>2.0) "Do yourself a favor, Carter - if you're ever in the
>military, do everything you can to avoid being posted to a flagship.
>They get all the stupidest officers and most boring missions. It
>sounds big and glamorous, but all you end up doing is flying parade
>escorts, polishing your blaster and
>playing with yourself."
>
>She's interesting all right. Who served time on a carrier? 'Cause a
>buddy of mine (Former tomcat pilot) said almost the same thing to me
>when I was listening to old war stories.
>
I have to disagree with this. I also served, but I was a sonar operator, on a cruiser. CGN-41, Uss Arkansas. For 9 months we sailed around doing nothing but looking up Enterprises backside from the plane guard station. Which would have been not so bad except that dispite the fact that Big-E made so much noise she blanked out half my sonar scope but we were still expected to mount a proper sonar watch. This was in 84-85, and we were rotated from the Red Sea to the Med, just after Regain bombed Kadaffi. Our most excitment was HOPING someone would take a shot at us just to warrent all our paranoia. That and combat pay. Ships like Destroyers often get detached for more interesting stuff, but Cruisers, while built to be all purpose ships to an extent, tend to remain with the battle-group to provide AA coverage for the carrier.

Ergo, MY opinion that the WORST assignment is to be on one of the flagship's ESCORTS. All of the boring work, but you're too close to the flag... Captains want to put their best foot forward for the admirals, et all.

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Vaughn doesn't know I exist. I guess this explains why the rest of reality keeps ignoring me as well. >_<