8/11/09

So I spent my two days off with my buddy Cameron. Yes, Cameron from Great Lakes and Pensacola. I just recently found out that he was stationed up in Everett, so I contacted him as soon as I heard and he got back to me and we decided to chill when I got off of work yesterday morning. I had no idea that he had planned for me to spend the night over there, but that's what ended up happening. So you're probably wondering what's up with the title... well while I was hanging out with Cameron, a bunch of things were running through my mind about life after the Navy.

You see, Cameron went to boot camp on the exact same day that I did. He wasn't in my division, and he ended up graduating a week after I did due to some circumstances that were beyond his control,but we met up after boot camp in our barracks at TSC Great Lakes and became great friends. He left Great Lakes to go on to his AE "A" school, and then I got dropped from FC "A" school so I ended up going to Pensacola as well for AS "A" school and we ended up meeting up again with half of our Great Lakes crew down there as well. We he ended up dropping out of AE "A" school and he got sent down to Meridian, MS for AZ "A" school, and that was the last time I thought I would see him.

He ended up getting stationed on the USS Abraham Lincoln, CVN-72 in Everett, WA and I ended up getting stationed on the USS John C. Stennis, CVN-74 in Bremerton, WA. However, I did not know this until just last month. I also discovered that he was no longer in the Navy. While this bummed me out a little, I knew he was happy to be out because of all the bullshit that's happened to him since he's been in the Navy. On top of all the normal Navy bullshit that everyone has to go through, he has weathered an engagement that cost him a $1700 ring, a marriage which ended up in divorce because his wife cheated on his with a 1st Class Petty Officer and ended up costing him a huge sum of money, he suffers from sleeping disorders and often experiences tremors. So how's that for some fucked up shit, huh? I knew he was happy to be out.

So I ended up hanging out with him all day yesterday, and everything was going great, until the friend that had told him the day before that it was going to be alright for me to spend the night over there suddenly changed her mind. But before I continue on with this story, let me back up a little to explain why I would have had to spend the night at his friend's place. You see, after getting kicked out of the Navy, Cameron didn't want to return to Tennessee, so he found himself a place to share with a couple of his other friends for a while, but they ended up getting kicked out of there due to being excessively loud (yes, they had a bunch of parties... all the time. haha). And so, with nowhere else to go, he resorted to asking some really, really good friends if he could live with them. Being the awesome friends that they are, they let him. He kind of pays his rent by cleaning up the house and taking care of the kids when they're out doing something, and that's totally fine with him. So let's continue the story of what happened up in Everett... Because we couldn't spend the night over at their place, he went over to his other friends' apartment and asked if we could stay there for the night. One of them was very adamant that we weren't going to set foot inside their place (apparently they were friends once, but this particular person went asshole on Cameron over some high school drama type shit). To avoid any problems, the other two who had their names on the lease went with whatever the other guy said.

So we couldn't spend the night over at their place either, and we ended up sleeping in the car. Or so I thought. The owner of the car, another friend of Cameron's, came by and said that he needed the car because he had to get to work in the morning, and so we had to give it back and we were left with no place to go. It was raining hard and getting late, and we had no place to sleep. We ended up hanging out with a couple of Cameron's friends outside the apartment on the front porch. We were able to hang out for a few hours to try to pass the time, but the friends that were with us got tired and went inside after that. So then it was just Cameron and me, sitting outside in the cold rainy weather of Everett, with just a blanket. We ended up falling asleep right there on the porch, looking like a bunch of homeless bums. Ouch.

When the morning came the guy who owned the place told us that we could go inside and sleep for a few hours but we had to leave before 10. So we went inside and passed out and left at around 10. With no car, we had to walk all the way back to Cameron's friend's house, which took us about 50 minutes, give or take a few. We hung out over there for a bit, and then he got a little restless so he decided that we were gonna go to the mall to see if we could turn in some movies at Sam Goody for some cash. We walked all the way over to the mall, which took about another 40 minutes, only to find out that they were only going to accept one of the movies because the others didn't have cases. So he went there to sell his movies in hopes of making some money, and all he got was $6. I suggested that he should go around asking about job openings at random stores in the mall, so he did just that and he found a place that would hire but he had to go print out an application from their website and bring it back to them.

So we left the mall after that and he tried to call up some friends to see if they could pick us up and take us back, but no one was available so we had to walk all the way back to his friend's house. When we got back, we were both very tired so we just sat around in the living room and waited for his friend who owns the car to get back from work. He finally got back at around 6:40 and then Cameron asked if he could take the car so he could drop me off at the ferry terminal. His friend gave him a hard time about it, but eventually let him go. The tank was almost empty, so I filled it with $15 worth of gas, just to make sure that he would get back to his place with some gas left over for his friend.

So I got dropped off at the ferry terminal and made my way back to Bremerton. Wow, I can't believe the events of the past two days. It was definitely a shocker for me. I had no idea that his life was so rough these days. Every time I talked to him it seemed like everything was going great. It deeply saddens me to know that he's living a life like this. I mean I'm glad that he has friends who are so good that they are letting him stay in their home, but that kind of hospitality can only last so long, you know? I mean I hope that it never comes to that, but eventually people who live in other people's homes start to become a burden...you know? The host keeps quiet about it, hoping for things to change, until that one day comes when they've had enough and they end up kicking them out..... I hope to God Cameron can find himself a nice paying steady job before that ever happens.

This kind of shit just really bugs me, you know, about life after the Navy.... I just don't want that to happen to me.... and I sure as hell don't like seeing a good friend have to go through that kind of stuff. And so I have decided that after these next two and a half years are up, I'm going to re-enlist for shore duty for another four years.... but hopefully I'll get orders to Guam so I can be closer to home.