The Navy has taken me all over the world. I've chased giraffes in a land rover through the African savanna, and eaten lunch in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. I rode a camel in Dubai, and an elephant in Thailand. I swam in the Sea of Galilee, and waded in the Jordan River. In the sweltering sun of the Negev Desert, I climbed a mountain called Masada and looked out over the Dead Sea. A day later, in the small Palestinian town of Bethlehem, I prayed in a church built where some say a messiah was born. I later followed the apostle Paul's journey from Palestine to Rome, where I spent hours gazing at the walls of what was an otherwise unspectacular chapel. Unspectacular, that is, until a gay man by the name of Michelangelo felt the spirit of God at work within himself.
I've strolled through the Roman forum, and poked through the ruins of the coliseum, imagining the clang of broad swords on the iron shields of gladiators in combat for their very lives. I watched matadors dance with the bulls in Spain, and laughed as my shipmates focused their cameras on the topless beaches of Cannes.
I've snorkeled in exotic waters (technicolor could never hope to duplicate the color of the fish in the Philipine Sea), and sailed exotic seas. I've raced sampans in Hong Kong, and hydrofoils in Macau. I used what Japanese I could remember from my childhood to talk to the geisha girls in Tokyo, and just a week later I found myself on horseback surveying the Australian outback. I drank "Singapore Slings" in the lobby of the famous Raffles Hotel, and tanned myself a half-world away on the beaches of Ipanema.
All in all, it's been a blast. When it's all said and done though, be it ever so humble, there's no place like home....look out Sacramento, I'm coming home!
