A Geek’s Think

Well, I’m home at last - in more senses than one! Admittedly, I’ve been home from my Navy deployment since late December and have seen many of you since then, but that’s not the complete story. I’ve also more recently moved off the ship into my own apartment, which is a really, really nice thing. I can’t describe the joy of moving away from a ship where I lived with 70 other people in the same room and could not easily escape from work or find a place of my own. And thus I gladly say that I am writing this post from my apartment and will be sleeping on my very own and very comfortable bed.

Now on to the deployment. We left Florida’s Naval Station Mayport July 24th 2007 and returned home December 21st, having visited (at least briefly) Key West, Columbia, Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Panama (multiple times). We caught two major drug shipments, each of which was the second of its kind in naval history and whose combined value was in the hundreds of millions. I left as an Electronics Technician Third Class (paygrade E-4), and was known as ET3 Strickland. I returned ET2(SW) Strickland, meaning I both advanced one paygrade and completed a major qualification known as Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS). I experienced extreme tiredness and seasickness; I was also able to visit some great countries, read some great books, and save a good deal of money.

It was a long deployment, and I can’t say I particularly enjoyed being away from home and out to sea for that long - but then again, I think most of the sailors on my ship would say the same thing. But we made it through and we’re home, and I’m enjoying it while it lasts. We’ll deploy again before too long, but that’s the Navy way.

Click here to see some pictures taken during the deployment, and feel free to email me if you want more information about any of them. I’d like to say I’ll eventually put descriptions with each photo, but that probably won’t happen. So enjoy the pictures and imagine some elaborate plot to go with them.

This article describes our first drug bust involving a semi-submersible craft full of cocaine.

This article in the Mayport Mirror describes our deployment and mentions our second major bust where we discovered liquid cocaine being transported by a shipping vessel.

It’s great to be home!