If you read this, I may have to kill you - Part Two

Before I pick up where I left off, there are two things you need to know about today's post. 1) I KID YOU NOT - everything you are about to read is as true as I can recall it. And 2) Despite some characterizations in this piece, I want you to know that I truly enjoyed this period of my life, even if it was, at times, scary.

I arrived in Hawaii in April of 1989. Just around the corner of my arrival was the Tiannamen Square Crisis, the invasion of Panama, the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and a little thing I like to call Operation: Desert Storm. But at the time, all was quiet on the Western Front. I stayed in the Enlisted Barracks, down the street from the wharf at Pearl Harbor, and about 100 yards shy of the oil tanks that the Japanese failed to destroy in World War II (thus keeping the US Navy in the war). My office was across the street from the Arizona Memorial in the crater of an extinct volcano. In Hawaii, this stuff is common place.

I met my first roommate within seconds of my arrival. I walked into my barracks room, put my stuff down, and then went to the bathroom. I was greeted by a lizard looking at me from the bathtub. Though I didn't know it at the time, this lizard was a gecko. He lived somewhere in our barracks room and ate all the bugs that tried to get in. In the three years I was there, I saw him only twice more - best roommate I ever had.

My other roommates were Lucky and Robert. Lucky was from Minnesota and Robert was from San Francisco. Lucky was an Intelligence Specialist like me, but had gone through the Admin classes and so worked in a different part of the building. Robert was a DP - Data Processor - and worked in the basement computer department. Lucky was outgoing, likable and really crazy fun. He was a huge fan of ALF. Robert was quiet, intense, and entirely too practical.

I arrived at FICPAC on day one to discover that my Top Secret clearance had yet to come in. I was issued an interim Secret clearance and given a job in the Photo Shop downstairs doing very routine tasks. In the intelligence field, knowledge is prestige. Those with Top Secret or higher clearances are the top guys - they carry around a certain swagger that says, "I know more than you, but don't even think of asking me about it!" I was just getting settled in to the photo lab when I discovered that there were a couple of people at FICPAC that I had known from NMITC - and one of them was Van Bebber. If that didn't make things bad, Van Bebber had already received his Top Secret clearance.

For the next month, I had to be constantly reminded of the fact that he was not only a Petty Officer, but also that he had a clearance. Fortunately, my Chief Petty Officer was a cool guy and knew to take advantage of my lack of a clearance. He enrolled me in two courses over at the Hickam Air Force Base Training Center - both classified - and that kept me away from FICPAC for most of the first four weeks. After that, I received my clearance, (signed all sorts of documents that explained how it was illegal to do wire taps on American citizens without a warrant, but that's another story), and was escorted up to DPIC - my home for the next three years.

Short description of my job - look at satellite photos and report what was on them. That's all you get.

One of the people that came to Hawaii from Virginia Beach was a young lady named Debbie who was quite the hotty (though also terribly annoying ;). She was engaged to another sailor from the class, but they had been separated by the Navy. When she arrived, she was so happy to see someone that she knew that we immediately made plans to take in the sights of Hawaii. We spent the day at the beach, shopping in Waikiki, and eventually having dinner at a fancy German restaurant. In terms of dates, it was by far the most succesful I've ever had - unfortunately, we were both engaged to other people at the time. I especially liked the looks of all the guys at the beach when I escorted her in her flimsy bikini into the water. They were definitely wondering how I ended up with a babe like her.

About a week after this date, my roommates discovered some terrible news. There was going to be a reshuffling of the room assignments. All second class Petty Officers were being moved upstairs together. This meant that Lucky was going to go upstairs. But worse, it meant that a certain petty officer from upstairs was going to come live in my room. Van Bebber had actually requested my room to move into.

This is getting too long to complete today... I'll come back to the story tomorrow in Part III. See you then.