Mark Wright’s Blog

I received a phone call from another old Navy buddy of mine last night.  I ran a Google search on this guy about a week ago.  He has a unique last name so I figured if he was out there, I could find him.  I was able to find him on the networking site Linked In.  After much wrangling to try to get an email to him without having to pay for the service, I shot him a quick note.

Last night as I was driving through a huge traffic jam at 10:30 p.m.(welcome to Houston), I received a call from an unknown number.  I was getting ready to blast the telemarketer for calling me and lo and behold it was Roger.  Roger and I were stationed at Navy Broadcasting Service Adak, Alaska together. 

For the most part, my time in the Navy was somewhat enjoyable.  I have some very good memories and some great stories from that time in my life.  However, being stationed in Adak was the worst and that includes boot camp. 

I had problems from the day I stepped off the plane.  My Officer In Charge took an instant dislike to me.  I guess there are always going to be player haters out there.  He had me working as a radio disk jockey and for the entire time all he did was complain about my southern accent and speech patterns.  This was coming from a dude that sounded like Sylvester the Cat when he spoke.    I got stuck with the worst shifts possible and needless to say Adak, Alaska doesn’t show up on many travel guides. 

I was stationed there for 18 months.  There were two reasons I made it through my time in Adak and became the well adjusted person I am today.  I had two good friends named Roger and Chris.  They hated the place as much as I did.  They had equally crummy shifts, crummy bosses, etc.    No matter how bad it got, I could always count on those guys to pick my spirits up and vice versa.  I can’t go into a lot of the stories because I still want to maintain plausible deniability, but I do want to go on record as saying I have no idea who kept eating all of the food in the office refrigerator.    

I got to speak with my buddy Roger for about an hour last night.  We reminisced about old times and reminded each other of some great stories that the other had forgotten.  Because of this job, I have been able to reconnect with both of them after at least 15 years.  While there is a part of me that is thrilled, there is a part that is a little bit sad that I didn’t try to do it sooner.  You always know when you have a good friend.  You won’t see the person for a long time and when you do, it feels like you were never gone.  I probably should have said this more when we were stationed in Hell together.  Thank you for being my friends.  You don’t know how much of a difference you made.