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NMCB
7

My last duty station was with Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 7, in Gulfport, Mississippi. Once again I had the privilege of deploying to foreign countries and leaving my family behind. How bad could it be? A little training, a few deployments, and then retirement! Here are the new (also known as politically correct, on the left) and the original (much preferred by almost everyone I have personal acquaintance with, on the right) patches from NMCB 7.

Shortly after reporting to "Magnificent Seven", I attended the Radiation Safety Officer course. The Navy sent me to Yorktown, Virginia for two weeks of intensive training designed to turn me into a nuclear physicist. I now know things I will soon forget about things I never knew existed.

I was promoted to EA1 (E6) after my first deployment. The best part about being promoted was doing it right after receiving a 2.0 (out of a possible 5.0) in professional knowledge on my annual Evaluation. That means that after my command decided I didn't know anything about my job, the U.S. Navy decided I knew enough to be ONE OF ONLY THREE people in the entire Navy in my rate who were advanced to first class. As you might guess, I didn't put much stock in the opinionated Evaluations that I had to sign annually.

I once had the misfortune to deploy to Puerto Rico. While there, I was sent to Vieques Island as part of a reactionary team. The U.S. Navy was planning on conducting a bombing exercise and some of the locals were protesting. A bunch of bleeding-heart liberals were stirring them up with misinformation and propaganda. We were not allowed to display the American Flag because we might offend someone. If the American Flag offends you, this is a good time to leave my website and never come back! It will be alright with me if I never go back to that hellhole again. On the bright side, I had the privilege of being there when some of those bleeding-heart liberals were arrested. On the even brighter side, the base in Puerto Rico is now closed. Now those people don't have to worry about being offended by the American flag. They never seemed to have a problem with the American dollar though. Maybe one day our tax dollars will leave Puerto Rico also.

If you will put your cursor over the flags below you can watch my version of the Vieques bombing.

I also completed a mandatory warfare qualification. As a result, I was authorized (and required) to wear the Seabee Combat Warfare insignia. This had absolutely no bearing on the amount of money I received upon my retirement in January of 2003. Incidentally, I signed an evaluation with a 2.0 in initiative (for not having obtained my warfare qualification) less than 2 hours after receiving my warfare device.

My last deployment was to Rota Spain. Maybe someday I'll get around to writing about it.

I finally retired from the Navy. There was no ceremony. I just went home one day and never went back. I had eagerly looked forward to a ceremony early in my career, but to be honest, I feel that my uniform was tarnished by the caliber (or lack of it) of some of the people (especially the politicians) I had to serve under. Once I was allowed to retire, I left and I have never looked back.

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