three days later , after the ship got everyone back on board and you pulled out from sardinia and hauled ass across the med , running the straits between italy and sicily at top speed , and then across the water at about 20 knots the whole way , with those fat old boats cranking it on all three of them , and the marines live-firing on the flight deck every night and the gms greasing up the guns , the old three-inch fifties the ones you see in world war two movies going bang-bang , bang-bang , bang-bang against the kamikazes arrowing down out of the blue pacific skies , and the 25 millimeter chain guns going bam-bam-bam-bam , and the fifties on the pintels going duh-duh-duh-duh-duh and the tracers skipping out on the waves and the oil drums spinning around as the bullets slam into them and then sinking under the ocean water , and the cobras lifting off the flight deck with their chain guns swiveling around under their chin , and then the 46s and the 53s humping off the deck with their crew chiefs in their helmets swinging their fifties around , and the ordinance guys hauling shit out of the magazines you never saw before like the sidewinder missiles they hang on the cobras , and the saws and the m-16s burping out , and then they test fire the ciws spinning carefully on their mounts like the fucking terminator , and then zipping out the rounds , and the ship heeling through the whitecaps , tucked over to port and just hauling ass , and the cold saltwater fresh breeze deep into your lungs like the cold snap air you walked in as a child .