Saga of James

The Liability of Likability: My Time with James

In my twenty-six years in the Navy, I met thousands of sailors. Most were capable, some were exceptional, and a few were forgettable. But then there was James. James was a hardworking, genuinely likable guy who, as we say, simply wasn't playing with a full deck. He had the heart of a lion and the mechanical aptitude of a sandwich.

I encountered James while stationed in Keflavik, Iceland. We worked out of an old aircraft hangar three miles from the main base—though if you didn't have a military vehicle to cut across the airfield, it was a five-mile trek around the perimeter. Because of our isolation, we operated on a "one day on, three days off" shift. We lived, cooked, and slept in that hangar for twenty-four hours at a stretch.

Away from the "top brass," we’d turned the hangar into a home. We had a full kitchen, a lounge for movies, a pool table, and even a shop where we could pull our private vehicles inside to escape the brutal Icelandic weather. It was a good life, but twenty-four hours in a hangar breeds boredom, and boredom breeds a need for entertainment. James provided the entertainment, though rarely on purpose.

The Five-Year Seaman Apprentice

James had been in the Navy for five years and was still an E-2. In a normal career, he should have been an E-5, but James was "special." He was a human hot potato; he would arrive at a work center, the crew would spend a month fixing the disasters he caused, and then they would farm him out to the next unsuspecting unit.

When we took him on, it was because our engineman, John, thought he could mentor him. The moment James walked in, we knew we were in for a ride. At twenty-five, he had the friendly, wide-eyed curiosity of a young boy. He was fascinated by electronics, despite having been around them for half a decade. He proudly showed us a photo of his girlfriend, and it was clear they both shared similar mental challenges. He was convinced that once he became a "success" in the Navy, they would marry and live happily ever after.

The Culinary and Academic Arts

Watching James exist was a masterclass in trial and error—mostly error. His cooking was legendary. To make oatmeal, he would either boil a gallon of water and add a pinch of oats (oatmeal-flavored tea) or boil a cup of water and add a pound of oats (an oatmeal brick). He ate both with equal enthusiasm, refusing to read the box because he was a "natural cook."

His academic prowess was similar. I once tried to help him study for the E-3 exam—a test so simple it’s practically a formality. "James," I said, pointing to the manual, "The book says: The flaps on an aircraft are used for additional lift on takeoff and for braking on landing. Now, what are flaps used for?" James stared at the sentence, puzzled. He couldn't find the answer. It wasn't that he wouldn't read it; he just couldn't bridge the gap between the words and the meaning.

The Pool Tale Incident

I once offered to play pool with him. He warned me he was a "shark." As he lined up the break, I instinctively stepped back. It was a wise move. He lunged forward, and instead of hitting the cue ball, he launched the entire cue stick across the room, embedding it like a spear into the sheetrock wall next to my head

"Slipped," he muttered.

On the second attempt, he pulled the cue so far back that the tip fell out of his bridge hand. When he rammed it forward, the cue acted like a catapult, shooting straight up into the low-hanging fluorescent light fixture. Glass tubes shattered across the table, and the fixture groaned, hanging at a 45-degree angle. James didn't even flinch; he just started lining up his next shot amidst the shards of glass.

The Royal Blue Disaster

James’s true passion, he claimed, was painting. We decided to let him paint the sleeping quarters. We gave him a gallon of royal blue paint and left him to it.

An hour later, James emerged. He was royal blue. From head to toe. He had tried to shake a gallon of paint without securing the lid, resulting in a "paint bomb" effect. We had to take him to the ER, where they used naphtha to scrub him down. He returned bald, beet-red from the chemical irritation, and still blue in the ears and fingernails.

Undeterred, he went back to finish the job over the weekend. When we returned on Monday, the room was a putrid, sickly green. James explained that he ran out of blue, found some high-visibility yellow airfield paint, and mixed them. Because he mixed them in batches, the walls were different shades of nausea, and he had simply painted over everything—telephones, desks, and outlets—rather than cleaning up drips.

"I've Got It!"

Perhaps the most "James" moment was when he was helping move a massive metal storage cabinet. As it began to tip toward him, the other sailor screamed for him to jump clear. "I've got it!" James yelled, even as the several-hundred-pound cabinet pinned him to the floor. When we ran over, all we saw were two arms sticking out from under the metal, and a muffled voice from beneath the wreckage calmly repeating, "I've got it!"

The End of the Road

James stayed in the Navy as long as he did because he was a "nice guy." People wanted him to succeed. But the Navy is a place of high-speed machinery and dangerous tools.

The end came when James disagreed with his roommate. In a moment of inexplicable logic, James decided to settle the argument by stabbing his sleeping roommate in the earlobe with a screwdriver. That was the final straw. Legal got involved, realized James was fundamentally unfit for service, and he was administratively discharged.

He was a liability, a walking disaster, and a danger to himself and others—but twenty years later, I still remember him more clearly than some of my best commanding officers.