Sufficient Subic
In addition to posting pictures of RA5Cs every so often I've always wanted to write up stories of my experiences in the navy. I sketched a few out, but proceeded little further with them. One reason for this is that with twenty-five plus years separating me from these events, I found I remembered little in-the-moment detail, what I could remember was often frozen in an odd depersonalized manner. Events and experiences had to be cast in a different way than I would use tell a recent story. Sustained narratives, also, I found more complex than ordinary off the cuff web log writing. Both these were requiring of a different style of writing than I know how to accomplish. I intend to make a greater attempt to finish some these stories. This one due to its length has its home under Stories & essays, a part of this web log I don't use enough. I gave the story the name the Great Subic Sex Riot. The title is a misnomer. There is too little sex (by which I mean, none) to warrant it, and too much riot for comfort. It does get to the heart of the matter; though, and this was our view of what had happened at the time.
I often feel I see differences in the Navy -- the whole military -- between then and now. As well between the current military and the American population at large. I like the basic idea of generational archetypes, a revolving set of framing outlooks Generations (book) - Wikipedia. It gives an appearance at least of explaining these differences and containing them. Perhaps the military as it has existed in the post war period forms a subculture to the prevailing generational outlook, forming an antipode to it. Or a culture that runs parallel to the main and is simply read at a slight difference, an offset indices. I might come back and look at these questions in greater detail later.
What I want to accomplish here is to put together a story or a couple of stories that give a little window into the late days of the cold war before the Soviet Union slid into its last decade of decline. A glimpse of navy life as it went about its tasks in the post-Vietnam re-adjustment to all-volunteer enlistments. That if not completely, partly captures a way of being that was Subic.
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