Hi Sam, welcome, and thank you for serving! It sounds like you're lining up a rich future for yourself. I enjoy reading your note because you sound so mature for 18 years. I work in a trade and we've found that most 18-year-olds aren't mature enough or ready to work as hard as it takes. It sounds like you won't give anyone that kind of grief.

It's also really fun to see another young man taking up the straight toward the start of his shaving life, instead of pretty deep in, as most of us have. There was a discussion about this a couple of weeks ago, about how we all wished we'd taken this up back when our whiskers were still fine and tender and easy to cut. You'll get to learn to shave while shaving is easy, and later, as your own beard gets thick and gnarly, you'll already know how to deal with it. In fact, you won't even have noticed the change, 'cause you'll have been shaving right along with it. The wierd strokes and angles the rest of us learn about by reading and questioning here... will be instinctive to you.

Keep an eye out for a barber's hone. You won't need it soon, but it seems like it'd be the perfect thing once out at sea.

Very best wishes to you, and I look forward to reading your posts.