Buuuut, you gotta join the Navy.
This NY Times article discusses how the Navy is getting a great pool of fighter pilot candidates as more and more top-of-class candidates are opting to get the free laser eye surgery and competing for the small batch of pilot gigs. But less people want to go underwater for submarine duty as it’s regarded as a less glamorous job requiring more schooling.
For generations, Academy graduates with high grades and bad eyes were funneled into the submarine service. But in the five years since the Naval Academy began offering free eye surgery to all midshipmen, it has missed its annual quota for supplying the Navy with submarine officers every year.
Officers involved say the failure to meet the quota is due to many factors, including the perception that submarines no longer play as vital a national security role as they once did. But the availability of eye surgery to any midshipman who wants it is also routinely cited.
The NYT reports that a third of each year’s 1000 person class at the Naval Academy opts to get the surgery. The Navy offers two types of laser eye surgery: Lasik and PRK. Lasik, short for laser-in situ keratomileusis, is the commercially successful surgical option that thousands of civilians have received involving cutting a flap of the corneal tissue and then reshaping the underlying middle corneal stroma. PRK, Photorefractive keratectomy, doesn’t cut a flap, but burns/grinds it off; the reasoning behind this is that a flap in the cornea could come loose during combat and you don’t want that in a $20M+ fighter jet.
Interesting stuff. Our pilots are getting better, but the Naval officers of our nuclear subs may not be as top notch as in the past? Is that a good tradeoff?
I think everyone should have this as part of their healthcare plan: free laser eye surgery for all. I mean, we all gotta see, right? And I’m assuming a growing majority of us sit in front of a flickering screen which is emitting a nice bit of radiation at our faces [remember, our eyes are on our faces]. Yes, there are some who stare at a screen for hours on end for years and don’t have vision problems, I affectionately call those people assholes, no offense. Oh, and also, everyone should have access to healthcare, that’s a biggie too. Perhaps even above the laser eye surgery thing. But that’s a whole nother diary.
So what would happen if, down the line, the only people who had access to “free” healthcare [I’m talking about people who aren’t rich enough to have their own good private healthcare] were those who are enlisted in the Army, Air Force, Marines or Navy. Yes, the draft would still be off the table, but sort of under a different name. Picture our future, twenty-five years down the line…
We’re still under Repug rule. Karl Rove’s disembodied brain, preserved in a jar of formaldehyde and hooked up to sensors, is in its third term as President of the “free” world. Former Vice President Condoleezza Rice, current commissioner of the NFL, has gotten rid of the “tuck rule” and has taken back the Patriots’ Super Bowls [sorry I hate the Pats, go Giants!]. Healthcare costs so much the Bill and Melinda Gates Fund has given up on eradicating malaria and AIDS worldwide and now concentrates on the needy billionaires. The list goes on…
In the future, the only way to get a flu shot or contact lenses or precious Viagra [the age restrictions are all lifted] is through your local Army/Air Force/Marines/Navy recruiter who will authorize a script after you sign on the dotted line for Uncle Sam. Once in the armed forces, you’ve got the full palette of proper medicinal care at your service. But you also have to go and fight in wars, constantly. It’s sort of like in The Princess Bride how Prince Humperdink and Count Tyrone Rugen [the 6-fingered man] likes to heal everyone before hitched up to the Machine.
Yes, the second part of this diary is a tad tin foil hatty, but a little hyperbole to get my point across never hurt nobody eh? And if so, you’ll have to go join the Army to foot the bill for that injury. Hey, I’m a photographer, I’m supposed to have some artistic license!
