Avast! Good news, me hearties: I have received an update from the currently deployed Cap’n Chris via raven while I was gazing mournfully at the sea from my widow’s walk. Photos and silly captions provided by me. Enjoy!

Well, gentle readers, it has come upon us all again. And by us all, I mean me. I have once again deployed for the sake of Uncle Sam and find myself upon the high seas of the mighty Pacific on my way to parts unknown. Just kidding. I know where. But it’s classified and I’d have to kill all of you. Oh, hell. You guys can keep a secret though, right? Of course you can. I’m going to a place that may or may not have a coastline and may or may not rhyme with the Shmiddle Meast or Shmafrica. There. The rebels will NEVER crack that code.

Not without some Bothans, at any rate.

Over the course of my voyage I find myself spending many days onthis floating madhouse alternating between two activities. Number one is to read all the horrible things in the news and just wishing a motherfucker would so I can have people to shoot again in order to pass the time. The other is to hide in my bunk in a sleeping bag hoping against hope that no one will think to look for me there inside my pillow fort and count the days until I come home. Somewhere in the middle I find time to work out, because, you know, cardio is important.

Yes it is.

During the week you don’t really know what day it is except by the rotating menu in the mess and you only know or care what time it iswhen the dinner bell rings. Living meal to meal is tedious but it’s better than thinking upon the many days remaining in your deployment and resisting the urge to go fetal. Between meals, I train my Marines and clean weapons and equipment. Start up the truck, grease the axles, oil your rifle, sharpen your knives, check your batteries, practice your job. Day in. Day out. In the middle somewhere I go up topside for sunshine and Vitamin D and a workout. In the evenings, the pilots have a running Risk tournament going and I go to Yoga. You heard right. Burly Marines doing “downward dog”. I have a feeling it’s less a spiritual attraction to the activity but a subconscious hope that one can learn to become flexible enough to eventually fellate oneself.

Chase your dreams!

Every once in a while I get to go ashore and do something really cool. But that’s not the fun stuff to complain about. Fun fact! If you are in the water and a shark gets you, the Navy trains its people to shoot not the shark, but the individual being bitten, in the head in order to allow others to get away. These fuckers know that, like, 90% of people survive being bitten by a shark, right? RIGHT!? The moral of this story is never to swim near someone in the Navy unless you would like to engage in assisted suicide. I was recently bitten by someone in a bar when trying to break up a fight and feared for my life that a
Navy person might see it and summarily execute me on the spot.

IT’S BITING HER! QUICK, SHOOT HER IN THE FACE!

Well, dear readers, pray that I don’t get fragged by my own people and that the chewy coffee they serve in the mess holds out until my return. Smooches!

-Cap’n Chris