Guest Blogger

Just prior to getting underway we welcomed aboard Peter Brown, Ph.D., a college professor for the Navy College Program for Afloat College Education (NCPACE). He hails from Jackson State University, and as it turns out, is here to teach English. My scheming XO mind immediately went to work to enlist him, given his unique point of view, and it took all of 4.5 nanoseconds to get him to jump aboard. Here’s his first offering:

If you were to ask me my thoughts and feelings about life aboard the RUSSELL, I’d say that I don’t have much to compare it to. This is my first time aboard a Navy ship, or any other ocean-going vessel, so life here is still charming and new to me.

I also have the added benefit of only being with RUSSELL for a couple months, so the end, while not in sight, isn’t that far off. Even if I didn’t like it, I won’t be here long.

Our English classes have settled in fine. Speaking in terms of academic preparation and personal history, Navy students are a lot like the students at the university where I teach, although the students here have a more get-down-to-business attitude that comes from being adults.

My students and I fight, on a daily basis, our campaign against dangling modifiers and other such manifestations of slack-mindedness (many of you military types fear Al Qaeda; I fear the dangling modifier and its awful cousin the lazy modifier, the two suicide bombers of effective communication).

I witnessed and participated in my first Steel Beach yesterday. I found it disconcerting to no longer be the only one in mismatched beachwear.

There was of course one casualty.

The football will be missed.

As I watched the ball floating in our wake, I thought of the volleyball, Wilson, that Tom Hanks had for a companion in Castaway and how he lost Wilson out at sea. I can’t help but wonder where the RUSSELL’s ball will turn up. I don’t have any charts with prevailing currents, so I can’t speculate, but I’m rooting for it to show up on a future episode of Lost.