Fifteen years ago, I almost became a sailor. And then I saw the sailor uniform and changed my mind.
Every year, just before my birthday, the U.S. Navy sends me a postcard to commemorate the anniversary of my blatant rejection of their style sense. They call it a birthday card, but I like to pretend that they’re still pining for my attention.
The Navy recruited me pretty heavily there for awhile, many years ago, because tests indicated that I showed an aptitude for Nuclear Physics and Mechanical Engineering.
They promised me an awful lot of things in exchange for joining their ranks, especially because I’m a woman and those particular fields are fairly well dominated by people with a whole different set of genitalia. Just before I got ready to sign on the dotted line, however, they decided to try and impress me by having some Naval Officers come over and fill me in on how wonderful my life was going to be.
That’s when they lost me.
I’m sure those Officers talked up the Navy like there was no tomorrow. The travel! The education! The experience! Plus, Nuclear Physics = fun stuff!
All I can remember about that meeting, though, is how ugly and out of date their uniforms were. I grew up Air Force, and spent time stationed at an Army base, so it’s not that I was unfamiliar with the concept of uniforms. But I was used to dress blues and fatigues, not all of this white polyester with big dangly ties, bell bottoms and funky hats. In a word, they looked like Sailors. From the seventies.
I honestly can’t tell you why I expected them to look like anything else, being that they were in the Navy. What can I say?
I quietly and humbly turned down the Navy’s incredibly generous offers, all because I didn’t want to look like a sailor. From the seventies. And for the record, if I had voiced my displeasure? They would have informed me that I wouldn’t be dressing like a sailor at all.
Too little, too late, Navy! May I suggest a well-placed disclaimer on the sailor hats?
Every year when that postcard arrives, I spend a little time thinking about aptitude, and about how different my life would be if I had signed on that line. Would I have enjoyed Nuclear Physics? Mechanical Engineering? My aptitude and ASVAB scores indicated that I would have.
As long as I didn’t have to dress like a sailor, of course.
It is so far removed from what I chose to do with my life, that it’s almost impossible to imagine.
5 replies on “Aptitude”
I can’t believe they still send you a card each year!
If the Navy (or any other of the armed forces) had wanted me, I’d have fallen down so hard laughing that I probably would have sprained something. I don’t do well with blatant, overbearing authority figures and they’re full of them.
But good on ya that they wanted YOU! 🙂
As far as I’m concerned, fashion is always valid reasoning when making important decisions. It’s one thing to do something well, it’s another to look good doing it.
Whenever you write your novel someday the navy birthday cards totally need to be included! What an interesting anecdote!
It’s very strange to sit and examine decisions and imagine what might have been. I often wonder these same things. What if I had gone to MIT? Etc. 🙂
my hubs was in the Navy in that program. He signed up when we found out I was pregnant. Did I tell you that when we went to boot camp pass in review and I saw all the guys in the Navy prescribed glasses I really prayed that he wasn’t wearing them because I seriously didn’t know if I could marry a guy that wore them. They called them B.C.’s for a reason (Birth Control Glasses!)