Jazz would never forget the Admiral’s anger the day he told him he was applying for lateral transfer from Surface Warfare to Special Operations. He and Melanie were visiting his parents for the weekend. Jazz told them over Sunday dinner.
At the time, Jazz was fire control officer aboard USS Anzio in Norfolk, Virginia. For a Surface Warfare Officer on his second assignment there was no better job. Jazz worked for the ship’s weapons officer and was responsible for the ship’s surface to air missile systems, which included the SM-2 Standard missiles and their fire control radar as well as the 30mm defensive gun called Close in Weapons System (CIWS). Additionally, Jazz was qualified engagement control officer for planning and executing land attacks using the Tomahawk cruise missile.
As the only son in a definitively Navy family, Jazz never considered any path to adulthood other than the Naval Academy. There was no external influence in his youth to lure Jazz away from his father’s legacy. All of the families that the Jascinskis’ socialized with were Navy; most had a father who attended the “boat school.” Jazz thought a Naval Academy ring on his finger would make him a made man in the eyes of his father. He thought that going to the Academy would do more than improve their relationship; he thought it would create it.
Growing up, Jazz felt he and his father never connected. The Admiral spent whole soccer seasons in the Persian Gulf. When he was in port or on shore duty the Navy still seemed to consume all of his time. Jazz’s relationship with his mother was much better, but she was empathetic to her husband’s career and its required sacrifices. Eleanor Jascinski seemed to derive personal satisfaction from her identity as an officer’s wife.
Despite high marks at the Academy in academics and military performance, the Admiral remained lukewarm. So after graduation, like his father before him, James J. Jascinski Jr. worked on his naval career like an attorney trying to make partner. His effort was fruitful and his peers agreed that Jazz was on the fast track to command and admiral stars. He soon reached a point, however, where this fact brought him no pride or pleasure. Jazz abandoned all hope of establishing a rapport with his father once he became a dad himself. The moment he held his firstborn, Jazz’s priorities changed. Jazz decided that his career should be for him, not his father. It was then that he applied for EOD. Jazz even requested an extension onboard Anzio and subsequently incurred another six month deployment from home in order to remain eligible for selection. On his third attempt his name was included as one of only six officers selected from the fleet for Special Operations.
Jazz’s application process immediately changed the Admiral’s demeanor toward him from disinterest to disdain. He winced recalling his father’s reaction that Sunday evening.
“Admiral, I want to let you know that I am going to make a lateral transfer to Special Operations.”
“What! You wanna be a SEAL!”
“No, sir, that’s Special Warfare. I am interested in Special Operations — diving, salvage, and explosive ordnance disposal.”
“What the hell are you talking about? That community with the stupid-looking SWO pin? The 1140 community?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What the heck do you want to do a thing like that for? Damnit to hell! You’ll never make admiral and you’ll end up retiring as CO of a damn weapons station.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dinner was never served. The women left their men at the table. The ensuing lecture was like an intervention. The Admiral grew more and more angry through the evening, but Jazz’s mind was made up. His father’s rant only solidified Jazz’s resolve to follow his own path.
Now Jazz had to tell the Admiral that he had orders to Ingleside, which would undoubtedly evoke another tirade from the Admiral. He decided that sooner was better than later.
Immersing himself in the Navy again brought back many memories for Gabriel. While the others were animated during the drive home, relishing their success, Gabriel was silent. He quietly reflected on his journey from disgruntled sailor to movement leader.
With over five thousand people aboard, an aircraft carrier is its own city, a microcosm of American society. While there were a disproportionate number of conservative Republicans aboard the USS Carl Vinson, the whole political spectrum was represented in the five thousand man crew. Gabriel found the extreme right in one Electronics Technician Third Class Owen Channing.
He met Owen in the aft weight room immediately below the area of the flight deck where aircraft slammed onto steel trying to hook onto one of Vinson’s four arresting wires. Their first encounter was circumstantial — Owen asked him for a spot. Soon they began working out together which eventually led to a friendship and chumming around when off of the ship.
They had a common disdain for the Navy. Owen wanted to be a SEAL, but a few violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice in his record prevented that from becoming a reality. Gabriel was simply disappointed. His single mother upbringing led him to yearn for an unforgiving, structured military world. He first thought of going into the Army, but decided on joining the Navy after seeing The Sand Pebbles on television one Sunday afternoon. Thereafter, he imagined that someday he would be like Steve McQueen, strolling the streets of Shanghai in cracker-jack whites with all of his possessions in a canvas seabag over his shoulder. In his mind, he lived a night of hard drinking with his shipmates at the local whorehouse, ending in a fight with the brothel’s Marine Corps patrons.
“Nothing personal, just skin on skin,” he imagined himself saying to another sailor on the mess decks at breakfast the next morning.
Gabriel found out too late that none of the old Navy remained. Technology and political correctness wiped it out. In the new Navy everyone had sensitivity training where they were told that alcohol consumption and swearing were bad and homosexuality was okay as long as it was hidden. It made Gabriel sick. Like Owen, he was getting out as soon as he could, but his bitterness made each day pass slowly.
When Gabriel began hanging around Owen’s apartment he noticed that Owen was very suspicious of the government. Owen’s anger manifested itself largely in complaints about the FBI, ATF, and the notion that the federal government had far more control than people realized. Strewn about the apartment were books on anarchy and magazines for mercenaries. Gabriel read a few magazines at first, and then borrowed a couple of Owen’s books.
At first, Gabriel was skeptical. But as he delved deeper into the literature, what at first seemed like propaganda began to have real plausibility. One of the writers purported that if his reader only believed ten percent of what he documented about government control and abuse, liberty in the United States was a myth. It was especially interesting considering what Gabriel read in the mainstream press about the FBI at Ruby Ridge and the ATF debacle in Waco Texas.
Slowly Gabriel became a believer.
When Owen left the Navy he joined a survivalist reservation where the members called themselves, “The Mountain Men of Montana” or simply “Mountain Men.” Gabriel finished his enlistment six months later and joined him.
As a Mountain Man, Gabriel had finally found the lifestyle that he sought from the military. He especially liked the real machismo that pervaded everything they did. He learned how to ride a horse, to shoot various weapons, to hunt, and to live off of the land. Gabriel even went to Bible study on Sunday afternoons. The discussions usually emphasized that the United States, a nation founded by Christian men, was now controlled by a corrupt government of non-believers and Jews.