Greetings and welcome to Friday Letter #82. Please enjoy the text of our son Benjamin’s Navy farewell speech, delivered earlier this month at the Naval Undersea Museum in Washington state. The text has been edited for length. You’re on your own with the Navy jargon. --T

By Matthew Benjamin Hodge

Twenty years.

For quite a while I thought that I would be fired. “This is the military,” I would say to myself, “I don’t belong here.”

When I meet people who don’t know I’m in the military they say, “You’re in the Navy? Never would have guessed that.” Many times even my shipmates would say, “I can’t believe you’re in the Navy”.

Back in time now . . .

I was down and out, selling magazines door to door when I knocked on my recruiter’s door. I sold him two years of Playboy and he sold me six years in the Navy. Seemed like a good deal. I had no idea what I was going to do or why.

I was 20 years old; I didn’t CARE what I would do or where I would go, young and brainless. I had given up on everything in my angst-ridden punk rock way.

I had the best time of my life in boot camp. I had never been to summer camp and it was just how I pictured it to be. There were activities planned and nature walks, and a variety of arts and crafts like folding your underwear so it looks perfect. It was a blast.

I did the Navy Sonar School thing and found that I had a natural ability with sonar; it just made sense to me. Sound, placement, classification, electronic troubleshooting . . . it was like a super-high-tech video game to me.

I liked that it was “sonar SUBJECTIVE analysis” The word subjective made me feel right at home.

I got to my first boat, the Alexandria, and excelled with sonar; my chief called me a prodigy. Unfortunately I had significant behavioral problems -- “issues with authority” is how it read in my evaluation. Not to mention my other socially seditious characteristics, most of which now I am too embarrassed to mention nor would I recapitulate the stories in mixed company.

I went on a few missions with that boat. Before and after I would read the message boards and investigate the upshot with my favorite subversive literature, because I had always thought that what I was doing was just for the cash, blood money I called it; they paid me well to be an instrument of destruction.

I did not care, still the tormented youth, having no faith in humanity, wanting to have a hand in devastation to feel justified in my hatred of myself and what I was doing.

Throughout five years of going to sea I began to doubt my one-sided dissident reading as much as I doubted the message traffic. I had gained a modicum of understanding of the human condition through an obsession with history.

Here’s a story to illustrate my point: Two people drift in a lifeboat on an uncharted sea. One says “There! I see an island. Our best chance is to go ashore, build a shelter, and await rescue.”

The other says, “No, we must go farther out to sea and hope to find the shipping lanes. That is our best chance.”

Unable to agree, the two fight, the lifeboat capsizes, and they drown. This is the nature of humanity. The meaning of the story is that if only two people are left in the entire world, they will come to represent opposing factions.

It took me a while to recognize that America is my faction, my home, and I am very proud to be a U.S. citizen.

I am by no means saying that we are perfect, but we are a far cry better than most of the world. We even have a system in place to better ourselves; that system is our ability to vote and to no small degree our ability to view civil disobedience as a necessary part of keeping things right.

Civil disobedience has been responsible for the majority of the significant changes in our country; it gained the right for ALL the people to vote, it stopped slavery, and has had a huge impact on labor laws, just to name a few.

The Constitution gives us this right. It gives us the ability to freely assemble. It gives us the right to free speech. There is so much in that tiny document that is just so cool. In short, it is in place to keep power-hungry people in check.

In other countries the rioters would be shot and their families would be charged for the bullets.

Here, they might beat you up and tell you to come back with more people. Maybe there’ll be a shooting or two but we are still learning. After that epiphany came to me I became extremely gung ho in the Navy.

When I was teaching periscope photography it was the daily routine that my class would say the Pledge of Allegiance, followed by a quick quiz of Constitutional knowledge.

I did good work at the San Diego submarine school house. When I got there, five of the six boats were failing their photo package inspections. When I left, all six boats were earning a grade of outstanding. I made it fun by taking my class to Blacks Beach with the Navy cameras for practice on filter use and depth of field.

I hit the ground jogging when I got to the Michigan. I quickly qualified and took on what in retrospect were too many collateral duties. I was deemed to be the waterfront’s best broadband and WLR-9 operator for three years running and the best sonar supervisor for two.

I created from rubble what the PACNORWEST sound silencing advisor called “the best silencing program he had ever seen.”

I transferred to the Trident Maintenance Facility, and they received me in a less than satisfactory condition. A failing marital relationship and the realization that I had screwed myself out of making chief were making me a little crazed.

Even with my idiosyncratic disposition, I did good work at the TMF. I became an auxiliary systems repair expert, and was allowed to go to the boat in need and fix WHATEVER without civilian supervision.

This was an oddity since by and large the sailors at the sonar shop in TMF are assistants; they carry the tools and are there for the opportunity to learn their trade better. I was on numerous occasions the shop supervisor stand-in and did so with no blunder.

When I came to the Jackson I had just moved everything I owned three times in two months and was in the middle of another move. I did not know whether to take a crap or wind my watch, and I don’t even wear a watch.

I was again put in the position of Leading Petty Officer, I quickly realized that I was out of my depth, and gave that up as soon as feasible. It seems that my problem with authority had extended to myself as well.

So for the last year and a half I have been in the background, with no collateral duties, just standing my watches and giving training.

I would like to think that I have done a good job at that. More than half of the sonar division was fresh out of A school and did not know the difference between blowing down the DCA and getting a machinist’s punch.

This is totally out of the norm and the ship got the short end of the stick on that one. But the sonar division did do O.K., considering how junior the shack is, on our Tactical Readiness Evaluation.

I hope that despite my cantankerous, non compos mentis, I have been able to pass along the benefit of my sonar knowledge.

Although over last few years I may have become fuzzy about who I am, I have never lost focus on what I was doing.

This ship and all like her are not the means of a last resort; they are the first line of defense for this country, the first line of defense for the Constitution.

That document is a masterpiece of governing for which it is worth dying. For me, even harder than dying for it has been living for it -- putting up with the bland military fashion, saying yes sir while exercising the callus on my tongue.

I understand fully that the hierarchy is necessary; nothing would get done without it. This entire military square L 7- ness totally makes sense. It’s the only way it would work.

In a nutshell, war is not coming folks, war is here. It is imperative that these ships get to sea, and remain undetected. These tools are vital to our survival as a nation.

I have heard the normal grumblings in my division and throughout the ship about getting out of the Navy. The last year has been a hard one for all of us. I can’t say that it will get better; we are on hard times in America. Money is short, work hours are long -- requirements increase, manning may decrease -- bowling scores are down, miniature golf scores are up.

That does not change the fact that this ship must continue her mission; if it can’t, things will get astronomically worse. This duty has by hook or crook fallen to us. Pardon my soap box definition. Duty conveys a sense of moral commitment. That commitment is the sort that results in action, and it is not a matter of passive feeling or mere recognition.

When a just and necessary duty is revealed, a wise person commits himself to the cause involved without considering the self-interested courses of actions that may have been relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one from the best sort of life, but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest.

I have done my duty. I was by no means cut out to be in the military. I am a tiny bit worse for wear. But the schism in my brain pan caused by the dichotomy of wanting peace and knowing it comes at a price, will heal.

All of the ailments I have received in the Navy are inconsequential – that is unless there is a VA doctor listening (‘cause ouch every thing hurts.) I was well paid and have the benefit of knowing that I did my part to keep the Constitution safe, far outweighs any annoyances that I endured. And it’s pretty cool that I will get paid to not work.

I am glad that I have had the opportunity to serve with all of you. Aside from all the other stuff I just mentioned, the Navy has been my closest family for all of my adult life. It has taken good care of me and put up with all of my eccentricity much better than I had ever thought possible.

I would not have done anything differently. The traditional Navy farewell is “fair winds and following seas” but since this is a submarine – I wish you all “fair winds and seas abeam.”

And to the whippersnappers in my division – you are too young for my brand of hydrocephalic listlessness. Don’t give up on yourselves. It is time for you to do your duty. I stand relieved.

-0-

During the ceremony, as Ben’s Dad, I couldn’t help but think of this verse from the Bible:

“And a voice came from the heavens, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.’" Mark 1:11

Word of the week: Watch. At the end of the ceremony, Benjamin stood relieved of his “watch.” Another sailor was on hand to take the responsibility. It was all very military, spit shined shoes and crisply ironed uniforms. Impressive.

Gripes? Complaints? Whines? or Comments? Adoration? Puppy love? Reciprocal rant? Feel free to express yourself in the comment section below!