my other blog is:http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/
President Harry S. Truman answering to King Neptune's court aboard USS Missouri
There seems to be an attitude in this country where a lot of people think that the world has to conform to their standards.
When someone moves from, say, New Jersey to South Carolina they are supposed to try and learn the local customs and ways of the area. If they see something they don’t like, they generally do not have to participate, but they really ought to just shut up about it.
South Carolinians have a heritage of being hunters and fishermen and during the deer season seeing a freshly killed deer in the back of a pickup is a fairly common thing to see.
The sight of such a thing requires no comments about how the hunter just killed Bambi, nor does the hunter need to be called a savage. If you feel a total compulsion to say anything at all, you might comment that he’s going to be eating pretty good for a while. That is why he harvested the animal; he’s going to use it to feed his family.
If you do not like venison than don’t eat it. South Carolinians are no different than Americans anywhere else in the nation. They do not have a habit of making people eat things they do not want to eat.
Of course, like Americans elsewhere in the nation they do not like to be told what to eat.
The bottom line is that you ought to check first to see if you will fit in before you jump into something.
It is not the duty of the locals to change their ways to humor you.
The same goes for the crybaby I wrote about in my previous blog.
When someone in the service goes into another situation, they ought to simply shut up and get with the program. The entire Navy does not want to revolve itself around the fact that some nancy boy does not like his call sign.
One of the things I have seen the Navy do is have a lot of fun with dopey little things they do for morale. There is King Neptune’s Court for example.
When a naval vessel crosses the Equator, they sometimes have a hokey little ceremony that involves the entire vessel. Nobody, even the skipper used to be exempt.
Upon completion of the ceremony, the participant becomes a Shellback and generally receives a pretty colorful certificate, suitable for framing.
If the skipper has not been through King Neptune’s court, he will have to go through it, at least if he is any sort of guy.
One of my Scout leaders went through the court during WW2 and his certificate hung proudly on his wall until the day he died.
Hell, President Harry Truman had to go through it once when he rode USS Missouri during a presidential vacation.
Yup. The President of the United States had to face King Neptune and his assembled court.
Truman loved it; it made him feel like one of the guys. He wrote about the fun he had in a number of letter he wrote, and I’d just bet that somewhere in the Truman Library there is the Shellback certificate he received along with the completion of festivities.
Yet, a few years ago some nancy boy cried to his mommy who cried to her Congress critter who in turn made a stink out of it.
The Navy investigated it and sort of made it a voluntary type of thing, probably because they knew that every shellback in the navy would have pitched a fit if they did away with it entirely.
I get fed up with cry babies that go through life thinking they are above everything and that the rules, formal or informal do not apply to them.
If you do not want to get with the program, don’t.
But do not think the rest of the world is willing to change for you.
If the President of the United States had to face King Neptune's Court, what make you think you are so special?
No comments:
Post a Comment