Then my work here is done. And without using any acronyms or abbreviations, even!

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"I have a cunning plan that cannot fail."
S. Baldrick

Which is pretty much all my boyfriend would respond with when I asked him what he does in the Army. It took his mom to explain it to me so it made sense.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

You can simulate life on a submarine in your own home.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/s...cs/simlife.htm

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There's room for all God's little creatures -
right next to the mashed potatoes

Is that why submarine rescue crews exist on both coasts, with C-5s on alert to take them wherever they're needed?

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I am Mugs, of the Alien clan of Usa, Nordamerica, a Terran, of Sol.

Perception isn't reality. It's merely an abstraction thereof, and quite often not a very good one at that.

I am human. Fully human.

They expect to take losses, but that doesn't preclude preventing them where possible. Infantry units expect to take losses too, they also wear body armor. This is not contradictory.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Well, I think you're both just looking at the word "Expendable" differently (if it helps doodler, i've heard that saying before too).

Obviously the millitary, in any branch, is not going to send soldiers into a situation knowing they are going to be killed. It's not "lets throw bodies in there and hope some survive". And obviously they DO care about thier soldiers, it's not like they say "eh, 15 people died in that roadside ambush? send 15 more and see if there's any more bombs".

But you're point is valid doolde: it's war, they know there will be casualties. they don't know who and how many, and they never purposely throw thier soldies away, but it's understood that there is a chance lives will be lost. they take any steps they can to prevent it, but lives are still lost.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)

I think anyone who climbs inside of a steel tube that sits hundreds of feet below the surface who doesn't consider the very real possibility that the odds of a non-fatal accident involving the operation of said vehicle are astronomically slim probably doesn't have too solid a grasp on reality.

Slamming into a mountain, being hulled by a torpedo, surfacing under a fishing boat or having any kind of non-passive equipment failure involving explosives... On the surface, these are a dangerous problem. Add to that being deep underwater with nowhere to go overboard that won't kill you quicker raises the stakes dramatically. They keep those rescue crews on next-to-zero notice because anything that does happen on those boats, you've got about that much time to mobilize if you expect to get anyone out alive. Just having something go wrong down there means someone's already dead, or will be by the time you arrive. That's not callousness, that's just the realities of working in a bloody hostile environment.

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I'm not completely heartless, the doctor who removed it told me he'd never be able to get it all.

Reminds me of a Steven Wright line: "I like to fill my tub up with water, then turn the shower on and act like I'm in a submarine that's been hit."

(I used to actually do that when I was a kid )

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

That still doesn't mean they're throwing their lives away. And it's not necessarily true. My grandfather was stationed on a sub during WWII. They struck sand and were grounded for about 5 days IIRC, although might have only been two or three. Anyway they made it out alive. So not every accident means instant death.

You ride in cars right? I'm sure you go up to 60-70mph on the highway. You hit something stationary, or worse yet, something moving toward you, at those speeds and you are (barring a miracle) not going to live. So do you consider yourself expendable because you choose to ride in cars?

My point is yes, there are tons of things that can kill a submariner. But there's also tons and tons of things designed to try to keep that from happening.

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I'm like one of those idiot savants...well, except for the savant part.

Theory of Zombie Relativity:
1) Everyone Else is a Zombie relative to You
2) Whether or not it matters is related to the inverse square of the distance between their teeth and your brain
(Quoted from Demigrog)