Nature of the Beast

I hadn’t heard from my girl­friend back home since I had arrived onboard the ship, three or four weeks ago, until I found a let­ter from her lying on my bunk. As my heart leapt within my chest, I grabbed the let­ter and tore into it.

Dear Butch,
Sounds like you don’t think too much of the Navy. I think it’s because of all the rules and reg­u­la­tions. You haven’t had many restric­tions put on you in a long time. It’s going to take a lot of get­ting used to. The only thing you can do is to make the best of it. Oth­er­wise, you’ll go crazy. You’re never going to be com­pletely sat­is­fied with the job you’re doing—that’s human nature. Make the time you have to spend in the Navy one you’ll never for­get. Remem­ber, life is what you make of it. What­ever job you’re doing, do it well, even if you don’t like it. You have no choice. Remem­ber, it’s only tem­po­rary.
Love,
Mary

Now I felt totally mis­un­der­stood. While I some­times doubted my san­ity, I cer­tainly didn’t want to become some socially accepted, schiz­o­phrenic beast like M. For I saw the rules ’n’ reg­u­la­tions, all the pomp ’n’ plume of the mil­i­tary, as a façade shrewdly con­structed long ago to hide the true nature of this beast from the con­scious­ness of the gen­eral pub­lic. With the beast so well con­cealed, how could I ever get Mary to see mil­i­tary ser­vice as the bloody poi­son which trans­forms the young Jekylls of this coun­try into hideous Hydes, so that they, who were once men, can kill with­out feel­ing, con­scious­ness of the soul or a con­science. How could I con­vey to her what has hap­pened to the M.‘s of this coun­try? How could I tell her about the Hyde who lurked within my own body and peri­od­i­cally dragged me down to hell? And lastly, how could I ever con­vince her that it is the dis­ci­pline of the soul rather than of the mil­i­tary, which ulti­mately trans­forms the beast?

Why even the mess decks had its share of seedy rogues, of whom the worst was a lit­tle wiry, dark com­plected guy named B., who cussed inces­santly in that same gruff grav­elly voice. Just watch­ing him cook was enough to make me sick. Hav­ing wiped the sweat from his brow with his fin­ger, he’d often fling it into the food he was prepar­ing. Or when­ever he cleared his throat or blew his nose, he’d occa­sion­ally spit the phlegm or blow the snot onto the grill and mix it into the food he was fry­ing. Once he even beat off on a raw steak, which he then threw onto the grill to be cooked and served to the crew along with the oth­ers. In my opin­ion, the dude was crazy, and yet he was greatly admired by those around him for his audacity.

For my part, I absolutely refused to eat when­ever he cooked. How else was I to make the best of such mem­o­rable expe­ri­ences? If I reported him, who’d believe me? It’d be his word against that of a f_​_​_​-​​up. How could I ever make the best of any­thing in this hellhole?