Neddy's Palaver

Actually, It was a “Miracle on Turf,” and perhaps a “Tide’s Up” for us all.

That is what Navy insiders are calling Navy football’s 46-44 triple-overtime victory over Notre Dame last Saturday. That is because Notre Dame has beaten Navy 43 straight times, dating back two generations to 1963, when players like Roger Staubach were willing to joing Navy’s team, knowing that in return they would be required to serve a five year military commitment. That was before the Vietnam War, which changed everything for America’s military. That was a very different world when Navy could win over Notre Dame. That was not today’s world. As NBC’s play-by-play announcer Pat Haden said on Saturday: “With all due respect, Navy doesn’t get to recruit blue-chip football players.” He should have added: “Just blue-chip people,” but he didn’t, and that is what is expected in today’s world.

What is it that today’s Navy offers it football team recruits?

The chance to play against Notre Dame. Or maybe it’s the chance to wake up at 6 o’clock every morning; the chance to be screamed at by upperclassmen; the chance to lose your weekend liberty for carrying a book-bag improperly or for being 30 seconds late to class. Not to mention the chance to get shot at when you graduate.

The best description I ever heard of what it is like to play football at Navy, Army and Air Force came from Fred Goldsmith, who coached at Air Force: “At a civilian school the hardest part of a football player’s day is football practice,” he said. “At an academy, the easiest part of a football player’s day is football practice.” (The Washington Post)

Navy’s football celebration should be a celebration by all who love and rely upon our military heroes. Perhaps the tide is up for us all.

Love, Tom ~~ PS Thanks for All You Do.

The Life and Times of the Navy Wife

Navy Wife - The Toughest Job in the Navy

On 2 January 1991, while aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt during Operation Desert Storm, Captain ‘O.W.’ Wright wrote a poem about Navy wives entitled “Loving a Sailor”. The poem was published in the March 1991 issue of “The Virginian Pilot” newspaper and that same month his wife Doni recited it at her church and sent it to a few of her friends. In 1999, it was published in a Navy wives’ club newsletter, “The Mermaid”. Since then Captain Wright’s poem has traveled the highways and byways of the electronic universe, often without attribution, becoming known as “The Sailor’s Poem”.

Loving a Sailor is not always gay,
Loving him truly is a high price to pay.
Its being alone with nothing to hold,
its being young but feeling so old,
Its having him whisper his love for you,
its whispering back you love him 86 plus two.
There comes a kiss and a promise of more
as his ship slowly glides away from the shore. ~~Continued

Thanks to “Mudville Gazette’s Open Post”.

The American people are still sacrificing their treasure to defend America. God bless them everyone. Early this morning California time, Wednesday, 4 January 2005, the USS Ronald Reagan Ships Out. The oil painting of the magnificent ship resides at the Ronald Reagan Library in Simi Valley, California.

About three years ago, in late 2002, the U.S. Navy announced that it would be flying the flag known as the ‘First Navy Jack‘ which pictures a rattlesnake slithering across a field of thirteen red and white stripes, with the motto DONT TREAD ON ME. This is different from the ‘Gadsden Flag‘, with which it is often confused. That ensign depicts a coiled rattlesnake on a yellow background. The naval ships were to fly the old time ensign in accordance with the U.S. Navy declaration: “The temporary substitution of this Jack represents an historic reminder of the nation’s and Navy’s origin and will to persevere and triumph.”

Sunday, September 1, 2002 ~ U.S. Navy Revives Old Rattlesnake Flag, ‘Don’t Tread On Me,’ To Fly On All Vessels The U.S. Navy is ordering its fleet to fly the defiant Don’t Tread on Me rattlesnake flag aboard all its vessels to emphasize America’s determination in the war on terror, reports TIME magazine on Monday. Navy Secretary Gordon England’s directive said the resurrected flag “represents an historic reminder of the nation’s and Navy’s origin and will to persevere and triumph.“

Not only does this antique emblem show defiance to our enemies today, it reminds all of us of the courage and determination of our revolutionary forebears who created it. They were but a ragtag army of local militiamen when they impertinately admonished the world’s greatest army at that time, to “get out of the way, or else“!