Today is my Dad's birthday. I will call later but we are not celebrating it tonight. That will come when everyone can get together at once. But here's something that SB emailed me for my Dad that I printed out and gave him (can't email it to him, my mother won't let the internet in the house).
I like the Navy.
I like standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds blowing in from the four quarters of the globe - the ship beneath me feeling like a living being as her engines drive her through the sea.
I like the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ships bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC and the strong language and laughter of Sailors at work.
I like ships of the Navy - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet auxiliaries, sleek submarines, powerful cruisers and steady solid carriers.
I like the proud sonorous names of Navy capital ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea - memorials of great battles fought.
I like the lean angular names of Navy "tin cans": Barney, Dahlgren, Mullinix, McCloy - mementos of heroes who went before us.
I like the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside speakers as we pull away from the oiler after refueling at sea.
I like liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port.
I even like all hands working parties as my ship fills herself with the multitude of supplies both mundane and exotic which she needs to cut her ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe there is water to float her.
I like Sailors, men and women from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trust and depend on them as they trust and depend on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for courage. In a word, they are "shipmates".
I like the surge of adventure in my heart when the word is passed "Now station the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port", and I like the infectious thrill of sighting homeport again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pierside.
The work is hard and dangerous, the going rough at times, the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter,
the "all for one and one for all" philosophy of the sea is ever present.
I like the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship's work, as flying fish flit across the wave tops and sunset gives way to night.
I like the feel of the Navy in the darkness - the masthead lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and join with the mirror of the stars overhead.
And I Iike drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises, large and small that tell me my ship is alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch will keep me safe. I like quiet mid-watches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy - permeating everywhere.
And I like hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze gray shapes racing at flank speed keeps all hands on a razor edge of alertness.
I like the sudden electricity of "General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations", followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transforms herself in a brief few seconds from a peaceful wokplace to a weapon of war - ready for anything. And I like the sight of space age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.
I like the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them.
I like the proud names of Navy heroes: Nimitz, Halsey, Perry, Farragut, Spruance, John Paul Jones.
A Sailor can find much in the Navy: comrades in arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman's trade. An adolescent can find adulthood. In years to come, when Sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods - the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint
whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and Chief's quarters and messdecks.
Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port was ever over the horizon.
Remembering this, they will stand taller and say:
"I WAS A SAILOR. I WAS PART OF THE NAVY AND THE NAVY WILL ALWAYS BE A PART OF ME!"
Just the other night, SB said "Well, I'm not as sentimental as you are, Maggie." Yeah. Okay, boyo! If you say so.
My father read this and exclaimed over how it really captured his experience years ago. He said it had to have been written by someone on a destroyer like his. He loved it. But he's not sentimental either.
But of course, that's why they are both so special. My unsentimental Navy men.
No comments:
Post a Comment