military planning thing pretty much figured out. Just follow the recipe, and--Voilà! One perfect military operational plan. The truth of the matter is that this isn't even remotely the way planning works.
I'm certainly not against studying history. There's nothing new under the sun, as they say. It's cool in the military these days to brag about how much military history you read. General Mattis said he was trying to build a 5,000-year-old mind, so that way you aren't surprised. There's some value to that, I admit.
But this idea that the important thing is finding and embracing ignorance is so much more exciting! And so applicable to today's Marine Corps. We have new equipment, newly developed tactics and procedures, and lots of new challenges. I think many of our problems stem from the fact that we want to behave as if we know exactly how these things can and should be used. As though we have it all worked out, and the young captain needs merely to read and follow along in the manual.
The problem is, this is not in the manual.
If combat taught me nothing else, it definitely showed me that most people are completely full of shit. There are plenty of things we don't know, plenty of problems that need solving. And the best Marines are the ones who can come up with a way around the unexpected, rather than the Marines who can recite the manual or who know the names of the most Civil War generals. Let's empower those young minds and see what they can come up with.
As Yogi Berra, the famous philosopher and baseball player said, "It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future." The good news is, we don't need to.
In the words of Jean-Paul Sartre, "Hell is other people."
As I drove into work this morning, I was stuck behind an old lady in a new Mercedes sports car, going 55mph in a 65mph zone, right next to a dump truck going the same speed, which was slowly passing some kind of Sanford-and-Son jalopy pickup in the right lane. I was not alone. There were dozens of other vehicles right behind me, desperately trying to maneuver around this little clump of stupidity, to no avail. Words cannot express how enraging that is.
It is a very, very simple idea. Move right, let the faster traffic pass. And why would you buy a fancy sports car if you are going to drive it like that, you jackass? Hey law enforcement, here's an idea. Start ticketing these assholes. It is a posted traffic regulation, you know.
I don't really have anything else this morning. I just had to vent. Enjoy your day, Dear Reader. Just remember to move the fuck over to the right lane.
I've had about enough with being told that I can't say this word or that word anymore. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, not freedom from being offended. I don't intend to go off on some weird Tea Party-esque diatribe about free speech, so don't worry. I'm just trying to figure out why we are so afraid of offending people these days. Left-leaning people seem to shudder at the thought of accidentally offending almost any vocal minority, or at least those that are popular with the Democratic party, such as black people, gay people, or Jewish people. Offending rednecks and religious people is apparently encouraged, however. For the record, I'm neither religious nor a redneck.
Okay, there might be just a smidgen of redneck in there.
Well, I'm not religious, anyway. I'm also not one to be politically correct, as I'm sure you've already picked up on. I fact, I tend to offend somewhere in the neighborhood of 80% of all human beings I come into contact with. Some who've never even met me have already determined they hate me (on reputation alone, I assume--though perhaps they read my blog). So I'm not afraid of upsetting folks, but I find it disturbing that I can suddenly alienate vast swaths of people for using the wrong language, with no real reason given for it, apart from the whim of the Cult of Political Correctness. There's something basically wrong with that... I mean, it's the ideological equivalent of trying to follow a flock of blackbirds. Let me show you what I mean. First, let's just try to nail down what IS politically correct. What are the socially acceptable phrases of the day? It's hard to keep up with. For instance, gay people apparently don't like the word "homosexual," or so I've been told by my liberal friends. They now prefer the word "gay" or the "LGBT community". That's the initialization of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transexual community, in case you aren't up on the latest in PC speech. I was completely unaware of it myself, and was walking around referring to people as homosexuals, and actually was feeling pretty good and proper for not using any of the purposefully offensive slurs, like "queer" or "faggot" or the like. I understand fully why those types of words are considered improper; they were meant from the beginning as insults. The thing I don't get is the adoption of a former slang term (gay), and the rejection of the scientific term (homosexual). Who decides this shit? It just makes no sense. Race is another PC minefield. Black people have changed labels at least three times in my lifetime, from Black to Afro-American, back to Black, to African-American, and now presumably back to Black, since African-American has too many damn syllables. That's not counting the old-fashioned labels of negro, colored, and such. Again, these earlier acceptable words were not meant to be insulting; on the contrary, they were considered the civilized, proper, and non-offensive monicker. I completely understand the rejection of the dreaded "N-word," as it was meant from the very beginning to be derisive. I'm trying to wrap my head around why words originally intended NOT to be offensive suddenly are verboten.
It's an endless cycle it seems. Let's look at the word "retarded" as a case study: There have been people with mental handicaps for basically as long as there have been people. All sorts of unfortunate problems and accidents can cause people's brains to not function as well as most. We have words for this, because it is a thing that exists, and that's what language is. They used to call kids with intellectual disabilities "slow," "feeble-minded", or "simple." The actual medical terms for various levels of low-IQ scores at the time were "idiot," "imbecile," "cretin," and "moron." Guess how kids started using those words.
This seemed a little harsh to folks after a while, so they decided to come up with some less hurtful words. The terms "mental retardation" and "mentally retarded" were invented in the middle of the 20th century to replace the previous set of terms, which were deemed to have become offensive. The idea was that these new words would imply that the people were not stupid, but that their mental development was just delayed. Thus, we manage not to insult anyone, right?
Somebody went full retard anyway...
The problem is, the words still mean the same thing. Pretty soon, these words were being used as playground insults. See, no matter what you call the "special" kids at school, the other kids will learn that word and will then use it to insult each other. The process is called the "euphemism treadmill," which is an excellent term for it. So now the word "retarded" is being phased out. The Sarah Palin Journal is insisting that it be referred to as "the R-word." She is an authority on this because she has a son with Downs Syndrome. I've got bad news for you, though. Even if no one ever again uses the word 'retarded' in a sentence, your child will still have Downs. That's the harsh truth. No matter what euphemism you dream up, it will become the new insult.
The root problem in this case obviously isn't the poor souls who have intellectual disabilities. It isn't even the mean kids on the playground who are insulting each other. I think the problem lies in the self-indulgent people who appoint themselves as the high priests of language. They seek to control people by making them feel guilty, by bullying them with their indignation over common words.
What's the moral here? I think it was to point out that words are tied to a meaning, and even if you change the word, the underlying meaning will remain. Getting upset at the word itself is just—retarded.
"A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet," as Juliet put it.
This is a video of Secretary of State John Kerry addressing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 3rd.
He was hoping to convince Congress to agree with President Obama's request to conduct strikes against Syria. I am a Marine, so I do not let myself get emotionally involved in the political leadership's decision-making process. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't comment on it here. But I did hear a few people saying some things that were disturbing. The most glaring example came from Mr. Kerry as he scolded Senator Rand Paul:
The phrase he used that raised my eyebrows was, "The president is not asking you to go to war. He's not asking you to declare war. He's not asking you to send one American troop to war." I heard that and I nearly dropped my glass. How can this highly educated and experienced man, a former senator, a presidential candidate, himself a veteran of Vietnam, think for one second that what he said is true? Of course that is what the president is asking! He is proposing launching cruise missiles and air strikes against another sovereign nation because that nation's government has done something the government of the United States finds intolerable. That sounds like a war to me. Maybe not a big one, but a freaking war nonetheless.
I'm not saying if it's right or wrong; as a Marine, it's not my place to do so. I do believe there is such a thing as a Just War. I guess I better believe that, given my vocation.
War is just an extension of politics, after all. Thank you, Uncle Carl.
We have to look at this objectively, though. How would the United States view a similar attack, if we were on the receiving end of it? You don't have to merely imagine it. It has already happened in history. On December 7, 1941, the Japanese conducted a precision naval air strike at Pearl Harbor to degrade the United States naval forces in the Pacific. We seemed to take that pretty seriously then. From what I've read and seen on the History Channel, America got more than a little upset and wound up inventing a whole new type of super-bomb to get revenge on Japan with.
Would the Syrians be less angry?
How about just 12 years ago, when guided missiles in the form of hijacked airliners struck at financial and command and control targets on September 11, 2001? Did that seem like an act of war? Damn right it did. We were justifiably pissed, and the perpetrators got way more back than they bargained for. They wanted the United States out of traditional Muslim lands, and instead wound up with thousands of Americans running about the entire Middle East, blowing things up and playing country music. I was one of them, and I was glad to be there, if for no other reason than that my very presence was a thumb in the eye of those who dreamed up the 9/11 attacks.
I'm the really good-looking one.
What am I saying? I'm saying that war is war. Calling it something else doesn't change its nature. It's terrible and it's unpredictable. It is messy. Innocent people will be hurt and killed. Things will happen we didn't intend. Chaos is the only thing we can count on. War is sometimes necessary, but we should never be so naive as to think we can completely control it. We should at least be honest enough with ourselves to call it what it is. It is our pride that gets us into trouble, our hubris. It is the most intelligent and accomplished among us who are the most susceptible. We start to feel so superior that we believe that we can strike other nations with impunity. We can't. People are very, very inventive when it comes to hurting each other. We should all know better by now.
If there is one thing that we Marines are good at, it's believing our own press releases. There's actually a lot of good in that. Young Americans will do amazing things, as long as they believe in themselves and in each other.
But senior officers need to stay a little more realistic. Believing in yourself is good. Fooling yourself isn't.
When I joined the Marines, 20-something years ago, I was made to memorize a long list of facts about the Corps. Or at least I accepted them as facts at the time. It went something like this:
A drill instructor asks a question, and the whole platoon of recruits recites the answer back at the top of their lungs:
"Who is the Grand Old Man of the Marine Corps?"
"Sir, the Grand Old Man of the Marine Corps is Archibald Henderson, sir!"
"Who is the father of Marine Corps aviation?"
"Sir, the father of Marine Corps aviation is Alfred A. Cunningham, sir!"
"Where did the Marines earn the name 'Devil Dogs'?"
"Sir, Marines earned the nickname Devil Dogs from the Germans at the Battle of Belleau Wood in World War I!"
These stories of the Corps are mostly at least sort of true, at least I think they are. Over the years, I heard these stories repeated, over and over, to the point they became a sort of a dogma, almost a religious scripture, something that was beyond question. It doesn't matter if it's bullshit or not.
They aren't all that open to the idea of debating things at Parris Island...
One of the big things that we Marines tell ourselves is that we, as a service, are very innovative. Some examples of this innovation are below. There is an underlying truth in all of these, too.
The close integration of fire support from aircraft with ground maneuver during the "Banana Wars" in the 1920's. This resulted in what we call "close air support" today.
The first use of helicopters to deliver ground forces in a combat maneuver (called vertical envelopment) during the Korean War.
U. S. Marines of the 1st Marine Div. Reconnaissance Co. make the first helicopter invasion on Hill 812, during the renewed fighting in Korea. September 20, 1951. T. G. Donegan. (Marine Corps)
The development of amphibious armored vehicles (now called AMTRACs) that can deliver troops to shore and then move inland on land.
The use of personal body armor ("flak jackets") for ground troops, also in the Korean conflict.
Marine holding the shrapnel stopped by his body armor in Korea.
The development of amphibious assault doctrine in the 1930's, just in time for World War II.
The most significant thing from that short list of examples is the last one: amphibious doctrine. It saved the world's bacon in the 1940's, in case you don't realize that. Amphibious doctrine is the how-to guide for delivering land forces to a hostile shore by ship. It integrates naval gunfire and air support. It describes in detail how to load ships, how to organize the landing craft, and how to allow for logistics and resupply. What it did, in effect, was to analyze the disastrous Allied amphibious assault in WWI at Gallipoli, and then it solved all the problems through planning processes and new technologies.
Not sure how they failed, given that they had Mel Gibson with them.
This new doctrine, after some tweaking early in WW2 at places like Guadalcanal, became wildly successful. It allowed for some of the most famous American victories ever: Normandy, Iwo Jima, Okinawa. Perhaps you've heard of them.
The most famous photo of all time...
"This guarantees a Marine Corps for 500 years"
-James Forrestal, Secretary of the Navy, 1945
All of this success during World War II most definitely went to our (meaning the USMC's) heads. The Corps transformed, almost overnight, from a small, specialized force of 17,000 Marines into an amphibious force of more than 500,000. We had generals and bases and funding. The public loved us.
But we had become too big for our britches, it seemed. During the post-war drawdown, there was a serious attempt by some to dissolve the US Marine Corps, on the grounds that it was a redundant capability, essentially a second land army. Furthermore, nuclear weapons had made major amphibious landings obsolete, or so it was said.
“Large-scale amphibious operations will never occur again.”
-Gen Omar Bradley, US Army, 19 October, 1949.
US Marines landing at Inchon, Korea on 15 September, 1950.
This landing reversed the course of the Korean War, and saved America's bacon. Again.
Take that, Omar Bradley.
The Marine Corps survived this period of infighting amongst the services, but we developed an intense institutional paranoia about people trying to get rid of us. The "graybeards" of the Marine Corps at the time understandably wanted to hold on to this impressive force they had developed. Furthermore, the idea of keeping a large amphibious force ready at all times seemed vindicated by what happened in Korea. In fact, there was so much protective love for the Marine Corps, that Congress codified the minimum size and composition of the Corps in 1952 in an amendment to the National Security Act of 1947. The Marine Corps still clings to this mission, large-scale amphibious assault, as its raison d'être. Many still quote the National Security Act of 1947 as if it were sacred scripture. But what if Omar Bradley was right (read the article in the link)? Then what?
When Major Pete Ellis was dreaming up amphibious doctrine in the early 1930's, the Marine Corps was facing a fiscal strain and looking at an uncertain future. The Corps' missions up until then had been what we would call special operations today, but then we called 'small wars.' In fact, at the same time that they were busily developing amphibious doctrine, other Marines were writing the "Small Wars Manual," which is still highly regarded today, from the experiences of the Marines in the interwar years. But World War II was on the horizon, and small, specialized operations was not where the action was going to be, and the Marines damn well knew it. So they reinvented themselves into what was needed for the time.
Well, the world has turned a few times since 1945, and the Marine Corps once again faces an identity crisis during a fiscally tight period. Technological advances in sea mines and anti-ship missiles have undercut some of the traditional ideas in how we might conduct an amphibious forcible entry operation. The ways of the past are out-dated. It's time to reinvent ourselves again.
But what passes for innovation in the Marine Corps today is really just clinging to the past glory of World War II. Our developments are not really revolutionary, they are evolutionary. Our new technologies, like the Expeditionary Assault Vehicle and the MV-22 Osprey are really just new technologies that help us to accomplish a landing that would look very much like the one at Iwo Jima nearly 70 years ago. We aren't thinking up new ways to provide a useful service to our country in the modern world, we are busy cramming a square peg in a round hole, trying to justify our existence. Another thing--I'm tired of listening to people use the requirements of O-Plans (contingency plans developed in advance by DoD) as justification for a certain number of amphibious ships and the appropriate size of the Marine Corps. Those plans were made to use existing capabilities, and using them in turn as as a source of what our requirements ought to be is circular logic, and is guaranteed to stagnate our thinking. The plans should be adapted to the forces fielded by our nation, not the other way around.
It isn't all bad, though. Some of our new technologies, like the MV-22 and the LCAC hovercraft, actually do provide some amazing capabilities to the amphibious world, but they go far beyond their use in a traditional large-scale amphibious assault. But these new capabilities haven't made much of an impact on our roles and missions, because we remain dogmatically locked to the past.
LCAC - Landing Craft, Air Cushion
It's a hovercraft, and it's really fast.
So I ask you, Marine Corps, where is the innovation? Where are the forward thinkers? Where are the new ideas? With no money available, we aren't going to technology our butts out of this one. We are going to have to really think.
Those of you still reading this far down the page who aren't Marines, may not realize the absolute heresy of my even saying any of this, especially in a public forum. I may end up like the ending of another Mel Gibson movie if I'm not careful...
Like this one.
Or like this one...
Our True Heritage
One of the things that some Marines will tell you is that large amphibious assaults are our heritage, our service identity, our tradition. I disagree. That's only a part of it. Our true heritage is our adaptability. Our true heritage is in small wars and independent actions, at least since the end of the age of sail. There is the previously cited example of the Banana Wars in the Caribbean, but also think about the actions in China between the world wars, and even many of the smaller landings during World War 2. We are the original American Special Operators. In fact, I think that the development of the modern SOCOM community was necessary to fill the void left by the Marine Corps' transformation into a conventional force in the 1940's.
So there's one idea for you. Return the Marine Corps to its true roots. Make it an amphibious arm of the special operations community, like a seaborne version of the Rangers, but with the heavy equipment that being on ships allows. Using the MV-22 Osprey and the LCAC, our reach is enormous, and we can completely bypass most types of beach defenses and obstacles. We could shrink the Corps and the amphibious fleets drastically, while raising our training quality and increasing our interoperability with SOCOM forces. This would drastically reduce the size and cost of the Corps, while increasing the utilization of Marines in real-world operations.
When Special Operations Command (SOCOM) was created in 1987, the Marine Corps stiff-armed it in disdain. The Corps didn't want to lose control over its best Marines to some outside command. The Marines are too small of an organization to survive this kind of talent bleed. Also, the whole Marine Corps considers itself elite, and doesn't like for some Marines to think they are better than their brothers. That kind of thing really damages Esprit de Corps.
I'm not talking about MARSOC the way it is now, which is exactly what was worried about. I don't mean a few "operators" or some dudes who think they are badasses jumping out of airplanes. I mean the entire service of the United States Marine Corps falling under SOCOM. That removes the big problem right at the source. I mean completely redefining the missions and roles of the Corps; actually I mean redefining the roles and missions of all the services. It's damn sure time for it, too. The organization of the Department of Defense is a bureaucratic nightmare scenario, which defies the understanding of many career military officers, including Yours Truly. It's wasteful, unwieldy, and bloated. And it wishes mainly to preserve itself, above all else.
I'm no Pete Ellis, but this seems like an idea to me. Our current organization was codified early in the Cold War, a war that has been over since 1991. I think two decades is long enough to wait for someone to take another look.
You don't like my ideas? Let me hear some better ones then, Marines. I'm just wiping a booger on the wall to see who notices.
Let me warn you up front--this post is going to be gross. Some material may not be suitable for all ages or dispositions. Reader discretion is advised. This means you, Mama.
Are you still reading? Well, then let me tell you a little bit about my butthole. My asshole is much like my personality: angry and irritated. Or at least it was a few months ago. I'd like to share with you the tale of my tail-end because, well, it's kind of funny. Also, several people have advised me against it, so it must be good.
I'm talking about hemorrhoids, of course. Another of the many problems I'm having to learn to deal with because I failed to die before now. It's probably a result of all those times I ate nothing but MREs for a week and only pooped once. I used to see the constipative effects of the "Meal, Ready to Eat" as a positive thing, a way to delay the inevitable until I was in a location with a good place to shit. (Is constipative a word? Spellchecker doesn't think so, but I think it is.)
You never think about things like this when watching Game of Thrones, do you?
Some Marines think they can go through life eating MREs all the time with no ill effects, but sooner or later, you must pay the piper. And the later it is, the worse it's going to be. I once went 11 days on a diet of only MREs and this weird sort of pita bread they used to give us. I don't remember exactly what it was called, but "long shelf life" was written on the wrapper. They should have written "You will not shit for two weeks if you eat this" on the wrapper instead, because that's the effect it has. At the same time that I was eating this constipation-maximizing diet, the MEU (Marine Expeditionary Unit) I was with was ashore on the island of Sardinia. We had about 10 port-a-johns to share among about 2000 people, so those things were completely ruined pretty much immediately. To make matters worse, some dude put an MRE-bomb in one of them, right into the poop-well. It exploded and absolutely coated the inside of the port-a-john with liquid shit. I naively walked right up and opened the door, not even wondering why there was no line for this particular shitter. Big mistake. So, I consequently gave up all hope of using those things. We were also expressly forbidden to poop anywhere but the port-a-johns (port-a-shitter in Marine-speak), lest we ruin the delicate ecosystem. Ordinarily, I don't let rules like that influence my behavior, but Sardinia has precious few trees or even tall brush to hide behind. I'm a private pooper, as I've said before. So I just held it.
After the training exercise was over, we all got back on the ship, where there was plenty of fresh fruit and coffee. I had a belly full of both, smoked a cigarette, and then it was time to see a man about a horse, so to speak.
It was horrifying. I would have sworn that they had been hiding broken bricks and shards of glass in that extend shelf life bread. That crap was taken in 2001, over twelve years ago, but I still remember it. That's how bad it was.
But I digress. The point is that over the years, things had gotten out of sorts in my nether regions. My butthole was angry, and wasn't coming around. I tried every home remedy the Internet had to offer, to no avail. I kept winding up on websites about various terrible diseases. I really didn't want to go to the doctor, though. I didn't want to have to show my brown starfish to some stranger. But the Internet was being very scary, and I really didn't want to die of butt cancer. That's what took Vince Lombardi out, you know.
I'll bet his turd cutter was much tougher than mine,
and look what happened to him.
I told you all of that to tell you this story...
I finally had enough of my ass hurting, and decided to go to medical to get it looked at. While I'm stationed here in Quantico, I use the medical facility at Officer Candidate's School (OCS), which as far as Navy medicine goes, is pretty good. They do tend to have a lot of very junior people working in there, however. And so it came to pass that after I checked in to sick call, I found myself in an examination room with a 19 year old young woman describing my anus. To her credit, she didn't so much as crack a smile.
This young Navy Corpsman took my blood pressure, asked me if I had any allergies, all of the usual jazz, and then she left me alone to go get the doctor. After a good long while, she returned with another young woman, this one a lieutenant, junior grade (LTJG) medical officer. For those of you unfamiliar with the sea services, a LTJG is an O-2 in the Navy, one step up from an ensign, the lowest officer rank. It is also the rank immediately conveyed on a medical officer upon graduation from school. She couldn't have been more than about 26 or so, and looked younger--a brand new graduate of the Navy's medical program, in the Navy for only a year or so total. And so, now I was discussing the in and outs of my sphincter with TWO very young, fresh-faced ladies. Everybody was so serious, too. It was hilariously awkward, like a sit-com come to life.
I need to lay off the Mexican food for a while...
This female version of Doogie Houser, M.D. asked me if I had hemorrhoids, or anal fissures, or what. I told her that I had no idea, since I find seeing my own asshole challenging, even with a mirror. She told me that if I had fissures, I would know because it would hurt like hell. I told her that I wasn't in that exam room because I felt a tickling sensation. My butthole was hurting, bleeding, and inflamed. And itchy! I had been scooting around on my rear-end like a dog on the carpet for months. Besides, shouldn't she be the one to make the diagnosis? She's the one who went to medical school, after all. Wasn't there a class on anuses? (Is anuses the plural of anus? I'll have to look that up later...)
Anus Class in medical school
She asked me a battery of additional asshole-related questions, and then she asked if I would like her to just prescribe some medications--that maybe we didn't need to do an examination. She obviously did NOT want to do the exam. There was no way on earth I was about to let her off the hook that easily, though. No, Doc. It's time to EARN that medical school scholarship. I told her that I had waited a really long time to come in, and there was no way I was going to turn back now after all of the embarrassment of spending a half-hour describing my "problem area" to them. Nope, she was going to look at my butt, and that was that. I did ask that she refrain from sticking a finger up there, since that seems to be what they teach doctors to do whenever they see a human anus. She assured me that it wouldn't be necessary.
They (the young enlisted girl was still there for some unknown reason) then pulled a curtain around the exam table and told me to remove my trousers, and they stepped over to the door to wait. Once I was disrobed, they pulled the curtain back, and both came back in. I didn't get that. What's the point of the curtain if you are just going to come in once I'm naked? And why was the corpsman still there? It appeared to be only curiosity, as she didn't really do anything the whole time. Maybe they thought it would be more humiliating if they had more people in the room.
So anyway, we finally get down to business. The doctor puts on her rubber gloves and looks at my butt for about 3 seconds. Then she tells me that I have one "tiny" hemorrhoid at about the six o'clock position. I'm not joking about that, she called my horribly painful hemorrhoid tiny. I was sort of upset by that. Made me feel like a wimp. I went in there that morning assuming that I was going to have to have surgery or something. Also, I'm a little hazy about the 6 o'clock reference, as if it was an enemy fighter plane or something.
My butthole hurts
After I pulled up my pants, the young LTJG wrote me out a prescription for some hydrocortisone cream and some suppositories. Everybody was really uncomfortable and awkward (they had both just peered into my nether-regions, afterall), so I struck up a conversation to ease the tension. I asked each of them how long they had been in the Navy. We discussed the LTJG's path through medical school and how my son wants to go to medical school. She told me all about the program she attended med school on. I also talked to the young corpsman about her experiences so far in the Navy. But we all knew it would never be right between us. They knew too much.
After enduring the Navy's blessedly impersonal automated pharmacy, I took my new medicine home and applied it right away. I don't know if you have ever tried to use a suppository before, but it's no small feat. My rear end is unfamiliar with the idea of it being used as anything other than an exit. I must have gone through about four of those things before I got one to stay in there. I kept putting one in, waiting a few seconds, and then the instant I moved my finger, firing it out of there like a bullet. They would ricochet off the side of the toilet and make a pinging sound, no kidding. Eventually, however, I was successful, and the medicine worked like a charm.
Zing!
So, the moral of this story is to just go to the doctor. It won't be as bad as you think it will, and they might be able to do something to help you. After years of having them just give me a Motrin and tell me to drink more water, they finally came through with some good stuff. Now I have a butthole like a 10 year old boy. A Protestant boy, not a Catholic one, of course. Thank you, Navy Medicine.
