LCDR Thorsson. Now 94.7% More Navular

After months of walking around in my Army costume and getting mildly irate everytime someone mistakenly calls me "captain" (or "major" since the promotion) I'm happy to report that I've found another little way to mark myself as a naval officer.

All of the Army guys have their little merit badges that they wear on the huge velcro patches on their sleeves that mark them as Airborne or Rangers or Special. The other day I walked into one of the shops on base and found a velcro patch version of the First Navy Jack in subdued colors:


I like it because it pisses off Army guys and it serves as a bit of a reminder of the kinds of places I expected to be stationed and things I expected to be doing:


Speaking of places I expected to be stationed and things I expected to be doing, I'd like to take a moment to mention how glad I am that the Navy took down the Somali pirates who were holding Captain Phillips of the Maersk Alabama. A classmate of mine from SUNY Maritime College had just signed off of that ship right before that voyage and I know a lot of guys who sail with that same company. With a little bit of luck, I might quite well be on a similar ship in the same area in the next year too. So it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy to know that the United States is likely to intervene on my behalf if some third-world criminal decides to board my ship and hold me at gunpoint.*

The other nice thing about the recent bit of news is that the denizens of the internet have started posting much cooler motivational posters about the US Navy. Here's a couple of examples:



The new ones are much cooler than the old ones:

*If a ship is sailing under a US flag, that makes it sovereign US territory. Being boarded by unwelcome foreigners is tantamount to an invasion.