"I know I did. I've had a good deal of time to realize that. Still, some things unexpectedly stick with us. Like phobias." His mouth twitches into a more sardonic smile. "I told that story to my captain once because he's chatty and really had had enough of not knowing much about me." That gets a laugh. "There's more to it than that. I was pinned to the hull by a live but damaged mine, he was trying to disarm it, we were...chatting about why I wasn't in the navy and this all came up."

Let him take a breath and shake it off. "Sorry, I'm...rambling a bit. Not very like me, is it, to ramble. The point is, I tried. I wanted to. I was going to be in the navy if it killed me, but I couldn't, and then I made a different choice for myself, and things, well...things happened as they did. It was the right call in the end. I'm glad I stuck with it."