Another tale from the ship

One thing you will never hear me bragging or boasting about in conversation is my military experience. Frankly, it’s not something I’m that proud of.
As a black man who has seen the evils and injustices of this country, and at times has been a victim of it’s prejudices because of the color of my skin, contributing to the U.S. war effort was a despicable decision for me to have made in the first place. But to have done it for college money was the most “sell out”, whorish thing I’ve ever done. Alas, the decisions I’ve made in the past are the ones that I must live with and learn from. Hopefully, my experiences will be lessons that will guide the decisions of those under me.
I mentioned before that I was in the Navy. After being in the Persian Gulf for over three months, as a reward to the crew, the ship was set to pull into Thailand for a brief port visit. For those of you who don’t know, Thailand is one of the most AIDS-infested countries in the world, but it’s a good place to shop. So before pulling in, the crew was shown pictures of people with genital warts and herpes in their mouth, people with crabs, and various other pictures that would make sensible people think twice before “doin’ the do.” The captain warned everyone to use caution while the medics passed out condoms.
When we finally arrived in Thailand, the country was so nasty that the ship’s water became contaminated. I had to use bottled water just to brush my teeth (y’all think about that when these phony recruiters on campus try to get you to sign away time out of your life with promises of seeing the world). Despite that and all the other warnings we got before we got there, there were still many ignorant brothers on the boat talking about “slammin’ somethin’” once we pulled in. As a matter of fact, the dudes I was runnin’ with at the time took pictures of them “slammin’” some Thai women and showed me.
We finally left and returned to our home port. Thailand was but a smudge on my memory. About a month later, I was in the ship’s dining hall eating breakfast about to get off work. As I was sitting at the table wolfing down Cheerios, I noticed that one of the serving lines had been closed and a security team member was guarding it and quickly turning people away that tried to go through. I wondered why, but continued to eat, thinking about the weekend I was about to enjoy. Little did I know that the icy tracks of Death were just around the corner from my breakfast table.
While we were in Thailand, one of the ship’s engineers had a fiancee also aboard the ship who had to work on one particular day during the visit. So he went out in town and did a little more than go shopping, if ya feel me.
About a month later, he began to feel sick. He went to medical and had some test done. He had AIDS. Upon receiving this news, he got a rope and went to the machinery room right next to the serving line in the dining hall. The next morning, he was discovered hanging by his neck from the ceiling.
Many of y’all still think it’s a game, and I know more than half of y’all will probably read this and disregard it right after. That’s okay. Just remember that everytime you engage in unprotected, or pre-marital sex you are tying a rope to the ceiling and placing the noose around your neck.