When Submariners Spy

Bubblehead has been doing an excellent job of keeping tabs on the recent story of an FT caught spying, and as I wrote about HERE, it reminded me of a very similar situation that developed with one of my own guys!

No doubt every warfare community would say something like the following, but I have to say it anyway: it just feels uniquely depressing, exasperating, and infuriating when a submariner betrays his shipmates and his country like this.

I know, I know, why should we be any different than others...still, I want to say that there's something particularly traitorous about a submariner who sells data that his boat may well have risked life and limb to obtain.

I'm thinking more of the sailor from my own boat than the one currently in the news, but the point is still relative, I think.

I'm reminded of the scene (done to perfection, btw, in Branagh's 1989 film!) from Shakespeare's Henry V, when King Henry arrests three noblemen caught in the act of selling secrets to the French--men who were very near and dear to him. He tells them:

... But, O,
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop? thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature!
Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,
That knew'st the very bottom of my soul,
That almost mightst have coin'd me into gold,
Wouldst thou have practised on me for thy use,
May it be possible, that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger? 'tis so strange,
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.
... I will weep for thee;
For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like
Another fall of man. (H5: 2.2.729ff)

posted by WillyShake @ 6:58 AM