Five thousand sailors from the USS Abraham Lincoln are descending on Pattaya, Thailand and you can’t be there so I’ll go for you.
Forced by the Prince of Peace Donald Trump to spend months more than their expected tour of duty at sea, with reports of massive supply shortages and attempted suicides, only to be belittled by Trump and his poodle Pete Hegseth, these (mostly) men, with months of unspent wages and a fierce determination to address their forced celibacy, are going for a few days of R&R to perhaps Southeast Asia’s most notorious destination for Love On Demand.
I have two reasons I’m heading to Pattaya today, a short two hour trip from my Bangkok home. One, it is going to be absolute world class freak show mayhem. Someone needs to document it, from late night bars to back alleys, and I’m the man for the job. Two, having traveled around the world documenting the aftermath of U.S. military interventions for “WAR: The Afterparty,” I think these sailors might have things to share in private moments:
What was it like on the ship?
How’s it going in Pattaya?
How do you feel about the relentless bombarding of another Middle East country because they may someday have weapons of mass destruction similar to those the USA just used to ravage their country?
As a lark, I asked Facebook friends if they would pick up my bar tab if I went and documented my encounters on Substack and Facebook. Based on the enthusiastic reaction, I’m going today for the latter two days of their port call. If you want to fund the effort – most all of it for drinks to sufficiently lubricate sailors, sex workers, and locals to share their tales – you can do one of the following:
Subscribe to my Substack at taxiingtheplanet.com (or briangruber.substack.com). It’s free with an optional $5 subscription.
Send support via PayPal at briankgruber@gmail.com.
Or DM me and I can send Thai and US bank wire info.
I’m going anyway because inquiring minds want to know what these folks have been doing in the Strait of Hormuz. More funds enable a longer stay and more coverage.
Oh, guess the name of the U.S. naval vessel attacked by Captain Nemo and the Nautilus for its imperialistic violent behavior in Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea?”
The USS Abraham Lincoln.
Another quiz! On what ship did President George W. Bush Jr. declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED for the Iraq war before it became a years-long debacle of death, destruction, and mayhem?
The USS Abraham Lincoln.
Working title for the Substack series: “10,000 Testicles Under the Sea.” What do you think? And what questions would YOU ask the sailors?
I will be posting throughout the next three days on Facebook, Instagram, and Substack Notes, then doing a daily compilation post here. During my two week writer’s residence at The Sanctuary on Koh Phangan, I’ll take all that and write an extended essay on what I have learned and what in the world the USA is doing in Iran and the world.
Thanks for your support and interest. So as not to barrage subscriber inboxes with posts, I email out only selected material. You can come to the feed any time to check out a growing volume of books, interviews, posts, and videos. I also push all new posts via an RSS feed to my Electric Memories website at electric-memories.com/stories.