WHAT I WISH I HAD WRITTEN!

I am often chided about my sea stories and my pride in the United States Navy. My fellow coffee drinkers in Chattahoochee refer to me as “The Admiral”, although I am far from that. My fifteen year old grandson, taken with my mementos and books, told me one day that “you are only two steps in rank from admiral”. It is really three steps, but those steps could well be the three greatest steps ever known to anyone. I have written articles about the sea and the ships, but I could never put it down as succinctly and as accurately as these few lines do.

I did not compose them.

I only wish I had.
I WAS A SAILOR ONCE………..

I liked standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe.

I liked the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswain’s pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship’s bell on the quarterdeck and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.
I liked Navy vessels - plodding fleet auxiliaries and amphibs, sleek submarines and steady, solid aircraft carriers.

I liked the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea, Antietam, Valley Forge — memorials of great battles won and tribulations overcome.

I liked the lean angular names of Navy “tin-cans” and escorts— Fletcher, Saufley, Samuel B. Roberts, Burke – mementos of heroes who went before us.

And the others—San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Chicago, Oklahoma City, named for our cities.

I liked the tempo of a Navy band.

I liked liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port.

I even liked the never-ending paperwork and the all hands working parties, as my ship filled herself with the multitude of supplies, and then cut ties to the land and moved to carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where there was water enough to float her.

I liked the sailors: officers and enlisted men from all parts of the land: farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England and the South, from the cities and the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trusted and depended on them as they trusted and depended on me – for professional competence, for comradeship, for strength and courage.

In a word, they were shipmates, then and forever.

I liked the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word was passed: “Now here this: now set the special sea and anchor detail – all hands to quarters for leaving port” and I liked the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pierside.
The work was 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 was ever present.

I liked the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship’s work, as flying fish flitted across the wave tops and sunset gave way to night.

I liked the feel of the Navy in darkness – the masthead and range lights, the red and green navigation lights and the stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters – they cut through the dusk and joined with the mirror of stars overhead. And I liked drifting off to sleep, lulled by the myriad noises, large and small, that told me my ship was alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch would keep me safe.

I liked quiet mid-watches with the aroma of strong coffee – the lifeblood of the Navy – permeating everywhere.

I liked hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed kept all hands on the razor’s edge of alertness.

I liked 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 transformed herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war – ready for anything.

And I liked the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and wearing soundpowered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.

I liked the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I liked the proud names of Navy heroes: Bainbridge, Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones and Arleigh Burke.

A sailor could find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman’s trade. An adolescent could find adulthood.

In years to come, when we sailors are home from the sea, we 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 the chiefs’ quarters and on the mess decks.

Gone ashore for good, we grow humble about our Navy days, when the seas were a part of us and a new port-of-call was ever over the horizon.

Remembering this, we stand taller and say “I WAS A SAILOR ONCE”.

(Note: this has been around for some time, now making the circuit via E Mail from one sailor to another. I received it from a retired Seal; I passed it on to a Navy pilot.

I wrote an article about Arleigh Burke, who personified these feelings to me. Burke was a destroyer man, as was I. He commanded a Destroyer Division in World War II, and was the chief-of-staff for Admiral Marc Michner. He went on to be Chief of Naval Operations for an unprecedented three terms. When he was buried at Annapolis, his tombstone gave the usual “born” and “died” dates, his name and rank and then there followed the single word “Sailor”. This was a most fitting description.)