FROM THE CHAPLAIN’S DESK - DECEMBER  2018
 

As I write this, I’m finishing 25 years of various jobs in our Association.
I’ve seen a lot of shipmates fill the needs to make our group work. New blood joining and little by little, old blood dying, yet the beat goes on.

In the early years the makeup was mostly WWII and Korea. Little by little, Korean faded into the background, then Vietnam, the peace years, Desert Storm, etc – and the beat goes on.

I sit and watch you swab jockeys do your thing, year after year. Why? What makes you tick? What makes me tick?

We are Navy! That’s why. All of us have worn the uniform of the best navy the world has ever known.

Peacetime or war, we brush the salt spray from our blues’, climb a proverbial gangplank somewhere and plop our seabag by locker, that we will learn to call home.
 
 

We come from many different backgrounds and the technology is staggering.  We retirees can only imagine what duty on a carrier, or nuclear frigate is like. The Hector’s days are numbered, but the beat “I am Navy” goes on. God bless America – God bless us one and all.