Just a link to make you reconsider letting Barney the doberman near your beanie baby collection that’s highly valued….or anything else of value….:)

Capt Lex tries to convince us he has brain lock. Not a chance for the master poet/author and philospher of all things Naval Aviation related….

I, on the other hand, sometimes think like that, yet, via the magic of the net (invented by Al Gore), lo and behold, things of interest just appear….

For example: Last night while looking for pictures of ships, I came across a poem, in hand written an illustrated form, that speaks to the fine life of the legendary destroyerman. A creature of iron constitution, a stomach that can handle greasy food in a hurricane/typhoon, eagle eyes (correctable to 20/20 and not color blind, but possibly partly deaf from too many gun shoots or years as the MPA/CHENG/DCA/ELECO/AUXO/B DIV, etc), and a sense of dark humor of their own.

The larger version is here, but difficult to read.

Fear not, my few readers….Here it is in more legible form, even if it lacks the character of the original graphics.

Destroyer Life
by Berton Braley

There’s a roll and a pitch a heave and a hitch
to the nautical gait they take,
For they’re used to the cant of decks aslant
as the white toothed breakers break,
On the sides that thrum like a beaten drum
to the thrill of the turbines might,
As the knife-bow leaps thru the yeasty deeps
with the speed of a shell in flight.

Oh their scorn is quick for the crews that stick
to a battleship steady “floor,”
And they love the lurch of their own frail perch
at thirty five knots or more.
They don’t get much of the drill and such that battleship sailors do,
But sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

They needn’t climb at sleeping time
it to a hammock that sways and bumps,
Don’t leap, Kerplunk! In a cozy bunk
that quivers and bucks and jumps.
They hear the sound of seas that pound
on the quarter inch plates of steel,
And close their eyes to the lull abyes
of creaking sides and steel.

They’re a husky crowd and vastly proud
of the slim grey craft they drive.
Of the roaring flues and hammering screws
that make her a thing alive.
They love the lunge of the surge and plunge
and the mark of her smoke screens, too
As they sail the seas in their dungarees,
a grimy destroyer crew.

Back to Neptunus Lex for a moment and some analysis:

After he made his rhetorical post, he made two more and has already made three today. Go figure.

Chap, Lex and Eagle1 need to check their systems for security.

I do envy them, but, hackers being hackers, they love a challenge.

I found this speech when a friend gave me a small reprint of it in a booklet that he thought I had loaned to him. It wasn’t me, but I told him I’d like to read it myself. It’s a good topic for the times and a well done speech. Given by William Bennett, the former Secretary of Education and now well known talk show host, it was addressed to the Midshipmen of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, November 24th, 1997.

It is a bit strange to me that a well-worn former government employee and sometimes philosopher like myself should be asked to address this assemblage on matters of ethics and honor, right and wrong, on the question, “Does Honor Have a Future?” But as Sir Thomas said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you these times.”

And what do we make of these times? These are good times and bad times. We all know that there have been troubling, and even terrible, incidents here at the United States Naval Academy and other academies as well. While we should be bothered by these incidents, we should also be bothered by the superficial, flawed analysis these events have sometimes received. Most of these bottom on the limp excuse that the academy simply reflects more general changes in society. It goes something like this: “There are problems like these problems everywhere – so why not here? The Academy is just a reflection of the larger society.” To which I would respond: No, it is not. Whether we are talking about Annapolis, West Point , or Colorado Springs, you are supposed to be different – and in some important ways, you are supposed to be better. It is a wise man who said that when a man enters military life, he enters a higher form of civilization.

Former Assistant Secretary of the Army Sara Lister, who called the U.S. Marines “extremists,” did not sufficiently grasp the point. But, thank goodness, many others Americans do.

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