*Note: Every new career path, or at least most of them, have their rites of passage. For Surface Warfare Officers, getting OC sprayed is one of them.
It’s been about a month now since I first arrived in San Diego. As I said before, I’ve hit the deck plates running more or less. I remember week one on my ship being quite busy. Check-ins, qualifications, gun shoot, and OC Spray, with OC Spray being the hardest. It is one of those experiences that you’re glad you went through, but hopefully will never have to do again.
Ok, the reason why I had to go through an OC Spray is for Sentry training. ”Oleoresin Capsicum“ (better known as pepperspray) is a less-lethal way of controlling unruly people. Since that stuff, when sprayed, likes to blow back to the sprayer, we are trained to be able restrain a suspect under those conditions. I’ll tell you right now, that shit burns! Imagine a knife being inserted into your eye while your muscles involuntarily contract while your forehead and eyelids burning worse than a second-degree sunburn. This, and you have to take down at least 2 people during the training course. Perhaps the worst is the fact that it isn’t water soluble, and the only thing that makes it go away is time…hours and hours of time. Therefore the pain serves a constant reminder of how, if you got sprayed for real, of what you did wrong that warranted getting sprayed.
I guess thinking about it now, it shows how consequences (from bad decisions, sin, ect.) tend to linger. We can show as much remorse as we want but the damage will still be a constant reminder of how we messed up. Some of the pain in our lives are caused by our own choices and the results of those choices, and it’s not always because we were the victim. Even our own sins that we commit hurt us in a real way. We’re not completely helpless. Everything from other friends encouragements, physical things (in my case, aloe), and other remedies help to lessen the pain. These things also show us love at the same time. However, from what I’ve seen and heard, only God can fully heal it in the end (we still carry the scars until that full restoration)…and like OC Spray on the skin, it’ll take time to heal.
Patience? yea, still working on that, but the long term of life has started now, hasn’t it?
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