Sea Stories with Chief Boats

Once upon a time, I was a Chief Boatswain’s Mate in Uncle Sam’s Yacht Club, which is another way of saying I swore a lot and made a living around anchors, lines, and men with broad shoulders, thick necks, and perhaps asocial behavior. Here are some of the stories from those years. This is my retirement speech given at Amphibious Construction Battalion 1 in San Diego, California.

And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?

Let’s get some things straight up front. I’m an all-time crier, so if you had money on me not crying, you’ve lost. There’s no earthly reason for a Chief Boatswain’s Mate’s retirement ceremony to be this well attended. Y’all need to figure out a better way to fill your hours. I’m going to give credit for the crowd, to the master of ceremonies, Master Chief John Starnes. Six people would be three too many. My very healthy ego wants this, but a big part of me wanted to get in my car, point the hood toward Michigan, and put my foot down. But apparently, a bunch of people flew out, and Alfa Company moved all this stuff, so here we are.

I have to thank you all, truly. It’s a little overwhelming in the most positive of ways. I cannot apologize for being me, but will absolutely apologize for the times I was not me. If I’ve wronged you, please allow me this moment in front of friends, family, and all these Sailors to offer my apology. It’s been 24 years and then some, and so I know my list of UCMJ offenses is long, but not as long as the list of my moments of incivility.

This was never a military thing. This wasn’t even a Navy thing. It was a human thing, just one with a lot of water and automatic gunfire. Years from now we’ll all be gone. Couple of photographs, hopefully, an ancestor or two to tell a good story. The ships will look different and have vaguely similar names. The uniforms will absolutely look different. What will remain is that sea, and U.S. Navy Sailors. You cannot control Big Blue - that’s out of our hands, and woe be to anyone who wants to own the ocean. What we can do, and what is our honor and privilege to do, is lead Sailors. Do it with decency and dignity.

This life gets in your blood, and if you’re not careful, it will consume you. Rather than being a part of your life, it becomes the entirety of it. And this is how we lose our humanity, sleep, and our minds. Everything becomes just another number or form in a long series of numbers and forms, and we forget human beings are wearing the uniform. The Grind is overrated. The Navy will never love you back. Take leave. Getting paid to go on vacation with your family is tragically underrated.

If you’ve ever fought against mental illness, addiction, or both, I want you to know you’re my people. I want you to know my obligations don’t end after I take this uniform off. I will always be willing to help you fight back. Hell, I may even call on you to help me fight. And let’s face it, I will need help. There’s that cornball cliché about that which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but they really need to emphasize that part about nearly killing you. Another cliché, only the strong survive… yeah, but that doesn’t mean the strong can’t get their asses kicked.

The Fleet is the greatest teacher I’ve ever known. It teaches us math… Navy math. Like, 45 days equals two beers, but one steak and one lobster tail equal 45 more days. And 45 and 45 does NOT equal 90.

The Fleet teaches you to enjoy every sunset and sunrise, and it teaches you to be here, now, in this moment, because no other moments are guaranteed, call it Zen and the Art of the Gunfight… It teaches us to love one another as brothers and sisters should – that might actually be the only useful purpose for war.

I know I’m supposed to offer up some banal platitude like “I have no regrets,” but I definitely do. God do I ever have ‘em. I’m a flawed human; of course I do. I regret being so angry for so long, and I regret not reaching out for help sooner. I deeply regret that suspect gas-station sushi in the spring of 2014, and I regret not taking better care of myself younger. Why is it addictive personalities always manifest themselves as alcohol and nicotine and not yoga and sound financial planning? I would really have enjoyed waking up from a blackout like “Where did this investment strategy come from” rather than looking around for the cat that shat in my mouth.

But I don’t regret the tattoos or the scars. I don’t regret the late nights telling stories, and I absolutely do not regret ever saying I love you, and this is exactly why I end my remarks in every Chief’s Mess meeting with “Love You, No Shit.”

The Chief’s Mess…

It occurs to me that I will never sing Anchors Aweigh again in this uniform on active duty and that’s just not acceptable. So let’s do something about that right now. If you ever wore anchors, active, retired, or otherwise, let’s do Anchors Aweigh one time, all three verses right now. All Chief Petty Officers, front and center.

And now, as has become a tradition at ACB-1, I will offer up, ‘What is the Navy.’

The Navy is the Commander in Chief asking where the nearest aircraft carrier is, and a scrubby boatswain’s mate sitting on a pair of bits teaching a young seaman how to splice line. A tobacco-chewing gunner standing a sharp watch in a far-off land. That’s the Navy. And so is the big, fat engineer who can make a diesel engine run better just by standing next to it.

There’s a man in San Francisco who remembers the USS Missouri made port there in the autumn of ‘61. That’s the Navy. The Navy is a spirited rivalry of humankind against the ocean, skill against nature, a daily struggle. Everything is measured and evaluated. Every heroic, every failing is seen and congratulated or counseled.

In the Navy, democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to roll a firehose. The creed is our very own. Color is merely something to distinguish one flight deck job from another.

The Navy is a recruit. His experience no bigger than the lump in his throat as he begins basic training. It’s a veteran too, a tired old man of forty-five hoping that those aching muscles can pull him through one last deployment. Nicknames are the Navy, names like Boats and Wheels and Guns, and Bull, and Cowboy, and Sparky, and A-Gang. “Run silent, run deep,” and “We build, we fight,” that’s the Navy.

The Navy is the cool, clear eyes of Arleigh Burke, the flashing heroism of Alan Shepard, the true grit of Carl Brashear.

The Navy is service, as simple as muster, instruction, and inspection, yet as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes - a lifestyle, a business, and sometimes almost even a religion.

Why the tale of John Paul Jones engaging an English ship in foreign waters and then having the tenacity to declare “I have not yet begun to fight.” That’s the Navy. So is the bravado of a doomed Captain James Lawrence saying, “Don’t give up the ship. Fight her ‘till she sinks.”

The Navy is the damage control locker, general quarters, the boatswain’s locker, tiger cruises, The Chief’s Mess, Anchors Aweigh, and the Star Spangled Banner.

The Navy is a tongue-tied kid from every small town and massive city growing up to be a Chief Petty Officer or mustang or ship’s captain who praised Neptune for showing him the way around the globe and back again. This is a Navy for America. Still a Navy for America. Always a Navy for America.

Here’s a little more America for you. As I always ended my remarks in the Mess with a brief history lesson, I would be doing us all a disservice if I didn’t go out on the same note.

On this day, July 8, 1776, a 2,000-pound copper-and-tin bell now known as the “Liberty Bell” rang out from the tower of the Pennsylvania State House, now known as Independence Hall in Philadelphia, summoning citizens to the first public reading of a document called the Declaration of Independence. Four days earlier, the Continental Congress adopted it, but the bell did not ring until the Declaration of Independence returned from the printer on July 8.

So once again, we see it’s a fucking Supply Department problem.

Our Founding Fathers were not saints. They were mortal men, so if you will allow me to quote the Declaration’s author, a Virginian who did, in fact, own slaves,

“We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America…solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States.”

Thomas Jefferson

Let us aspire to true freedom in each of those states, for every person, regardless of any circumstance, creed, skin tone, gender, or any other reason except for the right of the human soul to breathe free.

What the fuck else are we fighting for? Why are we wearing this uniform? This is what it means to be American.

Being an American has always been abstract, elusive, and sometimes hard to define. We’re from Duluth, Minnesota, Lynn, Massachusetts, and Jacksonville, North Carolina. We’re from the suburbs of Houston, the projects of New York, and wealthy California beach towns. We’re from Ghana, Nigeria, and Italy. Our parents were steelworkers, coal miners, and farmers, and we fight like it. We are immigrants, the children of immigrants, and the grandchildren of immigrants, and we fight like it. We grew up with everything, and we grew up with nothing, but in the cloth of a nation, we are all the same, which isn’t always the American reality, but it is the ultimate distillation of the American dream. We are a mixing bowl of histories, traditions, and stories. The Sailors of Amphibious Construction Battalion One are the finest I know. They are looking to create their own histories, their own traditions, and their own stories. They are 1,100 American Sailors, and every time they deploy, they carry 330 million Americans with them.

Thank you for carrying me. I love you, no shit.