Underneath it All: What My Life Was Like as an Enlisted Man on a Nuclear Submarine

This is a story about life in the Military. It is story about experience on a Submarine. It is also a story about a young man coming of age. It goes deep in the technical day to day experience of doing a complex job in a complex environment. It, also, however, primarily explores philosophical, playful, hierarchical, relationships with one to one, one to group, and group to one backdrops. The setting is the USS Sculpin (SSN 590), a real Nuclear Fast Attack Submarine. The era is in the 1960's. The story is told in chapter by chapter drama, dialogue with linear continuity, and in chapter by chapter verse with philosophical continuity. The protagonist (Bill) and antithesis-protagonist (Parsons) reflect off each other as does one's image and mirror image (left is right, and right is left). Bill knows but pretends he doesn't; Parsons doesn't know but pretends he does. This estrangement of self is described in verse in Chapter VI: Most of me accepts the joke And laughter is the pay Most of me believes that it Is really the best way And it's most of me That will keep on going And not listen very long To the part of me that Believes there's more And wonders what went wrong The author, 'William Carbary' acknowledges a contributing 'Psyche' significant enough to have his own name. 'Liam', contributes the title, philosophical content (both direct and 'between the lines') and some verses.