Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 13, 2025
The First Battalion, New York State Militia, for instance, went in a body to Fisher's Island, off the eastern end of Connecticut, and there engaged in landing parties, camping, and sham battles. On another occasion the battalion embarked on board the battleships "Massachusetts" and "Texas," each militiaman having a regular bluejacket for a running mate, and doing just as he did.
There was all the water on the lowlands to drink up; all the little green buds just coming out on the trees to warm; the bees to waken up and send honey-seeking amongst the crocuses, primroses, and violets, that were all peeping out from amongst last autumn's dead leaves; flies to hunt out of crevices where they had been asleep all the winter; and old Bluejacket, the watchman beetle, to wake up from his long doze; as well as Nibblenut the squirrel, Spikey the hedgehog, and ever so many more old friends and neighbours; and so, of course, he was not going to be put down by a cold, raw mist.
The hammock is then unhooked, and if the bluejacket belongs to the former part of the ship, he has to bear it away for storage on the topgallant forecastle; if to the after-part, he carries it away to the poop. The reason for the hammocks being stowed on these two places, is to provide a breakwater for the enemy's shots. Every man rushes away to his respective station.
Through the autumn of 1812 the frigate cruised beneath tropic suns, much of the time off the coast of Brazil. Today the health and comfort of the bluejacket are so scrupulously provided for in every possible way that a battleship is the standard of perfection for efficiency in organization.
Whether the fact of war is an incentive or whether American boys are adapted, through a life of competitive sport, quickly to grasp the sailorman's trade, the truth remains that in a very short space the boy who has never seen a ship develops swiftly into a bluejacket, rolling, swaggering, but none the less deft, precise, and indomitable.
"Captain wants to speak to you, sir," came the voice of the sapper from under the tarpaulin. Whistle and rattle and pop went the shell in the valley below. "Give him a round both guns together," said the captain to the telephone. "Left-hand Gun Hill fired, sir," said the bluejacket to the captain.
A quarter of an hour later a rumor came to the bluejacket ball-players that the marines were boarding ship. The jacky beside the home plate dropped his bat and ran toward the street, his team-mates close behind him. They were too late to catch even a glimpse of the rear-guard.
"May God strike me dead," she screamed, clapping her hands together, "if I knew the bloody thieves were there! Oh, my bonny lad, I meant to save ye!" And as her words rang in the air two sailors had Adrian by the collar and a facetious bluejacket seized her round the waist with hideous bantering. A very young officer, wrapped up in a cloak, stood a few paces apart calmly looking on.
Not till several years later did the new 'continuous service' men equal half of the bluejacket aggregate. Now, every bluejacket proper serves continuously, and has been in the navy since boyhood. The training of the boys is made uniform.
The next instant, back came the boy with one of the instructors in his wake, a stalwart seaman, dressed in the usual bluejacket rig, with a petty officer's badge.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking