I made it through my meeting with the boss of my unit last night and did not put my foot in my mouth too badly. He may think I'm near anti-social, but if you can't say something nice small talk is difficult. I did come close to saying something I would regret at least once, but I just thought "What would Kate do," and decided to stay quiet. I didn't really think that, but that's a good rule of thumb.
The thing that almost made me respond was when this captain who fancies himself to be called CAG (which stands for commander air group, which I think he once was but is not now) but commands no airplanes kept saying, "We pilots..." There were two pilots out of seven people, but it was continually "We pilots would approach it this way..." or "We pilots would never have that problem...." I didn't know if he thought we all, including the chiefs, were pilots or if he was just talking to 28% of the group and ignoring the rest. Maybe he was just trying to let the un-enlightened lower forms of life into the lofty thought process of the more highly evolved pilot form of life. Maybe he was trying to let us into the club which he thinks everyone must want to join. Whatever it is, it almost earned him a very stern upward-flowing reprimand.
Don't get me wrong. I have great friends who are pilots, and most of my family who has served in the military did so as pilots. And pilots have really hot daughters who make wonderful wives. But I have friends who are pilots, not pilots as friends. The good ones think of themselves as people who happen to fly rather than getting their self image from their jobs - the "CAG" (note scare quotes) certainly does not think of himself as anything other than a pilot.
Every Navy community has its own stereotype for a reason. Marines (yes, live with the truth that you are just a sub-community of the Navy) are the chest thumping testosterone pumps. Pilots are gods gift to womankind. SWO's are the hardest working, most bitter and underappreciated guys who fish pilots out of the water when their egos write checks that their bodies can't cash. Submariners are harder working, more bitter, less appreciated and nerdy winners of the Cold War and WWII. You can tell when people have lost all sense of self because you assume the stereotype even though it is no more true than it was when you were an individual.
So this guy flies out to visit, gets his boots licked by someone who is hoping to leverage him for a promotion, and says nothing of substance or value, nothing more memorable than "We pilots." I got five hours closer to being home.
