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 I met many people during my 25 years in the Navy, but James (not real name) was one of the most memorable. James was a likeable, hard working sailor, who, regrettably, was not playing with a full deck. He tried, but he just did not have what it took to make it in the Navy.

I first met James while I was stationed in Keflavik, Iceland, where I was working as an electronics technician. We worked out of an old aircraft hanger which was about five miles from the main base; that's five miles if you drove your personal vehicle around the perimeter road to get to the hanger. If you drove a military vehicle straight across the airfield, the distance was only about half a mile. 

We worked shifts of one day on duty and three days off duty. This meant that every third day I was at work from 6:30 in the morning until 6:30 the next morning. Since we had to stay at the work site for a 24-hour period and we were isolated from the rest of the base, we had to prepare our own meals and sleep in the hanger. This was not a bad deal. Since the hanger was away from the "top brass," they seemed to forget we existed, except when we were performing our duties, so we were able to make our living spaces in the hanger more "homey." 

We had a kitchen with all the amenities you would find in any kitchen; a lounge with a television and facilities for showing movies; a recreation room with a game tables and a pool table; a sleeping area; and various work areas. We could park our military and private vehicles inside the hanger to keep them out of the weather and there was a shop where we could drive our private vehicles inside the main building to do routine maintenance on them.

All in all, it was not a bad place to work, but spending 24 hours every third day in the building did start to get old after a few a months, so ,as usual, when sailors start to get bored, they begin looking for ways to liven up the situation. Having James around did liven things up during the slow times, but he was a liability when it came time to get the job done. 

James had been the Navy for five years and was still an E-2 in rank. In a normal rate of progression, he would have been an E-6 or at least an E-5, but, as I said before, James was different. Since his arrival in Iceland, he had worked at numerous places. He would work at one place until the people there job tired of fixing the problems he caused and then they would farm him out to another work center. James was such a likable guy that the people he worked for would put up with his antics and try to help him make it in the Navy; they would try until the novelty of his actions wore off and they had to get on with the job.

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