Amber...a word, if I may:
Here's a few of the things I've been through in my brief turn on this planet:
--When I was 12, my house burned down. I WAS IN IT when I started. My mother and I had to walk in bare feet (literally) 200 yards to my next door neighbor and beat on the door to get the neighbors up to call the fire department.
--On my first boat (that's "submarine" for those of you who don't know any better) we ended up snagging something that dragged us down. Think going through 700 feet with a 20-degree down angle, the Chief of The Watch can't get the Trim Pump started, and the throttleman isn't getting any response on the backing bell ordered.
--A few months later, we're out on an exercise (PACEX '89) and while at 400 feet, doing 10 degree rolls (HIGHLY unusual.) The OOD thinks it's a good idea to come to PD to get a fix. We get to 150 feet and are doing 40 degree rolls. Despite this, someone thought it would be a good idea to continue to PD. The CO falls (literally) into Control and tells the OOD to get the boat back to 400 feet. Meanwhile, pretty much everyone who had lunch long since lost it, if they didn't hear what sounded very much like the fairwater planes about to be snapped off.
--I got to pick the brains, skull, etc. of one of my shipmates off the hull of that same boat about a year later, when he decided he'd had enough and blew his brains out while on watch. The XO's comment was, "Get this mess hosed off before sunrise!" The CO's comment was, "Good thing we won't have to paint over it."
--I, along with many of my shipmates, got to go through a no-shit, honest-to-****ing-God SUPER Typhoon (Google Omar 1992) before it hit Guam. We also got to clean up afterwards. That's how I got my Humanitarian Medal, in case you were wondering.
--I got a phone call from my mother at 2 am one morning telling me my sister was dead, out of the blue. I got to plan the funeral.
--A couple of years ago, I was working 80-hour weeks, going through the middle of a nasty divorce, and coping with the imminent loss of my father from lung cancer, who I got to fly 3000 miles to memorialize a week before Christmas.
So to you DUmmies I say:
BRING IT ON, MOTHER****ERS!!!!